Are women born mechanically challenged?

[Hay Dude]

Yep, that's why it's a good idea to try and get more than just one bid (estimate) for the job.

It just never ceases to amaze me how a potential customer wants me to give him an exact price on how long it will take to dig a ditch with my mini-ex or mow a field with our 15' batwing when we've never done it before, accept our estimate, then whine like a 2nd grader when we get done faster than our estimate.

Oh yeah, I forgot, the equipment transports itself, maintains itself, fuels itself, insures itself and puts itself away. LOL

Now I don't know about you, but usually the richest guy in town aint the one with the backhoe and a 1/2 million dollars worth of trucks & equipment to maintain, pay down and insure.

[ray66v]

Most women are in fact mechanically challenged, but that's usually because they want to be. As well as the men who have the same aversion to learning mechanical dexterity.

The late 1980's saw a sharp increase in women being hired as auto insurance claim appraisers, after some sex discrimination lawsuits rocked the industry. Their only qualification for the job being they had lady parts.

Prior to that, most appraisers had experience working in a body shop.

Imagine what it was like to have, almost on a daily basis, a young woman, usually then right out of college, standing there in your body shop wearing high heels, telling you that the 8 hours you had on your estimate for straightening a frame was too much, and she was only going to let you have 4 hours.

Most did eventually learn what a fair price for a given repair was, and stopped with the automatic assumptions that every price was too high, (no doubt to the dismay of their bosses). But, that was only because we had to take the time out every day to educate them.

I believe women can learn to do anything a man can do. I also believe a lot of women are perfectly happy to be women, and not do that.

[deerefan]

It just never ceases to amaze me how a potential customer wants me to give him an exact price on how long it will take to dig a ditch with my mini-ex or mow a field with our 15' batwing when we've never done it before, accept our estimate, then whine like a 2nd grader when we get done faster than our estimate.

Oh yeah, I forgot, the equipment transports itself, maintains itself, fuels itself, insures itself and puts itself away. LOL

Now I don't know about you, but usually the richest guy in town aint the one with the backhoe and a 1/2 million dollars worth of trucks & equipment to maintain, pay down and insure.

I have been working in commercial construction for over 10 years now. Any type of civil work is never easy to estimate, mainly due to the constantly fluctuating cost of materials, fuel and expense of keeping equipment maintained and running. When a company pulls off a job due to lack of funds or income, 90% of time it is the civil contractor. People not in this induatry have absolutely no clue as to what it takes to do civil work.

[logdog]

I was an auto tech at a dealer for a long time before changing careers. This is what I learned about flat rate.

If I did it faster than the quote the customer would complain about being ripped off.

If I took longer than the quote the customer would complain because the car wasnt done on time.

If I did the job for straight hourly time the customer would complain because I stopped to answer a question or help a vo-tec kid and didn't immediately punch off the repair order

If I did the job for free the customer would complain because our parts department charged too much

Nobody is ever happy to take their car into a shop.

[Deere Dude]

When you ask someone for an "estimate", as you did, that's what you get, an ESTIMATE!!
Maybe he thought he was going to hit rocks, stumps or who knows what. If he hit a 6' diameter boulder and it took 8 hours, would he get paid more than his estimate?
Did he hold a .357 to your head and make you accept his estimate? You should have asked him to work by the hour if you wanted to pay for exactly what you wanted, but then you might be back here complaining that he worked really slow and took a lot of breaks???

I understand your frustrations, but I'm sure you're a big boy and understand that when you run machinery for people (like I do) for a living, sometimes you finish sooner, sometimes it takes you longer. Hopefully it all evens out in the end. I can tell you that if someone is willing to trailer a backhoe to your house and do just about ANY trench for $400, that's not all that bad. It probably took him >1 hour to load the machine, binder it down, unload at your place 1.5 hrs to dig your trench, than >1 hour to load machine and take it home.

If he estimated it planning on hitting rocks or some tough stuff, but then he didn't, then it is screw the customer time? Seems so. If he would have hit a big rock shelf he would have charged for extra time anyway, and of course he should be compensated.

Certainly I understand it is an estimate, but it gets frustrating when the homeowner gets shafted both ways. When it is in the contractors favor, they hold the line at the estimate, but when it is in the homeowners favor, whoops we need more money.

That is not just operators in general. I find that in contracting out building jobs for houses and remodel jobs all the time. Maybe the estimators need to go take a class on estimating. I guess getting a few estimates is the way to go, but that still isn't a guarantee.

I had an estimate for a mound system 20 years ago from 4 plumbers. The cheapest was $6000, the next was a few hundred extra and so on. I couldn't get them in so I waited until the next April. I was building the house by myself and my wife so me had to get an early start in the year on it. I went back to the cheap plumber to give me an update because I expected prices to change. It shouldn't have been a problem. Mind you it took about 6 weeks to get the paperwork through the state so time was critical for me and he knew it. I waited 3 weeks or so and went to his place, and I got an excuse, "I'll was just going to start it." I waited another 3 weeks and checked the progress, "Whoops, I was just going to get started this week on it." Okay I said. Finally I say him in his truck someplace and told him to get with it a little bit. "Okay, I'll get right on it right away. Finally a couple weeks I went to his place of work and he said, "I have a new estimate of $9000. I asked him why so high. He told me the price of PVC went up and so did sand. I took him at his word and told him I'll have to get back with him because now it is July sometime. I called the next highest original bidder and he told me right away his estimate would go up about $400. I asked him how quick he could get the permit and he said he would walk it through the state but would maybe take a day or two so I told him to get going with it.

The first contractor knew I would have to get him if I didn't want to blow a year waiting for another plumber, and I was beyond patient and always am with all contractors. But, I remember little tidbits like that every time I get an estimate and have to deal with contractors or mechanics of any sort. But, I do let my guard down now and then especially when I know the guy. I learn all kinds of lessons that way. Maybe that's why I am so overworked. I get an estimate that is way to high or to slow so I just do it myself and get it done in half the time and twice as cheap. Homeowner beware, I guess is my new motto.

[deerehunter/operator]

Logdog pm sent.

[Mace Canute]

..............I believe women can learn to do anything a man can do...........

I bet they can't learn how to write their names in the snow.

[MRSDOUGLAS]

You are painting with a very broad brush. In my house I am the mechanicaly inclined one. The answer is not that they cannot, it is that they choose not to.

That's funny !!! Actually the main issue here is not her opinion of me or the service advisor, it's just that I don't understand why women cannot learn about mechanical things instead of being so ignorant. I can do laundry, change diapers, do housework, prepare a year's worth of meals, use a sewing machine (!!!!!) and I can easily do all those things, and no doubt tens of thousands of the members here can also....so why can't women at least learn some BASIC mechanical aptitude???? Remember the joke about the blonde woman who thought the shop was going to rip her off, but she said to her friends afterwards: "The service advisor told me I only needed turn signal fluid..."

[JoeBuyer]

Is that David Axelrod, the architect of Oscama's re-election?.

no politics in the forum

[tungularafishcamp]

I bet they can't learn how to write their names in the snow.

Mace, I was coming around the stern of a Chinese tramp steamer that was tied up alongside the floating processer we had just delivered crab to. Three chinese guys in full length coveralls walked up to the rail unzipped and took a whiz obviously having some kinda pissin contest. All 3 of them could shoot a lot further than I could and I was only 20 at the time. We pulled in closer as they were finishing and zipping up lo and behold they were all three Chinese WOMEN, with pumps and dexterity like they had I have no doubt they could not only write their name but do works of art in the snow as well.