Pros
The company pays to train and certify you. The work is physically demanding- but keeps you fit and gets you plenty of sunshine. Once you're proficient and no longer need every ounce of focus to maintain a high quality of work you can wear headphones to listen to music/educational programming. You're paid based on completed work, which promotes efficiency and allows the opportunity to make a good wage. Management is flexible with your assigned work based on personal obligations. Weed Man is customer focused, but management respects its employees and listens to their side in conflicts; customers are given realistic expectations and technicians are given the benefit of the doubt. You can move up in the company by: learning to use ride-on equipment, allowing you to complete more work; or commonly by promotion into management. Technicians do the work of turf maintenance but also are the "first face" for sales, and receive a commission for every sale closed- including half commission even if the work is cancelled before completion. Management are primarily experienced technicians from inside the company who can educate you on most all aspects of agronomy- including all relevant plant characteristics, and soil science. This allows you to enjoy being an expert who can quickly and confidently share this knowledge with customers to set expectations, recommend best cultural practices, and close sales for additional services to improve their turf (while getting a bonus for yourself)
Cons
Reduced wages and wildly different work responsibilities during off-season: during winter when turf is dormant Weed Man offered technicians $15/hour to knock doors gathering sales leads. It's a very different experience to the technical and very physical work of turf care. In the season you are doing the important work of turf maintenance and addressing customer concerns with experiential knowledge. In the off-season you are repeatedly approaching strangers at their door asking them for their phone number so a salesperson can explain our program. Pros: it's a straightforward pitch; it's not especially physically demanding; it doesn't require a lot of technological knowledge. Cons: Very cold, inclement weather conditions; it's mind-numbing when you get very few contacts for long periods with no one to talk to and nothing to distract you; it's stressful as people are often rude to you. Since it's not challenging or rewarding you may come to dread the work day, as you look forward to the stress of being very cold while strangers are rude- sometimes even belligerent- and when you're not talking to strangers you're mostly alone with nothing to engage your mind except walking and moving to the next door. Thankfully this is only a few months each year- and if these conditions/interactions don't bother you, you'd be happy to do the work, if only it payed a living wage.
