$ rates, Mike Sherman, Franz

[theonlybull]

the thing i hate, is when an engineer brings in a drafted sketch of something they want a price on. they leave out all but the most obvious details, fail to show important things on the drawing, and then expect you to give them a quote, and an explaination of how your going to make it work.... last time i check, it was my job to build from the blue prints, not form blue prints from a sketch so that it's clear what we are bidding on..

[Franz]

Go ahead and use the "Property of" statement, and make sure you put it on every **** page.
It won't take long till one of your customers inquires about it, and then you explain exactly why it's there, and that you WILL sue the **** out of anyone found to be using your intelectual property without paying you for it. Worst case, you'll be asked to write a lot less estimates.

This thread led to an interesting conversation today with my neighbor the engineer. He reminded me he had been charged $128- an hour for me sitting in a **** lawn chaise with a pair of binoculars, watching the climber installing antennas at the 160 foot level of a tower, and that he had also been charged for the stinkin chair. I reminded him he had been on the job for 3 days before I got there, and all he got was into trouble till I showed up. After I got there, the job was wrapped in a day, and all the problems were handled. I also asked him if we had billed for celular calls to the folks at Public Safety Communications, and when he told me he didn't think so, I told him I'll have Sue double check and bill him for those too. The look on his face was prescious. I also remionded him I gave the lawn chair to his wife after the job, with the proviso she'd let me borrow it for the next tower job I needed it on. Man. I sure hope it's warm when I have to do that again.
There is no shortage of sumbiches who figure they're entitled to free labor when it comes to "estimates" and I'm sure all them MBA jerks learn in college to get a handfull of "estimates" so they can save on engineering.

[theonlybull]

up here, we have the nova scotia safety construction association, they are a government funded safety watch kind of program. 5 years ago, eveyone had to become safety certified to work for any government agency in the provence, and most major industies. after a year or more of paper work, we gained our certification, and succeded in getting a few nice jobs working on the power dam's in the area.

last year, we we're asked to bid on a small railing job for a government building, and seeing that we are the only certified shop within a couple hours, we assumed it was pretty much a sure thing.. after a couple weeks, another shop's truck showed up at the site to do the job, so we made a few calls about them not being certified. we were told that " the government only has to play by the rules when it's a really big job. they don't worry about it for little things like this" shafted, once again.

franz,, i like your idea about listing you plans and bid's as property of your own, do you mind if we started applying that same principal to our designs?? we've been stung a few times too many by lazy engineers

[cutter]

licenses & bids

Franz, Mike, Echo & S,

I am still chuckling over your comments about those estimates & such. I am a little one-man show repair business specializing in rent property or in other words, a glorified "maintenance man". I ran my last Thrifty Nickle ad & handed out my last business card well over ten years ago, don't have any kind of telephone listing other than name & phone number & no truck door sign or nuthin.
The ****ed public nearly drove me nuts wanting free estimates back when I still had that little ad running; I figured they were wasting at least 1/3 of my time mostly to get an idea of how to deal with an insurance adjuster or to use as a bargaining tool with some other contractor they had already lined up. The very worst came when a realtor I knew asked me for a bid on a pretty extensive patch job on a rundown old house for the biggest bank in town. I had done a fair amount of work for her so I assumed it was legitimate & I spent the better part of 3 days working up a detailed written estimate (my last). I even got a painter I knew to estimate painting & re-glazing on a bunch of rotten old multi-pane casement windows. About a week after I handed the bid in
the gal called me to apologize; she said the bank asked her to make a real point of telling me how much they appreciated the detailed estimate because "it really did help them keep their guy straight". Sonsa*****es, it tickled me when they went broke & got gobbled up by one of those big holding companies. And that poor old painter has looked at me funny ever since. The realtor was so embarrassed that she never called me again.

But I got a call from a property manager off that last printed ad; he picked me because of that little caricature that I use for my avatar. He was managing about 120 properties at the time & had to find a replacement for the guy he'd been using for 11 years on account of he was retiring. We went over his requirements & what kind of repairs I could & would handle for him & I left his office with a handful of keys & a job list. Over the years I have picked up some work from a couple of other managers & acquired a few pet customers but usually have to decline if I get any other calls; I do make a sincere effort to help those folks find someone else to do their work & I think that pays off. Now, that first guy has doubled the size of his business and hired my youngest daughter to manage it for him so he could semi-retire & take off in his motorhome or work on his own houses. The demand for repairs is now way more than I want to do so she's had to dig up a young fellow who's just starting out & even talked my son into going into competition with me.
She & her office staff have taken to consulting with me about who should do which jobs & that has allowed me to pretty much get first choice & pass along the heavy lifting to the boys.

Obviously I could have hired my own crew over the years & built a pretty nice little business out of this but I have a real revulsion for doing paperwork & collecting sales taxes for the state or rendering unto the federal caesars. The only license I have ever held was a hairdresser's back in the 60's & 70's & what a bad joke that was. The way I see it licenses & permits are just a way of attracting unwelcome attention from more tax collectors. I don't mind acquiring the skills & education but I ain't taking the test or otherwise ruining my carefully maintained low profile. I have no doubt this attitude has cost me considerable money but it's also kept me out of jail and made me a reasonable living most of the time.

[Franz]

Licenses, there's a sore subject in NY. The ******* politicians have *****d every possible form of license into a way of filling their **** treasurys.
State licenses in some areas of work, all administered by people incapable of speaking English. Of course, Spanish might be the language of choice down around the Rottin Apple, but I'm 8 hours from there, and no habla bull****.
Electricians Licenses are issued by the City, $500- every 3 years, and are only required to do new service work in the City itself. Every friggin idiot with a box of Romex, a pad of NEBS proposals and a van is an electrician here. Of course, they're fully qualified, they have a romex ripper and 3 screw drivers.
I only hold MSHA electrician's papers, and flat refuse to pay the **** politicians for a license. IF I ever do another service inthe **** City, highly unlikely since the City is rapidly closing down, I can get at least 6 guys to sign the application and free coffy while they sign it.
I see office buildings that are 8 floors high being wired with romex and subfeed cable, and the **** inspectors sign off on that, why in **** would I waste my time bidding against that kind of crap work. Then, they have the ***** to call me and ask if they can borrow a hydraulic bender that costs over 6 grand. Sure, what the ****, I'm a complete fool, why wouldn't I buy tools just so I can loan them to people who loball a bid cause they have no friggin overhead.
One of my best jobs for the last year has been for an engineering firm my neighbor is a partner in. They were doing a lot of installs for a celular carrier, and had neither the manpower or aptitude to do the jobs. After watching and dealing with the celular people it amazes me when the **** things work. The antenna engineers don't know squat beyond the antenna, and the transmitter people only know transmitters, same with the tower people and the siting people. They all rely on the installing company, who is actually run by a surveyor, who knows nothing about phones or electronics. Fortunately, he's my neighbor, and his checks make a one way trip to the bank. I can make half a dozen phone calls and accomplish what his firm has been working on for 2 weeks, and I get well paid for making phone calls. I also get to help out some of my buddys who need work.
Echo, you forgot your major qualification for your job, Water Boy. At least 2/3 of the mail I get has my job title, "water boy" on the outside of the envelope.

[echo8287]

S & Franz,I am "Owner","President","Estimator",Bill Collector",Head Worker",Trash Collector",etc. We (I mean I) don't give out free estimates anymore,got screwed way too many times. Nowdays its more of, give out no more info than possible and I want to be paid this way and on that day. These SOB's nowdays take forever to pay up and want it done yesterday. I don't do financing,and if they think I do, they know I don't when they receive the bill. I get 90% of the work, by word of mouth and I am also well known where I live. The woods are full of Jack Legs and they know if they want things done right and backed up they call and most don't ask price. I charge everyone the same with the exception of assholes. S a well known man around here (who is a dairy farm consultant(also president of local electric company) called me to put in 3 panels,wire an air compressor(IR),re- pipe his well house(wiring,lights,filters) for his dairy and some other stuff. I charged him $75.00/hour (Me and a helper,at the time I didn't know what he charged for consulting) it took like 27 hours and he was appalled at the price. (This guy is worth millions). He told me I didn't deserve $75.00 and hour, because thats what he charged for consulting. I replied I hold a Master Plumbers license,a Master Electrician's license,a Low voltage license,a BS in Chemistry and I've been doing this type work for 20 years,Now what kind of a license do you have to have to be a Dairy Farm Consultant? He stated in the future he would have to do the electrical work himself, he couldn't wire up a 3 way switch one day while we were there working. David

[Sberry]

I am well known in my town also,, for several reasons, some good, some bad. Am the only person to launch a maple tree stump from behind the backstop to deep center field and to get the whole first floor of the courthouse evacuated without getting arrested. ha

[Franz]

S I got a real bad reputation in this town cause I have printed on every page of every proposal that the document and all intilectual property therein are mine, and may only be used for the purpose I intend. I started puttin that on right after I did a 20 page proposal for the **** Zoo, and they took a MagicMarker to it, and copied it so they could use it as an RFQ. That pissed me off! It's one thing to bid on a job that is speced out, and totally another to develope a spec and have the customer use my work to seek a cheap price.
I only had one fool who tried the stunt after that, and the lawyer had a ball with him and brought me a nice chunk of money. As I recall, I not only collected for developing the spec, but also for what I projected to be the profits on the job.
Now, as far as the consulting thing goes, Sue just loves it when I do that, cause it bills out at a lot higher rate than when I actually do work. She does get on my *** though about puttin 2 of them little envelopes of coffy in the machine at the office.
Back in the 80s, we had this neat Polaroid camera that made up ID cards, and we got a bit creative with job titles. Thing was, I had to keep a log of what job description I was filling on 5 different jobs scattered from Albany to Buffalo.

[Sberry]

I am thinking I am going to call myself a consultant. Then I dont have to bid it for free. Hey, if you line up the work I certainly would be glad to give you and Rocky the 0.25 an hour.

[Franz]

Now S you know dang good & well us professional agents get a comission on every hour, not just the first one. Yer just lucky ole WestCoast RockyD didn't hop on as your business manager and claim a cut too. Must be he's tied up helpin Arnold run CaliFOOEY cause he's been awful quiet lately.
Ya know if you could just convince people yer an instrumentation technician, and hang one of them photo ID tags around yer neck on an old dog leash you could bill $87.73 an hour portal to portal. I gotta sweettalk Sue into givin me one of them photo ID things that says I'm a supervising instrumentation technician, then I can sit on my *** and collect a fortune to give the **** government.

[Sberry]

When I officially get started I will send the commission from the first hour.

[Franz]

Actually S, you only made $2.32 more, you forgot my comission as your agent.
For your convenience, I do take PayPal.

[Sberry]

Thanks guys, We have pretty fair union here and when I had a real job I was a union Ironworker and did a stint as a pipe weldor on a nuke plant. I used to bid a fair amount of work but have been out of the loop for a while but am considering putting the hat in the ring again and really wanted to before the economy heated up again but have been bogged down with several of my own projects I was trying to finish so I wasnt fighting on 2 fronts at once. I did a fair amount of work in the oil field for a few years but it was mostly by the hour. I was wondering mostly what basis to bid on and this helps some. According to Franz's guidelines my rates just went from 60$ to 62.58,,, ha, I just made 2.58 more on the first job,, hahahaha

[Mike Sherman]

I have been in business since the 80's and I believe that geography will play a huge roll in the prices you charge. Included in that is how strong of a presence the union has in your area. 99% of all of my work is bid. I do not encourage time and material jobs, they are not generally profitable as the hourly rate in my area is too low. Union companies in my area charge between $55 and $65.00 per hour for welding / fabrication. Non-union charges are $45 to $55 depending on whether it is a scheduled day job or an "overtime" job. A truck with standard equipment is not an extra charge, manlifts, forklifts and anything I have to trailer in is extra. There is alot that goes into bidding a job and experience is the only way you will learn. If you are getting $60.00 per hour, you are doing okay. It is entirely possible to make a good living without gouging the customer. By the same token, I do not ever give anything away for free.

[theonlybull]

our rates are as follows, for nova scotia canada, all in canadian funds.

at the shop:
machine work/labour (anything but welding) $45/hr
welding $50/hr
alum. welding $60/hr
sandblasting $60/hr, or $50/hr plus sand

all work with our mobile truck $60/hr
trucking (5th wheel float and half ton truck) $60/hr

the worst is, the car dealers around here (gm, ford etc...) are getting $50-60/hr for mechanics, but ppl complain that we are expensive ....