It's inhumane what we do to ourselves

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emahler said:
maybe if all you old timers who are stuck in your ways would hurry up and die, we could save the industry.....;)
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You better get the boarders closed as well and change consumers idea of price before quality.

And just so you know .... I will out live you ..... I don't have the stress of running a business and trying to straighten out an entire industry single handed. :grin:
 
I agree with charlie t whole heartedly, with this slow market i've stayed the course and have'nt lowered my prices. i'm now only landing about 20% of the jobs i'm bidding. there are so many low ballers out there i cant see how they stay in business. h.o. and gc are having a field day watching us kill each other over their jobs.

as far as hourly rates go, my neighbor who owns a lawn service charges $65 per hour per man . as skilled tradesmen we should be getting 3 times that of a laborer pushing a rake.
 
emahler said:
one of the bigger issues is that we do all these nasty, dirty things for nothing because we weren't taught any other way...and then we hire guys and pay them even less to the do all the nasty, dirty things...and we don't teach them even as much as we were taught...so they get fed up and go out on their own...they then do those nasty, dirty jobs for a little more than we were paying them, but less than we were charging for them...so the work stays the same, but the pay rate drops...

and yes, we wonder why a guy would rather go through 6 months of computer training and get a job for $30k+ working in an office, then spend 4+ years at <$20k busting his tail in all types of weather and literally risking his life every day...

I wonder...

it also explains why we are having incredible trouble attracting talented people...unless we as contractors up the ante, we are in trouble...
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$20k!!!!!! Thats almost poverty level! I sure am glad I work industrial maintenance!
 
politics

politics

iwire said:
You better get the boarders closed as well and change consumers idea of price before quality.

And just so you know .... I will out live you ..... I don't have the stress of running a business and trying to straighten out an entire industry single handed. :grin:
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"Close the borders" Sounds like "politics"!... "a country that can not secure it's borders,is a country certain to fall"! Ronald Reagan
 
emahler said:
yeah, well...i'm a contrarian optimist at heart...:D

maybe if all you old timers who are stuck in your ways would hurry up and die, we could save the industry.....;)

(that's a joke brian john, a joke...big :D)
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I am trying but, I think the IRS and State Tax Departments are paying off the doctors, to keep me alive.

What i see, it is not so much the old timers, anymore, it is just about anyone that tries to enter the business, they usualy leave a job, thinking their boss is making all the money they see come in, with no idea, of how a business runs. Then when they get out there and discover how hard it really is, they panic, and lower prices, thinking that will be the cure.
 
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satcom said:
I am trying but, I think the IRS and State Tax Departments are paying off the doctors, to keep me alive.

What i see, it is not so much the old timers, anymore, it is just about anyone that tries to enter the business, they usualy leave a job, thinking their boss is making all the money they see come in, with no idea, of how a business runs. Then when they get out there and discover how hard it really is, they panic, and lower prices, thinking that will be the cure.
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that is a big issue...we look at our current employees as future competition and don't teach them anything...guess what? if they are gonna go on their own, they're gonna go on their own...if you don't teach them, you have uneducated competition...wouldn't it be better to have educated competition? makes sense to me...

charlie - i didn't blame those guys, i just said that they were also part of the problem...their overhead is artificially low, and they are still working because they can't afford to retire...but please be consistent in your argument...should we ban together and raise rates? or keep them artificially low because "that's business"?

bob- you just might be right...but dammit, at least I stand for my convictions...whether someone agrees with me or not, i'm consistent in my message...

hockyologist - it is a shame that guys take all the responsibility and risk to be a contractor, and do make so little...but most of it is because they never learned how to do it right...
 
iwire said:
Yeah, you got that right, most extremists are stuck in a rut. . :grin: (JK)
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it's true, it's true...:D

but on a serious note, let me ask you a question...you and I have disagreed on numerous occasions, but would you honestly say that anything I've advocated is detrimental to the industry or the people in it as a whole?
 
I know this will probely not happen on a national level, but it would be nice if it happens on a state level.
(1) Treat hacks like drug dealers and sieze their tools of the trade, ie, tools trucks, material.
(2) Mandatory jail time for any additional violations.

I'm from texas and the current small fines that the hacks can make up on the next job, aren't working.
for example I tried to turn in a contractor who was doing a remodel on a house, I was called to the house by a home warranty company the claim was denied, the Gc had taken apart the electrical in several rooms and could not figure out how to put it back together. 1 week after turning in the GC got a letter from the state asking for copies of contracts proving what i don't know, but if i couldn't provide them with this information the complaint would be dropped. Punishment for doing unlicensed work should be a deterent not a hiccup. More iritation to follow i'm sure.
 
emahler said:
that is a big issue...we look at our current employees as future competition and don't teach them anything...guess what? if they are gonna go on their own, they're gonna go on their own...if you don't teach them, you have uneducated competition...wouldn't it be better to have educated competition? makes sense to me...
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We have always had profit share, for employees, so our books were always open, it helps them understand, the real cost of doing business.

Not all contractors are willing to operate their business with sharing in mind, but I must say when I was in the hospital, I had no worries, about the business continuing.
 
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another rant while i'm at it is our supply houses -- they don't provide contractors proper pricing --- much of this stuff we are paying for is retail. this week i needed twenty two light -electronic ballast--strip fixtures. i called hughes supply and they gave me a price of $46. each. knew that was high. called graybar-- $42. each. still sounded high to me?? called home depot -- $29. each?? home depot owns hughes and the wholesale price is $15. more than the retail price?? then i called loews and their price was $25.95 each.
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In my area any supply house for HVAC parts and equipment WILL NOT sell to any one but lic. contractors. Why? liability and keeping homeowners and Joe Blow a/c repair from trying to do HVAC work. I have been in the supply house when John Doe comes in to buy elect. supplies, the guys KNOW he is not lic., working out of a old station wagon, no ins. sell him any thing he wants, homeowners the same thing, free coffee glad to do business with them.
My point to this rant is 99% of homeowners would not think of working on their HVAC equip. they will pick up the phone and call for service. But that same homeowner will go to blue or orange and ask for some 600 volt wire (heard that with my own ears) to run a new dryer circ. I/WE can go in blue or orange and buy every thing needed to rough in and trim out a house. But you wont find a capacitor for a fan motor. The big box stores push DIY for every thing to save your self money,they could care less if you know what you are doing, and there elect. specialist, what a joke, you can do it, we can help. You can burn your house down, they will help.
 
ceb58 said:
My point to this rant is 99% of homeowners would not think of working on their HVAC equip.
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This is because there are no DIY TV shows that depict beautiful women with over sized safety glasses working on AC compressors. Most people only know what they learn from television, never under estimate the influence of television.
 
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This thread got disected once and still continues on the path of the unlicensed.....

Marc - demand or create better working conditions for yourself. Shut stuff off, hire a laborer to clean and do site prep, and by all means demand a proper toilet in your contracts. If you refuse to do crappy work for crappy people - I think you'll find yourself in fewer crappy conditions.
 
Back to the original post. Sure we do some hard work and many times these are not the best of working conditions but we still have it better than most people.

I did a job at a large post office about 12 years ago and I met one guy there that had been working on the same dock for 27 years. He had made foreman and was making good money with good benefits but still he had been working on that same loading dock all those years. When he asked how many jobs that I had worked on I had to tell him that it's really to many to count or even remember ( I can remember all the big jobs but there have just been to many small ones).

When I'm working outside on a nice spring day I'm always thankfull that I don't have to work in a factory or office. We do make certain concessions to do the work we do but I wouldn't want to trade with those that are tied to a cubicle or a machine. :smile:
 
e57 said:
Marc - demand or create better working conditions for yourself. Shut stuff off, hire a laborer to clean and do site prep, and by all means demand a proper toilet in your contracts. If you refuse to do crappy work for crappy people - I think you'll find yourself in fewer crappy conditions.
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I've managed to make a pretty decent living doing mainly stuff nobody else wants to do. I guess I should quit moaning about it, huh? ;)

From time to time people will ask me exactly what type of electrical work I do, and that's a hard question to answer. My normal answer is 'stuff everyone else says can't be done, shouldn't be done, or they won't do'. :cool:
 
I guess my main pont is that the list in my opening thread are things I willingly do to myself. All of us have things that we willingly subject ourselves to that we probably shouldn't. My list will likely be different than yours. Some people subject themselves to things I never would, and I subject myself to some things others never would. Just funny how we are, is all.
 
iwire said:
Don't fool yourself, we are in trouble and there is little that can be done to stop it.
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Would you care to elaborate on why you feel this to be the case? I don't disagree with you (to an extent) so I'm curious to what your reasons are for believing this. :)
 
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