The clash began after Spring refused to pay a $287 electrician’s bill that his landlord forwarded him for the repair of a burnt-out socket in his unit. Shortly after, the landlord notified Spring that his rent would increase by $100 per month.
The jury awarded Spring $16,000 — an amount that Oregon law doubles to $32,000 because of the nature of the violation. On top of that, Spring’s attorneys also are entitled to ask a judge to order the landlord to pay all of Spring’s legal fees, an amount that currently stands at $225,000.
Jesus christ, I’m an electrician, that’s 90 second job that takes $4 in parts. Who the fuck is charging $2.75 per second to change an outlet!
Your boss.
The ~$35 you get for your time is your cut.
I’d unionize.
Drive to my house and I will pay you $4
Truthfully I’m surprised they even hired out an electrician for that. General handyman can replace an outlet.
As a non-proffessional I’ve replaced outlets in my own house. It took me 20 minutes for the first one. Now it takes about 10, but that because I triple check everything and go slow
Unless of course you live in Quebec, where all electrical work must be done by a licensed, unionized electrician.
The odd thing is that it is still very difficult to even find an electrician. We have been waiting 10 months for someone to come and add a circuit with some outdoor lights.
I recently bought a house built in 1942. All of the receptacles dated to that time, ungrounded and with the polarity backwards for good measure. Forget about GFCI. Each room had one receptacle, with the bottom outlet of each partially blocked by baseboard radiators (which had been retrofitted later). I’m glad I never got to see the viper’s den of extension cords that prior tenants must have had going. I’m surprised that in 80 years nobody ever swapped in a modern receptacle since it’s not that hard to do.
A small job like that would charge a minimum of an hour, $4 for a receptacle, $30 for a gfi. We’re looking at a $150 to $200 job.
My stepdad was a self employed electrician, I went to work for him in the 90s and I remember him billing $60 for a automatic light switch in a public bathroom. I made about $0.50 doing the work. He paid me a dollar an hour and I was overpaid.
The truck roll is the expensive part.
Office expenses and office staff, too. I worked for a particular industry that used software that we plugged in monthly expenses, annual, and semiannual, including payroll, and it gave us back prices for individual screws that would bug your eyes from your head to also cover a nominal profit (about 15%), and unexpected expenses like insurance rate hikes for liability insurance, workers’ comp, broken equipment, etc. So that $0.30 screw suddenly became $6.
Honestly crazy that an old blown neutral ended up a $32k+ lawsuit.
A local mechanic wanted $25 for an oil change, after I bought the oil and filters. I ended up taking it to the other shop and getting a fully synthetic change for $7 less than the local guy, if I had purchased conventional oil, and that’s not including disposal cost.
$25 seems entirely fair for that
but it also sounds like oil changes are incredibly cheap where you are. a cheap synthetic change around here is $70
I can’t even do one myself for $25! Oil is usually right at 40$, plus the filter is 5-10$. And that’s on a domestic, my VW is even worse!
yeah oil changes are one thing I usually wouldn’t bother to do myself. I can’t get it done meaningfully cheaper by myself, as my costs are the same as you - $50 for oil + filter. at least disposal is free for me (hazardous waste dropoffs hosted by the city / tax dollars).
however I did start doing them myself to avoid having to spend time getting to/from the shop, if I needed a change and my car wasn’t going to the shop for another reason sometime soon.
It’s a 10 minute job, 15 at most. If I’d had ramps and my tools that were stolen, I would have done it myself. So I paid less, got a name brand oil and filter without having to shop for it, no disposal fee, for a 20 minute drive. I also had an appointment and was in and out in about 20 minutes, including talking with the shop owner, their family, and the shop fur babies, which my own fur baby got to enjoy.
15 minute job, plus talking to you, doing the books, having the bay taken up, having the tools and equipment…
people deserve to be paid for their work
Nah, this is a backyard guy.
ah, that makes a lot more sense then
Especially when a shop with liability insurance and overhead provides everything, with a better product, for less.
So he doesn’t deserve to get paid for his work… The fuck is wrong with you.
Like most people, budgetary constraints.
Cheap ass
When you pay my regular bills, I won’t be.