A different e-petition

I wish. We (that's my boy-chic and me) have a competitor just down the road
from us and that's never been a problem, but lately he's been doing work for
what must be the sheer enjoyment, coz it's certainly not being done to make
(or even earn) any money.

A guy came for a quote to repair his bonnet, colour code front and back
bumpers, both side skirts, both door mirror caps and his boot spoiler. Now
whichever way you look at that job, it's going to be in the garage for at
least two days, three if the job is going to be absolutely mint and despite
what anyone pays for a job, that's what they want. A mint job at the end,
so.. I'll be a **** here and outline what needs to be done for that job,
just so you don't think I'm taking the piss. Then I'll say what he charged
and you can ask for his address.

Bumpers off, side skirts off, spoiler off, mirror caps off or the complete
mirror off.
D/A bonnet. (That's sanding the things with 320grit)
Smack with hammers or use a pin puller, getting it back to "something like"
then skim with bog.
Sand the bog flat and make it conform to the rest of the panel.
Scotch the whole bonnet (even if the damage is confined to one farty little
area) to remove any gloss.
Scotch all the other bits (bumpers, mirror, skirts, etc)
Make good any defects.
Prime everything that needs primer then bake.
Splash the paint on. (3 coats with 5-10 minutes between coats)
Splash the lacquer (2-3 coats depending on lacquer type) on and bake.
Flat EVERYTHING with 2000grit paper removing any peel or bits of flying
shite.
Polish to a shine with compound.
Hand glaze next to make it nice and bonny.
Re-fit everything.
Wax the whole car.

Now.... would YOU do that for 150 quid? No....neither would we.
Btw, the finished job was utter shite and the guy brought it back to us so
we could put it right.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

I can earn more if I want more hassle, or if I want to work crap shift
patterns or if I want to work abroad for 9 months of the year but I
don't want to do any of those so I make do with what I've got on
offer.

My original point about the overtime is that when I'm away from home I
might as well do extra hours at work rather than sit in a bar and get
pissed from 5pm. I'm pretty certain that if I'm with the same company
I'll end up working on any new missile subs unless the government have
them made overseas.

 

Too right it is. She might expect me to pay for her new bike if I
cleared as much as she does.

 

How does that justify a higher hourly rate for a car repair shop than
a company working on nuclear reactors?

 

I'm not saying it does justify it; for starters, I'd rather have the car go
up in smoke...

That said, apart from the "because we can" reason for the higher car labour
charges I would guess that because garages are geared towards a more
intermittent revenue stream so they'd need to make up for those times when
the spanner wankas are sitting around idle.

 

Understood. There was a company here looking for electricians to go to
Iraq. I so don't think so.

I see your point. I just don't want to work overtime. When I was with
the power company I had something like 900 hours of overtime in one
year. This got old real quick.

 

That's something like 18 hours a week giving you a 58 hour week. Not
really *that* excessive.

 

Any spanner wanka sitting around idle wouldn't have a job for long, coz the
garage would soon go tits up and no garage that I've ever known has such a
thing as mechanics doing nothing. If they did, it'd say something about the
(poor) management of time and resources. Most garages are booked up at least
a week in advance and more often than not, much further on.

We're currently booking work in for the end of March and the beginning of
April and we're a tiny operation.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Yes, on the surface it does not look too bad. But the cunts I was
working for at the time made the conditions miserable.

 

I probably average somewhere in the region of 55 to 60 hours per week.
A lot depends on where I'm working and what the customer needs from
us.

 

I think it's just a case of what the punter is willing to pay is what
the service provider will charge.

I'm also pretty well convinced that the figures are affected by the
fact that we have to tender for a lot of our work whereas a BMW garage
charges the same as the next BMW garage and if you don't go to one of
them you lose your warranty.

 

Pretty crap.

 

Suppose it depends on what you're used to really.

 

It may be an allergic reaction to something in their sauce that makes it
seem so hot to me. Some reaction evident this morning...

 

Mate, there is *no* good cause that benefits from you working until you
keel over. Trust me on this.

 

Heh the Blane is getting paid in US$, convert back into GB£ for a giggle

 

Heh, we got a lot of business in just the same way... Joe Public seems
to want the world for a few shekels... You pays the money...

 

Timo Geusch wrote

Ain't dat de troof.

Although memory tells me; a dirty woman might, just might, be worth some
effort.

 

Bear wrote

That is utter fucking bollox. The stress is doing you plenty of harm
well before it reaches "notice" levels.

 

Good on you.

Extra effort, I completely agree. However I draw the line at health
issues, but that's mostly due to bad experiences in the past. I've been
there several times and even if I was in such a state that no cat
would've dragged me anywhere, in the end it seemed to make no
difference that would've made it worth it IMO.

That's all fair enough but look after yourself well enough so you don't
come out of this in with more permanent damage than you went in with...