"it should only take a few minutes..."

[HMW]

Oh get this. One of her buildings called and a lady complained that she had wet sand on her car and they must have got it on there. And get this. She doesn't know how to get it off....and wants to know what they are going to do about it......Unreal!! of course the property maintenance people must have put the wet sand on it. Might have nothing to do with the fact she parks next to the out door beach shower where everybody washes off towels, toys, beach chairs, etc etc etc what a bunch of dummys. i told you a story everyday and its only lunch time. She needs to write a book

[dabeldesign]

I place some blame for this on our school systems. They tend to look down on vocational schools and encourage, not the brightest kids to attend.

You know, being only a couple years out of technical school I can definitely agree with this. It seems that all the "troubled" or "less-smart" kids were literally "funneled" into the Auto, welding, and machine classes at my junior college. Working with them proved that most of them were very smart and posessed some great qualities such as COMMON SENSE!
I studied at the welding shop half the week and the other half I took GE classes to transfer to University. The lack of common sense by these supposed "smart people" in the "enlightened" classes was sometimes astounding, even the teachers were rediculous at times.
From my perspective, blue collar jobs are much more rewarding than sitting in a cubicle; white collar jobs. When you build something you have so much more pride at the end of the day knowing you worked hard. How many desk jockeys can say that?
I guess I can't really say for sure though as I have yet to have a white collar job. Soon enough though, when I finish my degree in product design. Hopefully I will be able to get my hands dirty on a regular basis though...

[Iron man]

Some people are too educated. Where I work we used to have this maintence guy who was supposed to be the head maintence man who was educated in everything to here him tell it. One day my welder quit no power
lights or fans wire feed nothing worked he comes over taps on the regulator gauge and asked me if I was sure it had gas in it. I didnt even ansewer I walked away. This is also the same man who one cold winter day rolls the o/a torch outside to thaw out the lock on our propane tank I dont meen the lock on the cage I meen the lock right on the tank where the spout comes out. If this is what they meen by higher education. I think I will remain a slow country boy LOL.

[trstek]

Some people are too educated. Where I work we used to have this maintence guy who was supposed to be the head maintence man who was educated in everything to here him tell it. One day my welder quit no power
lights or fans wire feed nothing worked he comes over taps on the regulator gauge and asked me if I was sure it had gas in it. I didnt even ansewer I walked away. This is also the same man who one cold winter day rolls the o/a torch outside to thaw out the lock on our propane tank I dont meen the lock on the cage I meen the lock right on the tank where the spout comes out. If this is what they meen by higher education. I think I will remain a slow country boy LOL.

I'm not disputing what you said, except this, that has nothing to do with education and all to do with random genetic disorder... That boy is just not right.

I was once told, long ago, the fastest way to get stupid, is go to school and drink and partake in other recreational pastimes. That is a sure fire way to spend the rest of your life stupid.

Grantid, I listen to some of the media reports talking about our educators, and I ask myself from time to time, why are we working so hard to pay taxes so they can get paid to do that?

Back to the subject, people will take what ever you give them. The ones good at it will take more than you give them.

I like to think, I was raised country dumb.

[dabeldesign]

I'm not disputing what you said, except this, that has nothing to do with education and all to do with random genetic disorder... That boy is just not right.

Ha, ha! I'll second that!!

[postaldave]

Years ago I worked in a real nice automotive machine shop (some welding & custom machine fab. on the side). We had a great crew that could darn near fix anything, taking on stuff the other shops wouldn't touch.
When we quoted a job, we often got the "What do you mean two weeks and $200.00, my friend Barney says 10 minutes and 10 bucks". A few weeks later we would almost always see them again with a boogered up mess. Hence our clearly posted sign:

Shop rates:
$40.00 (Basic)
$50.00 if you watch.
$60.00 if you help.
$75.00 if you worked on it first!

[fun4now]

my friend Barney says 10 minutes and 10 bucks".
isent he a purpel 6 1/2ft dinasore, what did he expect from a childrens puppet.
seems like too many people know that same guy, and most of them seem to think pro. welders should base there price around that of the hack with the bird pooo welds. and most of the time they get what they pay for. and then get to pay you again for doing it right. there are way too many Barney's out there.

[dabeldesign]

$75.00 if you worked on it first!

I like that! All too often someone tried to fix something and just made it way worse. Rat turds are not fun to grind out.

[dabar39]

I thought I would bring this one back to the top. There are more ignorant people out there than we need.

I got a call this morning and the guy says the tongue broke on his trailer, he has the new piece, all I gotta do is weld it on for him. Shouldn't take you more than ten minutes he says, I ask him where it is and he tells me the trailer is in Hollywood Fl. about 2 to 2 1/2 hours drive each way. He lives up here near me and I asked him why he doesn't have someone down there do the work, he says they want 400.00 to do the job and thats too expensive. I asked him what he thought it would cost him for me to go and do the job, he says I don't know but 400.00 is out of line. I tell him what I would have to charge him for the 6 - 8 hrs. plus mileage and expenses, not to mention it is a holiday and he would be screwing up my plans for the day.

He then has the nerve to ask what it would cost if I rode down there with them using their vehicle, we could load all my equipment in his van cause he's got to go and get the trailer anyways. Did I mention I have never met this guy and wouldn't know him if he walked past me.

These are the pictures he e-mailed me for the 10 minute project. Dave

[MAC702]

TEN minutes??

Dude, if you can't do that in FIVE, you need to give it up....


Actually, it's funny this thread got bumped because I'm just getting ready to leave for a friend's house to do a "30 minute job." I've not seen it yet, but he has a small fleet of tractor-trailer dump trucks, and has had me do lots of welding on them. It's an aging fleet in need of constant maintenance. Anyway, supposed some bracket on the bottom fell off, but he recovered it, and needs me to weld it back on.

At least he didn't say "five minutes," so we'll go see just how accurate he was...