Oh yeah...raise your rates to match the rising cost of EVERYTHING, a person has too!Well I am. I cutting back severely on my coffee drinking. Coffee here has gone up 30% in the last three weeks. I am down to one or two cups a day compare to my normal 3 to 4 pots. Grumble, grumble....
I already feeling the withdrawal effects...I snapped this morning at the alarm clock which I smash. Even the one eye monster is getting on my nerves. At least I have been through this before just takes a few weeks to get back to my normal mood. I tell you it not a time to rub me the wrong way around my shop. I done threw out one customer Saturday for trying to tell me how to do my job. Most times I just ignore this attitude but he has been a pain for over a year and with my ill tempter right is not a time to push me around.
Boy prices for everything is skyrocketing. Fuel alone has gone from 3.70 to 4.27 yesterday. More combining trips. Groceries were $75 yesterday and Barely could find them in the truck when I got home. I done started changing what I normally buy to offset some of the costs as my funds only goes so far.
If this keeps up I will need to raise my labor rates just to keep up with the overhead.
That why I never applied for Briggs or Kohler dealership. First I have no room for parts that will only collect dust. I still got starter from 2009 sitting on the shelves as I thought they would be needed.I was approached once to be a warranty center. Not a chance. I have had enough corporate BS dealings to last me. They wanted me to stock at my exoense a lot of parts i would probably never use. Read the fine print. Customer gets sent to me. I tear it apart and send info to someone. If they deny it i am stuck with nothing for my effort.
That sorta like when I moved my shop to its current location. I had youngsters claiming they knew everything but couldn't even diagnose a simple problem I asked them about. One of them proceeded to screw up one my customers mowers as he tried stealing my client. A big failure as six bearings never go where only two is suppose to be normally.Lots of company tests are more about their processes and how to read their documentation and do their paperwork and less about technical troubleshooting skills. I have seen way too many "test smart" guys that couldn't fix a sandwich. They are easy to spot. They are the ones bragging how smart they are.
I will never hire anyone to help me. I have plenty of business to keep me as busy as i want to be. No sense screwing it up with an employee. Hiring a person even part time would actually cost me money than i would make if i did the right and legal way. Which is the only way i would do it.That sorta like when I moved my shop to its current location. I had youngsters claiming they knew everything but couldn't even diagnose a simple problem I asked them about. One of them proceeded to screw up one my customers mowers as he tried stealing my client. A big failure as six bearings never go where only two is suppose to be normally.
If I ever get big enough to need extra help they will need to prove they can actual do the work by spending at a week in my shop with going behind to double check the workmanship. As I said to them it the proof in the pudding that counts, not papers.
A bigger problem for the US where all of your public officers get electedFor myself I have learn never to trust a government employee as they will lie straight to your face while knowing the whole time they are going to do right the opposite. It is like those Covid stimulus checks, I have yet to any of them. Heck the Idiot Ran Service [better know as the IRS] has to yet even process my 2020 tax return or the 2021 tax return. You can't even get pass the computerize operator at the IRS to talk to a real person.
That why I never applied for Briggs or Kohler dealership. First I have no room for parts that will only collect dust. I still got starter from 2009 sitting on the shelves as I thought they would be needed.
I also don't a need to get so-called certified. Oh I can easily pass the written tests but that don't mean the guys that do know what they are doing.
I remember when I was layoff in 1996. Finding employment was nearly impossible. I was either over qualified or didn't have the certification papers. I finally found a job working on Toshiba copiers which I had to learn on the fly but at least I had experience working on Panasonic copiers. It did help that the owner of the shop was desperate for a tech. I made it six months until the boss's father showed his butt complaining that I wasn't getting the work done when it that the company hadn't paid the parts bill and Toshiba had the parts on hold.
Now that I work for myself there is no going back to kissing rumps for employment.
The rest of the story. This is not a factory warranty, this is a store return that was purchased by the customer 2 years ago and the customer purchased the extended warranty. I don't do extended warranties. The person that originally called me and lied about it being factory warranty. Needed either extensive transmission repair or transmission replacement. Input shaft bearings whining and also looks like either the shift fork is bent from the way it is acting, or something else going goofy. With the tires off of the ground and the single speed transaxle in N the wheels turn in reverse.I know the feeling. Just got a what looks like new Huskee rider in Saturday. Must of had a case of the Monday's Idler pulley for the short belt on the rear is whining, the variable pulley bearing has a wobble, and the input shaft wobbles on the transaxle is also jumping gears internally under high load. Contacted by extended warranty company to see if I could do the factory warranty, because they and the customer both claim it is under warranty. And as of right now I have not seen a purchase date or a copy of the receipt. Oh, the serial number date code for this MTD is 1b068 which is February 6, 2018. Which is two years outside of the factory warranty.
I can't even begin to do a warranty parts request without the receipt because everybody will want a copy of it before proceeding.