Some of you are vultures

tesuhoha

ess0two wrote: »

You cant compare a plumber to a dentist.The average joe could be trained as plumber in 6mths tops.A dentist takes years to train etc.
I could quite merrily live with a leaking pipe,but not toothache.

You know that do you? I know someone who has been working on site for four years and has not yet achieved his full City & Guilds or Corgi Registration and he's a bit more than the average joe, he has good GCSEs.

Could you live with a gas leak or a flood? Or a blocked up toilet or drain? Could you live with no heating or hot water?

DirectDebacle

greenwheels007 wrote: »

I had a quick look at post 349 and some of it makes sense to me.
I am sorry for challenging your superior views but they are just that, views, as are mine.
We are talking about 75,0000 reposessions and 500,000 in mortgage arrears predicited for 2009 if the economy stays as it is now throughout 2009.
House selling prices are reducing month on month by 1% to 5% per month.
Not sure where you glean the theory that I some how recycle the views of others, perhaps I share the views of others but that does not somehow mean that I am intellectually incapable of reasonable thought!
I apologise if you feel that I cherry picked and re-phrased your views but I do need to make a couple of points. Firstly I may have misunderstood what you said as you hadn't explained yourslef clearly and secondly this is a forum, an opportunity to discuss and challenge the views of others.
If I have offended you by merely asking you to look at the bigger picture then for that I am afraid I can offer no apology.

No need to apologise. I welcome debate. This is a thread. As you don't seem able to keep up with it that will explain much of what you said and I will allow for this when I read any of your future posts.

skap7309

tesuhoha wrote: »

There's a site called My Hammer where people post for quotes for building work.

Thanks for that site mention, just had a look and it is fantastic. Passed it onto my brother who is a plumber and would be very handy in the future. :T

greenwheels007

tesuhoha wrote: »

You know that do you? I know someone who has been working on site for four years and has not yet achieved his full City & Guilds or Corgi Registration and he's a bit more than the average joe, he has good GCSEs.

Could you live with a gas leak or a flood? Or a blocked up toilet or drain? Could you live with no heating or hot water?

I don't really want to take this any further as there are some big personal issues at stake for you.
My only point was that your husband had many years of opportunity to earn a wage far higher than most. I just think the original news item touched a nerve with people as some people have never had that opportunity. Tradespeople are now in a simular boat to others and should have put some money aside. You refer in your own contributions to a time when wages were good, that is my only point.
Hopefully wages will be good again for your husband one day and I hope he is able to find suitable employment to keep you ticking over until then.
All the best.

greenwheels007

DirectDebacle wrote: »

No need to apologise. I welcome debate. This is a thread. As you don't seem able to keep up with it that will explain much of what you said and I will allow for this when I read any of your future posts.

Again, as I have already stated, you need to explain yourself. I just don't understand what point you are trying to make!
I am only trying to help out with my own personal views, which I take time to explain. I feel that you need to try and take time to create posts that contribute to the debate and aren't purely driven by the insecurity of your own financial plight. Please try and keep up with the debate and explain the point you make.

ess0two

tesuhoha wrote: »

You know that do you? I know someone who has been working on site for four years and has not yet achieved his full City & Guilds or Corgi Registration and he's a bit more than the average joe, he has good GCSEs.

Could you live with a gas leak or a flood? Or a blocked up toilet or drain? Could you live with no heating or hot water?

Its getting a bit heated now,it takes longer and more expense to qualify as a Dentist than Plumber.
Equally they both do important jobs,as for a gas leak or flood,i'd just isolate supply,i'm quite handy and repair most things.
As for a busted tooth,i'd struggle.

Davesnave

You can say what you like, insult me by saying I'm speaking out of my rectum but I speak the truth. Supply teachers at my school start at 9 and finish at 3.30pm. Whether its a good school or not is irrelevant, the majority of them hand out the work or write it on the board and then sit at the front of the classroom. They certainly don't teach. There is a shortage of good supply teachers but its not going to last because with all this unemployment hopefully good people will start training to be teachers and we will not have to employ so many supply staff.

I'm not insulting you, just saying that you are giving exactly the same false impression about teachers as others may have given about plumbers.

A lot of people on here like to generalise from knowledge of the particular, and that's fair enough, as long as they realise it's anecdotal. I haven't taught beyond the schools in my city, so I was careful to say that not all supply teachers reach a good standard. I've heard the odd horror story.

The plumber I last employed was self-employed, with all that implies in extra costs compared with one who's employed by a building contractor. His price per hour compared closely with what the mechanic at my local garage charges. I wouldn't extrapolate too far from there.

I didn't mention (and wouldn't consider relevant) the only other plumber I know who, together with others in the building trade, bought up a large number of properties local to me and turned them into student lets. He now resides, blissfully far removed from students, or plumbing work, on one of the Channel Islands!

mramra

tesuhoha wrote: »

You know that do you? I know someone who has been working on site for four years and has not yet achieved his full City & Guilds or Corgi Registration and he's a bit more than the average joe, he has good GCSEs.

Could you live with a gas leak or a flood? Or a blocked up toilet or drain? Could you live with no heating or hot water?

No A levels or degree, sounds fairly average to me, or are you just saying that his name isn't Joe? :cool:

caveman38

tesuhoha wrote: »

He has been working on site yes and there is no reliability of continuing work. Site plumbers don't earn wonderful wages and they have all the disadvantages that I have talked about before. I don't know where you get your information from but construction workers are unemployed here in the South East and it is probably going that way in the rest of the country. Those who have tried to become self-employed are reporting that there is no work out there or very little because they are all competing for it and prices are going down.

I certainly don't want anyone's sympathy but please don't think plumbers are still raking it in. My husband does not think if he is not earning enough charge more. His way of thinking is undercut to survive which everyone we know is now having to do. Maybe those people who are established are doing better but it will hit them eventually. Its amazing isnt it, everyone wants to have a go at plumbers. They always get a bad press. The majority of them are just people like everyone else who just want a living wage, enough to pay the mortgage, bills and buy food.

Ok, I concede that your husband is now finding work hard and is now working longer hours for less pay. I apologise for the fact that I did not beleive you. As I have friends that are both plumbers and Corgi certified gas fitters and the fact that I also live in the SE. I have seen first hand the sort of monety that they were raking in and in most cases still are. Perhaps the pertinent point is they are private company contractors and work in houses and not on sites.
Beleive me it is very hard for me and maybe a lot of the general public to feel a lot of sympathy with various sectors of the working masses as perhaps we feel that we have been ripped off over the years.
Very few people feel symapthy for say:
a)Estate agts who were most probarly on £100K when the market was bouyant, but are now having to draw the reins in now houses are not selling
b) London cabbies who earned a similar amount but now complain that far too many people were allowed to do "the knowledge" and now have to share their work. Also they have to compete with a lot of unlicenced mini cabs.
Most people will also include plumbers and heating engineers. They would only be aware of what they are charged for callouts and work done in their houses unaware that those that worked on site are perhaps now out of work.
The everyday guy who earns £25 - £35K can only dream of earning that sort of dosh.
Another example com,es to mind. 3 years ago I had replacement windows put in the back of my house. The guy was very chatty as we had a common interest in music. He told me that he got £120 per window fitted. He had a resultbwith my house as the back were all picture windows ad he fitted 5 of them in less than 2 days. He informed me that he earned £80K a year. I kid you not.
The bottom line is that while things were good people in the building trade had it really good and I mean really good.
Regarding Eastern Europeans. Two guys in my street have had building work on their fronts (drives and walls) done this year. The work is first class and cost two thirds that of a british builder who too often perform poor work.
Again I am sorry for not beleiving you and I do not wish anyone hardship but I am delighted in the fact that I can get work done without getting screwed.

tesuhoha

Because I made the initial post I seem to have been accused of being a HPI. I'm not exactly sure what that is but I imagine its someone who's been welcoming the house price increases.

Let me tell you that I am not one of those. We do have a mortgage but we've only moved once in the last 20 years and that was to get away from the yobbos who were terrorising our estate. We first started buying years ago and bought a small flat. We were required to produce a 10% deposit. Our house buying record is not wonderful and we now only have a small 3 bed house.

The main reason we bought was for security as I have a fear of being on the streets. When I was a child my family were made homeless twice because we lived in tied houses. In case anyone doesnt know what that is, my father worked for an estate owner, then a farmer after that and in exchange from each employer he got a house to rent from them. He had two serious accidents at work, one on a tractor, and each time he was rendered unable to do the work and we lost our house. My mother around the same time also suffered a life changing devastating industrial accident from which she never fully recovered and for which she only ever received a small pension. As a family we were very poor and vulnerable.

That is why I have an insight into what it feels like to lose your home.