James Bass: Balancing Greenkeeping and Family Life

For me, it's kind of just the feeling you get on a Friday when you see the course looking really good, so that's what kept me in it. But with, there are select few of the really big clubs like Wimbledon and George's Hill, they're now pushing money out for the assistants. I think this could be the start which kind of not saves the industry, but it kind of starts to make, especially these big clubs, I understand that obviously if you want a top surface, especially with stuff that's come off the market, you're going to have the labor going through the roofs. This is why I think a lot of people have left because they haven't been used to swishing worm casts in a way, especially it's not as much the summertime, it's the wintertime. You've got to look at the labor side of the actual setup, which I think it goes a lot more hands on, which people think, 'Do I want to keep getting up at half four, five o'clock in the morning, work in the dark?' And you think it's a lot of graft for basically what some people say, for instance, I don't know, 25, 26 grand a year. You think you start to think, 'Christ, I can go work somewhere else and say, I don't know, maybe, I don't know, a van driver or something.' And I, I don't think that's, that's not how I want to put it, but I mean, I don't, but anyone who says they would rather be warm and dry at work for eight hours a day, I don't flipping well blame them for, you know, because I know, and I've said it on many podcasts, my assistants don't get much above minimum wage and we don't pay them overtime, they do their weekend hours for hours in lieu, and I wouldn't want to be an assistant. You know, I don't get paid wonderfully as a head greenkeeper, but I get paid reasonably well, I have a comfortable life, I have a nice house, I drive an okay car, we're able to go on holidays. I get paid considerably more than my assistants, and I do, and as a club and as an industry, we ask a lot of people, and I've said it a few times, and I don't want to highlight any, I think it's an industry problem that in my opinion, we are asking for skilled labor and we are only, and we are willing to pay an unskilled wage.