In reply to Toyman! :
That's a whole school of bidding. Get fewer jobs from the uninformed, naive or desperate at astronomical margins. Buy lots of advertising to counteract the lousy word-of-mouth and low close rate.
In reply to Toyman! :
That's a whole school of bidding. Get fewer jobs from the uninformed, naive or desperate at astronomical margins. Buy lots of advertising to counteract the lousy word-of-mouth and low close rate.
Toyman! said:In reply to Duke :
Charging that much for a common part that is listed on the internet is just stupid. That's how you lose the customers who are willing to pay extra for quality work.
Yup. I would have (more or less) happily paid $500 to have that $100 part delivered and installed at 7:00 pm on a 25dF winter's night, even plus the $150 base charge.
But $1200 for literally 15 minutes of on-site labor I can do myself with a Phillips screwdriver? Not only did you permanently lose a potential customer, but I'm going to recommend against you to anyone who cares.
We just lost the same employee for the second time. We made special concessions to accommodate his return because his skills and experience were really valuable to us, and he left because he couldn't muster the humility to keep his attitude in check and just do the work. Not only did he leave us with all the work he would have been doing, he insulted our clients, and then chapped some personal relationships pretty badly on the way out the door.
Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way...
So let's talk about the florida keys and how they can go berkeley themselves....all of em. So I'm down south for the Nascar race tomorrow and wr thought hey...let's go check out Key West. Worst...idea...ever.... (said in comic book guy voice). We took the sonic and the roads are absolutely horrible, we got to listen to tires rubbing fenders and struts bouncing off the bump stops for hours with a nice lil bonus of the front bumper dragging on the ground a bunch. So E36 M3 driving aside we could not find a parking spot because half the town's roads were closed die to some event. I drove past that southern most point bouy thing and there was a line three blocks long of people waiting to take a picture with it. So my daughter, my wife, and myself decide that there is no reason to keep looking for a parking spot so let's just go back to Florida City where our hotel is. So the drive out was like running a autox on a track dodging craters, potholes, and dips in the road for 2 and a half hours until we get back in real Florida and start hearing a clicking noise on the turnpike. I was gifted with a flat tire so I go to put the spare on and it doesn't clear the ends of the studs poking thru the wheel spacer. So I tighten it as much as I can and drove super slow to some lil hole in the wall tire shop that patched my tire for me. I just now got back to the hotel and I left Tampa at 4am, moral of those story is if you are going to the keys you need to drive a big 4x4 but you should never go to the keys so just keep driving whatever you want. Anyone else gonna be at the Nascar race tomorrow?
In reply to DarkMonohue :
We fired a shipping guy with a bad attitude. We needed someone a year later and he was available - we humbled ourselves and talked to him and he was interested in coming back.
Except he gave us a bunch of ultimatums- one was if we ever fired him again we would automatically cut him a six month severance check.
We walked away......what were we thinking?
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
It's pretty frustrating. Our guy is highly skilled and very capable at his chosen profession, but for whatever reason, also a total primadonna.
I hate MacPherson Struts.
In reply to RonnieFnD :
See, the problem was that you were driving a Sonic. The roads in Florida are maintained to a level assuming everyone is either driving a Grand Marquis or some lifted pickup.
The last time we were in the Keys was when I proposed to Mrs VCH...12 years ago. That was a great trip, but it sounds like they've become like the employees being mentioned here lately, in that they know how awesome they are and expect you to love them no matter what.
DarkMonohue said:In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
It's pretty frustrating. Our guy is highly skilled and very capable at his chosen profession, but for whatever reason, also a total primadonna.
We have a guy like that in our shop. He's now claiming that the laser cutting machines cause burns on his skin and he can't go anywhere near them. So he's restricted himself to about half the plant but won't work on anything in that area. I'm not sure what he does, but if he keeps it up, he won't have to worry about it soon, he's slowly working his way out of a job.
Duke said:Toyman! said:In reply to Duke :
Charging that much for a common part that is listed on the internet is just stupid. That's how you lose the customers who are willing to pay extra for quality work.
Yup. I would have (more or less) happily paid $500 to have that $100 part delivered and installed at 7:00 pm on a 25dF winter's night, even plus the $150 base charge.
But $1200 for literally 15 minutes of on-site labor I can do myself with a Phillips screwdriver? Not only did you permanently lose a potential customer, but I'm going to recommend against you to anyone who cares.
A friend of mine with whom I work had a similar experience with the local HVAC people a year or so ago. Either "the" or "a" capacitor failed on his AC condenser so he called one of the larger locally-owned outfits. They rolled a truck, and as a diagnostic put a capacitor on it that they had in the truck which got everything running again. At that point, they told him it was something like $300-$400 for the service call and diagnosis and if they wanted him to leave the capacitor on there it would be an additional $800 or something. He had them remove the capacitor, paid them the $300-$400 and then bought a Genteq (or whatever the GE brand is) capacitor from Amazon for under $50 and swapped it out when it came in a day or two. He would have happily paid $400-$500 for the full service, but $1,100-$1,200 is just extortion.
I don't begrudge them for needing to make a buck at all, but charging 16x for a part is unconscionable. The expertise and the ability to stock and roll a truck in a matter of a few hours is worth the $400 for sure. But $750 to cover GP and having the part in stock is insane. Of course there are plenty of people that will just shrug and pay the man because they aren't willing to take the time to educate themselves. A bunch of our mutual coworkers reacted to the story with amazement that he was able to go and find the part and put it in. They said things like "woah, how in the world did you figure out how to do that!?" and "How did you know where to look to try to find that part?". It's like they've never heard of Google before. That kind of learned helplessness just drives me nuts.
It's understandable that someone would say that they don't have the time or the inclination to get a multimeter and open up the access hatch on their condenser unit and figure out why it's not running. But unless you're making about 3.1 mil a year, it's worth doing a 5 minute search on the Internet, 10 minutes to watch a YouTube video, and 15 minutes to swap out a cap to save the $750 bucks.
Recon1342 said:I hate MacPherson Struts.
MacPherson struts are not too bad, but Chapman struts suck. 
(MacPherson struts were named after the Ford engineer who figured out a good way to make the front of cars a lot lighter and require less steel. Chapman struts are named after the guy at Lotus who realized you could do that in the rear suspension, too)
Ford Falcons look like they were designed around using struts, then they decided that looked too expensive, let's use upper control arms anyway. The chassis twist issues will be apparent long after they trade the car in for a new one.
Peabody said:DarkMonohue said:In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
It's pretty frustrating. Our guy is highly skilled and very capable at his chosen profession, but for whatever reason, also a total primadonna.
We have a guy like that in our shop. He's now claiming that the laser cutting machines cause burns on his skin and he can't go anywhere near them. So he's restricted himself to about half the plant but won't work on anything in that area. I'm not sure what he does, but if he keeps it up, he won't have to worry about it soon, he's slowly working his way out of a job.
I'd think that if there were lasers escaping the machines capable of burning skin that would be a massive eye hazard as well and should be detectable through testing?
Reminds me of the story of a silicon valley tech bro who decided he was "electrosensitive" after visiting Green Bank, WV.
I hope a bunch of apartments get built up around Miami Homestead track, people complain about the noise, they bulldoze the track, and more apartments get built in its place.
In reply to RonnieFnD :
I always enjoy Homestead races...
I had my first chance at getting a rental EV, but the place I am staying at has no chargers for night time charging. I had to wait for 30 mins to get an ICE car. Would have been nice to try a week in an EV.
Why do the races at Goodwood look so much better than current F1? The USGP put me to sleep faster than golf.
Replaced the radiator on the RX-7 and now the water pump is weeping. It was replaced 5 years ago when I did the radiator hoses and the bearing started whining. Seems like aftermarket pumps don't like being dry for a second.
Maybe I should've just went with an OEM one, but at least it's pretty easy to replace.
preach said:I had my first chance at getting a rental EV, but the place I am staying at has no chargers for night time charging. I had to wait for 30 mins to get an ICE car. Would have been nice to try a week in an EV.
I did that even with no charger. I was there a week. No problem.
I already pay too much for your E36 M3ty streaming services, now you want to put in ads and go back to a weekly episode release format? What do you think you are, cable?
Gonna have to do a lot better than 1 good show or movie a year if you want me to keep paying, TPB is still active after all.
I had a headache last night. Of course, I'm a connoisseur of headaches, but this one? Ooooh, zero to suck-start a shotgun bad on lest than 30 minutes. I've never had one hit me this hard this fast. I'm surprised I didn't scoop out my eyeballs.
wae said:Duke said:Toyman! said:In reply to Duke :
Charging that much for a common part that is listed on the internet is just stupid. That's how you lose the customers who are willing to pay extra for quality work.
Yup. I would have (more or less) happily paid $500 to have that $100 part delivered and installed at 7:00 pm on a 25dF winter's night, even plus the $150 base charge.
But $1200 for literally 15 minutes of on-site labor I can do myself with a Phillips screwdriver? Not only did you permanently lose a potential customer, but I'm going to recommend against you to anyone who cares.
A friend of mine with whom I work had a similar experience with the local HVAC people a year or so ago. Either "the" or "a" capacitor failed on his AC condenser so he called one of the larger locally-owned outfits. They rolled a truck, and as a diagnostic put a capacitor on it that they had in the truck which got everything running again. At that point, they told him it was something like $300-$400 for the service call and diagnosis and if they wanted him to leave the capacitor on there it would be an additional $800 or something. He had them remove the capacitor, paid them the $300-$400 and then bought a Genteq (or whatever the GE brand is) capacitor from Amazon for under $50 and swapped it out when it came in a day or two. He would have happily paid $400-$500 for the full service, but $1,100-$1,200 is just extortion.
I don't begrudge them for needing to make a buck at all, but charging 16x for a part is unconscionable. The expertise and the ability to stock and roll a truck in a matter of a few hours is worth the $400 for sure. But $750 to cover GP and having the part in stock is insane. Of course there are plenty of people that will just shrug and pay the man because they aren't willing to take the time to educate themselves. A bunch of our mutual coworkers reacted to the story with amazement that he was able to go and find the part and put it in. They said things like "woah, how in the world did you figure out how to do that!?" and "How did you know where to look to try to find that part?". It's like they've never heard of Google before. That kind of learned helplessness just drives me nuts.
It's understandable that someone would say that they don't have the time or the inclination to get a multimeter and open up the access hatch on their condenser unit and figure out why it's not running. But unless you're making about 3.1 mil a year, it's worth doing a 5 minute search on the Internet, 10 minutes to watch a YouTube video, and 15 minutes to swap out a cap to save the $750 bucks.
HVAC companies seem to be the worst. My unit eats the capacitor every year or so. I keep one on the shelf now.
My father just got an estimate to replace one of his units for $13k. I can buy the unit, precharged, with the line kit for $4900. It should take about a day to install and that will save him $8100.
I'm going to do the same when I replace mine. The unit is $3500 and installation really isn't rocket science.
In reply to Toyman! :
My rant is that I fully agree with you. I need to call the local community college and see if I can't get them to recommend someone who doesn't bilk us. We've been using window units since 2018 and I'm tired of it.
2008 Cadillac SRX. You have to take the bumper cover off and the fender liners loose to replace a headlight bulb. piflE36 M3.
volvoclearinghouse said:I was tuning dual SU's on the Amazon LeMons car last night. When I came in the house about 10PM I saw a text from Wife reminding me we had two littles trying to sleep upstairs (while I was ensuring the engine revv'd smoothly throughout the RPM range). I wondered how she thought I was going to hear my phone notifications over all that noise.
This (and a lack of true AWD) is my only real complaint about The Dancer's '22 Colorado WT- in the summer, she has the air on ridiculously high most of the time such that I shut the vents on the driver's side when I'm driving (which, if I'm in it, is about 99% of the time). In the winter she cranks the heat up, and there's less that I can do about that since it's not possible to shut off the lower vents that I'm aware of. And when it happens the most (on the sometimes 11-hour drives up North we do over the Holidays), it's even worse since on longer drives like that I tend to have taken my shoes/boots off so my feet are more comfortable but she'll still be wearing her insulated boots. So she'll crank the head up because her feet are cold but it takes forever for them to warm up since the insulation in the boots is working against her- while my feet are absolutely roasting because of the hot air baking my feet in nothing but socks.
If/When we replace her truck, we will be getting something with dual-zone climate control. It's already kind of laughable that the only drivable vehicle we have at the moment that doesn't have a climate control system where you set the temperature you want vs. it just blasting until you get too hot/cold and turn it down is the 1-year-old Colorado while my two 20-year-old vehicles (the QX4 and 330CI) both have thermostat-set climate control (and heated seats).
50ish year old guy at work passed away. No details yet - dang this week is going suck.
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