Career / Life Advise Tread

You’ve really landed on your feet!

 

Good on you DP! Hope it continues to work out for you!

 

Shit I’m about to start a life advise thread. ..After winter. El Niño = no worko

Congrats DP

 

What about that Fish??

 

Dayum, I had to scroll back to like page 9 to figure out what you're doing now. Good stuff man!

 

Wow! Sickness...enjoy!

 

Good job

 

Even though I at least skim the forum every other day (every 3 days at most), I never opened this thread until now. I thought this was maybe just a random thread about giving career and life advice, like the medical advise thread haha. So I'm just now catching on your saga, DP! If I read it right, it's funny how it worked out, that you wanted out and were second guessing your previous gig, then you're let go just a few weeks later. It's just funny how these things work out! I'm glad to hear you've got a new gig and you sound like you're doing even better and some, than you were with the old one!

I worked doing overhead doors (garage doors) from out of high school until I was 35. The company went out of business and sold in 06 and I had been there since 89, which was almost half my life at that point. So I bumbled around working for a few people and trying out my own thing on the side, until I went into business for myself full time in 2009. I had enough work to make it happen full time, finally. This was doing the garage door thing. Got an offer to play in a band in 2009 right after, but turned it down as I was really just racking up jobs with my own thing. It was too risky to leave it behind, and the money was better to do my own thing. I completely switched professions at 40 years old in 2011, when my best friend got me a job, which I've talked about extensively on here. I still did my own thing, but I found I didn't have time anymore, so I went out of business completely in January of 2013, after trying to juggle both for about 15 months and work for myself during my offseason. What happened was I got so backed up and was pissing off all my clientele and the contractors I worked for. I actually would have had loads of work from the post-Sandy fallout. I left a lot of money on the table, too, but I do have off from April/May until early September most years, with about 10 days where I work in July. It's been great! I do work 60-70 hours most weeks from September-April, though. Sometimes it's close to 80, and a lot of travel.

It's so much better this way. I don't have to worry about customers not paying me, I don't have to keep track of so much junk and paperwork for tax purposes. I even got another offer to play in a band in 2014, but turned that down, too, for the questionable stability. I'm glad it all worked for you, man!

 

When i first got into HVAC/R my initial goal was to go into business for myself. After getting into the field and seeing certain things, i realized i didn't want that. I kinda touched on this vaguely before. But money isn't my main concern. As long as I'm making enough to live comfortably, I'm good. I don't feel the need to make as much as possible. Well fast forward some. Now im in a position where I'm starting to look for a new company. Preferably union with a pension. Iv had a few offers but nothing that seemed like the one. Any way to get to my point.... im starting to reconsider starting my own thing up. But only me. I have some side job customers already. Alot of the headache that deterred me originally wouldn't be an issue if it was just me. I did some rough, very rough, number crunching. I wouldn't have to bust my ass that hard to make a decent living.

Only problem i see is when stuff breaks all at once. I can't be 5 diffrent places at once. I know people can pull it off. I just really need to speak with someone who does it/has done it.

When you had your own thing it was just you? Did you do service or just straight installs? Any insight on how to make a one man show work?

 

It’s tough doing your own thing because you have to limit how much work you take on/clientele, because you need to be able to service their needs and shite DOES hit the fan, especially in a service industry like that. I’ve done it. But what you have going for you is experience, ability and work ethic... huge plus’s. Sock enough money away to get yourself a reliable service van and equipment. Have a goal for both money built up and time frame. So you stay honest with yourself and not put it off for other reasons. One huge aspect of what you do is you cannot be two places at once ... but need will call for that - so think about a small partnership with someone like minded. Pool resources etc. this will take time and needs to be thought out carefully to find the right fit if it’s where you head.
I will put you in touch with a self made HVAC/R guy who you will admire and respect right off the bat - and you can run scenarios by him and he will tell
You straight up what works and what doesn’t. And his company started out just like you - and best of all he’s 1000% trustworthy.
Things like this are what you should do to branch out ideas and get some plans together. And ask questions Bro’ cause as you already see, there’s a lot of experience to glean from.