your job

[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.

 

[Leo21]

Fair play. Good position to be in.

 

[Ray Stafford]

How about I service your boiler in your merchants for, lets say 46k.

Nah. Why would I pay a villa fan to do a job that a perfectly good pompey fan could do?

<waves goodbye to all our Southampton customers>

 

[Ray Stafford]

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.

The biggest saving for us was restricting the drivers speed. Drive a van at 90mph, and you only get about 2/3rds of the mpg that you get at 70. Our fleet does a couple of million miles a year, and with those mileages 8 or 9 mpg savings adds up to real money.

 

[zeebeedee]

These come in handy

New Mini GPS Blocker-in GPS Trackers from Automobiles & Motorcycles on Aliexpress.com

 

[villa_tom]

These come in handy

New Mini GPS Blocker-in GPS Trackers from Automobiles & Motorcycles on Aliexpress.com

Nice. When I was last on the cards. If you undid the plastic bit under the glove box you found the tracker. It had an O2 SIM card in. We disconnected it there. We never used to do it in work time, well apart from Fridays. But it came in useful if you needed to use the van on the weekends.