Rant....

[shmoov69]

I know that you weren't bashing blue collar Andrew, and I REALLY KNOW that you know how business works, heck you know more about it than most people. So please don't think I was questioning that at all. My whole point was that the experience costs money and it just seems that so many people don't realize that unless there is a bunch of letters behind the name of the person they're paying. LoL!
I know it's apples and oranges here because they DID overcharge you (I think as well). But I've had many customers over the years say something similar (usually after they don't pay) and I tell them that they can call the tech and tell him that his service and time wasn't valuable enough to pay them their wages. Like you said, Usually the repair tech is one of your most experienced guys, and therefore the most valuable. But if he's driving around doing diagnosis only for $50 a pop, it would not be very wise to even be in business for a measly $250 a day (figuring about 5 places on a good day) if everyone said "no thanks but I'll fix it myself, thanks for the diagnosis tho". Considering your "less experienced crew" doing HVAC installs are getting you around $1,000+ a day.
I would guess that the labor rate would be around $75 an hour, but there is travel time to and from the shop (or next job site), which would add approximately an hour to the time that you gotta remember.

I honestly got "slapped" one day (figuratively that is), when I was complaining about what someone was charging to do something. What got me was when I started thinking about the companies business and overhead costs, and then adding what "my time" was worth. When I realized that I wouldn't want to do the job "as a business" and clear only a hundred bucks at the end of the day.



Anyway, $250-300 is where "I" think it should've been considering your information. Theres good companies and bad companies. Sounds like you got a bad one.