Can You *#$% Believe This

ChillaWatt

I know these days money is tight, but come on. A GC I know calls me up and tells me he has a restaurant going up, wants me to meet him there, walk it, and possibly do all the low voltage. I won't mention the name of said restaurant, but it rhymes with Fool Hand Puke's. Now get this, dude has 6 point of service areas requiring 2 cat5e drops each. 4 POSs are 150 feet, the other 2 are about 90 feet. Then from there; 10 more small runs to kitchen, bar and cocktail printers. In addition, eight 90-150 foot coax runs for plasmas and some video cametras and 4 drops from roof to server room for satellite service feeds. He already had an invoice drawn up for my labor, he was supplying all of the mtls. Now here's the kicker...$200.00. Not two-thousand, two-hundred. To make it worse, he only had a couple boxes of cat5 and rg-6, so I would have to do more than 1 pull for the entire length of restaurant!! I was offended that he would even call me on that waste my gas and time. I have a rule, if my ladder comes off my truck it's a sevice call and $75.00, or an exstimate, which would be deducted from the job. A full day's work! I told him I can't touch it for under $1000.00 and that's because I know the *&#$%.

Chilla

JohnJ0906

Was he deliberately trying to insult you?

Is he a moron?

Has he just escaped from an insane asylum?

Have I covered all the possibilities?

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John from Baltimore
"One Day at a Time"
All replies based on the 2008 NEC

kevjob

wow I pay a laborer 200 to sweep up

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Kevin
Basement Finishing Highlands Ranch Colorado
Littleton Colorado, Basement Remodeling
Kitchen Remodeling Denver

BreyerConstruct

Wow.

Were you able to ask him how long he thought it would take?
Then maybe follow up with "how much of that would you like as a commission?"
So much for that business connection.


~Matt

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Blackhammer

I had a renovation Connection that was like that. He did apartment complexes. All the work had fixed prices and at first it seemed like money making projects. It turned out on several projects the only way to make any money on his projects was to cut corners. He did alot of illegal dumping and encouraged this behavior. I only did 1 project for him and I made nothing. probably cost me 2-300 bucks. I looked at several projects and they were all the same.

nap

maybe the $200 was for showing up to walk the building


I would be forced to ask if he just wanted to stab you or does he stab all of his subs that bad.

then,

GregS

That is absolutely nuts for $200, supplied or not.

I added it up, and I'd be closer to $2000CAD. And I would be supplying the cable. I don't know where he got his from but chances are it was cheap and will pull cheap.

Did he want terminations in that price too?

ChillaWatt

He did just get his license and he is all about himself. He says that he is securing work down the road. He signed somewhere where he shouldn't have and he is trying to re-coup. I'm just glad that I cleaned up on his football cards on his superbowl sunday party. Yes Giants. Thankful for this forum too, couldn't bitch anywhere else.

Chilla

Double-A

Then that lack of funds should come out of his wallet, not yours. I think the guy is a worthless bum.

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woodchuck2

Maybe he is trying to line his pockets too, get some sucker to do it for little or nothing while he bones the owner for a crew of men. I have seen this on other jobs. The GC was charging for his whole crew of 8-10 guys and there would be only one or two guys actually on the job working. The GC and my boss at the time hated each other but had to work with each other since the owner hired my boss and i to wire his homes instead of letting the GC hire his own Electricians. My boss threw the GC under the bus every chance he got. The GC was also charging the owner 50-100% mark-up on materials. We found that out when there was a delivery made to the job and the GC's crew was out to lunch so my boss gave the owner the delivery slip. The owner compared that slip to what he was being billed and flipped.

GSE

Lest see I drive a fork truck at the local plant, I have a pick-up truck and mag signs are cheap, I guess i can be a GC let me stop at the Office Depot on the way home and have them print some business cards, nothing to it just find a bunch of subs that work cheap. You will meet many of these boy wonders, the mental health services are overloaded, so they are walking the streets.

nywoodwizard

As a professional you should be insulted , I would of asked him to come out back ,take the $200 lunch money he offered, kick him in the nuts then tell him now we're even, off you go now.

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Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

ChillaWatt

I was pretty pissed off. Even though it was pretty much straight runs - no boxes, terminations or plates. I told him I would do it the next morning and loaded up his two boxes of cable into my truck. Next morning I told him if he caddied up enough cable for 1 pull I'd do it for a grand. He declined. He hasn't asked for his cable back either.

Chilla

tcleve4911

Sorry.....after all that, you did the job!? for $200.?

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ChillaWatt

No, but I made out with a box of rg-6 and cat 5e for my troubles.

Bob Kovacs

I'm confused- why would he call you just to pull cable from point A to point B? He's supplying the cable, and someone else (I'm not sure who) is doing the terminations, etc.- why hire an LV contractor to do the gruntwork part of the job???

SelfContract

Free Labor Concept.

JohnJ0906

Soooo.... you stole 2 boxes of wire?

__________________
John from Baltimore
"One Day at a Time"
All replies based on the 2008 NEC

JumboJack

That's a good point.Pulling wire is something that helpers usualy do.It takes the guy with the know how to do the terminations.I have been on jobs where the LV contractor only did the terminations and the GC had his grunts pull cat5 to where he needed it.Saved the LV time and the GC money.

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in texas with framing and cornish people will do it for 3.00 a foot. What do yall think about that? Just laber

GregS

Not always the best solution.

You need to know how to pull the wire, where you can pull the wire, and what happens if you put it in the wrong spot.

You need to know how hard you can pull on a twisted pair cable and bend ratios before it becomes useless.

You need basic construction knowledge to visualize where everything else in the house is going to go. You need to need to have an understanding about other trades requirements and if you are going to get in their way or not.

All of this comes through training and experience.