The Traveling "Electrician"

[dibloafer]

For discussion purposes only, of course...

There are a vast quantity of wiremen who apply as "electricians" (cannot produce a card) and want to be paid at, what I consider to be project manager wages simply because the job description consists of going out of town every week. A local, card-carrying Journeyman doesn't make these wages. Is there really that much local or out of town work that gives the applicant this much leverage? It has been my experience that these applicants, when hired, underwhelm more than impress. What should we then do when they fall short of our expectations (or their credentials!) when we pay them handsomely? The conversation is ethical? moral? I guess what I'm getting at is I think the wages shouldn't change for going out of town. You get per diem and hotel and expense the rest. I don't feel like I should pay 30-40% more than what you are worth just because you sit in a chair behind the wheel for 6-8 hours on Monday and Friday. Does homesickness warrant a huge increase in pay? Am I cold? Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I never tried to leverage my position by the fact that I went out of town. I always presented my case for what I should earn based on my resume/experience. and before you judge me, this is coming from someone who has done it for many years, with a wife and little ones at home.
Like I said, fodder for discussion......

 

[LarryFine]

"Have Kleins - Will Travel"

 

[david]

I think key to what you posted was you have a wife to look after little ones over the years.

For some i'm sure going out of town adds child care expenses.

Also in the military there was a high separation leading to divorce, when couples where separated on a regular bases

 

[ActionDave]

Why would I leave town to make the same money I can earn at home?

If I am staying away from my home, my family, my couch, my dog, .... everything that I love and is familiar to me, combined with the inevitable extra expenses, there had better be some extra pay to make it worthwhile.

 

[infinity]

Why would I leave town to make the same money I can earn at home?

If I am staying away from my home, my family, my couch, my dog, .... everything that I love and is familiar to me, combined with the inevitable extra expenses, there had better be some extra pay to make it worthwhile.

I was thinking that same thing, the traveling does present some amount of sacrifice and in doing so the person should be compensated for it. IMO this is a separate issue as to whether or not the person is highly competent at doing their job.

 

[rambojoe]

within 10 minutes (even immediately) it should be obvious if you hired the right person. so many applicants dropping the "20year" badge yet still takes them 4 hours to hang a disco on a block wall. or my favorite- first morning on the job- walks up with no tools... maybe if there is some way to make it a breach of agreement if it is found they are incompatent. sorry, I cant spell this morning... :/

I would still insist that having a card doesn't matter. it seems either one is good, or not but that is your right of course. you do not need a card here in Arizona and our trade sure is screwy because 19$ per hour seems to be generally what companies want to pay! most consider JW's as just "2 years experience"as well...

in the great nose dive back in 2008 the boss said "if you want work its down in tuscon. take it or leave it." no room or travel, nothing. after about 2 weeks of motels a buddy and I decided it was cheaper and better to just drive the 2 hours there and back! funny thing is, all persons who where already there were getting motel and per diem. sigh... the kicker was it was one of those dowmtown jobs where you had to park a mile down the road and get shuttled there.

honestly the worst thing was the food deal- I absolutely will not eat out (unless it is a high dollar place) and the fear of theft of property. there where job boxes but those where getting broken in to- and leaving some of the things you didn't need in the hotel room was just as scary... you sure can find the dedicated workers though. maybe test them. say there is no differential and if they accept, take care of them.

 

[Coppersmith]

In a capitalist society, workers are free to ask for whatever wages they think they can obtain and should as this is how they maximize their income. From the employer's prospective, employees (of a certain type and quality) get paid based solely on supply and demand. None of the other factors you mentioned matter.

If I can hire competent electricians at $10 an hour I will likely not offer $12. Likewise if I want to hire competent electricians at $10 an hour but none are available, I will continue to raise my offer until I am able to attract an employee (or a cheaper alternative becomes available like robots).

 

[romex jockey]

Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I never tried to leverage my position by the fact that I went out of town. I always presented my case for what I should earn based on my resume/experience. and before you judge me, this is coming from someone who has done it for many years, with a wife and little ones at home.
Like I said, fodder for discussion......

Welcome to capitalism 101, the rules are....supply/demand .....proper creds.....a pirates view of one's competition.....shiny trade cha cha, for those lowering themselves to book/cover recognition/influence.

There's nothing old fashioned about this all at.

Right now 'boom' pockets exist across the nation, to the extent that a Jman is laid off friday, and a bid war breaks out over him by monday.....

Right now, all those lead generation services and national maintenance companies that rose to prominence after the 08 crash are dying......boo friggin' hoo....:weeping:

But here's the catch 22, we exist in a bubble economy , boom/bust , not much inbetween. So we negotiate for the 'pot 'o gold' according to how the economic pendulum is swinging

en garde....mattie....:lol:

~RJ~

 

[Besoeker3]

Travelling.

Maybe depends on where you have to/get to go.

I did a lot of it during my career. Sometimes I was away from home for months at a time. Even when my children were growing up. Low lights and highlights there were. Sahara desert, Taroko George, The Great Karoo.....
I was in Johannesburg over one Christmas but I made a deal with the customer to bring my family over. The children had beautiful tans when they got back home and were the envy of their class mates when they got back home to a dreary UK winter.

But then, the inside of a paper mill in Taiwan isn't a lot different to one in Scotland.

 

[growler]

I guess what I'm getting at is I think the wages shouldn't change for going out of town. You get per diem and hotel and expense the rest. I don't feel like I should pay 30-40% more than what you are worth .

Why would I leave town to make the same money I can earn at home?

There seem to be two reason for a person to travel. One is if they can't find work that's close to home.

The second reason is if they get a little extra out of it.

Why should an electrician ever work for 30-40% less than what he/she can get ? What a person can get is what they are worth at a given place and time.

 

[Strathead]

As others have implied, you pay an employee what they are worth to you. I live in Ocala, 60 or so miles from you. Are you talking about travelling here or are you talking about travelling to Atlanta, Tampa, Miami? I wouldn't bid a job in Atlanta if I didn't have a plan on how I was going to do it. If I had a job that was a month or so long up and down the state, for example we did the generators at 8 FHP stations on the freeways, including the one down the street from you. We paid per diem and the person and a helper got paid while on the road in a company truck. When I needed an extra hand I used RAMS in the local area, or Labor Ready. We knew all of this before going in. You just don't offer enough detail. If I was going out of town, I would expect to be paid when I travel. If the job was far enough away that I couldn't travel regularly to get home, then I would expect a much higher wage. I can fly to California tomorrow and get paid over double what I earn right now.

 

[sameguy]

I guess you can ask the same of any job. Doctors, only one will graduate at the top, it's all down hill from there.
If I recall the U.S. is an at will employer unless your Union or Government; it puts the burden on you to screen who you hire.
If you NEED me and I have to travel it's going to cost.
Start by looking at the tools the person has, ask or make a questionnaire/ test for the type of work you do, resume call the references, evaluation after first day keep or boot them.

 

[cowboyjwc]

Why would I leave town to make the same money I can earn at home?

If I am staying away from my home, my family, my couch, my dog, .... everything that I love and is familiar to me, combined with the inevitable extra expenses, there had better be some extra pay to make it worthwhile.

I agree

 

[__dan]

I did 30 days for a company. They had structured it salary with a truck allowance for using my truck. I covered the basics in the interview. If it was going to be 45 - 50 hours / week and 20,000 miles of driving, they cover theft off the truck, they had a decent number.

Turned out they didn't have any local work and every day was either downtown NYC or downtown Boston, right on the water. With the hellacious commute, it was going to be 80+ hours / week with driving time and 50,000 + miles annually on the truck.

I looked at them as I look at everyone, as smart people who I depended on to do their part right. Well they were smart and had done the numbers and structured it so I was paying their huge regular business expenses. What was clear to me was if I had an accident in the NYC and Boston commuter traffic, they wanted to walk from the whole thing and say it was off their books and liabilty. But otherwise I may put one of their 200 hp drives in my truck and drive it to downtown NYC to install it.

They had simply looked at the truck costs , chopped the number by 1/2 to 1/3, and that was my allowance. They did not want to discuss any of their deficiencies, licensing, safety compliance.


It seems you may want to share that view. If my commute goes from 20 miles to 45 miles or 75 miles, do you want to say the cost to you is the same. Well it may be if your employee is paying the full boat. But his costs could go from $5k to $10k to $15k annually to burn up the gas and car on the road.

 

[junkhound]

Travel.

Company wanted me to travel 4 weeks on, 2 weeks home.

TO Ft. Greely to get a power plant up and running at air base! November thru April!!
No thanks, decided to retire and re-hire in as a consultant.

One needs to work the travel aspect to your own advantage. In my mid 40s, both kids out of college, I would take month long out of town assignments and take wife along. That worked out well as company paid lodging, meals, and rental cars. Good way to see the country. Even some trips to England and France.

Gotta play the game to your own benefit - if you let someone take advantage of you, they will. OTOH, I did get some good promotions from being able and willing to trave to 'panic' jobs. Even some 2 week shipboard cruises in the North Pacific, but no wife on those. :ashamed1:

 

[brantmacga]

Is there really that much local or out of town work that gives the applicant this much leverage?

We cover five states; the answer is yes.

It has been my experience that these applicants, when hired, underwhelm more than impress. What should we then do when they fall short of our expectations (or their credentials!) when we pay them handsomely? The conversation is ethical? moral?

That’s a conversation I’ve had, but it’s rare. I’ve been at this long enough that I can catch BS in an interview. The short of it is, if you are made an offer based on a skill set you claim to have, and in fact do not have that skill, then we’re going to talk about that.

I guess what I'm getting at is I think the wages shouldn't change for going out of town.

This can totally depend on the job market in your town, but no one in their right mind is going to travel if they can make the same money and be home every night.

I don't feel like I should pay 30-40% more than what you are worth just because you sit in a chair behind the wheel for 6-8 hours on Monday and Friday.

If you can’t cover those costs in your bid, you can’t afford to hire people to travel.

Does homesickness warrant a huge increase in pay?

Yes, because they have no other reason to stay outside of making more money.

Our strategy is to hire across various regions so that we have people centered across our work areas. It makes the travel times much shorter, lowers the labor costs, and reduces employee turnover. Our furthest drive from the office is roughly 12 hours or so; it doesn’t make sense to load up a crew here and send them that far every week.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[petersonra]

For discussion purposes only, of course...

There are a vast quantity of wiremen who apply as "electricians" (cannot produce a card) and want to be paid at, what I consider to be project manager wages simply because the job description consists of going out of town every week. A local, card-carrying Journeyman doesn't make these wages. Is there really that much local or out of town work that gives the applicant this much leverage? It has been my experience that these applicants, when hired, underwhelm more than impress. What should we then do when they fall short of our expectations (or their credentials!) when we pay them handsomely? The conversation is ethical? moral? I guess what I'm getting at is I think the wages shouldn't change for going out of town. You get per diem and hotel and expense the rest. I don't feel like I should pay 30-40% more than what you are worth just because you sit in a chair behind the wheel for 6-8 hours on Monday and Friday. Does homesickness warrant a huge increase in pay? Am I cold? Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I never tried to leverage my position by the fact that I went out of town. I always presented my case for what I should earn based on my resume/experience. and before you judge me, this is coming from someone who has done it for many years, with a wife and little ones at home.
Like I said, fodder for discussion......

The idea of worth is related to supply and demand. If you want to convince someone to drive 2 hours each way everyday to a job site instead of working locally you have to make it worth his/her while. It is not always about money, but usually that is at least a big part of it.

If you do not want to pay someone to come into your area to work, than don't do it.

But don't expect them to work for you without getting something in return that they would not otherwise get.

 

[Fulthrotl]

Like I said, fodder for discussion......

well, I've Been Every Where, and part of that
is a result of I'm Broke Every Week, and there
isn't any work nearby.

the only reasons to travel are massive overtime,
active wants and warrants, and no other options.

doing it in a structured labor situation provides no
incentive beyond the locally negotiated agreement.

doing it as an agent of an out of area contractor, is
a whole 'nother thing. the last time i did that for someone,
was in the late 1980's, as a foreman for a local area
contractor. it was worth it at the time. in fact, it was great.

but, i had two jobs running at the same time. one in modesto,
and one in fresno. one on day shift, and one on swing shift.
they are located 100 miles apart.

get up at 5 am, drive 100 miles to fresno. work till 1pm.
drive 100 miles back to modesto, work till 1 am. sleep
in modesto till 5 am. drive to fresno, start work.....

six days a week. for five months. i was on the clock from
five am, to one am, six days a week. yes, i was compensated
well. 30 years later, i still wince when i remember what that
five months felt like.

i even had a theme song from that time. i'd listen to it a lot
driving up and down highway 99.

https://youtu.be/PjzkGKczRNY

 

[rambojoe]

modesto...water wealth contintment health... the ymca camp ive been affiliated with my whole life is up the hwy108... born in fremont but i lived a good stretch in empire- yosemite ave-ish... by the campbells food plant- good, er, times...

 

[electrofelon]

I think it depends, there isnt one answer. Many have said "why travel for same money if you can be home every night....." Well, several reasons..... For one, when you live in the Northeast, going down to Georgia for three weeks in January "for the same money" can start sounding pretty good. Also if its a situation where you are working 60-70 hours a week, thats a chunk of change in the end even if the hourly is the same. I travel from the East coast to Seattle often (self employed) and for me its not so much about how many hours I work, its how much I make during that 1.5-2 week trip. I am not very social and I am there to work not have fun so I work a lot of hours on these trips (in my case I do make more per hour there as well). When we were doing those solar projects down in Georgia, most of the guys would go, usually 3-4 week stints. I think they received the same wage, but probably got paid for travel and a per diem. Hotel was covered of course.