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Hi Steve,
Quite simply that’s most likely down to the fact that not many of us can actually afford to train, we simply cannot carry “dead weight”, you either earn or you’re out. 🙁
It’s the world we live in I’m afraid, but there are some out there that are training but they may be hard to find, all I can suggest is that you don’t give up.
K.
Well, for any potential candidates applying for this…
If it’s such a good deal and so profitable, why offer it out to anyone when Hotpoint/Merloni have employed engineers anyway? Surely it would be easier and cheaper for them just to employ an extra body or two would it not?
As Dave says you’ll probably end up with a 60{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} or thereabouts first fix rate so that equates to £23,040 a year, before deductions for tax and any costs other than allowing for four weeks holiday. If you have to stand the cost of fuel, insurance and all the other malarky that goes along with being self employed you can half that easily giving a salary that’s awfully close to minimum wage for a lot of graft.
Not such a good deal is it?
K.
Yeah I forgot about the rinse/hold programs. 😳
I really shouldn’t answer posts when half asleep. 😉
The reason for having a rinse/hold function is so that delicate fibres, such as silk, that can be machine washed (but not spun) can be washed in the machine. The reason it leaves the clothing suspended in water is to prevent creasing and damage to clothing that cannot be spun, like some delicate woolens and thereby gives you the option of what to do next with the garments. At that point you can “drain only” to drip dry or use the short delicates spin.
K.
£16 a call!!!
The guys that take that on need a shot of reality, which they may well get if they do take that offer! I’m sorry but being involved in service for 20 years the last time I saw a rate like that was from Candy in the early 80’s and, it was cr@p then.
The only way I could see that working was if all the bits and bobs, like a van and the PC, insurances etc. were included in the deal.
K.
Usually it’s a plumbing fault, the outlet drain hose is too low and water “backfills” from the sink when the machine is on a spigot connection to the waste.
It is almost never a fault in the appliance.
K.
Re: Hotpoint Advertise Franchises!
kheath wrote:This work has been touted around at least 1 service provider and the price advised not acceptable.
There’s a shocker. (For those that didn’t spot it, that’s known as sarcasm ;))
TBH, I’d have been surprised if they hadn’t “done the rounds” as it were.
kheath wrote:So here are franchises being offered to obviously save on cost………but those savings are to be applied to the engineers who are at the sharp end of the trade and deserve to earn a crust.
Sounds like an attempt borne of desperation in all honesty and one that, unless it’s a blindingly good deal, which is doubtful at best given Merloni’s history with payment levels etc., I should imagine will vanish again soon enough.
kheath wrote:The recent job losses from this company totalled nearly 400 who either went self employed or out of the industry all together, and many of them were corgi registered. So this must be aimed at trying to attract those same people back to the employer who made them redundant by using the franchise route. A franchise package really has to be structured well and perhaps some of you out there with experience of the last Merloni tie up might like to comment, its my understanding that there are still a couple of franchisees on the mastercare work and they seem happy enough.
This is the bit that beggers belief IMO. Why make all that staff redundant then scrape about looking for more employees, it seems as though this was a totally futile excercise to let these people go. Then try to woo them back with a franchise type thing (whatever it turns out to be) a year or so later, it seems to me that that’s madness. Point is though that everyone is struggling for employed engineers and I wonder if any would be willing to take on the responsibilities of this type of offer, I’m doubting it I have to say.
The Mastercare franchises, as I understand it, had a guaranteed level of work and, if there was not sufficient work for them they were paid to the level that they were guaranteed whether the calls came or not. I would think that Merloni will not offer a similar guarantee or any guarantee of workload or income which, IMO, makes the franchise worthless. The whole point of a franchise is to be guaranteed a level of income, in this industry this has proved to be (for the most part) not possible. Even agency work ebbs and flows with peaks and troughs in workloads.
kheath wrote:So hotpoint have excess work but as usual with manufacturer service don’t want to pay the going rate to allow the independents to flourish, in my opinion. Shame really as we all need solid work and we are in the right place with the skill sets too!
If Merloni want the work done, the way I see it, they have but two short-term options.
1. Continue to try and recruit and basically “buy” engineers.
2. Pay the going rate to the trade to help them.
Medium to long-term, they could train more bodies, but that will take time and doesn’t come with any guarantee.
I can see little other choices for them other than using a call handler in the middle, but again that will push costs up and there’s still the distrust and bitter taste issue to resolve. I doubt many that have been stung in the past will be overly keen to work for Mr Merloni without some good reassurances and guarantees.
In the end though, it’s going to cost them money, irrespective of what way they choose to go.
K.
Re: Appliances in bathrooms
Martin wrote:If you have never heard ‘Dido’ from the deep blue before you don’t know what your missing pal 😀 Get out in the back garden and start digging, there’s enough of the season left 😉
Are you not too old to be listening to Dido? 😉 😆
K.
Well, we’re supposed to have some of the cleanest water in Europe where I am and the valve on my Maytag thing still got gunked up. 😕
The filter is there for a reason.
K.
You’re right Lawrence we do need a fresh intake of engineers and quickly as I really believe that within the next few years as more retire from or leave the industry that repairs may well be defunct and manufacturers may be faced with a far higher level of exchanges.
With regard to the “rich pickings” theory, all it means is that those that are left have more work, nobody said it would be more profitable work. And, as the number of engineers drops, the labour rates get pushed up, increasing costs to run along with all the other bits and bobs. Already we’ve seen many engineers “defect” to British Gas or Comet and the likes solely for the money on offer, then they discover that the old say od “the grass is always greener” is invariably true. I suspect it may well be the case with this offer as well.
K.
No problem.
Brandt make the machine and it’s branded Blomberg for sale in Comet IIRC, who own the Blomberg brand if memory serves me correctly.
K.
Yeah right, the number of correctly installed appliances I’ve seen in a bathroom…ehm, none!
Trailing socket every time, though I did see one that a supposed spark had put on a bit of 2.5 T&E tacked to the wall with a socket on the wall. Impressed I wasn’t.
K.
There’s two versions of that machine, date code split on it so you’ll need the production code as well.
However, looking at them it looks as if neither are available, or not shown as a spare part on Agora for it at least. Typical that is these days, trying to lump you up with a new motor for just a set of carbons. 🙁
To be fair the motor look reasonably priced, as motors go these days, but I don’t have a price matrix here for Brandt so I can’t confirm the price right now.
The only other thing to do is mail us in a pic of the carbons and I’ll post it up, or use a link to it from another site to here and no doubt someone will recognise them. 😉
K.
Re: PKI
In some ways we probably just got even Del. 😉
Now no-one reading the forums is going to touch them, if they have an ounce of sense about them, and even if they do they’ll be very suspicious of the whole deal from the outset of the thing. Which is great.
It also means that if they are forced to come crawling back to the independents they had better pony up and make a decent offer or, at best, they’ll get sporadic cover. At worst little cover at all and being forced to go through any of the handling agencies like ISDAL, AIS or NESN they’ll be forced to pay over the odds. So basically, in many ways they’re backed into a corner if they are indeed stuck for cover.
It is interesting that you posted this in here though, as it may well affect Whirlpool as well since they’re going to be struggling to get cover in the area too and this will only serve to heighten that shortage. And I think it’s great, with any luck both of them will get fucked over in this! 😆
We’ll see what shakes out the tree.
K.
