on being self-employed in a down economy

[Northstar Herp]

So I've been needing to go on a tirade for a while now, and this is about the safest place for that to happen without me losing business, so here it goes.

I've been a self-employed carpenter for over five years now, and I've learned a lot about business in that time. Lots of it is good, some not so good. It's the not so good stuff that I'm pretty tired of these days. I am not a hack. Please see my project link for pictorial evidence- www.northstarprojects.blogspot.com

I'm tired of people constantly telling me that I don't charge enough money and then bitching about the price when I give them one.

I'm tired of people trying to whittle me down because of their budget and then choosing really expensive fixtures.

I'm tired of people who don't know their carpenterial butt from a hole in the ground telling me how to do what I do. I kindly think that if you hire someone to do something, you should trust them enough to do it. Or the other option is to do it yourself.

I'm tired of people telling me that I should charge $25/hr based off of lord-know-what kind of rationale. Do they not know that I have insurances and licenses? What about no 401K? What about health insurance? Who's matching my social security or FICA? What about all the times when I do a job that takes 2 hours and then the rest of the day is shot? What about scheduling problems and whatnot that probably costs me 3 weeks per year in income? What about when I came over to look at your job, do I get paid for that? What about tool cleaning, truck maintenance, accounting and paperwork stuff?

I'm tired of people changing their minds on something and it costing me money (from lost time because the job gets held up), and then complaining about the smallest thing I do that they find inconvenient.

I'm patient with my clients because they DON'T know what it takes to do what I do, and they don't know how much their actions affect my income. If they did, they certainly would feel horrible and I wouldn't want that. But I'm beginning to understand why so many tradesmen are chronic jerks... because it's tougher than you could ever imagine.

Thanks for being there geckoforums.net. I feel a little better.

 

[latshki]

I looked at your blog and holy poop on a stick that stuff is crazy, if you do that by yourself people should be kissing your butt and calling you god.
I know what you mean by people being ungreatfull I often do tile work with my brother and people will walk on the tiles before they are set when we are gone and complain about it the next day or ask us at the last minute to change the grout color or something after we have laid half of it. So then we have to scrape out what we can then get out the acid washer which as it sounds uses acid which sucks

I say props to you, your work is great and you should take pride in it and not let people change that. Now go make your self a burger stuffed with bacon and cheese

 

[Dog Shrink]

I TOTALLY know how you feel esp. in my industry where dog training programs are so readily availabel on tv and EVERYONE has an opinion on how it shoud be done. My methods work, they've wroked for 17 years... no I don't like Caesar Milan, NO I don't think his training is practical, ethical or something the average person can do after watchng one show. What I do isn't program dogs like sme basic obedience program you can take at sme big franchise store, I do BEHAVIOR work, I fix your dog's MENTAL problems, and hopefully in the same stroke teach YOU something about how your dog works. Ugh it gets so frustraiting, the human element makes it so much worse at times it's hard to remember just exactly WHY it was you got into a service industry.

You totally have my sympathy and btw your work is AMAZING... care to travel to Nw Pa and work some of that magic here

 

[acpart]

Hang in there and keep venting here. Unfortunately, as you know, most people are nice and polite only as long as what's happening doesn't affect what they think is their comfort level. I see it in all areas (even here). The thing that is the most rewarding is finding the people who don't get it at first, but with a little education, begin to understand what the issues are and become easy to work with.

Aliza

 

[T-ReXx]

I feel your pain man. I'm not self employed, but I do have to deal with ungrateful morons all the time in my field. Here's a video that pretty much sums up the daily ordeal that is veterinary medicine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYqzT1zaZVE

 

[BrilliantEraser]

I work in a pretty thankless field, too. I'm part of a VERY small grooming shop (there's five of us working there, total). People come in all the time, complaining about price/time/the way the dog looks. I mean, seriously, we can't bathe/dry/clip/brush a Shih Tzu in one hour, and we certainly can't do it for only $20. I don't understand why people feel that they can boss us folks around. But sometimes we do get some gems at my job.

Customer: Hi! Bella Rose is here.

Me: Oh, she's just a bath today, right?

Customer: She stinks! I came home last night and couldn't figure out what the smell was. So I called 911. It was 9:30 at night and I had three fire trucks at my house. The firemen told me the smell was my dog.

Me: Yeah, she got skunked.

Customer: Oh! You can tell??

Me: I smelt it as soon as I walked around the corner.

Customer: I think she was sniffing around somewhere where a skunk sprayed. I don't think she got sprayed because she didn't come running into the house yelping.

Me: Sure... It's okay, though, we've got a home remedy shampoo that'll get rid of the smell.

Customer: Douche.

Me: Excuse me?

Customer: You can use douche to get rid of the smell, right?

Me: Um... yeah. But we use something else. You didn't bathe her or wet her down, right? That sets the odor in the coat.

Customer: She doesn't fit in the bathtub. So I sprayed Febreze on her head.

Me: ... We'll give you a call when she's done.

 

[Dog Shrink]

I work in a pretty thankless field, too. I'm part of a VERY small grooming shop (there's five of us working there, total). People come in all the time, complaining about price/time/the way the dog looks. I mean, seriously, we can't bathe/dry/clip/brush a Shih Tzu in one hour, and we certainly can't do it for only $20. I don't understand why people feel that they can boss us folks around. But sometimes we do get some gems at my job.

Customer: Hi! Bella Rose is here.

Me: Oh, she's just a bath today, right?

Customer: She stinks! I came home last night and couldn't figure out what the smell was. So I called 911. It was 9:30 at night and I had three fire trucks at my house. The firemen told me the smell was my dog.

Me: Yeah, she got skunked.

Customer: Oh! You can tell??

Me: I smelt it as soon as I walked around the corner.

Customer: I think she was sniffing around somewhere where a skunk sprayed. I don't think she got sprayed because she didn't come running into the house yelping.

Me: Sure... It's okay, though, we've got a home remedy shampoo that'll get rid of the smell.

Customer: Douche.

Me: Excuse me?

Customer: You can use douche to get rid of the smell, right?

Me: Um... yeah. But we use something else. You didn't bathe her or wet her down, right? That sets the odor in the coat.

Customer: She doesn't fit in the bathtub. So I sprayed Febreze on her head.

Me: ... We'll give you a call when she's done.

OMG Febreeze? Really? Wow...

Almost doesn't seem to pay working for one's self anymore does it. I think we need to go back to a bartyr system then maybe more consumers would appreciate what truly goes into running one's own enterprise.