Hacker News Reader

Finding good help is exceptionally difficult. It's gotten to the point where I pretty much do everything myself. What wealth I've accumulated has gone into tools, equipment, and leasing shop space. In the last decade I've found less than 5 people whom I would rely on to do what they've told me they're going to do, whether I'm paying them or not.

It's gotten to the point now where I've learned carpentry to make my own custom furniture because I can't find anyone who will do the job decently locally. I do most of my home repairs DIY, because finding a competent contractor that shows up on time, won't cut corners, lie to me, and actually finishes the job is basically impossible. I did all of the work building my race car and I do all my basic car maintenance myself. Even for a job as simple as an oil change, I can't trust common chain stores.

If anything, the "gig economy" has made this situation worse, not better. There's so many people who will put up a Facebook page and advertise themselves as doing some service, and really they're just half-assing it for a what is effectively a fat paycheck for their level of effort and care. There's SO MUCH apathy in the world, so many people that just don't give a shit about the quality of their work in anything they do in life. Finding other people that actually care about doing it /right/, is nearly impossible. Mostly because when I do find those people, they're usually also wealthy and in a different line of work. Turns out, being focused on doing things correctly the first time is valued enough to be a path to wealth, in and of itself.

My brother is a 'proper' carpenter and sadly struggles to find people like you.

People seek him out because of his skill, but then upon being told that it might be £600 for interior door to be made, or more, suddenly want him to fit a store bought one. His daily rate is low, but a lot of rich people still don't want to pay for a job to be done properly.

Quite sad to see people buying amazing historic houses and then filling them with ready made fittings, after tearing out the old hand made stuff.

I recently renovated two rooms in my house and took out the mid-grade carpet that the builders had put in and installed real hard wood flooring. I wanted proper trim in the room and I hired a trim carpenter. What I ended up with was pre-made trim from Home Depot and mitered corners. I hired someone who claimed to be a carpenter, and charged a carpenters rate, expecting, at minimum, that the corners were coped rather than mitered. I own a VERY nice sliding compound miter saw in my wood shop, and I could have very easily taken pre-made trim from the home store and mitered the corners myself, I hired someone who claimed to be an expert with the expectation of hand-coped corners, because that's a skill I don't have.

Just one of several instances where I found out that local carpenters weren't real carpenters. If you only know how to use power tools and have a pickup truck to get materials at the home store, you're not a carpenter, you're a handy-man. A carpenter should be able to work wood by hand. I aspire to gain those skills myself, and at some point I'll probably re-do the sad work that was done previously. At least they caulked and painted the caulk-line. At some point I plan to install crown moulding, but at this point I've decided I won't do it until I can make it myself.

When you say historic buildings, I suppose (hope) you don’t mean listed ones, since they’d be breaking the law? Regardless, it’s a crying shame what people have ripped out of even very ordinary Victorian and Edwardian houses. Decorative mouldings, cast iron fireplaces, original doors, geometric tiling.

He lives in Portugal, where the rules are different especially for those restoring farm houses and villas that have fallen into disrepair, but even in the UK people get rid of amazing Victorian features in houses there aren't listed.

As he likes to make things properly, he rarely takes the 'fitting' jobs - and keeps and restores anything he removes. Someone else usually wants it.

The sad fact is that a bespoke wardrobe costs good money, as do hand made window friends, but they should last for years, centuries even.

I have the exact same problem. It’s impossible to find competent labor that is willing to do what they’re told. I want my baby’s laundry hand washed. I want the towels to be dried in low heat. I want to use wooden spoons on my expensive enamel pans.

Instead housekeepers routinely disobey and then lie about it. And a home chef is unrepentant about scratching my pans with metal utensils. They just don’t care. If it were their own things they would put more thought and labor into it.

I have to get on my hands and knees to scrub the floor after some recalcitrant $70/hour pair of maids refuse to do anything more than wipe the grime back and forth with a swiferjet.

I think I understand your dilemma.

Just earlier this year, I was quoted $795 to run a thermostat wire 10 feet, no drilling required.

Task Rabbit has people charging north of $80/hr for simple yard work (leaf collection, bush trimming, super standard stuff that a teenager could do).

Sure, I could gamble with a cheap contractor, but if they do something badly, it's going to cost 2x as much to redo it properly.

I honestly don't know if I'll ever reach a net worth where I'm comfortable paying people more per hour than my own job, with the possible exception of doctors.

I’ve found that hiring anyone to do anything custom one off as an individual is extremely hard as you pointed out. You are much better off knowing someone in the business who will do it for you as a favor or recommend someone to do it. So I guess it comes down to connections or relationships and if you’re a typical well off transplant in a big city connections to blue collar workers are typically very lacking.

There is an art to this...

it mostly comes down to recommendations though. you shouldn’t expect to find good help immediately. the gig economy platforms make it seem like it, but its not the case.

> Or maybe the trick is to hire a supervisor as well. So first you hire someone to do the work and then you hire someone to supervise it.

That‘s traditionally what the gentry used to to do. They had a butler managing the drivers/grooms/groundskeepers and other outdoor staff and maybe valets (reporting to the male head of the household) and if they could afford it also a housekeeper to manage cooks/maids/cleaners (reporting to the lady of the house). Plus tutor/governess as direct reports.

Thus is the power of relationships, which often goes undervalued in quantitative analysis. For a one-off job, you could pick the most skilled person in whatever trade to do it for you, with unlimited budget $X, and still be unhappy with the results. Because there is no relationship.

Whereas, if you pick someone who your friend uses regularly, by comparison, your job is no longer work $X to the tradesman but the sum total of $X plus ALL the future business from your friend, who will leave if the tradesman does you wrong.

150/hr for fairly standard yard work? Shit, I used to do 'fairly standard' yard work for a twentieth of that. Or do you mean hiring an entire team of people at that rate?