Uncomfortable situations. As plumbers, we seem to be caught in these predicaments quite often. This is fine, and we accept this as part of the job description. Whether it be a physically uncomfortable situation, or an awkward moment, there is never a shortage in this line of work. Physically, it can be cramming yourself into a 24″ vanity with a divider in the middle, drawers on one side, and a toilet where your legs need to be, trying to reach the faucet…….after lunch. Plumber, contortionist, it’s all the same. It can also be climbing into a 12″ crawlspace, in dirt amongst the cobwebs, spiders, and the raccoon staring at you over in the corner. An awkward situation is never far away as we are always walking through people’s bedrooms to the bathroom, opening their cabinets, and walking through the basement. If you have read one of our earlier posts, it can also include cutting a water line and forgetting to turn the water off!
Unfortunately, there is another time that becomes uncomfortable very fast. This is when we hand the customer the invoice and we get the dreaded response of “Wow……..you make good money don’t you?!” Even with all the experience we have to this reply, and the preparation that goes into a courteous response to it, it always still takes you by surprise. This reminds me of two things, one, an old plumber joke, and one, old folklore.
The first is the story of the plumber that went to the doctor’s (or accountant, attorney, dentist etc…) house to fix a leaky faucet. The plumber fixed it in 15 minutes and handed the doctor the bill for $100. Outraged, the doctor proclaimed “I’m a neurosurgeon and I don’t even make that much money per hour!!” The plumber politely replied, “neither did I when I was a surgeon.”
It is not really known how much of the next story is true or not. It may simply be a fable to make a point about any service professional, whether it be a doctor, attorney, electrician, web site designer(http://www.mothercupboards.net), or plumber. The story goes like this: One day, back when Henry Ford had his assembly line rolling cars out at maximum capacity, his plant suddenly encountered a problem. This problem shut the line down and was costing Ford thousands of dollars per hour while it was down. He called in the electrical genius Nikola Tesla to see if he could resolve the problem. After looking around for a few minutes, Tesla casually took out his marker and made a big X on one of the transformers in the plant. He billed Ford for $10,000. Mr. Ford had no problem paying the bill, but asked if Tesla would be so kind as to itemize the bill for him. Tesla agreed and the bill read: $1 charge for putting the X on the wall and $9999 for knowing where to put it.
The point of all of this is this, if you pay for any type of service, you ARE NOT PAYING FOR JUST THE TIME IT TOOK. You are paying for all of the knowledge, skills, education and lifetimes worth of experience that the service provider has. Remember, if a plumber comes out to your house to fix a leak, and it takes him exactly 3 seconds to tighten something down and stop the leak, you may feel silly, and you may be angry about paying for a service call and the very short amount of time it took him. But remember, he knew how to fix it, you didn’t, THAT is what you are paying for. On a side note, you can also throw in: his time to get there, gas, truck, insurance, tools, licenses, ongoing education, tool and truck maintenance, business fees, office equipment and supplies, phones, computer, accounting fees and legal fees. There was a lot more that went into your service call than just the “15 minutes.”
Thankfully, 99% of people understand all of this, so I guess in a sense, I just spent the last 30 minutes writing to 1% of the people.
Dumb plumber…….maybe; uneducated, over-payed guy fixing your pipes, absolutely not.
Unfortunately, there is another time that becomes uncomfortable very fast. This is when we hand the customer the invoice and we get the dreaded response of “Wow……..you make good money don’t you?!” Even with all the experience we have to this reply, and the preparation that goes into a courteous response to it, it always still takes you by surprise. This reminds me of two things, one, an old plumber joke, and one, old folklore.
The first is the story of the plumber that went to the doctor’s (or accountant, attorney, dentist etc…) house to fix a leaky faucet. The plumber fixed it in 15 minutes and handed the doctor the bill for $100. Outraged, the doctor proclaimed “I’m a neurosurgeon and I don’t even make that much money per hour!!” The plumber politely replied, “neither did I when I was a surgeon.”
It is not really known how much of the next story is true or not. It may simply be a fable to make a point about any service professional, whether it be a doctor, attorney, electrician, web site designer(http://www.mothercupboards.net), or plumber. The story goes like this: One day, back when Henry Ford had his assembly line rolling cars out at maximum capacity, his plant suddenly encountered a problem. This problem shut the line down and was costing Ford thousands of dollars per hour while it was down. He called in the electrical genius Nikola Tesla to see if he could resolve the problem. After looking around for a few minutes, Tesla casually took out his marker and made a big X on one of the transformers in the plant. He billed Ford for $10,000. Mr. Ford had no problem paying the bill, but asked if Tesla would be so kind as to itemize the bill for him. Tesla agreed and the bill read: $1 charge for putting the X on the wall and $9999 for knowing where to put it.
The point of all of this is this, if you pay for any type of service, you ARE NOT PAYING FOR JUST THE TIME IT TOOK. You are paying for all of the knowledge, skills, education and lifetimes worth of experience that the service provider has. Remember, if a plumber comes out to your house to fix a leak, and it takes him exactly 3 seconds to tighten something down and stop the leak, you may feel silly, and you may be angry about paying for a service call and the very short amount of time it took him. But remember, he knew how to fix it, you didn’t, THAT is what you are paying for. On a side note, you can also throw in: his time to get there, gas, truck, insurance, tools, licenses, ongoing education, tool and truck maintenance, business fees, office equipment and supplies, phones, computer, accounting fees and legal fees. There was a lot more that went into your service call than just the “15 minutes.”
Thankfully, 99% of people understand all of this, so I guess in a sense, I just spent the last 30 minutes writing to 1% of the people.
Dumb plumber…….maybe; uneducated, over-payed guy fixing your pipes, absolutely not.