[recycled sixtie]

As Les says trust your gut feeling. Your wife is obviously a good worker but she will have to make adjustments to your work environment. It will be a change for her and hopefully she can adapt to it.

This reminds me of my early childhood in the UK in the 1950's. My father had a garage and hired 2 mechanics and one gas pumper. My mother worked in the office doing the bookwork. It seemed pretty successful. It was an adjustment for my father coming out of the Air Force at the end of WW2 and starting his own business.

Business was reasonable. My mother got hit on by one of the mechanics sometimes. Usual sh-t. She was a tough cookie and never complained. A lot depends on your wife if she can take direction from you. Some women don't like being told what to do!

Your wife could give it a trial run for a month or so. My local indy shop the owner has 2 mechanics. The owner does the ordering, answers the phone etc much like you. Sometimes I think he is like a chicken with his head cut off. My other indy shop further away originally had the same arrangement until some crook came in and cleaned out the till. He hired a front end man after that.