The public does indeed view us like this, and we have general contractors to thank for this. 99% of all the rip off stories you hear involve general contractors. The remaining 1% of stories involve roofers.
I have never in my entire life seen a news story about an EC that ripped off a customer. But since the public cannot discern the difference between general and specialty contractors, we get the bad rep generated by GC's.
Don't put much weight into new stories. They are to sell commercial time and influence a train of thought. Don't take them as any more than that.
We have much more than general contractors to thank for this.
We have the electrician that bids $2000. to do the electric in the custom kitchen that I gave a proposal of over $6k to blame for it. When he worked for someone else his package was worth ballpark $50/hr. It took him and a guy he pulled out of the woods 3-4 days (I know 1 the guys that was on site for 2 days and said it didn't look like he was going to finish it the next) to rough it in and 2-3 days to trim it.
Figure his time alone at what his package as an employee was worth would be at least $2K. Probably $2800. That doesn't include woodsman's wages (obviously untaxed, not that I feel they should be collecting what they do), materials or business expenses.
There are far to many electricians running around contracting for far less than what they would be making if they sold the van and bought a decent pickup and went back to work for someone else.
The people that do bad work are to blame. I see an awful lot of electric work that is of just plain poor quality. Some of it is done by people that are homeowners. Some of it is done by handymen. Some of it is done by people moonlighting and some of it is licensed contractors. Make no mistake. They cheapen the trade.
Homeowners thinking you should be making less than what your true expenses are, are to blame. They need us to continue to educate them that half the check they are writing goes to the government in 1 form or another. Most of the rest of it goes to bank fees and interest. By the time the automakers, phone companies, insurance companies, gas companies, unbillable time and various other expenses get through with us we are making about what they figure we should per hour with a little profit. These are things they can relate to.
I?m thinking most of our problems are self inflicted. I?d like to blame it on them, but that wouldn?t even be self serving. I can make sure I?m doing my part. That is what will go towards actually doing something constructive.
