A different e-petition

steve auvache says...

He's fucking right, Bear. There was no warning that I'd pushed it too
hard before I had my TIA, back off a little.

 

Mercedes charge £98 per hour plus VAT. Some of the contractors for
telecoms get 990 Euro per hour in Holland at the moment. Polish workers
are willing to work for £2 an hour at Southampton Docs. It's supply and
demand.

 

Bear wrote

No? I am not the one with the stress related quad bypass am I and Loz
has his own story he has shared many times.

Twat

Just trying to help but if you can't take it then just **** off eh.

 

But that's not *work*, is it?

 

I noticed that the Tesco Express on Cowley High Street was selling
Nando's Piri Piri Marinade tonight, if you want to experiment at home.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Supermarkets have been doing it for years.

 

I have. It rocks. My palate and lips deffo react. I can live with it!

 

Been there, done that for very long stretches of my working life. It
depends: I was doing high value and high commission IT sales, so it was both
fun and worth it. If you can control your destiny, I'd say it's OK.
Otherwise.......!

Ali

 

Good bloke. Honest. I think that's a very good reason.

Actually, it's why I liked selling to public sector and still do: if you are
doing the right thing, and get it right, it actually benefits real people. I
used to have a slogan for 999 solutions: "Get it wrong, people die." Says it
all really, and I don't give a flying fart if that sounds fluffy, it's how I
still feel.

Ali

 

The odd thing is, these punters wouldn't work for **** all, so how they
expect a decent job when they're *paying* **** all is beyond me.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Because they don't recognise that they're paying **** all. They get a
bill for several hundred pounds for something they don't appreciate
(assume we're talking body work here).

 

Exactly right you are. We have a regular customer who's spent 28 grand on
engine mods alone (Skyline GT-R) and had a few repairs to the bodywork done
so he could hold his head up at shows. After he'd seen the result of our
ministrations, he wanted a full on show job for this years round of shows (I
know, a fucking nutter, but wtf?)

He asked for a quote so we (that's me and the boy-chic, not us and him) sat
down to work out exactly what we'd need to do. The hours were fucking
horrendous coz it meant bare metalling, (the customer is always right and
that's what he wanted) plus a colour change and putting right 10 years of
atmospheric attack. The paint had to be *absolutely* flawless and perfectly
flat with zero sign of any peel and obviously a deep gloss. Deep gloss is
pretty simple to achieve, but a **** to keep unless good quality lacquer
(Glasurit) is used and that stuff is 60 quid a litre without hardener or
thinners, but that's what we knew he'd expect, so that's what we priced the
job with. Just the paint and lacquer alone would cost 860 quid, let alone a
single hour on the job, but even at a mere 28 quid an hour, this was going
to cost him around 2200 quid if it only took a week with us both working on
it and a week wouldn't even begin to see it ready. As for profit? Ha!. It
costs us 350 quid per week just to open the fucking doors for business, then
we pay the taxman, pay the vatman and take a paltry wage so, what's left to
buy new equipment, tools, make any repairs.. ? Bollocks all.

Anyway, he couldn't get the money together in the end (no surprises there
then) so he had a half arsed job done (touching up, painting the worst of
the panels and boggin up the rust) at a garage that was prepared to turn out
shite work. Then his fucking engine blew itself to bits and not even a year
after this started, the Skyline is now a bubbling, rusting hulk waiting for
a 2nd hand motor, which will cost him as much as the full on resto job for
the body would have. So that's a car that won't see the road again.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:27:02 GMT, "Beav"

snip>

The trouble is that they can't see why they should pay you more than
they earn per hour plus a sensible amount for a bit of paint. They'll
go to Halfords for a price for paint etc and expect you to get it
cheaper because you'll get trade price.

 

Strangely Andy, it's not the breadline punters who whinge about money, it's
the ones who roll up in Carrera fourby's, AMG Merc's etc and "talk the big
talk". Joe Blow comes in for a price to repair his wife's gatepost
scratches, nods a few times when we explain what we'll be doing (the
assumption close) , asks a question or two and either accepts the price or
fucks off never to be seen again. If he accepts the price, he's happy as
Larry when he collects it later and will rarely attempt a "chip" us. Dealers
do that, so we only do work for the two who never even ask us the price
anymore. And furriners, they REALLY try to nail our hats on with the old
"while you're at it, can you "just" do...." trick, but it doesn't happen.

It'd be a great way to spend the day if it wasn't for the customers



--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:27:02 GMT, "Beav"

snip

Thing is, you try to explain the costs of paint (£60-£70/litre? And
thats for bog standard paint, we haven't got into the fancy stuff
here...) prepping time, oven costs, finishing time, etc.... people
don't believe you... They think you're pulling a fast one...
But you're right, THEY wouldn't work for F-all...

 

Here lies Bear. Dead, but all in a good cause, so no harm done.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Too true. We asked a guy if he *really* wanted a chameleon paint job on his
Corsa (I mean, for fucks sake!) and he was adamant that he did. We showed
him the trade price list (450 quid per litre) and you've never seen anyone
change their mnds as fast in your life We eventually painted it in a Rage
Extreme colour and he borrowed the cash off his dad and then had to sell the
car to repay his debt. Now that's what we called "Clever".

prepping time, oven costs, finishing time, etc.... people

Especially oven time. For some reason they think that rooms 7 metres x 6
metres x 3.5 metres cost nothing to heat to 80 degrees C and keep them there
for half an hour.

They think you're pulling a fast one...

We've taken people into the booth during bake and asked them how much do
they think it'd cost to heat just their living room to *this* heat and the
penny soon drops.

No, they won't. I've had this shit with the RC heli's for over 35 years too.
I can fix just about any dead machine and at less cost than the owners could
buy the parts for, but they still whinge when I tell them how much it's
going to cost 'em to get them fixed. I can "sort of" understand that,
because the heli's are just a hobby, but an hour is still an hour and it's
got to be paid for if someone else is working it.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Umm, why does the room need to be so big, unless you paint HGVs as a
sideline?

Surely for even for an above average vehicle, you could get away with about
5 x 4 x 2.5, and it would be about 1/3 the volume to heat...

Just curious.

 

I presume it doubles up as the spray booth so you'd need room to work
around the vehicle as well.

 

Have you seen how big a Cadillac Escalade is, or a Ford 250 pick up with
crew cab? Or a transit van with its doors open? Or a 20ft offshore
speed/racing boat?. All have been in our place at one time or another and we
still have the need for a bigger booth.

We'd struggle with Skyline's and any of the normal sized Mercs in that
space, especially when the doors have to be open during the process. If all
our jobs were "regular" sized, then a regular sized booth would be great
from another aspect too (much more garage floor space) but we get too wide a
variety of stuff coming in. Awnings are another oddball thing we do. We've
painted awning cassettes for the motorhomes used by the Formula 1 racing
circus and when they're stipped to their component parts, you can have 4 or
5 pieces 25ft long and they all need painting at the same time. It's a
fucker.


and it would be about 1/3 the volume to heat...

Oh, thot sounds good

Not a problem.



--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19