RANT on lack of KNOWLEDGABLE supply house employees

[brian john]

What has happened to the employees at supply houses. I have an emergency I need a 400 AMP GE fusible QMR bucket for a MCC, located over 100 miles away.

I had all the necessary information but no luck, one guy says 3-5 days before the factory sales office will assist him in obtaining the pricing. Second guy can't even locate anything and says he can't help without additional information.

I do a web search for GE 400 amp QMR and while it take maybe 10 minutes, I was able to locate the item and printed a NICE FULL COLOR picture and sent to him.

I also called my after market guy, he knew EXACTLY what I needed and had two sitting there. (I want new).

 

[khixxx]

Man I feel your pain. You need a go to guy and follow him if he goes to another supply house. I use to call this guy and tell him I have a 60A VFD square D and I need a cable that runs to this and that. He would hook me up or even stop out to take a look at whats going on. It was like he had a crystal ball. I am sure he would cry when I would call in at times. He left that supply house and I followed him. The crazy thing was he made the most money from the big EC. I was just a Tech guy that called him about once a week if that. 100% good guy.

Yeah I called in a few times talked to other guys and I was dead in the water when it came to a part. I would have to rip the old one out and take it in.

 

[hockeyoligist2]

That is why, if possible, I take the part with me, then ask "got one of these?"

 

[weressl]

What has happened to the employees at supply houses. I have an emergency I need a 400 AMP GE fusible QMR bucket for a MCC, located over 100 miles away.

I had all the necessary information but no luck, one guy says 3-5 days before the factory sales office will assist him in obtaining the pricing. Second guy can't even locate anything and says he can't help without additional information.

I do a web search for GE 400 amp QMR and while it take maybe 10 minutes, I was able to locate the item and printed a NICE FULL COLOR picture and sent to him.

I also called my after market guy, he knew EXACTLY what I needed and had two sitting there. (I want new).

..and we can thank Wall-street for that. You can only survive if you are a large, publicly traded company. If you want to be that, you have to maximize profit with minimum expenses. You can't afford to pay technically knowledgeable people to push your product that you set at a volume price.

 

[iwire]

..and we can thank Wall-street for that. You can only survive if you are a large, publicly traded company. If you want to be that, you have to maximize profit with minimum expenses. You can't afford to pay technically knowledgeable people to push your product that you set at a volume price.

I think that spells it out, it's simply about the money.

Why would a talented, knowledgeable person stay at a job for low pay?

We can kind of blame ourselves for that as contractors often shop based on price alone.

 

[peter d]

I've worked on that side of the counter and it only took 7 months before I was out the door. Pay was poor as mentioned, and if you did perform well they heaped more responsibility on you without any commensurate increase in pay. It took my branch manager's intervention to get me a measly $1 raise. I could go on....

I really have nothing good to say about the wholesale distribution business....just bad memories and a time of my life that I'm glad is behind me. It was difficult, stressful, thankless work (from the company side.) The only thing that made it worthwhile was building a rapport with the regular EC customers.

 

[SmithBuilt]

Why would a talented, knowledgeable person stay at a job for low pay?

It's almost the opposite of that here. I have 3 supply houses I buy from.
Two of them have 3-4 good to excellent people behind the counter that have been there for years. I don't know what they get paid but I hope they stay.

The third supply house is a little cheaper but the counter help doesn't know anything about electrical.

 

[iwire]

It's almost the opposite of that here.

I would consider yourself lucky.

 

[stickboy1375]

In a nutshell its called minimum wage... Look at the bright side though, its going up soon... :grin:

 

[SmithBuilt]

I would consider yourself lucky.

Trust me when I say I do. Blessed even.

 

[stickboy1375]

Trust me when I say I do. Blessed even.

I've been known to double order my stuff that I know I absolutely need the next day from two supply houses, at least this way I have a pretty good shot of getting what I need... :grin:

 

[electricalperson]

What has happened to the employees at supply houses. I have an emergency I need a 400 AMP GE fusible QMR bucket for a MCC, located over 100 miles away.

I had all the necessary information but no luck, one guy says 3-5 days before the factory sales office will assist him in obtaining the pricing. Second guy can't even locate anything and says he can't help without additional information.

I do a web search for GE 400 amp QMR and while it take maybe 10 minutes, I was able to locate the item and printed a NICE FULL COLOR picture and sent to him.

I also called my after market guy, he knew EXACTLY what I needed and had two sitting there. (I want new).

i thought incompetent supply houses was just a massachusetts thing. i walked in a supply house and asked for a 30 amp single phase heavy duty unfused disconnect switch. he gives me a 30 amp general duty fused transfer switch and it was used too! then the same guy gives me 70 feet of 8/3 romex and its not even coiled up neatly it was just a big mess and i had to coil it up on the sidewalk outside of my truck so it wont hit me in the eye when im driving

 

[mdshunk]

I order anything nonstock by part number... the part number I looked up for myself. They still manage to screw that up sometimes.

 

[electricalperson]

and another problem is how long it takes. i ordered over the phone a draw stud and a 3/4 inch punch to replace one i lost. he said it would be there monday morning (ordered friday) and it taken a week until it finally came. they kept giving me the run around on where it was

 

[mdshunk]

and another problem is how long it takes. i ordered over the phone a draw stud and a 3/4 inch punch to replace one i lost. he said it would be there monday morning (ordered friday) and it taken a week until it finally came. they kept giving me the run around on where it was

I sorta feel sorry for you. What kind of supply house doesn't have punches and drawstuds in stock, anyhow? I think you can even get them separately at many Lowe's and HD locations now.

 

[frizbeedog]

What has happened to the employees at supply houses.

Recently I went to evaluate an RV pedestal that got run over....oops. It was beyond repair, and needed to be replaced before the memorial day weekend as all the sites had been booked.

I called our supply house where we buy all of our panels, metering equip. etc. and our trusty sales rep. was not there. Which turned out not to be a bad thing. I think his enthusiasm is lacking anyhow.

So I get to talk to one of his associates. They didn't have an RV pedestal in stock. Hard to believe due to the number of RV parks in the area. Anyhoo, he tracks one down for me, only it has to be shipped from California or Arizona or something. Air frieght charges and all. I say I need this thing by Thusday man. I can't believe you don't have at least one in stock and that frieght is not going to be cheap. He says hold on, let me make a call, try something else.

Turns out he called a competitor for me and found they had six of my pedestals at thier warehouse.

He didn't get the sale, went out of his way to help me get what I needed by my deadline, and we had the site ready for the weekend. As we hoped for.

I think this was a guy who cares, wants our business and went above and beyond what I had expected.

He's now on speed dial.

 

[electricalperson]

I sorta feel sorry for you. What kind of supply house doesn't have punches and drawstuds in stock, anyhow? I think you can even get them separately at many Lowe's and HD locations now.

i dont know how they do it around where your from but here they have a bunch of little stores of the same name all over the state and they order from eachother. they had a drawstud in another store but they had a hard time getting it to me for some reason

 

[e57]

I think that spells it out, it's simply about the money.

Why would a talented, knowledgeable person stay at a job for low pay?

We can kind of blame ourselves for that as contractors often shop based on price alone.

I think that hits it on the head - but will add that we as a nation are handicapped by a few other factors.

1. The guy at the counter is no longer 'in the trade' if he were he would be on our side of the counter. He's a stock picker - never aspired to instal what he has back there. In many years past - that may have been where he would have entered the trade and got a job, or vise versa - retired to. I hope none of us retire to the supply house.
2. Stock-less inventory - a movement since the 80's to reduce inventory i.e. money sitting on shelves waiting for a use - as a former warehouse man (Medical supplies) I can tell you for certain that unless it has movement off of valuable shelf space it will get liquidated, and become special order item. And in some cases become obsolete all together. If you don't have it when it's needed - you don't sell it. Dont sell enough of them and it no longer gets manufactured. The market for it thins, the price goes up, further reducing its sales. By that time everyone has learned how to make due without it. Some distribution point in deep space might have it but shipped by truck or air could be pricey, and days away - you might as well be living in Alaska or Hawaii - it will take just as long to get to you and cost as much.
3. Real estate - that supply house needs to compete with what ever we are building for rent. Here where I am two supply houses became parking lots for the SF Giants, as the spaces they occupied are more valuable as parking for one day a week during the season. Both moved to area now slated to be the next bio-research capitol of the country and are being moved by eminant domain along with three others. Three more have moved or closed for simular reasons involving condo development. Everytime they move they have less stock - they stock less - I can't get what I want - I make due without, or go somewhere else - see #2.
4. Dumb guy behind counter has no idea what it is I want - see number 1~3...

Anyway - this here is a quote right out of the mouth of a Rexel counter guy - Rexel is no longer here after moving 3 times.... "We dont sell enough of them so we stopped stocking them. Special order." I was asking for an ivory single 15a receptical! I never went back - doubt anyone else did either. So with that trend - looking for heavier gear (short of what is going into every cookie cutter building being built now) out of anywhere is going to be a specialty worthy of a career sometime in the near future.

 

[tyha]

we have 3 supply houses we buy from. one mainly the second is where we will buy if they quote the fixtures and gear low and the third is when one of my guys is working right next door and he doesn't have any other choice. at the main one we have one outside sales guy, jason, and he is awesome. he will go and do whatever it takes to get us what we need. i have called him in to open up on a saturday more than once to get $ 100 worth orf stuff we needed imediately. these guys are hard to find and I can tell you without hesitation that my company would not be in the position it is in today if it were not for this particular supply house and jason

 

[zog]

What has happened to the employees at supply houses. I have an emergency I need a 400 AMP GE fusible QMR bucket for a MCC, located over 100 miles away.

I had all the necessary information but no luck, one guy says 3-5 days before the factory sales office will assist him in obtaining the pricing. Second guy can't even locate anything and says he can't help without additional information.

I do a web search for GE 400 amp QMR and while it take maybe 10 minutes, I was able to locate the item and printed a NICE FULL COLOR picture and sent to him.

I also called my after market guy, he knew EXACTLY what I needed and had two sitting there. (I want new).

Should have called me brain, I have a ton of those new and recon