Some Kind of Joke

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joshuacdrlk

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So I work for this chump for like 5 years, Go get my lisc., purchase a bond and Insurance...Anyway this guy tells me Jan 1st, I need to go to Piece Meal....Im like Cool.Yeah needless to say he wants to pay upon competion of the job. He supplies material, I tell him how many hours at 30 an hour..Yeah I have 2 half roughed in houses and one half trimmed...No Income..What should I do. I am cuttin this guy a killer deal, and he is bendin me over.Should I stick it out, or bail and file for liens..

Thanks
Joshua Lawson
Innovative Electrical Design
 
Welcome to electrical contracting Josh, and the forum. Now that you have found out mistake #1 which is starting out with no capital or business plan, may I suggest finding another employer and forgetting about contracting. Or as a possible alternative, go purchase a copy of a book entitled "How Much Should I Charge?" from your local bookstore, and spend some really quality time studying it from cover to cover. And don't forget to do the worksheets. That won't help you at all with your present problem of the "chump", which is something you will learn in a class called "school of hard knocks", but at least it will help you with the way you are charging for your work, since it looks to me like you have now taken a big pay scale drop. And like it or not, you are going to probably be required to complete your projects in order to keep your new license, like it or not. Best of luck, and I mean it. :roll:
 
joshuacdrlk said:
So I work for this chump for like 5 years, Go get my lisc., purchase a bond and Insurance...Anyway this guy tells me Jan 1st, I need to go to Piece Meal....Im like Cool.Yeah needless to say he wants to pay upon competion of the job. He supplies material, I tell him how many hours at 30 an hour..Yeah I have 2 half roughed in houses and one half trimmed...No Income..What should I do. I am cuttin this guy a killer deal, and he is bendin me over.Should I stick it out, or bail and file for liens..

Thanks
Joshua Lawson
Innovative Electrical Design
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What is piece meal, never heard of it, is that anything like peace work,

If your a contractor, you shoiuld be doing contracting, not piece work, you give a price based on your costs, plus a profit, do you know your costs of diong business, all the money it cost you to operate everything from the truck itself to all the expenses for running it, and your office expenses, phone insurance, accounting, ad expenses, legal fees, bank charges, printing, and office supplies, and all the little things you pay for to run business.

$30 dolars is just yyour labor, add all the rest of the costs to that, including the profit you want.
 
Josh
You cannot turn back the clock.
You can take the 30/ and try to make it work or you can go the other way and maybe find that harder in the long run.
At best the "school of hard knocks" will have been paid for. Then you can decide what you will try to do with your future.


One of the really good parts of this site is how much advice you can receive for free about how to run a business. All you will need to do after receiving the advice is to be able to sort it out and decide what works for you.
I also wish you good luck!!
 
joshuacdrlk said:
Anyway this guy tells me Jan 1st, I need to go to Piece Meal.

Yeah needless to say he wants to pay upon competion of the job.

..Yeah I have 2 half roughed in houses and one half trimmed...No Income..What should I do.
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Tell him that the new payment policy only applies to jobs started after he gave you notice, meaning houses started after Jan. 1.

If he doesn't agree, get legal with him, unless you feel you havee more to gain by kowtowing. (Look it up. ;))
 
satcom said:
If your a contractor, you shoiuld be doing contracting, not piece work, you give a price based on your costs, plus a profit, do you know your costs of diong business, all the money it cost you to operate everything from the truck itself to all the expenses for running it, and your office expenses, phone insurance, accounting, ad expenses, legal fees, bank charges, printing, and office supplies, and all the little things you pay for to run business.

$30 dolars is just yyour labor, add all the rest of the costs to that, including the profit you want.
Click to expand...

I think you forgot taxes on that....
 
joshuacdrlk said:
So I work for this chump for like 5 years, Go get my lisc., purchase a bond and Insurance...Anyway this guy tells me Jan 1st, I need to go to Piece Meal....Im like Cool.Yeah needless to say he wants to pay upon competion of the job. He supplies material, I tell him how many hours at 30 an hour..Yeah I have 2 half roughed in houses and one half trimmed...No Income..What should I do. I am cuttin this guy a killer deal, and he is bendin me over.Should I stick it out, or bail and file for liens..

Thanks
Joshua Lawson
Innovative Electrical Design
Click to expand...

Since the jobs are 1/2 complete, it is not normal for a contractor to receive payment. Did you agree to the "pay upon completion" before you accepted the work? If so, complete one of them. If not, then tell him so.

Is he bending you over, or did you back up to him while touching your toes? Think about it.
 
joshuacdrlk said:
So I work for this chump for like 5 years, Go get my lisc., purchase a bond and Insurance...Anyway this guy tells me Jan 1st, I need to go to Piece Meal....Im like Cool.Yeah needless to say he wants to pay upon competion of the job. He supplies material, I tell him how many hours at 30 an hour..Yeah I have 2 half roughed in houses and one half trimmed...No Income..What should I do. I am cuttin this guy a killer deal, and he is bendin me over.Should I stick it out, or bail and file for liens..

Thanks
Joshua Lawson
Innovative Electrical Design
Click to expand...
If they are delaying you, send the EC the GC and the Home Owner a notice of delay, finish the trim-out in the first house and get paid.
Send notice of leins to the other two half roughed in houses if the timing is correct for it.
Do you have a contract? If so,
Is your contract with your old boss, the GC, or the Homeowner?
Did you pull the permit?
If you have experience diong service work, it could be a nice cash cow for you.

And. DONT EVER WORK THAT CHEAP AGAIN!
 
Sounds to me like you are now an indpendent contractor. Finish up the projects, but start getting your own work. Don't take any more of his on unless he pays by your terms. That means at least a rough-in payment and no finish work until rough-in payment is made. File a lien now.

You are either an employee, or a independent contractor. Not both, at least as far as this guy is concerned.
 
You have learned some important lessons.
1. You cannot work for $30/hour and be in business for yourself.
2. You cannot install owner supplied materials at $30/hour. You either need the profit from materials or charge a much higher labor rate to cover your overhead. You will also need a complete agreement of what will be supplied, when it will be available, and who will be responsible for incorrect/defective material.
3. Wait until the insurance and tax bills are due! You may be in for a big shock (and not the kind that electricians normally get)!
4. There is always someone ready, willing, and anxious to take advantage of your inexperience.

It looks like you may be stuck with your "deal" on the jobs that you have started, but you will need to negotiate new contracts for any future work from this guy or anyone else. While $30/hour may be great when you are working for someone else, it is nowhere near what you will need to charge if you are in business for yourself. There are too many hidden overhead costs that you will need to cover (Taxes, insurance, defective material, telephone, office supplies, license fees, permit fees, inspection fees, workman's comp for any employees, employer's portion of social security, health insurance for you and any employees, and the list goes on and on)

Welcome to the wonderful world of contacting.
 
Electrical contracting is just that, contracting. You have to figure out(and this may be a good learning tool) all the variables involved, and there are a lot. I think everyone has a horror tale of contracting and losing money, especially when they first start out. Here's something I'll give you for free, don't EVER expect any kind of tax break from the government. The lawyer who set up my LLC told me I would be pleasantly surprised come tax time. I was surprised allright! That's when I learned that our government might as well come out and say that they are TOTALLY against small business, even though small business makes up about 70% of the workforce(or so I read in Newsweek). It's just that after you pay for gen liability, workmans comp, payroll, material bill, van payment, van insurance, anything left over for yourself then the gov't has THEIR hand out too! UGGH! Good luck to you though.;)
 
joshuacdrlk said:
So I work for this chump for like 5 years, Go get my lisc., purchase a bond and Insurance...Anyway this guy tells me Jan 1st, I need to go to Piece Meal....Im like Cool.Yeah needless to say he wants to pay upon completion of the job. He supplies material, I tell him how many hours at 30 an hour..Yeah I have 2 half roughed in houses and one half trimmed...No Income..What should I do. I am cuttin this guy a killer deal, and he is bendin me over.Should I stick it out, or bail and file for lien.
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Completion normally means finished and if you agreed to those terms then you should complete the jobs. If I were you I would try to get better terms for future work.

Always remember this, If you agree to work for a dollar an hour don't expect anyone to be a nice guy and pay you two dollars an hour.

If you are broke I would talk to the guy and see if he won't let you get a draw toward completion of work. But if you agreed to payment on completion there is nothing to force him to pay until work is complete.

If there is nothing in the contract stating a time limit then he can hold the job up for months without paying so long as you are not finished.

When you deal with the Devil ( or anyone else ) it's important to read the contract. Don't agree to things that are not in you best interest. :grin:
 
a contractor in my area has a rep for shafting the new ECs he wants it cheap and most of the guys just starting out are hungry and think low balling with this guy will get them in the door this backfired on him a few years back when a new guy hit town low balling everybody he was awarded 4 houses to do for this contractor he started them all and was given a draw on each before ruff in was done this guy skips town without paying his labor or material bills leins were flying and the houses were held up until a court sorted it out costing this GC the labor and material,never found the fly by night guy.
 
Rewire said:
a contractor in my area has a rep for shafting the new ECs he wants it cheap and most of the guys just starting out are hungry and think low balling with this guy will get them in the door this backfired
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This kind of contractor is called a "Sub Burner". I'd say that 50% of all GCs are Sub Burners. They lure young, inexperienced subs into doing business without contracts by telling the sub how honest they are. Only dishonest people feel the need to talk about their honesty.

Sub Burners always have a sad story to tell, it's about their last Electrician who burned *them* (yeah right).

Here's advice for new Electrical Contractors: Don't run your business like a small business, run it like a big business. Do the largest Electrical Contractors in your area do business without contracts? Do they allow vague understandings about when they're paid?

Business is war by other means. Always protect yourself and watch for ambushes. Never volunteer to walk through a mine field and never give your opponent ammunition to shoot back at you.
 
What should I do. I am cuttin this guy a killer deal, and he is bendin me over.Should I stick it out, or bail and file for liens..
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You need to do whatever you said you would do.


That is part of the business.
 
Thanks guys, Yeah Im kinda the chump in this deal....Yeah he and myself go round and round about all of this...like when he calls and ask where I am, I tell him hey I am a contractor now bub, I had startup capital, just blew through it quick...I have a stupid amount of work..But I am funding the project so its a little rough..I did Kill him on the hours, Im getting 90 on a 2 story box, In rope, and 80 on the trims...Just tired of goin from house to house doin this and not getting paid
 
Forgot to add, that I do wanna be the standup guy here, all your advice, and little comments give me a good feeling I can do this, just cant be th nice guy....I am new to all this....Just know that when the electric was in house...This guy charged 7k for a 3300sq ft two story, with 80 cans and Lutron Maestro dimmers everywhere, that one had to HURT, like real bad. He doesnt have a clue so he is hard to work with, but this gave me the op to have steady income and move on to new things
 
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