Discussing politics and religion

[Floorist]

Most of the young people around here have no interest in labor-intensive work. Trades are dying. Most of the plumbers, electricians, carpenters and all the flooring guys are 50+. There is an 80 year old here still installing carpet. One of the two carpet stores here is still trying to get me to work for him. He says the few young guys he can find don't care what their work looks like. I'm 73, but I had planned to go back to part time installation after my heart issues last year and then covid hit. Doctor says that covid and maybe even the flu might kill me.

 

[C.J.]

Most of the young people around here have no interest in labor-intensive work. Trades are dying. Most of the plumbers, electricians, carpenters and all the flooring guys are 50+. There is an 80 year old here still installing carpet. One of the two carpet stores here is still trying to get me to work for him. He says the few young guys he can find don't care what their work looks like. I'm 73, but I had planned to go back to part time installation after my heart issues last year and then covid hit. Doctor says that covid and maybe even the flu might kill me.

See this is exactly what I’m talking about. Supply and demand. A shortage of skilled labor dictates that the price of skilled labor goes up. Not good for customers but very good for us. With all this demand and not enough people to cover the work, we are now in a position to cherry pick. Money talks and bullshit walks.

 

[Mark Brown]

I still carry my kicker and stretcher but that is because the sprinter is so big. If all i had was a utility knife and a glue trowel that wouldn't make any sense

 

[Floorist]

All there is left here is carpet work. The tile, vinyl and laminate are mostly DIY.

 

[Mark Brown]

The tile, vinyl and laminate are mostly DIY

I think that is the plan, just make things stupider until anyone can kinda sorta do it and then convince them to accept their terrible installations as good because well they did it themselves and voila, no more labor shortage.
I would like to see the medical clinic learn how to flash their own material though. That would be choice.

I also think the "retail flooring store" will be more or less as extinct as the dodo bird in the next ten to fifteen years. Mills are selling direct, so many retailers are online and there really is nothing left to hold those places together but labour and that pool is shrinking all the time. Maybe I am wrong, but I bet there will be a steady decline and eventual shift in the market away from that model.

 

[Floorist]

I had no store and bought direct from a distributor back in the 80s.

 

[highup]

Move to Missouri or North Carolina or... quit doing everything but floating floors. Those rates are going up, or at least back to where they were but the product is easier to work with. I’ve never made such good money until I quit doing all the bullshit that doesn’t pay good money. I’m done with favors, I’m all outta red carpet and I’m not afraid to tell someone NO. Despite how that last sentence comes across, I do provide an excellent installation experience to my customers and my work is clean.

The local Carpet one retailer has asked me to do measures on jobs that are patterns or woven materials.
she asked me to do the measures and to give them a price on the installation....... not for competitive bidding, good jobs for me to do. They have always been fair with me. that said for quite a few years I didn't have much work out of the store for quite a few years because my pricing was higher than everybody else's but we're getting along pretty well now. They've accepted the fact that I'm never going to speed up. They've always known that I don't screw up.
Since working for that same retailer for 35 years I've never cost them money on screwed up work.
We've argued about my billing but that's because it's sometimes hard for a retailer to look at a job and realize that if it sometimes takes four times as long to do some unusual jobs, that doesn't turn a $5 yard job into a $7 a yard job. It turns it into a $20 per yard job.....or more. If somebody can afford to spend $100 a yard on carpet, and special pad, then they can probably afford to pay extra for installation. I don't want to rip anybody off but I don't like doing difficult work for free.

 

[Floorist]

The local Carpet one retailer has asked me to do measures on jobs that are patterns or woven materials.
she asked me to do the measures and to give them a price on the installation....... not for competitive bidding, good jobs for me to do. They have always been fair with me. that said for quite a few years I didn't have much work out of the store for quite a few years because my pricing was higher than everybody else's but we're getting along pretty well now. They've accepted the fact that I'm never going to speed up. They've always known that I don't screw up.
Since working for that same retailer for 35 years I've never cost them money on screwed up work.
We've argued about my billing but that's because it's sometimes hard for a retailer to look at a job and realize that if it sometimes takes four times as long to do some unusual jobs, that doesn't turn a $5 yard job into a $7 a yard job. It turns it into a $20 per yard job.....or more. If somebody can afford to spend $100 a yard on carpet, and special pad, then they can probably afford to pay extra for installation. I don't want to rip anybody off but I don't like doing difficult work for free.

I have always charged more than anyone else, but I don't get call backs.
I worked for a store once who had winos doing the regular installations, but when he would sell a woven he would call me.

 

[highup]

I couldn't agree more man. I started focusing on the stuff that made me lots more money, Flash coving, ceramic tile and showers, hardwood and well... plank. It might go down cheap but it goes down fast.
I haven't done more than probably 200 yards of stretch in in the past 2 years that come to mind and as for residential, to hell with it. I am at heart a commercial installer. I will cherry pick what I can for hardwoods and tile, but I have so little interest in carpet and sheet vinyl at a residential level. I would rather install 200 yards a day for 9 bucks a yard than 60 yards a day for 10 or 12, that it just easy math.

Tell me how your knees are in 30 years......
..... I take that back I won't be here in 30 years.
I'm not sure if I can ever recall putting in 60 yards in one day. I know I have I just have a short memory. I'm not a good guy for this type of work. I've always gone more overboard on things that may not have to be done. Since 1975, I can probably count on me two hands the number of seams that I have not sealed. I use a stretcher even in walk-in closets. Kickers are positioning tools. I double strip a lot of my jobs and if the previous installer did a sloppy job of installing the tax strip especially around door casings I'll tear it out and replace it.
The payback I have gotten out of this there's probably a 99% return rate with customers. If I install the carpet once for them they'll have me do the next work also. Most of my old customers will call me back to measure the carpet up and give them an estimate. Many don't even ask how much they just say let's get it ordered. Makes me happy I wasn't born in a big city. Driving anywhere in my town or the adjoining city, you could drop me at any intersection, and within a tenth of a mile, or often just a couple of blocks there would probably be a house that I've worked at. I routinely bump into clients with the stores...... You don't get that in a big city. Commercial work might pay well but you have to drop your rates and bust your ass. You get pushed and people in your way and they always want the job done two weeks sooner than you figured on completing it. When the job is completed nobody cares. No thank yous, just good riddance. Nope I can't do commercial work.

 

[Floorist]

Tell me how your knees are in 30 years......
..... I take that back I won't be here in 30 years.
I'm not sure if I can ever recall putting in 60 yards in one day. I know I have I just have a short memory. I'm not a good guy for this type of work. I've always gone more overboard on things that may not have to be done. Since 1975, I can probably count on me two hands the number of seams that I have not sealed. I use a stretcher even in walk-in closets. Kickers are positioning tools. I double strip a lot of my jobs and if the previous installer did a sloppy job of installing the tax strip especially around door casings I'll tear it out and replace it.
The payback I have gotten out of this there's probably a 99% return rate with customers. If I install the carpet once for them they'll have me do the next work also. Most of my old customers will call me back to measure the carpet up and give them an estimate. Many don't even ask how much they just say let's get it ordered. Makes me happy I wasn't born in a big city. Driving anywhere in my town or the adjoining city, you could drop me at any intersection, and within a tenth of a mile, or often just a couple of blocks there would probably be a house that I've worked at. I routinely bump into clients with the stores...... You don't get that in a big city. Commercial work might pay well but you have to drop your rates and bust your ass. You get pushed and people in your way and they always want the job done two weeks sooner than you figured on completing it. When the job is completed nobody cares. No thank yous, just good riddance. Nope I can't do commercial work.

What is funny is when a customer speaks to me in a store and I have no clue who they are. It was a big day for them when I installed their flooring, it was one of 6-10 jobs for me some week in the past.

 

[highup]

I think that is the plan, just make things stupider until anyone can kinda sorta do it and then convince them to accept their terrible installations as good because well they did it themselves and voila, no more labor shortage.
I would like to see the medical clinic learn how to flash their own material though. That would be choice.

I also think the "retail flooring store" will be more or less as extinct as the dodo bird in the next ten to fifteen years. Mills are selling direct, so many retailers are online and there really is nothing left to hold those places together but labour and that pool is shrinking all the time. Maybe I am wrong, but I bet there will be a steady decline and eventual shift in the market away from that model.

Back in the early eighties we walked into one of the carpet shops and they were selling Armstrong's do it yourself installation kits with a piece of pattern paper, a little round disc with a hole in the center for a pencil to fit into and a short straight edge made of plastic also. I don't recall if they supplied the tape for the pattern paper or if you had the supply that yourself. The little disk thing wasn't necessarily a bad idea.

 

[highup]

What is funny is when a customer speaks to me in a store and I have no clue who they are. It was a big day for them when I installed their flooring, it was one of 6-10 jobs for me some week in the past.

I forget people's names instantly. if I recognize somebody I remember where they live and the work I did..... and what they fixed me for lunch but that's about it.

 

[Floorist]

I forget people's names instantly. if I recognize somebody I remember where they live and the work I did..... and what they fixed me for lunch but that's about it.

I can remember every house I worked in, but not exactly what I did.

 

[highup]

That does it. I'm canceling my vacation to North Korea.

 

[Mark Brown]

I can probably count on me two hands the number of seams that I have not sealed. I use a stretcher even in walk-in closets. Kickers are positioning tools.

Me too, this is why I cannot do residential installations. I cannot make any money because I go and make the mistake of caring too much. Some things in life really don't pay to know better. The best part is that in almost every instance I install residential carpet I will have clients ask me "what is that thing" and I will rap off my speech about how it is a pole stretcher and it is the only tool that is designed to properly stretch carpet and then those same clients will inform me that they have never seen on of those before and I will carry on to explain that would mean that they have never had properly installed carpets before. That typically leaves people looking a little dumbfounded, especially since most of my clientele are well into their 60's or better.

 

[highup]

I'm getting older I don't do whole houses unless it's for someone that I've worked for before. That said, even if I'm doing a living room, hallway and two bedrooms, don't work for a straight rate. I may charge $7 per yard or whatever for the installation, $2 for removal, but if there's a hallway with three doorways to seam up, a closet, a bathroom door, I'll just tack on an additional $90 to $125 to my price. I don't like doing always for free.

 

[Dan]

With a guy starting out at $18 per hour carrying wood boxes into a jobsite, a $9 gallon of milk is soon to follow.

 

[C.J.]

With a guy starting out at $18 per hour carrying wood boxes into a jobsite, a $9 gallon of milk is soon to follow.

Maybe but let’s face it that’s a crap job that nobody wants to do so unless the owner of the shop wants to schlep those boxes or pay me my daily rate to do bitch work, you better offer enough money to make it worth it to somebody willing to do that kind of job.

 

[Incognito]

Let’s bring that quote up to current day.

The problem with Liberalism is that eventually you run out of your own money.

***********************
Not if they own the government and the Federal Reserve.

 

[Floorist]

Our Republican legislature in Missouri, just screwed us. They just raised the gas tax 12 1/2 cents a gallon.