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Plumbing can be hard work. Being on your back / knees for hours at a time day after will end up getting to you. Also, it sounds like your doing some of the mo

Plumbing can be hard work. Being on your back / knees for hours at a time day after will end up getting to you. Also, it sounds like your doing some of the more reasonably easy plumbing. Things are a bit more complex when you have to do things like figure out how to maximize water pressure after N different horrendous bend angles, etc. If you think of it in terms of software engineering, the plumbing you've probably done is probably through intermediate software work. You've set up some CRUD apps at this point (in the plumbing world). There's a reason plumbing is a trade and a craft...it can get very complex and the time they're charging to fix a trivial flush valve on a toilet could just as easily be spent on a commercial plumbing gig with some corporate client who is paying the plumber to set up every toilet in a small hotel (for example).

hippich 12y ago
I expected this argument, but could not expand my post because of 2000 characters limit. More often than not I do not need anything complex (like high pressure gas piping) And ask you plumber to "plumb" CRUD app in a evening after watching couple youtube videos and try to plumb PVC piping and see what is easier. I am not talking about commercial anything. I am talking about very simple household stuff. All this practice/license/etc arguments are not really valid since it takes significant practice to be a good developer too.
arethuza 12y ago
So why not stick to the CRUD apps of the plumbing world and focus on customer service and marketing? Even something simple like giving customers a time when you will turn up and actually turning up near that time would put you ahead of 95% of tradesmen I have used. I'd love to have a plumber, or roofer who took a few moments to take some pics of the work they'd done and uploaded it to a website so I could see what they've done and check progress - I'd pay more for that.... [NB We've had some awful experiences with plumbers - including phoning the police on one particularly awful outfit]
keithg 12y ago
In addition to being physically hard work, you need to get out and go to the job site. That incurs overhead in the form of fewer billable hours per day. So if you're 30 minutes to/from a 1 hour job, your rate is effectively cut by 1/3. I'll add that it's pretty comfy sitting on a soft chair in an air conditioned or heated office to work.
- XorNot 12y ago
  I ran straight into this when I was doing chemistry lab demonstrating last year. The job pays pretty well for what's asked of you...but since I wasn't actually at uni at the time, it meant I had about 1.5 hours of commute for a 2 hour lab period where I got paid. Which made the rate far more ordinary. Still doing the same thing this coming semester, but since I'll be an undergrad and it'll run straight to classes, the value proposition is much better.
timrichard 12y ago
> Being on your back / knees for hours at a time day after will end up getting to you. Maybe that's more of an AskHN for the adult entertainment business....

hippich 12y ago

I expected this argument, but could not expand my post because of 2000 characters limit. More often than not I do not need anything complex (like high pressure gas piping) And ask you plumber to "plumb" CRUD app in a evening after watching couple youtube videos and try to plumb PVC piping and see what is easier. I am not talking about commercial anything. I am talking about very simple household stuff. All this practice/license/etc arguments are not really valid since it takes significant practice to be a good developer too.

arethuza 12y ago

So why not stick to the CRUD apps of the plumbing world and focus on customer service and marketing? Even something simple like giving customers a time when you will turn up and actually turning up near that time would put you ahead of 95% of tradesmen I have used. I'd love to have a plumber, or roofer who took a few moments to take some pics of the work they'd done and uploaded it to a website so I could see what they've done and check progress - I'd pay more for that.... [NB We've had some awful experiences with plumbers - including phoning the police on one particularly awful outfit]

keithg 12y ago

In addition to being physically hard work, you need to get out and go to the job site. That incurs overhead in the form of fewer billable hours per day. So if you're 30 minutes to/from a 1 hour job, your rate is effectively cut by 1/3. I'll add that it's pretty comfy sitting on a soft chair in an air conditioned or heated office to work.

XorNot 12y ago
I ran straight into this when I was doing chemistry lab demonstrating last year. The job pays pretty well for what's asked of you...but since I wasn't actually at uni at the time, it meant I had about 1.5 hours of commute for a 2 hour lab period where I got paid. Which made the rate far more ordinary. Still doing the same thing this coming semester, but since I'll be an undergrad and it'll run straight to classes, the value proposition is much better.

timrichard 12y ago

> Being on your back / knees for hours at a time day after will end up getting to you. Maybe that's more of an AskHN for the adult entertainment business....