City and Guilds Plumbing Certificate

[Gasman1015]

I would agree with oilman regarding choosing customers, maybe it comes with age and experience. I don't do cheap and always have work booked in advance.

Then neither do I like working for customers who don't offer tea either, but still you can't have everything.

 

[oilman]

................
If you are self employed then its worse because for economic reasons you will usually have to do all the work you can get to make a reasonable living.

Tony Glazier

You don't have to do all the work you can get, you have to do enough to earn a living, very different. YOU should run your business, not your business run you. You also have to live within your means.

But why should you dislike working for anyone if they are prepared to pay the bill ? ............

Money is not the most important thing, you can't eat money, and some peoples money isn't worth having.

 

[ChrisR]

Agreed. A self employed chippy once advised me that if I don't like something about a customer, to walk away. And I've found that sound advice.



Lorraine wrote:
..........I can read, do algebra, use a calculator, solder pipes AND CHECK FOR LEAKS! does that make me competent?


The point is, why does L THINK she's competent, say to check for leaks? You have to be able to deal with all possible circumstances. Unknown unknowns....

 

[Agile]

Back on the customers you dont like!

Many of the jobs I go to are for new customers. After fighting London traffic for an hour I am hardly likely to take one look at them and walk away.

In any case first impressions of customers can be quite wrong. Often they are stressed by the leak, boiler fault etc. and not acting rationally. Very often too they are suspicious of someone they dont know coming into their house.

I never make up my mind that I "dont like" a client until they have paid the bill and I have left AND the cheque has cleared.

Tony Glazier

 

[ChrisR]

first impressions of customers can be quite wrong. Often they are stressed by the leak, boiler fault etc. and not acting rationally. Very often too they are suspicious of someone they dont know coming into their house.

but that's all normal! It doesn't matter quite so much for small jobs.

 

[Paul Barker]

I like customers with houses like s h 1 t holes, you can leave your boots on and splash water around willy nilly. Makes the job go so much quicker.

The non payers are impossible to spot at the beginning, usually the least expected.

I don't like people who buy all new biscuit carpet throughout house, fitted to perfection and then ask me to put in trv's (in a microbore sysztem with concrete floors and the only drain off in a service duct above the level of the rad valves) all nice and black from 30 years inside an unserviced Ideal e type.

 

[Agile]

We had one last month. Just fitted new champagne carpet and then decided he wanted TRvs.

I said that either he took all the carpet up or looked for someone stupid enough to do the work.

He probably would get someone, a Polish plumber living in a squat!

That customer was not very polite to our engineer either when we did the boiler repair!

Tony Glazier