The tool, in your browser
The strike log
One row per strike. The day you run a round, write down who it was about, which round you ran, the promise that broke, what he said back and the fix you both agreed. Over a season that’s a dated, written record of every hard conversation instead of a story you half remember — and the roll at the top counts strikes per man, so you know who’s sitting on two before it surprises you.
Free, and it asks for nothing. No email, no account, no sign-up. What you type stays in this browser on this device.
Read this first
This saves in this browser, on this device, and nowhere else. Nothing you type is sent to us and there’s no account to log in to. But saved in a browser isn’t the same as locked: anyone who opens this page on this computer can read it — the roll of who’s on three included. So on a machine the office or the crew shares, keep this on your own phone, or clear the log before you walk away.
A browser is also a poor place for a record that has to last: clearing your browsing data wipes it, a new phone doesn’t bring it along, and you can’t hand a browser to your accountant. The whole point of a strike log is that it’s still there, dated, a year later. So use this to write the round down the day you run it — that’s the part that has to happen while the words are exact — and keep the record that has to last in the-strike-log.xlsx on the shop computer, in a folder only you open: download it below and copy your rows across. Of all these sheets, this is the one that doesn’t belong on the shared drive.
And it’s a written record, not legal advice. It doesn’t tell you what the law requires or promise that keeping it protects you — before you act on it is at the bottom of this page and it’s worth your two minutes.
The log fills in right here in your browser. If this line stays put, JavaScript is off — the spreadsheet below does the same job.
How it gets used
- Add a row the day you run a round. Same day, while the words are still exact. A strike you ran but never logged is a strike that, on paper, never happened.
- What counts as a strike is objective: a promise on the list came up not-done — a miss anyone can point to on the board. Not a mood, not one bad day. Three of them on the same thing and you’re at round three — the roll below counts every row a man has, so read what broke before you call it three. Copy the promise into the log word-for-word as it was written on the list.
- Set Strike # to the round you actually ran. One is get curious — the blocked-not-blamed review, on the tailgate, and you build a fix with him. Two is name the pattern out loud and give the warning. Three is level with him that the job is on the line, and mean it.
- Write His side in his words, not yours. The record is fairer — and more use to you later — when it shows you actually listened.
- Put the plan you built together in Agreed fix + date, and come back and fill in Outcome when you know how it went.
- Read the roll before you talk to anybody. It tells you who’s on two — which is the man to be careful and clear with, not the man to surprise.
- If it breaks again after three, you follow through. A third strike with no consequence is worse than never starting, because now the whole crew has learned that the promise list is theater.
Before you act on it
A record, not a rulebook
This is your written record — nothing more. It documents what was said and agreed; it does not tell you what the law requires or promise that keeping it protects you. Employment and discipline rules differ by state and by how your contracts are written, so before you end anyone over what’s in this log, have your accountant or a labor lawyer look at your process.
If your crew is 1099, be careful here. Three strikes is built for employees, and a subcontractor is not an employee. Progressive discipline — warnings, improvement plans, “the job’s on the line” — is employee machinery, and running it on a sub is one more way to smudge the line that makes him a 1099 in the first place. With a sub this isn’t discipline; it’s contract enforcement. He agreed to deliver certain work by certain dates, so the conversation is “you’re not meeting the terms we agreed to,” and the third strike isn’t a firing — it’s declining to hand him the next job.
One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it’s not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It’s your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.
Want it in a spreadsheet?
The same log as a spreadsheet
the-strike-log.xlsx is this log as a spreadsheet — same columns, same counts — for the computer at the shop. Three differences in the page’s favour: the roll builds itself out of the Man column instead of sixteen name slots you have to remember to fill; there’s no twenty-four-row ceiling on what gets counted; and a row with no name on it says so instead of quietly counting for nobody. It also reads “Danny”, “danny” and “Danny ” as one man; the file matches capitals loosely too, but a stray space makes him a second man with one strike. Two the other way: the file is a real file, so it survives a cleared browser and can be handed to somebody, and it opens on any computer you send it to. The sheets ask for your email once; this page never does.
The play behind it — M2-05 Three Strikes — and Mean It — is the three rounds and the words to say in each one, and the sheet notes spell out every column and both formulas.