I Don’t Pay My Best Employee

Today I want to introduce you to the best worker I’ve ever had.

His name is Robbo, and he started working for me about six months ago.

Each morning I get up at 5am and head over to the barn to start work … yet I’m always beaten by Robbo, who’s already well into his workday, quietly getting the job done.

Robbo is the nickname I’ve given to my robot mower.

When I first got Robbo, a landscaper mate of mine mocked me:

“You paid a grand for that thing? Geez, they saw you coming!”

Today he’s the one eating grass. My lawns look like a freaking bowling green.

In fact, they’re actually a little too good. People either think we have a full-time gardener, or that I’m that manic neighbour who edges his path and keeps plastic bottles on his lawn to ward off weeing dogs (you know the guy).

If you read the reviews on robot mowers they’re almost universally positive. “Why didn’t I get one of these years ago?” they say.

Probably because they weren’t invented. They’ve been around since the nineties, but they really took off a few years ago, mainly in Europe, where there are millions of them.

My prediction?

Jim’s Mowing needs to sharpen up their offering.

But don’t weed-whack me, Jim! It’s just that I can foresee that robot mowers will gradually fall in price … and in a few years you’ll have one.

That’s because they’re essentially a plastic Tonka truck (about the size of a vacuum) with a $6 cutting blade, powered by the same 20-volt battery that goes into your cordless drill.

All you need to do is lay down guidewire around the perimeter of your yard (or not – the latest robots do this automatically via GPS). It’s all hooked up to an app on your phone which assesses rainfall and calculates the growth rate of different sections of the grass (via artificial intelligence). Then it works throughout the night cutting a few millimetres off your grass with each turn (which acts like a fertiliser), before it heads back to its charging base.

For me, it means I can spend more time with my kids (who really should be mowing the bloody lawn themselves!). In fact, I’ve just now hired ‘Rodney’ – a robot vacuum – to work night shift at the barn.

Tread Your Own Path!