"Lol Well then I'll just get in my car and drive away then."

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That's what I said to my friend when he estimated a budget at $100. Lol nah, I'm not gonna do this work for $100. (Someone might have, but not me right now.)

He phoned me while I was out doing something else and said he had a job for me to do taping a couple of joints at some mansion he's doing the flooring in - and it has to be done like Right Now because the tile setter is already where and the contractor didn't realize those joints wouldn't be hidden by tiles. Ok, I'll do it. I grab my tools and drop what I'm doing for another friend, go buy material, and arrive in under an hour. Looked at the scope of the job, asked him if the contractor (who I've met before and is notoriously cheap) had any idea of a budget for the work he wanted done.

My friend says "I dunno, like a hundred bucks."
Me: "Lol Well then I'll just get in my car and drive away then."
He looks at me.. well how long will it take you to do it?
Me: It's not about how long it will take to do it, it's what it's worth. I dropped what I was doing and have to have $70 worth of material (although only used $15 worth, but still have to buy 3 different things) And the skills to do this.. rush job Right Now costs money for service Right Now. Tell him I'll do it for $250. He agrees to bill him $250.

I do the first stage of the work and set my heater and two fans to let it dry up a bit so I can put a coat of mud over it as per the 1 coat job they wanted done & then they'll finish it from there. He says leave the fans/heater overnight to dry everything and pick them up tmw - that way they know for sure everything will be dry overnight so they can sand it & prime and the tile setter can do his thing. Ok, sure, I'll leave these things here and come pick them up tmw.. but then it's $300. He looks at me - "Time is money," I tell him. He agrees. (Not his money anyways, plus this contractor is such a cheap ass it's fun & funny to charge him full rate.)

He called me up before I was home to ask what time I left as the security company phoned to find out who was on camera. He had also already talked to the cheap contractor (who is also his wife's cousin) & told me he freaked at the price and said if he knew it was going to cost that much he'd have done it himself! (He can't do what I can do as well as I can do it - that's why people pay us to do what we do.) My friend told him "Look, he dropped what was doing, picked up $70 worth of material on the way, was here in under an hour, did the work, left his heater and fans on so it'll dry overnight - the price is $300." He grumbled a bit like the whiner he is but agreed to pay - but then Also asked my friend if he had padded the bill and added a little something for himself lol no, he hadn't, and so told the guy he could pay me directly if he thought my friend was trying to make extra for it. (And if he did, so what? That's contracting.)

Just thought I'd share. Felt good to charge someone full price - especially someone notoriously cheap! Also, told him I could give him the number of a friend who charges minimum $400 per trip if he doesn't like my emergency service call type price. (There's a large price range for similar work depending on skill/experience/quality, travel time, how good you are at sales/business, whether you're doing a friend a favour for cheap or billing some giant corporation Good Money, and of course there's Big Money in small jobs, and lower money when working a large job and charging per square foot etc) Also just wanted to highlight the power of saying No to something in negotiations, especially when you have the upper hand. Who ELSE were they going to get with my skill set to show up That Moment and do the work so they can move their project forward? Not my fault he f****d up and didn't have it done along with the rest of the house before it was painted, soooo I'm not fixing it for free/cheap. I'm also not flat broke and don't need to work for whatever you offer - money is power; I have some & thus don't need to agree to work cheap. I tend to under value my work & price - like charging $325 for something last time that my boss (who's considered low priced) would have charged $600 for. Not this time. Full price it is. And next time, and the time after that.. time to make sure I get paid.

Thx bud! Call me again when you screw something else up & need it fixed Now.

Classic!

A friend was working a renovation contract on a 4-bedroom house, when the owner decided he needed a whole new security system installed -- sensors, lights, cameras, et cetera -- the whole works.  My friend quoted a five-figure price.  The customer did not like the quote (to put it mildly), and said he would call another man he knew who would do it for half-price.  My friend said, "Fine" and continued working.

My phone rang.

The customer explained his side of the situation (not mentioning my friend's name), and asked me for an estimate.  I said I needed to do the math, and then I would call him back.  Then I called my friend and told him everything, and asked him what he would charge.  Then he told me his side of the story, including the price he quoted.  We both laughed, and I told him I would handle it.

So I called the customer back and quoted a price that was 40% higher than the price my friend had quoted.  The customer definitely did not like the quote (to put it mildly), and started expressing his disappointment in profane terms.  I let him rant, and when he calmed down, I explained to him that because my work would be "off-contract" and cash-only I would be assuming all the risks including legal problems from not pulling any permits and from not checking for "Green Cards" held by my day-laborers, and then suggested he speak to a local contractor who might give him a better price.

My friend called me later and thanked me for "talking some sense into" his customer.  Later that year, he remodeled my bathroom for free.

^ That's a good one for charging More in cash (when you want your quote to be high) whereas people expect a cash price to be lower.

Funny thing is, he could have had this work done along with the rest of the house as it was being built for <$50 in time & material when he was paying 40 cents/sf for walls & 50 cents/sf for ceilings (+ material) to have the entire several thousand square foot house w/ very high ceilings finished. But he was too cheap to do it - assumed the tile would cover the joints and didn't physically look at things and realize that the shower tile would stop at the edge of the drop down ceiling before that joint on both sides. Now the tile setter is there to work and it has to get done, well, now you pay.. $300 for it.

Aside: I'd would not be happy with the walls if I were the owner. It's a ~$5-6M build (plus property value) and the walls have humps and hollows/shadows, some twisted corner beads, imperfect sanding etc - not the quality level for that calibre of house. But that's what you get when you're only willing to pay rock bottom /sf prices. So stupid.

It is almost always cheaper to get all of the work covered under one contract (with one contractor and many sub-contractors) from the start than to add new work to an existing contract, or to have one contractor for each job.

Yes, but he assumed he didn't need to have these joints done and didn't Look at where the ceiling line stopped (before the joint) & realize that the tile would not cover them and thus they needed to be done. So dumb. Some tile setters want nothing taped, others want things just taped, others want them taped w/ one coat, others 2 proper coats, and for the bathrooms in WeWork/Amazon's offices they wanted them level 5 finished & primed before they would tile them. Not sure why such a large variance in preference, but still stupid not to just pay the $40-50 during the main build to do it just in case it needs to be done vs. maybe have to do it later at a cost of $300. If it's close, just get it done just in case vs. "save," $50ish & later have to spend $300.

But that's how dumb this guy is. He can't do math very well. My friend called and asked if I would come up there one evening and clean all the drywall mud off the floors that evening and overnight so the floors were clean and ready to prime & level before the engineered hardwood went down. Sure, I'll come do it, but it's $35/hr cash until I'm done. (Hell, even my cousin's house cleaning business charges $50/hr, but whatever, it was just concrete floors & drywall mud vs. scrubbing toilets) That was too expensive, said he'd hire a couple cheap labourers to do it the next day. They didn't show up, so my friend and his work partner cleaned the floors for 7 hours at $45/hr + tax And delayed the floor levelling by another day. Moron - I would have had it ready overnight, possibly with a helper, but still. This is why I will never seek work with this guy - he thinks cheap = value. No. But, from time to time when he's caught between a rock and a hard place and needs someone to fix his f**k ups I'll gladly charge him $300 at a time. (and I told my friend if he complains too loudly I would be happy to pass him the phone number of my colleague who has a $400/trip minimum charge.)

Most homeowners (and a few contractors) do not seem to understand that paying a little extra to have a job done right the first time is less expensive that re-working a poorly-done job.

"... and an extra cash bonus if you get it done right by..." is also great incentive.

That's the thing.. this guy isn't a layman do it yourself homeowner, he's a contractor that builds so-called "award winning," custom homes. (I've seen the houses.. I wonder if the awards are shams that he pays for. The home designs are good, but execution is not award winning craftsmanship. Not for a $500K build never mind a $5M build.) He should know better - that's what makes it doubly frustrating AND funny at the same time.

lmao

Went to pick up my fans and heater and ended up chatting with my friend. He tells me the contractor thinks I'm gouging him at $300 but if I charge him $200 he'll give me 5, 10, or 20 similar sized jobs in the future. Umm, no, that's now how this works. If he wants to give me regular business for a while maybe he'll earn a discounted price. Second, the price for every similar sized job is different - if I patch my neighbour's wall I might charge $50, if I do the same patch on a 50th floor penthouse downtown and I have to go there 3 times & pay for parking I might charge $500+. Are these 5-20 small jobs in the same house? Houses all in a row? Or spread all over the Metro region? Every one of them will be a different price - especially if any of them require me to drop what I'm doing and do them Right Now. My price is $300. I don't care if he ever calls me again. I'm not interested in discounting my work for the opportunity to continue working at a discount & burning tires and gas to go do small jobs too cheaply. Hell, why would the guy expect any tradesman to make 3 trips to a job site to do anything for $200? lol f**k off.

It seems to be a common practice that "Cut me a discount now, and I will send you more business later" only seems to result in more requests for bigger discounts later.

BINGO! That used to happen a lot to my boss years ago selling security alarm systems.. promises of referrals that never came. No, you pay now, there's a referral program in place where you can earn free service from your referrals later.

Which is why I told my contractor friend, "No, that's not how this works." The guy has done Zero business with me, why would I opt to work for a discount as if he's a long term client I should do a favour for because I like him? F off.

My friend was like, well, he says he's never going to call you again.. LOL fine by me! Dude doesn't seem to understand that my trade is in demand and I can find other people to work for who will pay market rates whenever I want to put my tools to work. It's not hard. Plus I have other work to do that can earn me the same or higher income, or just have free time to go to the beach or ride around on my motorcycle. It's not going to bother me one bit if the cheapest moron contractor in the city isn't going to call and ask me to work for super low prices.

And it's not like my friend is stupid, either. He charges $45/hr for most general contracting tasks with a two hour minimum. So, if he had to go to a site three times for a job (3 stage process) He'd bill $270+ tax, so over $300. Why should I be willing to do that for tiny jobs for $200 a piece just because the guy wants to give me several of them all over town? Get bent. They're $300+. Each. MAYBE discounted if there's several of them in the same location at the same time - better utilization of time/trip.

It's so ridiculous to me that his wife's cousin, a general contractor that builds multi-million dollar homes, can't grasp these very simple concepts of economics. Also funny to me, and extra funny to just say no - best of luck finding someone else to drive around and chase small jobs for tiny money - especially if they're rolling in a full size van or truck.. f**k; gas costs like $180/tank to fill a pick up truck these days - something like that.

I look forward to the day when he's in a jam again and has to ask me to fix someone's f**k up.

I am also a licensed Amateur Radio operator.  This means I can legally tune up a Citizens Band radio as long as I strictly adhere to the FCC rules -- 4 Watts AM; 12 Watts PEP sideband; no more than 100% modulation, no out-of band operation, et cetera.

A man comes in with a CB radio from the 1990s, saying he wants it tuned up "To Spec".  I say "Fine", put it on the bench, open it up, and get it running to legal spec in no time.  I hook it up to the full-wave "Starduster" antenna on my tower, run the auto-tune for 1:1.1 SWR on 27.185, and bingo -- full lima-charlie on all channels!  We are even pulling in stations from up in the high desert as if the operators were sitting next to us (probably running linears, but nothing illegal about listening to them).  He makes contact with a few of his trucker buddies in the area, pays me fifty bucks and heads his merry way.

Next day, he is back, wanting to know how I had "broken" his radio.  Got him calmed down, put it on the bench, and noticed a few of the screws were missing.  I asked him if anyone had messed with it after he had left, and he told me that one of his buddies said it sounded "weak", so he opened it up and started tweaking a few coils.

I took the lid off and immediately saw the problem.  Someone had swapped out the RF output transistor with a larger AF transistor.  Sure, it was a bigger package (bigger means more power, right?  Wrong.), but its cutoff frequency was in the upper audio range (~20 kHz).  I dug out the correct transistor from my stock, put it in, powered it up, and had it fully tuned and running to spec (again) in about 10 minutes.

Damned fool still demanded his money back, because (in his mind) "To Spec" means "as much power as possible", and he refused to listen to reason.  Then he said he would have the FBI (not the FCC) pull all my licenses and put my in jail.

"Okay," I said.  "I will give you the money.  But do not ever come back to me with another radio to repair.  Because if you do, I will simply refuse, and you and your radio buddies will have to go somewhere else."

Than I gave him a list of repair shops and the rates they charged, itemized by service.

A few weeks later, I was talking to one of those repair shop owners on 146.520, and he mentioned that my name had been dropped as someone who would "bootleg a radio on the cheap".  "Let me guess," I said.  Then I described the customer who gave me all the trouble.

"That's the one!" he said.

It seems that the customer tried to get his again-broken radio "bootlegged" to operate out-of-band and at illegal power levels, and did not like the $150 charge just to get his radio running, when I only charged him $50 to do the exact same thing.  The customer started making the rounds of all the local repair shops on the list I had given him, and bad-mouthed every single one until none of them would do anything for him.

Oh, and it turns out this guy also used 75-Ohm coax to connect his radio to a bumper-mount whip he had bought at a police auction.  Those things are tuned for 30 to 40 MHz, not the 26.965 to 27.405 range of the Citizens Band.  It is a miracle that he was even able to receive with that set-up!

My aunt's bf is into CB radio stuff here and has a big antenna on his house. My cousin is into it enough to have done emergency comms during forest fires.

Radio customer moron pissing off every shop in town until he's blacklisted makes me think maybe this contractor guy I've dealt with has sh***y subcontractors turning out crap quality walls not Only because he's cheap & can't do value for dollar type math, but possibly because he's pissed off anyone who's any good by insisting they work for the rock bottom rates he finds crappy tradesmen on craigslist for to the point that no one else will work for him.. maybe. Could be. But he's probably just cheap & comically bad at value for dollar math. Or a little from column A and a little from column B.

I've been thinking it might be fun to send the guy a message/email after he pays me with pretty much the exact opposite of what the info my friend Dan relayed to me was.. especially if this cheap goofball's attitude is that he will never phone me for work again (suits me just fine if you don't want to pay.) BUT, maybe I should just scribble this down here as a creative writing exercise and never send it to him Because you never know, he might need something done, or my friend might need something done on one of that guy's builds or whatever and I might hear from him again in the future when he's in a jam and willing to pay.. but anyways, the thought process rolling through my mind is that it would be funny to send him something like:

That sounds awfully familiar. Every joker on CB has "a mate" who "knows all about radios" that loves to give them the "golden screwdriver" treatment. Hmmm what does this Pot do? <tweaks it with metal screwdriver>. What does bias mean? Better turn this one all the way up <tweak>. Want extra power through the driver and final? These Pots probably do that, lets turn 'em all the way up as well <tweak>. I've never come across any rigs where someone was fool enough to replace the final with an audio transistor though - that's a new one!!

73,
Eurythmic.

The AF transistor was a 2N2039 in a TO-5 case, while the original RF transistor was a 2SC2166C in a TO-220 case.  It seems that every week I run into another instance of "Bigger Means Better" thinking among the CB crowd.  They are almost always wrong.

Goodness knows how they managed to get it into that space and provide adequate heatsink for it!
I'm guessing it didn't use the chassis as a heatsink as per normal.

Golden screwdrivers seem to be magically attracted to radios that are functional so that they can implement their handiwork.