I know this is a joke. It's a generalization, see, saying that generalizations are all false... but something must be said.

We cannot live without generalizations. If we don't generalize that because we have gotten hungry in what looks like a pattern of passage of time, then act on that generalization, we'll be unhappy by bedtime.

Mark Twain tells of a cat that like to sit on the wood-burning stove in the kitchen. It had never happened to jump up on it when it was hot. One day, it did. That cat never jumped up on a hot stove again.

But the cat made the wrong generalization and also never jumped up on a cold stove. The lesson learned was not to jump up on the stove instead of not to jump on the stove when it's hot. So while generalization can help, the wrong lessons also can be gleaned from them.

I can think of several people in that church who don't fit that generalization. That does not make the generalization untrue. Instead we are called on to recognize that a generalization is not a description of all things, but a description of a tendency or the plurality or situations.

Tell them to order and install it themselves next time.

I’m unable to read all of the replies to this thread. But I am curious. Did the original email ask you how much you pay the techs? Or did it ask you how much you pay a specific tech? Or does a particular tech only go to this clients home?

If it’s possible that the client asked for a specific tech or only one tech goes there. Then is it possible that tech and the client was talking about a wage increase? That maybe a topic that your tech isn’t comfortable talking with you, yet, but is with someone else. Who happened to be the client, basically asking for advice.

KOT

tca

This is a classic problem that has plagued the HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical and Lawn service trades for MANY years.

This client explicitly shows a sever lack of basic business acumen. Specific and to the point, the concept of Labor Burden and the calculation thereof!

I would simply ask him to search Labor Burden on You Tube and watch, listen and learn!! Especially the one for HVAC!

Many of the trades have gone to flat rate billing because of this problem. The main advantage to this flat rate billing? The customer knows before the work even begins, what the cost is and the issue of hourly dragging your feet goes away. The burden to do the job efficiently and correctly is now on the provider not the customer. Callbacks are reduced by a large margin since the provider has to eat it!

You should be the highest rate in town. The best around shouldnt be the cheapest should it? lol.

Last night during the news I had a bit of an experience with my imagination. I imagined a series of news reports showing, at the start, a kid trying to work out how to connect speakers. Then it took of, like a photo of someone eating a sandwich might be the prelude to a series of reports on restaurants, food trucks, etc.

Near the beginning, the announcer could ask, "So you think the guy who hooked up your speakers is doing something you could do? Maybe twenty years ago, but day by day that work is getting more specialized and difficult to do.

"Many of you know you should connect the hot lead to the red binding post, but even though that's the simplest thing one of these custom audio/video installers would do, for many of us that would require an explanation! And do you know what to do when, for your client to listen to music, he needs his internet modem set up a particular way? How many of your friends know what bridged mode is and why it's required? How about an open port so you can see your new surveillance cameras on your phone?

"Yes, the world of the "hi-fi-guy" has changed drastically, from college friend to professional who has to know the world of audio, video, computer, and internet setup, a world that changes every day. Sit back as we look into this unique world that we are all coming to depend on more and more, every day, with every new internet-connected device."

THAT I would love to see.

But the OP didn't say the customer asked how much the best tech is paid, just the one. That guy is concerned with saving money, not getting the best.

The marine industry is full of dealers who jack up their labor rates as soon as the guy down the road does, without bothering to think about whether it's justified. I worked for one of those and when they said they wanted to raise the rate, I asked if I was getting a raise. They initially asked why I expected a raise and I told them to justify the price increase without doing anything more for it. I told them that the price they can charge will eventually be determined by what people want to pay, based on the service they have received, or the service they heard others had received. If they or others had received bad service, they wouldn't have many service customers or they would have people asking for a discount and, while I never threatened to do less or a worse job, I made it clear that my integrity as a service tech determined this, not the fact that they wanted more money just because the guy up the street raised their rates.

I got my raise.

I knew a guy who was a car stereo installator and he was color-blind.

Was his nickname sparky?

He couldn't be a bomb technician, then. You're always supposed to cut the red wire.





or was that the green wire?

He shouldn't have been a car stereo installer either, so they made him a shop manager. He was a total hack.

hahaha, I can just hear the appraisal review in my head now....

" So Mr Installer, we have some good news for you...you are so sh1t at installing that we are promoting you....."

...you cant make some of this stuff up!!

He also didnt state they were the best lol.

curious, which one(s) of those reasons do you see yourself actually telling the client how much the employee makes?

The first AV place i worked at had a sales guy that got demoted every couple of months. He went from sales to the service desk to official gofor (go for lunches, go for parts etc). At the time i was 12 and my job was to clean the equipment on display. I was worried he was headed for my job next.