On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:50:13 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I allegedly charge $75/hr. Fixing even the most trivial device will
take about 30 minutes, most of which is cleaning up the mess on the
bench, and doing the inevitable paperwork. That makes the break even
point about $40.

Paperwork, sure. But charging your customers to clean up the mess on
your bench? I wouldn't be advertising that ...

I have yet to see any business from my usenet rants, so I'm not
worried. In theory, I should charge for literally everything. It
would not show up as a line item on the invoice, but would be part of
the hourly labor charge. The only labor I charge for separately are
travel time, expedite fees, waiting for the customer to get out of a
meeting, nobody home charge, and entertainment value[1].

The entertainment value discount requires a bit of explanation. I
will sometimes charge $1 million, on the invoice, for some effrontery
such as interrupting dinner, not following instructions, failing to
make a backup, or wasting my time. However, none of my customer are
expected to pay $1 million, so I balance out these charges with an
entertainment value discount of $1 million. I don't make any money on
this, but it does get their attention. Unfortunately, I don't do this
any more because my bookkeeper got irritated and thought that an
auditor might be equally irritated.

My guess(tm) is that I burn about 30 minutes per working day doing
nothing more than keeping my messy office and workbench from fatally
degenerating into an unusable mess. Someone has to pay for this waste
of time, and it's NOT going to be me.


[1] I've had only 1 bounced check in 30 years, so I don't bother with
the usual bounced check charge.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558