I,ve been in the flooring biz as an installer since '93, sell inspect etc. Just tired of the hassles no bennies, low rates, crappy help. I have a couple of stair runners to install at a big $$$ musician's house today. Zebra print wool carpet. He was in Journey or Foriegner I forget which. I do have an application in with Rosedale transport to be a real rug trucker!
It was Journey. Jonathan Caine. Lots of platimum records on the wall. He had platinum records for work he did with the Allman brothers. I wouldn't want to drive truck if I could make the kind of money I did today. I made over $500 in 7 hours. If only that was steady work!
Me too. I only do that once in a blue moon. When I worked at Lowe's I did this work on my time off if it was there. I have done lots of work for music business people. Some stars. I once did a 2 day restretch in a huge bonus room that was downstairs below the indoor swimming pool. That guy wasn't in the music biz. He invented the Ziplock bag. $$$$$$$$
Thats good money, Rug. But I would still want to drive a truck regardless. If you have to spend a large part of your life doing something to make a living, ideally it will be something you enjoy doing.
Heh I made over $200 in 6 hours once (independant contractor, not reported, SSSHHHH). For a guy that I had JUST quit working for, and i was making $50 (after tax, no benefits of course) a WEEK (8 hours a week lol) working for him. Great. I replaced the hard drive on his business computer and reinstalled all the business software for it. Now, installing the hard drive here was the actual WORK. Installing software...well you pretty much just sit there and watch it install itself, you know. So once I had windows installed, I was on the internet surfin while it was installing. Now you're wondering why i'm truckin. Well.....I just couldnt find customers. And doing that kind of work for someone else is pretty much a minimum wage job these days.
Carpet installation is a cutthroat biz. I did good up until late 2003. I was priced twice as high as the average installer. Plenty of work. Got divorced and moved out of TN back to Florida. Got a job as a company man netting $600+ a week and doing side work when I had it. Blew out a disc and took a year off on worker comp. Got back to work and saw the economy getting ready to tank down there. Moved back to TN. I did good for about 8 months. Economy got back. I took a company job as a superintendant had 10 crews working for Lowes. Got laid off and went to Lowes selling flooring. Hours sucked, management sucked, I tolerated for 1 1/2 years until they fired me. Went to trucking school. Now I'm going to be a Swiffer!
Ah.. Rug Trucker. I thought there might be a flooring connection. I too have been installing carpet, for 30 years. Except I'm a Chevy guy! Now I'm under-employed. Hoping this trucking thing works out.... Hope things work out for you. Keep the fuzzy side up!
