- Location
- Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
- Occupation
- Service Manager
Re: Use Main Breaker or Backfeed on Subpanel?
For me, the problem is that in order for the customer to "like me" I communicate a concept: It's as easy to get what they want the first time, as it is for me to fudge in what I expect to install.
When I hear "Can you wire these lights to operate this particular way..." or something along those lines, I say, "Anything is possible, within the confines of the code."
"We can do anything you'd like."
"Can do."
"No problem."
"Of course."
"Would you prefer this, or that?"
This attitude changes when it comes to the trim, and they ask, "Can these lights be made to come on with these others" or something like that, when it's too late. They asked for a configuration at the rough, and are changing their mind. When we jump backflips at the rough "for free or close to it", then we walk away from the rough feeling as though it's perfect.
At the rough, my flexibility based on their whimsy was essentially free, as long as the wire hadn't actually been pulled yet. Now, there is no going back without a serious charge, and that catches some off-guard. And what was perfect is now flawed. It's easy for us to believe that the customer feels that we screwed up: now you can't bend to whimsy. You can't work the miracles you subliminally engrained in them you could work at rough time.
When the job is small, the events are large in scale; an extra stands out like a sore thumb and is easily explained.
When the job is a large home with countless details and decisions and many of them verbal, many of them undocumented, it becomes exponentially difficult to track and charge them, much less explain them all away.
On a home I am currently working on, I'm probably a couple days overdue. My boss will expect a list of changes to justify it. When it comes down to lack of scheduling, schedule compressing to get inspections before the house is complete, lighting issues (with the customer's lighting company - whom we also deal with, so their mistakes look like we're both at fault for their mistakes)....
...breath...
...appliances the customer might have known about the entire time, but never informed us about, cabinets where no normal human would have cabinets...
...the list becomes so oppressive and so intermixed as to liability and time involved and whatnot, how do we proceed?
Do you say, "I blew it," or "It was just a bad house," to the boss and forget the paperwork?
Do you say "Stick it to them," and bill for every conversation, every little item that sucked an hour from the house you'll never retrieve? How do you bill for the added time in tripping over materials all over the place while you were trying to work?
As it is, I'll be writing and pondering a remembering every little detail, trying to attach a time to it, and find that when I present the customer with the list I need to present to my boss, I will get shot, cursed, and hated.
That's my rant.
Respect your electrician, he's probably got an ulcer on your account.
For me, the problem is that in order for the customer to "like me" I communicate a concept: It's as easy to get what they want the first time, as it is for me to fudge in what I expect to install.
When I hear "Can you wire these lights to operate this particular way..." or something along those lines, I say, "Anything is possible, within the confines of the code."
"We can do anything you'd like."
"Can do."
"No problem."
"Of course."
"Would you prefer this, or that?"
This attitude changes when it comes to the trim, and they ask, "Can these lights be made to come on with these others" or something like that, when it's too late. They asked for a configuration at the rough, and are changing their mind. When we jump backflips at the rough "for free or close to it", then we walk away from the rough feeling as though it's perfect.
At the rough, my flexibility based on their whimsy was essentially free, as long as the wire hadn't actually been pulled yet. Now, there is no going back without a serious charge, and that catches some off-guard. And what was perfect is now flawed. It's easy for us to believe that the customer feels that we screwed up: now you can't bend to whimsy. You can't work the miracles you subliminally engrained in them you could work at rough time.
When the job is small, the events are large in scale; an extra stands out like a sore thumb and is easily explained.
When the job is a large home with countless details and decisions and many of them verbal, many of them undocumented, it becomes exponentially difficult to track and charge them, much less explain them all away.
On a home I am currently working on, I'm probably a couple days overdue. My boss will expect a list of changes to justify it. When it comes down to lack of scheduling, schedule compressing to get inspections before the house is complete, lighting issues (with the customer's lighting company - whom we also deal with, so their mistakes look like we're both at fault for their mistakes)....
...breath...
...appliances the customer might have known about the entire time, but never informed us about, cabinets where no normal human would have cabinets...
...the list becomes so oppressive and so intermixed as to liability and time involved and whatnot, how do we proceed?
Do you say, "I blew it," or "It was just a bad house," to the boss and forget the paperwork?
Do you say "Stick it to them," and bill for every conversation, every little item that sucked an hour from the house you'll never retrieve? How do you bill for the added time in tripping over materials all over the place while you were trying to work?
As it is, I'll be writing and pondering a remembering every little detail, trying to attach a time to it, and find that when I present the customer with the list I need to present to my boss, I will get shot, cursed, and hated.
That's my rant.
Respect your electrician, he's probably got an ulcer on your account.
