your job

[hammers4spanner]

First proper bit of work today since i broke up for crimbo/new year .
Must say i hated every minute of it from the moment getting up to going out and hanging a couple rads despised every second of it .Now io felt like this most of last year pretty much hated plumbing and heating which probably tells me i need a career change however possibly bit late to change now.Speaking to other gas/plumbs over crimbo and they are saying same as me even guys that have been doing it for only a few years all hating it and getting same response its now a pants trade .

This got me thinking about some of my other friends whom have very good jobs and very well paid and talk up their jobs , for e.g one travels world promoting sports events from moto gp to form 1 ,another works on luxuary yachts and lives in thailand living the dream as he says and another works for the hugo boss sailing team again loves his job.

Now whom on here can say that they totaly love going to work still wether HA's or site work gas,or water .Whom on here gets up and thinks yep plumbing is a great job despite all the hassle and grief??

I loved it years ago but for me the bubble has very much burst

 

[Barry98]

Me ive had a fair few jobs since coming out of the forces and am a great believer in the first time I don't enjoy will be the time I sell up and move on , although I've come close in last year but that's probably my fault for letting things get to me

 

[Phil]

I love being on site/peoples houses/talking to people etc.

I hate the paperwork though and cannot get into the mindset to do it (damn you Youtube!) got and bathroom and kitchen to price, a report to do and invoices. If I don't get them done by the time I go out tonight I'll be mega stressed next week.

 

[Keefy]

I love it and can't see myself doing anything else. I was a lorry driver from 17 up until I was 23 and wish I'd gone straight into plumbing from school. Best thing I ever did to be honest.

Sounds like maybe you just need a holiday mate.

 

[Barry98]

It is a extremely hard trade to be in right now though , but I get perked up when I see plumbing vans tools etc been sold off cos they've moved onto a different job

 

[Guest123]

I got out of maintenance work long time ago and heating too.Now I only install bathrooms and I enjoy it, and get a lot of satisfaction from comparing the finished install to the original and hearing the customers comments.
If I was still doing jobbing work, lead work and external plumbing works, I'd hate it. You need to find something you are good at and enjoy doing and stick with that.

 

[secret squirrel]

I dislike work always have, no matter what I've done, some I dislike more than others!

All joking aside the statement above is true, this is my character though, I take things personally, being knocked for money, being treated like I'm an idiot by customers, not being believed by customers or other members of the public etc. I wish I could be more chilled but I can't.

My problem is I think people think the way I do this is not the case.

I disliked having a boss even more though.

Having said all that, I've finished work for the day and its 2pm! can't be bad. I'm 45 and only met one person who 100% enjoyed there job and that is my dad in law. he's a typical engineer but rose to director of something, he genuinely loved what he did.

My girlfriend earns excellent money is career driven is a director in a bank for non residential property anything in excess of £50m, she is in her words 'a ***** for the money' doesn't mind the job but is there for the money and money only. I speak to a fair few of her colleagues, BMW or Aston sitting on the drive (all on the book) massive house (huge mortgage) they would have us believe they're happy but they have a huge monster to feed every month! A whiff of redundancy and they have sleepless nights.

My point is if your happy/content with your lot and not too materialistic then your doing pretty well in life IMO,

Always makes me giggle when I turn up in my Hyundai I10.

On a depressing note happiness is only fleeting, easy job today, you know you'll pay for it tomorrow, 2 hour job turns into 5 if your lucky!

 

[SimonG]

Love my job, like the challenge, like the satisfaction but you do get the glass half empty feeling every now and again. But it will be the same in every job. A mate of mine is site manager of a chemical company, he flies around the world, on call at weekends, works 12 hour days and hates it.

 

[hammers4spanner]

good point by system3 maybe its because i'm getting fed up with doing certain works but what has been vexing me over last couple years is the shirt tie brigade whom seem to try to justify the job they have ,also the public are becoming know it all gobby nuisances i seem to get a constant stream of that .

Personally i'm going to see how i feel in 6 months or so if still hating the game then time to move on

 

[villa_tom]

I love my work. I meet different people everyday, most are good and some are bad, but that's just life. I don't mind getting up in the morning, I like sitting in the van warming it up drinking a cup of tea

sometimes you get the occasional bad job but its all part of it really. There are some jobs that I actually despise, like wet work inside a boiler, but I try to avoid it.

I like the fact I can earn good money for an honest days work. I've earnt 180 quid today and I'm back home now. I bet there's some people out there who work all week for that. So I count myself fortunate that I have a trade that allows me to do alright for myself. Ok, I'm not setting the world in fire, but I'm doing more than enough to make sure I'm financially secure and then some.

I must admit I wouldn't fancy going back on council or HA work, but it'd only be the surrounding that's change. The actual job remains the same. So it's all good.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Regarding villa toms wages i had a convo with a builder prior to xmas regarding or rates and he said that plumb gas trade is to expensive and doesnt make them competative.I replied well i can goto an agency and get 600 per week just plumbing with no hassle after .Or i can goto gas companies doing servicing and get in access of 600 per week and the heaviest thing i would lift is an air duster .

he stood there thought about it for a minute and said ,is that what they pay doing agency? Showed him few agency job text messages of rates and he said ahhhh i get your point,moral of that story is never sell yourself short .

 

[Leo21]

It is a extremely hard trade to be in right now though , but I get perked up when I see plumbing vans tools etc been sold off cos they've moved onto a different job

Your a viscous git at heart, but then again I like it to. One of my competitors recently quit and went back to bg, so I now drive past his house very slowly. Especially if I'm in my new motor, it gives me a warm feeling inside.

I love it when quotes get accepted, but then five minutes later I'm thinking "oh crap that means I've got to do the graft"

 

[TBServices]

I hate my job. Full stop. It's not being on the tools, it's all the other crap. Hated answering to other people when I was employed and now I hate the stress of not knowing where the next job is.

If I was 100% busy doing boiler installs I would probably be okay with it, but I'm not and while I don't hate doing bathrooms, i seem to get asked for these most and I find them harder to price and harder to win due to people round here generally being tight gits.

 

[Barry98]

nothing personal fella , and those that really know me will tell you , ill help any fellow tradesman/woman out where i can , i passed 3 jobs last year to one guy who had nothing on and he did none of them sat at home 2 were installs. so next time round i passed them to a few guys on here who i would say were great full and did them no problem and earnt well. hopefully next time im quite they will do the same.

 

[Rickster123]

Me and a mate were chatting today about when we worked for a company 10 years ago. We had a great time. Finished by 12 each day, no tracker on the van, phones that lost signal so they couldn't ring us, a fuel card that we used to fill up the fishing boat fuel tank. We always booked a 10 hour day. Always! And nobody cared! Nobody questioned anything! Things have changed now. But they were great days!

 

[Ray Stafford]

Me and a mate were chatting today about when we worked for a company 10 years ago. We had a great time. Finished by 12 each day, no tracker on the van, phones that lost signal so they couldn't ring us, a fuel card that we used to fill up the fishing boat fuel tank. We always booked a 10 hour day. Always! And nobody cared! Nobody questioned anything! Things have changed now. But they were great days!

Is that company still in business, or did it go bust?

 

[TBServices]

nothing personal fella , and those that really know me will tell you , ill help any fellow tradesman/woman out where i can , i passed 3 jobs last year to one guy who had nothing on and he did none of them sat at home 2 were installs. so next time round i passed them to a few guys on here who i would say were great full and did them no problem and earnt well. hopefully next time im quite they will do the same.

I was a lot quieter last year than I would have liked, but I've never done any form of advertising until I went on yell.com. My customer base isn't big enough to rely solely on repeat/recommended work, but I'm scared to throw money at advertising as it all seems risky. Only really been self employed a year or so.

I actually love the work, but there's easier ways to earn a similar wage if you're not busy enough. Hate the days when I'm sat at home

 

[Rickster123]

Is that company still in business, or did it go bust?

Haha that's why the glory days ended ray! We all pooed ourselves that day because we knew life was about to change! I used to have a great tan every summer sat out in the boat in the middle of the Solent!

 

[Ray Stafford]

Haha that's why the glory days ended ray! We all pooed ourselves that day because we knew life was about to change! I used to have a great tan every summer sat out in the boat in the middle of the Solent!

Bucketts by any chance?

 

[Rickster123]

I was a lot quieter last year than I would have liked, but I've never done any form of advertising until I went on yell.com. My customer base isn't big enough to rely solely on repeat/recommended work, but I'm scared to throw money at advertising as it all seems risky. Only really been self employed a year or so.

I actually love the work, but there's easier ways to earn a similar wage if you're not busy enough. Hate the days when I'm sat at home

Very easy to get down about it mate and extremely hard to pick yourself up once you are down about it. Get a load of leaflets printed up and start spreading he word and getting your name out there abit. It's not a huge expense and will worth the small investment. Plus the walking will reduce the Xmas turkey gut!

 

[Rickster123]

Bucketts by any chance?

No. Can't name them here! Actually they are still about but now down to about 3 vans rather than 18.

 

[villa_tom]

Me and a mate were chatting today about when we worked for a company 10 years ago. We had a great time. Finished by 12 each day, no tracker on the van, phones that lost signal so they couldn't ring us, a fuel card that we used to fill up the fishing boat fuel tank. We always booked a 10 hour day. Always! And nobody cared! Nobody questioned anything! Things have changed now. But they were great days!

So it's you and your mate responsible for this damn recession.

All these hoops I'm jumping through for a mortgage are because of you and your mate.

Im not your friend

 

[Rickster123]

I just caught the end of a very long wave mate! It was much easier to lose yourself 10 years ago when you were on the cards. These days they know when I stop at the esso to take a dump!

 

[Ray Stafford]

So it's you and your mate responsible for this damn recession.

Yep - I reckon AP was doing all the plumbing for Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers.

 

[villa_tom]

I just caught the end of a very long wave mate! It was much easier to lose yourself 10 years ago when you were on the cards. These days they know when I stop at the esso to take a dump!

thats what I don't miss. I started in this game after my apprenticeship 6 years ago now and trackers is all I've ever known. I'm subbing now so not in tracker, but the office phone from time to time with jobs late in the day. But atleast I can say no.

Alot of the older blokes when I first started where really annoyed at the time with all the big brother nonsense.

My old manager used to tell me stories of how he would turn up to work, raid the stores, get his work, do none of it and go and do a foreigner. Used to make me laugh.

 

[villa_tom]

Yep - I reckon AP was doing all the plumbing for Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers.

Probably ray. I think he should stump up some cash, so my deposit is bigger and my mortgage is easier to get.

Or here's a thought ray, you own a merchants.......or six you must be worth a few quid. How about I service your boiler in your merchants for, lets say 46k. That would make make bottom Line look really healthy. MORTGAGE OBTAINED

 

[Ray Stafford]

When we put trackers on our fleet, our fuel bill went down 30% overnight.

 

[TBServices]

Very easy to get down about it mate and extremely hard to pick yourself up once you are down about it. Get a load of leaflets printed up and start spreading he word and getting your name out there abit. It's not a huge expense and will worth the small investment. Plus the walking will reduce the Xmas turkey gut!

I have 2 houses to do up, and 2 bathroom recommends to quote for aswell as the regular stuff in the early part of the year, but if it dries up this is gonna be my next course of action. Will probably hit the villages out in the sticks, too much competition here in town and plenty of bodgers doing jobs on the cheap.

 

[Millsy 82]

It was great before all the training centers started churning out plumbers in 6 weeks there were enough cowboys out there before but now there is loads of them about but they dont even realise.

All the TV programs makes everybody wary of you even if you tell the truth people look at you if you charge anything over £60.

Trackers and companies thinking nothing of you as there are so many people willing to work for less than you even if they dont know what their doing.

Manufacturers offering long warranties its great for the customer but not for the trade as that is breakdowns not coming in.

That said I enjoy the job its self I dont think I could sit in an office all day or work in a factory doing the same thing day in day out. I can remember the days I used to start at 9 go out do all my work finish by 3 at the very latest with an hour for lunch but its an employers market now so they can screw you over.

 

[villa_tom]

When we put trackers on our fleet, our fuel bill went down 30% overnight.

Trackers are necessarily a bad thing. I just think some places use them in an inappropriate way.
When I was on the cards, a chap in the office would watch them all day, and call you and ask you why your PDA said you where working, but your tracker said you where sitting in the van outside with the engine ticking over.

Used to annoy the hell out of me.

 

[hammers4spanner]

totally agree alot of firms use them as a asset to see what an employee is upto , some cases justified most cases not.

Its the shirt tie brigade that grates me , use to be a clerk of works on site and what he decided goes. Nowadays you get a constant stream of shirt and ties with clip boards all out to stab you in the back so they can get brownie points .

Along with custs who seem to think they own you as well talk and treat you like dirt , never use to be like this i agree with APP started to change for the worst 10 or so years ago

 

[Rickster123]

Who remembers when you could go in the merchants and buy gear on a company account without an order number?! They really were great days. Just a shame eBay didn't exist then!

 

[Keefy]

Who remembers when you could go in the merchants and buy gear on a company account without an order number?! They really were great days. Just a shame eBay didn't exist then!

Yeah I hate that I now have to buy my own pipe, fittings, flux, and especially unleaded solder. I didn't even know how much solder was until I checked Plumbfix today - totally shocked.

 

[Leo21]

Yeah I hate that I now have to buy my own pipe, fittings, flux, and especially unleaded solder. I didn't even know how much solder was until I checked Plumbfix today - totally shocked.

Welcome to the real world. I stocked up when I left my last firm, fifteen years ago. It only lasted eight years, bugger!

 

[JCplumb]

I had loads of jobs before being a self employed plumber, I hated most of them.
The last job I had was for one of the big energy companies, I used to build and maintain databases and software, the job could be OK sometimes with a sense of challenge and achievement. However I hated the managers, supervisors, section managers, team leaders, department managers etc.
Any corperate work nowadays has way too many Indians. Turn up 15 minutes early every day for 3 months then get there 5 minutes late one day and you get kicked. Go to the toilet too many times and you get kicked. Spend too long on a cig break and you get kicked. Take a personal call and get kicked etc. etc.
I could only take so much kicking from the jumped up rses competing with each other to bollock the little guys. It actually makes me annoyed just remembering how it was.
Compare that to plumbing and there's no competition. I have no-one to answer to other than the current customer and to be fair they are almost always very nice and grateful that you are there to sort out whatever job it is.
I get the odd day when a bad job or a crap customer will get me down but I only have to remember the dread I used to feel driving in to my old job to make it all feel better again
Being able to nip out to the shops or chippy mid-job or going for a ciggy whenever I want still makes me feel good to this day, I especially like it when a potential customer phones up and I just know they are going to be a pain in the rse. In my old job I would have no choice but to put up with that tosser and make sure they were happy before I finished. In this job I just price myself out of it or tell them I'm too busy. I love the freedom it brings, as others have said though, the paperwork is a pain but it could be a lot worse.
I'm fortunate in that I'm also a landlord and the rent pays half my wages so I only need 2-3 days work a week to get by. If I was doing anything for 6 or 7 days a week I'm sure it would get to me.