5 ms·

im a plumber, not working right now due to a fami.ly illness but, i usually end my day by cleaning all the shit i had to roll around in all day, litterally fece

im a plumber, not working right now due to a fami.ly illness but, i usually end my day by cleaning all the shit i had to roll around in all day, litterally feces, human excrement . im nothing but a turd herder . when i look at it that way with you in your nice clean office and my work is either on the roof of your building or its underneath or outside in areas you probably would not want to spend 8-10 hrs a day, i think i want to charge even more(i should have been an office worker)

hippich 12y ago
can you pick what you do? If no - why?
- jacquesm 12y ago
  No. Because he wants to feed his family. (I don't pretend to speak for the OP but you have a very naive view of what it is like to be a tradesman that wants to stay in business for more than 3 months. Hint: you take the work you can get at hopefully a price where you make enough money that if there is a lull in business you can still survive. Then there's taxes, tools, breakage, late payers, non-payers and so on, it's not exactly a joyride compared to being a desk-jockey.)
  - hippich 12y ago
    computer software freelance have all the same issues (i would argue even more with unpaying clients since there is less physical contact involved often) And you answer is counterintuitive - if they have to take all jobs - then there should be pressure from market to drive prices down. In practice I had to go through many guys/companies to get someone same day in my house to estimate work, and two weeks from estimate when they actually would start and they still charge tons of money in my opinion.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Freelance software is a ton easier than freelance plumbing. But don't take my word for it, and please prove I'm wrong. The market is not 100% efficient, not for freelance plumbers and not for software people. One thing I do know: if I call a plumber and he turns me down for job 'a' I won't be calling him ever for job 'b' (which he might have gladly accepted). You build relationships with people that get the job done, not with people that are afraid to get their hands (literally) dirty.
      - hippich 12y ago
        What is there would be a place where all skilled professional would post offers to do work and describe what kind of work they do. One type of work per account/post or something. And feedbacks and rate for this type of work. So if you had broken off outside AC discharge pipe, you could hire Joe with 5 stars for doing exact this level of work for $25/hr, but once you got problem with busted sewer pipe somewhere under your house you could only find Dan with team of 5 people who deal with only that kind of serious problems for $300/hr for whole team. In such artificial scenario, would you hire both in different situations or you still would go with more expensive Dan and his team? If you answer would be former, then it is inefficient market.
        jacquesm 12y ago
        Not that simple. Customer relations are not price only affairs. If you already hired Dan for the sewer job you'll hire him again for the broken off outside AC discharge pipe because you have a relationship with Dan. And Joe will now have to 'bust' that relationship in order to even get a chance. So until Dan is unavailable (says 'no' to some job you want him to do), ill, dead on a holiday or otherwise indisposed it is very likely that the 'plumber' entry on the phone of the customer will contain Dan's number. And that will be the first person to call in case of trouble. This is known as mind-share for bigger brands and for smaller relationships like these it is best described using the dutch word 'gunnen' for which I still haven't found a good English translation.

hippich 12y ago

can you pick what you do? If no - why?

jacquesm 12y ago
No. Because he wants to feed his family. (I don't pretend to speak for the OP but you have a very naive view of what it is like to be a tradesman that wants to stay in business for more than 3 months. Hint: you take the work you can get at hopefully a price where you make enough money that if there is a lull in business you can still survive. Then there's taxes, tools, breakage, late payers, non-payers and so on, it's not exactly a joyride compared to being a desk-jockey.)
- hippich 12y ago
  computer software freelance have all the same issues (i would argue even more with unpaying clients since there is less physical contact involved often) And you answer is counterintuitive - if they have to take all jobs - then there should be pressure from market to drive prices down. In practice I had to go through many guys/companies to get someone same day in my house to estimate work, and two weeks from estimate when they actually would start and they still charge tons of money in my opinion.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Freelance software is a ton easier than freelance plumbing. But don't take my word for it, and please prove I'm wrong. The market is not 100% efficient, not for freelance plumbers and not for software people. One thing I do know: if I call a plumber and he turns me down for job 'a' I won't be calling him ever for job 'b' (which he might have gladly accepted). You build relationships with people that get the job done, not with people that are afraid to get their hands (literally) dirty.
    - hippich 12y ago
      What is there would be a place where all skilled professional would post offers to do work and describe what kind of work they do. One type of work per account/post or something. And feedbacks and rate for this type of work. So if you had broken off outside AC discharge pipe, you could hire Joe with 5 stars for doing exact this level of work for $25/hr, but once you got problem with busted sewer pipe somewhere under your house you could only find Dan with team of 5 people who deal with only that kind of serious problems for $300/hr for whole team. In such artificial scenario, would you hire both in different situations or you still would go with more expensive Dan and his team? If you answer would be former, then it is inefficient market.
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        Not that simple. Customer relations are not price only affairs. If you already hired Dan for the sewer job you'll hire him again for the broken off outside AC discharge pipe because you have a relationship with Dan. And Joe will now have to 'bust' that relationship in order to even get a chance. So until Dan is unavailable (says 'no' to some job you want him to do), ill, dead on a holiday or otherwise indisposed it is very likely that the 'plumber' entry on the phone of the customer will contain Dan's number. And that will be the first person to call in case of trouble. This is known as mind-share for bigger brands and for smaller relationships like these it is best described using the dutch word 'gunnen' for which I still haven't found a good English translation.