swvaboy Wrote:
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> Why should I take a job from a scheduler if I
> think it is not worth it? Why not make a
> reasonable offer instead?
I am not at all arguing that you should take a job that you don't think is worth the money! My email trash bin is full of job offers that are not worth putting the key in the ignition for! I don't respond back to them stating my price usually because a) there is not enough money in the world to persuade me to do that or b) at double the price it would still hardly be worth my while or c) it is a company that I don't care to work with. On the other hand I am certainly not above making an offer and giving a reason why I would need additional money to do it. (orphan shop, distance, time of day, etc.)
Several schedulers will
> call and ask me what it would take for me to do
> XYZ shop, I offer and they can accept or not. I
> also, use this time to ask about doing a shop on X
> day when they needed Y day, if I can guarantee I
> will complete shop and "get it out of their way",
> usually they will make a date change.
I understand that kind of deal. We all do it. Another piece of horse trading I like is 'I will do X shop for you if you will also give me the Y that you have'. I find it very useful to have an index card by the main house phone with the distance to surrounding communities and more distant ones that I know are 'hard to fill' taken from maps.google.com with the drive time listed. Then it is very calm, cool and collected to say, "Rome is 114 miles from me, so would be about a 230 mile trip. It would need 5 3/4 hours of drive time, so a fair price to do the job for you would be $_________" If they really need the job done, they need to agree to a fair price. If my offer is accepted, I will quickly go and search my companies for additional jobs to do on my way to or from the distant location, especially looking for a meal or two to pick up along the way. Those I will not request additional money to do as they will free-ride the job I already have scheduled.
> I still think that if offered a job, you should
> make a counter offer. They are not going to offer
> the full amount they can with the first offer.
You discover fairly quickly with whom you can negotiate and for how much. They do keep notes and one called me a while back saying, "The notes here say you won't do a cell phone job for less than $15. Can you do X location for us for $15." When I pointed out that $15 applied to shops locally and countered with an offer that included the about 1 hour each way drive time, explaining that an orphan shop an hour away was hardly worthwhile for $15. She agreed but was not authorized to go above $15 and thus we ended the call and she got to continue dialing for shoppers.