Dan Becker wrote, “Ken laments that he cannot find craftworthy employees, or
even trainable employees, but I think it is endemic of society...few of the
clients are demanding services that aspire to the level of quality that we
crave. Nope, all we know to do is go out to the Lowe's/Hechinger/Home Depot
Warehouse of Cheesy Building Parts and slap some nonsense on our building.”

1) I shop at Home Depot for my personal building needs. I enjoy shopping there
and will drive ten miles past the local hardware store in order to do it. They
usually have what I need in one stop, the atmosphere is more mall like,
exciting, and I get to see all the new stuff. It is not what they got, but if
you know what to do with it.

2) Apple shops at Home Depot as well. Schedule 40 PVC pipe and fittings for
water mist cleaning are easier to get off the shelf at Home Depot than with
other suppliers. We are not BIG into plumbing and do not carry an account with
a plumbing supply house. We need a convenient supplier for our one-time
purchases.

3) I eat at McDonalds, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King... though I am sort
of boycotting Burger King. I prefer Subway. We often order pizza from Pizza
Hut, particularly when we are too bushed to leave the house, but we are more
likely to go Chinese. Not the places for a power lunch. I prefer food cooked
on a campfire in the woods.

4) Apple purchases a lot of custom materials from various places. We prefer
getting custom materials manufactured in order to lessen the margin of error
in field work, not because we want to foster low-skilled labor. We simply
cannot maintain enough skilled people to go around. I do not exactly lament
the unavailablity of skilled craftspeople, they exist, I lament the
unavailability of profitable work to sustain honest trades who have skill and
pride in their work. The problem is feast or famine... one month the one
individual with the specific custom skill needed is wanted on five projects,
the next month there is no work for this individual. This is a difficult
balance to maintain. One reason many contractors outsource their labor.
Skilled trades are fickle, as well.

5) We work on shitass buildings. It keeps the cash flow going so that we can
occasionally position ourselves to work on a really nice building. We provide
shitass work as well. We charge accordingly. Nothing to brag about, a simple
reality of staying in business is that you have to feed the beast. This keeps
the skilled people busy and paid, at least, until they get a better offer or
we can satisfy their higher ambitions. What we try to avoid is getting tagged
as shitass contractors.

6) Sometimes people complain that Apple’s prices are too high. On my wall it
says, along with several other things, “I would rather explain my price than
apologize for poor quality.” The problem is that not only does one have to
provide suitable materials and skilled labor, which everyone seems to agree
on, but if concerned about providing quality (which should be a requisite of
historic preservation) the contractor has to go further to provide skilled
resource managment, customer relations, and service. These last three elements
are costly to provide, and are rarely addressed in specifications. This goes
beyond discussions of contractor prequalification (one subject to discuss at
IPTW is customer prequalification). I’ve occasionally been seduced into
lowering what I thought a proper cost by reducing project management, in every
case I have ended up losing considerable money, pissed at myself, and in a bad
way with someone else involved with the project. Not worth the trouble.
Customers expect to receive the same level of personal service regardless of
any agreements to compromise on price and despite however well quality is
maintained. I see a tension in the preservation industry in that there is no
obvious distinction made between providing contract services as a
labor/material commodity, and providing them with the added value of good
service.

7) I can only attend so many project meetings in a week and remain sane. I can
only maintain quality on a project by investing sufficient personal time.
Therefore I need to look at quality issues from the perspective of time
management. If I want to maintain a depth of relationships then I have to
limit the number of projects and meetings that I am involved with, and
therefore have to have higher margins on fewer projects in order to survive.

I agree with Dan Becker that a lot of customers are looking for the DISCOUNT
house of preservation when they seek a contractor.

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