/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>2794254
>be me, arborist
>get called out to a site visit by the boss
>usually work on big trees so suburbia is a bit odd
>told it's a yew
>get to the address, expecting to see a yew looming over the house
>see fuck all
>knock on the door
>no answer
>call the client's phone
>door opens
>client has a go at me for not knocking on the door
>I literally just did
>back garden is a mess of planters, koi ponds, and all other rich person but small house nonsense
>yew tree is literally fucking nothing, it's a feature tree that he doesn't want anymore
>maybe 10 foot tall, it would be a 5 second job if it wasn't for the concrete planters
>start hashing out a plan to the client, focusing on getting the job done as fast as possible to keep the price down
>client vetoes everything
>won't move the planters
>won't let us move the planters
>won't keep his shitty little yorkie dogs in the house
>won't let us use the side gate and carry the dross and timber out to the trailer (because the dogs will get out)
>we have to carry everything through the house
>with pictures on the wall in a narrow bongalow hallway and a runner rug that he won't take up
>so we have to take our boots off
>and carry them between doors
>while also carrying the yew
>without letting the dogs out the front
I refused the job on the spot. Literally it would have been a 5 second job. Move the planters, straight fell, use a tirfor to get the stump out, fill in. The amount of bullshit the client put on me was baffling.
This was 7 years ago and I still think about it. I probably would have given him the fuck you price if his yorkies weren't attacking my boots. Even a 5x profit margin wouldn't have been worth the bullshit if I'd "accidentally" stepped on one of the furry fuckers.

I've had my Ruger MkIII apart to clean it once. It was a goddamn act of congress and squinting at a youtube video for 45 minutes to get it back together. I just spray it down with oil, brush it and hit it with the air compressor

>Work on remodeling crews for years.
>Sick of the work and idiot contractors.
>Decide to start my own general handyman business.
>Doing good, making money, staying busy.
>Family member refers me to a co-workers sister-in-law or some shit.
>Show up, basic stuff, hang a few things, install a light fixture.
>Quick $150, the way I like it.
>She asks me about installing a new front door.
>Give her a quote.
>She asks me about knocking a wall out.
>It's a condo unit.
>Spidey senses tingling.
>Tell her not a good idea, it's one long building, I don't know how it might affect the structure, the attic or neighbors, I'm not a GC. Anything to get out of there.
>A week later I get a text from her.
>Picture of a ceiling torn up, AC ducts and insulation showing.
>"I decided to tear out the wall myself. Do you know anything about drywall?"
>Blocked and ghosted.
Eventually you develop a nose for for the shitshows.

>>2794254
>Work at a computer shop
>Strictly simple shit for consumers
>Virus removal, custom build gaming machines, OS reloads, basic repairs, and troubleshooting
>Get an email from a guy that wants to move from "Microsoft to Gmail"
>Call the guy and give him the standard message and quote for a mailbox export/import
>I say its cheaper if you being the computer in or I can come to you and do it onsite
>We discuss the number of messages, the age of the machine, travel time, and I quote it out
>When I asked him initially how many mailboxes it would be he said 'one'
>I get onsite and its a business, not a personal address
>I walk in and talk with the receptionist asking if its the right place
>She confirms they were expecting me
>Sit in the lobby cooling my jets for 45 fucking minutes before 'the boss' shows up
>He takes me to the 'computer' with 'the mailbox'
>It is a fucking Supermicro tower server from the early aughts running Windows Small Business Server 2003
>It is an on-premises Exchange server with 40+ mailboxes, many of which are 20 years old.
>I ask how old it is and he says 'maybe 5 years' with a straight face
>I point at the 2003 on the info screen and say, are you sure?
>Well, maybe a little older
>We discuss it a bit more and the server has been crashing regularly
>I did a quick check of the hard drive and its got tons of bad sectors
>Nope

Motherfucker wasted my afternoon trying to get me to honor a lowball quote to export a single mailbox when the shithead knew damn well he had a dumpster fire on his hands. I gave him the number of a local MSP that I normally referred business clients to. When I met up with my contact a few weeks later at an event he had a story to tell. The short of it was the guy got quoted for what he really needed, refused because of the price, and then lost everything when the drive on the server died.

>>2794508
>Customers that hire you for a job, then proceed to tell you how the job needs to be done.
I'm a chill guy, but few things bring me closer to unleashed rage.

>>2794535
>got quoted for what he really needed, refused because of the price, and then lost everything when the drive on the server died.
LOL
thats amazing. when they think they know best and it blows up in their face. gotta love it. only good thing working around idiots.

>>2794535
> got a call from a friend of my fathers
> moving offices after 20 years or so
> he needed help “printing labels” for all his clients
> get the printer and labels going
> do some test labels.
> how’s that?
> “good, here’s the first box” <bam>
> drops a filebox on the desk
> motherfucker hadn’t computerized anything
> proceeded to type in over a thousand names and addresses

>>2794576
You couldn’t just scan them and use an OCR tool? Or was this back in the good old days

>>2794508
this is someone who gets off on the power.
I did work on a Italian mans house who moved to America, bought exclusively metric and Italian shit, then bitched anytime it take a week to get a part and they don't have it at home depot.
the only people he hated worse than Americans were Mexicans.
i walked out when he hired a buncha movers that were like 16, has them move a giant mirror (prolly 400 or 500 lbs), then when the corner tapped the top of his stairs he spent 10 minutes screaming about insurance and telling them he's going to sue them.


same guy wanted a charcoal stove in his kitchen. that's falls inspection

he bought a electric stove, had me install it, run the inspection, then threw it away without ever taking a sticker off.
like dumpster threw away. he had cameras and the money to get a cop to do whatever he wants so I didn't come back to take it.
i normally will remodel my house off their trash.

working as a independent contractor, construction, has radicalized me.
I relate more to Mexicans and find most of my own people (white Americans) to be disrespectful, distasteful, stuck up, and all around niggerish, for lack of a better term.

I'll see someone living in a mexican built house cry how unskilled and lazy Mexicans are as they make money by eating food on the Internet and can't change a lightbulb.

the kinda work I can do attached.

>>2794571
The whole story was dumber and sadder than that. Basically, the company, a local cabinetry and woodworking factory, had been on the skids barely making any money for years because of COVID. They didn't have the cash to get a new server so they thought they could just move everything to Gmail, They made the accounts and then found that they couldn't just import everything easily. They wanted me to migrate everything and I told them it was not a simple task. You can't import a 20 year old Exchange database into a bunch of free Gmail accounts. You have to load every inbox up in Outlook, export the mail to a file, then connect the Gmail account to Outlook and import everything to that. It was going to be days of work and all of his workstations were slow as shit too. This was after explaining to him that the server was at deaths door.

So, the MSP did a quote and tried to get him into Microsoft 365. That would also allow him to user their custom domain. Also, you can import the database into it so there would be less labor cost. Assuming the server survived the operation. Well, he didn't want to pay their rates ($150 an hour) and didn't want to then have a bunch of subscriptions to deal with. He was looking at paying $160+ a month for something that was 'free' before. Remember, equipment like servers are considered 'worthless' after 5 years for tax reasons so he'd gotten 15 years of 'free' email and was used to it.

Well, he put it off hoping the server would last and it didn't. He then hired some fuckup who was cheap to try and salvage their old emails from the local Outlook mail files. They ended up losing a ton of stuff when migrating the mailboxes. The company lost a bunch of business because they were offline for like a month and then lost a bunch of their email conversations. They ended up laying a bunch of people off and eventually he sold the business. The new owners basically shut the place down and moved all their clients to their main operation.

>>2794579
> ocr?
Nah, it was back in the day. The labels were printed on fan-feed dot matrix printer. The fileboxes were a bit of a mess, so it would have beed hard to ocr. It’s funny people have computers and don’t effectively use them. My wife got a new iphone just to get the “memoji” feature.

>>2794589
Here’s another guy that didn’t personally learn about backups until it was too late. Usually you want them to learn that lesson early on in their personal life not later on trying to run a company.

>>2794535
>>2794589
small business owners are complete faggots. I work full-time IT but I've been doing side gigs for small orgs. Big mistake

they want a functioning environment with a coffee grounds budget, and they'll drag you to hell and back to get it. Everything is your fault when you're just trying to zip-tie napkins together to make it work. They'll happily spend money maintaining a dumpster fire that they created, but will veto every proposal to get out of it.
>small business with a shitty ISP router
>paying a monthly fee for the router
>wifi doesn't reach all the way across the building, so they also pay for a separate 4G hotspot
>of course, can't access any of the network resources while on the hotspot, and internet speeds are abysmal
>they're probably paying close to $100/mo for this dogshit, not including the internet they barely use
>propose for a new router and new APs for about ~$400 installed
>considering the benefits of actually getting the full speeds they pay for, and convenience of actually being able to use wifi anywhere in the building, the increased productivity, this is a really generous offer
"no"

>>2794508
>maybe 10 foot tall
you could probably have pushed it over and thrown it over the fence. Tell the retarded homeowner to go to harbor freight and get a knock off pruning saw and do it himself.

>>2794535
>the guy got quoted for what he really needed, refused because of the price, and then lost everything when the drive on the server died.
a tale as old as time!

How often y'all smell the dirty panties in the hamper when you use the bathroom?

>>2795170
ive been in daughters bedrooms with undwear clearly on the floor, or at homes by myself where i have free reign to go anywhere and open anything. i never did anything degenerate. the thought alone is kinda enough.

>>2794535
>Get an email from a guy that wants to move from "Microsoft to Gmail"
this makes me laugh a lot harder than it should

>>2794254

you fucking pussies!
>computer guy
>get orders to go to an address and fix printer issue.
>It's a house.
>I hate private home jobs.
>place looks like shit.
>knock on door.
>older woman answers.
>door opens.
>hit in the face with military grade cat shit/piss smell.
>I go in (yes I went in).
>place is a mess.
>cat shit everywhere.
>wild cat races out of the house from behind a couch once the door opens.
oh that's snookums she's shy.
>get led back to the room with computer.
>shit everywhere.
>more cats running around terrified trying to get out.
>fix printer problem with old deskjet.
>takes almost 2 hours.
>no air conditioning in house over 110 degrees outside.
>stagger outside and head back to office.
>tell boss never again.
>when she gets the bill she freaks out because the cost to fix was 2 times what a new printer cost. yes she was told our rate.
>takes her 6 months to pay the bill.
>boss never sends me to another job like that ever again.

>>2795631
Met up with a friend who became a paramedic since I’d last seen him.
First thing he said “People are disgusting”

>>2795631
Reminds me of a plumbing job. Had to service this home 3x before I just ghosted the job.
>Californian boomer transplant
>hippie hoarder
>cat lady
>water leak is under trailer where 30 cats piss/shit
>she also asks if I can get the raccoon out
>find leak, 5 min fix
>turn water off on the main say it'll have to be done on Monday
>1000% could have been done that day if I worked overtime and got a helper out
>enjoy my weekend knowing I made her life a little bit worse
Californians can stay the fuck away

>>2794510
Eventually you learn. I am unwilling to take apart smartphones anymore. I do not have a 9 year old Chinese boy with 9 year old Chinese fingers to help reassemble the thing like they do at Foxconn factories.

>>2795631
I’ve done some random shit in those places, the old people. There’s always 6 other jobs that need to be done before getting to the main thing. 5 of those jobs look simple, maybe I can snag this and that on my run to Home Depot and knock out 3 little broken/leaky things while I’m here. But every single one is a 40 year old rusted-moldy-termite eaten project that has been patched by duct tape and krazy glue numerous times over the past 5 years.

>>2795620
this is still by far my favorite piece of AI generated content, i'm not sure if it'll ever be topped.

>>2795659
the one statement that people say when I would show up to work on their computers that meant doom and despair was:
>it's probably something simple.

only about 1% of the time was it something simple.

>>2796382
If it was simple, they wouldn’t be calling a pro to fix it.

It’s like ads for used cars:
>AC just needs a recharge
>I have the part, but I don’t have the time to fix it
>It just needs <$100 part!
Both of these are complete bullshit. If you could spend $20 on some R-134a or take 2 hours to replace a part and list the car for $1000+ more, it would be done.

Oh and here’s my favorite refusal:
>Boomer neighbor bought used boat
>starter is starting to go, he doesn’t want to bring it to a boat shop because he can order a starter off Amazon for cheap
>I get in there, look at this inboard motor, starter is on the rear of the engine right up against the hull of the boat
>see saltwater in the bottom of the hull mere inches from the starter
>tfw there’s no fucking way anything is going to bolt-unbolt from this block easily, and if I snap a bolt, there’s no easy way to get a drill in there to retap the hole

So another neighbor’s son runs a gas station with a little garage and convinces them to do it at the shop. They replace it, get it back, the first time he gets the boat in the water, the starter makes a horrible grinding noise because the threads in the block for the starter bolts got fucked and the starter halfway popped out.

I have no clue how they got in there the 2nd time to fix it, but I’m sure it was fun.

>>2794508
>arborist
question for you.
i got a bunch of maple trees, 2 of them have gridled roots. call out an arborist to get estimate. tells me the trees are too old for this, and just to let them live and die.
my trees are less than 20 years old.
youtube vids full of people air spading 50+ year old oaks
who is full of shit?

>>2796426
Are you talking about maples or oaks?

>work for state government in IT department.
>upper management are psychopaths
>no compassion
>no fucks given
>no possibility of raises (because laws).
>each department is a kingdom and will not take ownership of problems.
>their answer to everything is re-image it.
>Took job because great benefits.
>hang in there for 4 years
>tail end of my 21 years in IT
>burned out
>always put customer first
>when problems appear never give up, never surrender.
>get tired of wishy washy supervisor coddling an inept employee.
>get tired of being ignored even though I am constantly proved right.
>discuss with my wife who retired to take care of her mother.
>take a chance and retire.
>supervisor knows it's coming
>area manager stops in office and gives me the ol' buck up little camper talk.
>stare at him with poker face the whole time.
>he leaves
>I get up walk over to supervisor and drop letter of resignation on his desk in front of him while looking him right in the eye.
>he looks away
felt good man.

2 years later mother in law passes away and we inherit enough (including our investments) to never have to work again.

>>2796893
Good for you bro, and godbless you mother-in-law for leaving you and your wife something.

I know several tradies that took pay cuts to go work for lower paying govt positions just because of the benefits alone.

>>2794919
2000% this, fuck em all

>>2794254
house that always stuck with me was an old guy,
>had about 30-40 lamps with halogen bulbs in them, guy didnt need heating we were sweating just at the door from all the lamps being on.
>walked through to his lounge, pass 5 or 6 cats sleeping might as well be taxidermied just completely still.
>into the lounge, huge pile of cds in front of the tv like 500 cds easily probably more just loose in a pile with anothe cat sleeping on top.
everything else about the house was clean/normal.
just kind of odd my mate still brings it up

>>2796953
sounds like an average old guy that went slightly off the rails after his longtime wife died

>>2796935
>I know several tradies that took pay cuts to go work for lower paying govt positions just because of the benefits alone.

Which equates to much higher net return from their jobs. Ability to vest a reliable pension with medical benefits is worth killing for. Americans for the most part don't bargain collectively or fuck it up when they do then imagine collective bargaining (a tool) is the problem rather than its misuse. Workers desiring certain protections and benefits can only obtain them by working for local, state or federal government so they accept the proffered package.

Medical benefits often dwarf base pay in value. Our working lives end (if we're lucky enough for them to end) in the horrible nasty decline and debility of age. Money enables freedom and lessens life's inherent misery. Obtaining a quality retirement is the most important life task because the alternative is decades of poverty and loss of freedoms that require money to exercise.

Choose wisely and plan for the long term because our future arrives sooner than we expect.

>>2794919
I only do that in charity cases.I.E. the business provides a community service, and, for example, they need internet connectivity.

In one case, they were close to a public building equipped w wifi. I had a couple of AC grade routers, with DD-WRT. They are broadcomm chipsets, and broadcomm is mega-gay, not opensourcing their drivers. OpenWrt won't touch them, the wireless portion, because of that. I arrayed one near the second story to act as a client-router, and the rest as AP's on the main floor, running ethernet.

Now, it has good coverage and no longer has to pay a monthly bill, for what was pretty shitty service. Fiber runs through that town, and unless they want to help businesses in fundamental ways, that could be one ancillary aspect. But they don't; they actively shoo businesses away, and anyone operating one downtown is just a Mark, for their fees. Consequently the area suffers from a lack of ... anything.

Ignorant retardism at maximum. Of course the local civil water supply is poisoned, lending towards infertility, ill-health and stupidity. The only people who are somewhat intelligent, are on their own well-water. Thank god some based homesteaders are moving in, knowing about permaculture, swales, and want to and equipped to live off-grid, not feeding the utility monsters, their poor service and high prices.

TLDR If you keep it at a limited charity level, it avoids overexposure and disappointment.

>>2797086
tl,dr GOES AT THE TOP IDIOT. it serves no purpose at the end.

fucking boomers. do they get EVERYTHING backwards?

>>2796935
>I know several tradies that took pay cuts to go work for lower paying govt positions just because of the benefits alone.
Yeah I took a $20,000 pay cut because of the benefits.

>>2797096
I've been on this and many sites. tldr has always been at the end. cope seethe.

also lay off the coffee and maybe you will have the attention span to read something.

>>2797121
haha. This rebuttal wasn't from me, but I agree. I wrote tldr at the end because that's when i had the info to summarize.

>>2797096
Your brain and eyes scan the body text. Your heart, and mind, forms an opinion. The tldr is the best way to summarize the jist of the text you scanned. If they don't correlate, you probably scanned something wrong. Think of it as a checksum. True, I could put it at the front, but I like text to develop organically.

It's tough. I know we have a lot of fluoridated brainlets from reddit.