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goncall

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Posts posted by goncall

  1. My week so far as a subbie.

    Left house at 3:30am monday, drive to Birmingham, start work at 5:30am finish at 17:00, three hour drive home, leave at 5am the next day to go to Staines, work until 18:30, two hour drive to Birmingham, stay away for night, on site at 5:30am, finish at 17:30, three hour drive home, 5am this morning, back to Staines, then over to Southampton for the afternoon, Southampton tomorrow and again on Saturday.

    Picking up callouts in between, emailing constantly all day, staying on top of the other five large installs we have finishing in the next two weeks, fighting with site contractors, fighting for the hours on jobs, fighting to get equipment sent out correctly to every site, fighting for payment on time, fighting an over stressed monitoring station/tech support to get everything commissioned correctly, the battle goes on and on and on.

    Actually a good week as I've been home two nights out of three.

    There are two types of subbies, ones which float around on average day rate, picking up jobs from medium size companies, easier life in some respects but has the risk of being picked up or dropped when needed and you're actually not much better off for all of your troubles in the long run.

    Then you have subbies which are in it to make it into a buisiness. To be this kind of sub-contractor you have to have the experience and the right contacts right from the word go. It's no good just doing 6 years of install and expecting to know every aspect of running a project and co managing a contract at the same time as installing it and dealing with the rest of the shizz. You have to go over and above what's expected, you need to position yourself so that you're invaluable and can't be easily replaced and get on contracts which normal day to day engineers can't cope with.

    Or you could be lucky like me and partner up with someone who is already well established.

    your still a subby tho,and if the co your subbing for allows you to work those hours in their name id ask just how important you are to them

  2. i was listening to r4 today and wages vs tax was discussed. Many wanted to see an increase in wages as its the best way forward. Then another came on saying they wanted to but they kept loosing jobs, coaches i think.

    Question would be how many consumers would pay a higher price for any item or service because of paying more. It seems to me that most look at getting it as cheap as possible. Energy is an easy one. who would pay more to the provider knowing they pay well?

    but most on here think that pay as little as possible and charge as much as possible then complain when customers think the same

  3. Depends on the customer, i work on numbers, if the numbers dont add up I do nothing. I do not mind paying for value, if I buy a meal out and pay top dollar I do expect decent food 

    if the numbers didnt add up on one school job and you had to take a hit to get it done due to lack of service availability and had to pay more for labour than costed for would you walk away from that customer even if they are a good paying customer

  4. LOL

     

     

    Aint that the truth

    Its all down to desperation, none of my chaps want to work weekends, so I have to ask them how how much they would want to do it. I also explain this to the customer, but If the customer is desperate enough they agree. 

    but what if they want it done at the price given would you pay the ot to keep the customer happy even if it comes off the bottom line

  5. I have so many schools now they are becoming a problem, every half term they all want stuff done, more cameras, new access controlled doors, new intruder alarm panels, automated gates ect ect ect. The problem with this is engineers with kids want time off during half term, and subbies are the same.

     

    I agree with your comments though Andrew spot on for paying and they never argue or fk around so long as you look after them.

    Just do them on a weekend then,thats what I do

  6. Dont know about others, but most of our systems are on UDL with RSS and most of the automated stuff is carried out out night, one in a million but if a breakin was to occur whilst carrying out a remote service and a system didnt signal where the liability going.

     

    A) Installer for connection to a system

    b) Comms device

     

    Going to test our preferred comms tomorrow.

     

    Ours site starts the dial out, but the automated service the panel initials the call and the record at our end if the system is set, is locked so changes cant be made.

    this wasnt a remote service he dialled it to do a software update and it all went wrong and if i remember right was going to leave it and risk it until some on here made him change his mind and call the keyholder out to fix it

  7. It is, but not a new thing, most systems wont let you in until unset, right?

     

    I know this would still stop PAs etc... so still not great.

    depends how its progd,good practice is unset only with customer permission but a thread a while back where someone dialled into a set system and fck it up leaving the site with no alarm and had to call the keyholder out

  8. The newer type electronic shutters that have the rubber seal at the bottom and thin Ali with what looks like hard foam in between the inner and outer skins

    the rubber seal causes more problems than enough the other ends up bolted i agree

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