i was thinking this morning!!

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

with the economy so bad and the government set to sack all these pen -pushers i think we will have a massive influx of tiling wannabes this winter from all these tiling course's when the pen -pushers all look for new careers i think average Joe looks at tiling and thinks i can do that (yossa Hew's ) it's easy, go on a three-day course buy the tool's ,a little van and load's of money
what is your take on it then guy's and some of them being computer literate we come on here for info,great and then the poor lad's will probs end-up selling there tool's/van's here to

 

[merlecollins]

Might just be something in that Dave

I think that this is something that has been steadily happening for the last three to four years from various failing industries and as you point out will probably increase with government job losses. Theres a company that tiles pods in North Tyneside and has been known to have loads of ex-miners doing their tiling!! Not good for the lads who have just started out as this will increase competition for work and invariably lead to lads selling their tools and getting alternative employment....

......vicious circle!!:mad2:

 

[diamondtiling]

I think we will be safe Dave. Good work always shines through as does a good reputation.
Customers that settle for second best are not the type we want anyway as they don't want to pay our fees and will always go for the lowest option.

 

[user123]

People come and go,... when I did the tiling course purely to improve my know how for my mosaics and various installation requirements I loved it so much, for a while I was convinced, ok, great, fabulous!!! I'll be a tiler AND a mosaic artist, perfect. :hurray:

Except for me, it isn't. I'm too old now for starters to lug up tools and boxes of tiles upstairs and downstairs, and am SO much happier and healthier to work in my studio, I am an artist at heart after all. But I utilize what I have learnt all the time, Darren's brilliant course at NETT gave me so much more of an insight, and I love my paddle mixer and my tools which all come in handy for smaller projects, too, and if any tiling does need doing I have a better chance to do it right than before, and my mosaics stay put! NO way I am a competition to any tiler, quite the opposite, as working together combining our skills is a win win for both.

I think you'll find that many of those 'penpushers' as you call them will find the same, that physically it may just be too demanding, and dealing with customers as a tradesman is quite different to office politics dealings. So all competition is really temporary, and if anything helps to focus the mind to look for ways to improve your own business, no resting on laurels then, so not a bad thing in the end.

 

[fipple]

same with pimlico pumbers....they had an influx of city gents believe it or not,they trained up and the gaffer had no issues of employing them and they are no well established!...ive noticed a fair ammount of snobbery...im sure that statement will be countered ,but you will always have chancers and if the clients wishes to go for the cheaper option then the job wasnt viable anyways...theres an awful mindest that develops on forum sites/groups of people...you have a pack mentality that develops,and it becomes self righteously dictated to the exclusion of anyone who remotely comes near tiling for the genuine love of it...i know a gentleman named john frost from soham...works at coulsons /cambridge..and he would on occassion refer to others work standards..and he had the right,for he was a site manager on many large multi million £££ projects then through a heartattack chose to go back on the tools..7-5 hours...he was untouchable and his son is the same...roof rafters hips/valleys...he seriously could do it all...unbelievable source of knowledge but what he had under all the stern demeaner was patience and exceptance that people will come into the trades" and try it on...he could spot them a mile away..yet he would always,and i mean always try to imoart his methods onto them and never puff himself up and deny them the chance...then once he had told them and they chose to ignore his advise ,they never got another chance again...in a nutshell!..someone like him wouldm be an asset to this forum...but im sure he,s busy doing other things

 

[Deleted member 1779]

Dave I agree. With public sector redundancies the influx of new people into this industry is fairly certain. In fact I believe that's what some of the tile training centres are pinning their hopes on. PLUS the government are paying / sponsoring these centres and unemployed people to retrain and learn a skill. So the tile training centres have bums on seats.

What does it all mean? Not sure really! For example Its the same story I hear from taxi drivers. Loads of new people use redundancy payouts to buy a car, take the course and sign up as a cab driver with a satnav. They think its easy work. A few airport runs. Some Friday night fares and then a Saturday afternoon sitting on the rank in town. Reality is that there are less people going out, less people using taxi's and the airport runs are like gold dust for drivers. And its all unsocial hours.

Unfortunetly that industry - rather like tiling - has a low barriers to entry. As you pointed out yourself its easy to think you can rock up to a tile training school, then get a van and tools, go knock on doors and get work. Reality is that its a bit more than the sum of those parts. In fact ITS BLOODY HARD WORK not only getting and maintaining jobs plus the work but the physical labour intensive part of lugging boxes of tiles about.

I think the best to hope for is that is a short term fix, that some of these career boys with soft office jobs follow that route and then after a while get fed up with the raw manual graft involved and then use their business brains to set up companies that employ the skills of those who have been in the profession and have a passion for the craft. Its a long term game we are all playing and this is a 2 year blip in a 10 to 20 year career for most.

Now as a non-tiler myself (whattttt he doesnt tile?) The point is I CAN TILE and I have done some bits. But when it comes down to it I prefer to EMPLOY the skills of professionals like you to tile rather than to tackle it myself. And the reason I do this is because once upon a time... I too "Gave it a bit of a go" and soon realised that to go from an average job to a great job requires the paid labour of somebody else.

Fast forward to today and I am currently mid-project and above are the lovely silky smooth walls of the bathroom just waiting for tiles. Will I do it myself? No way! - Its time to pay one of you to do it.

So my thinking on the moral of tale from my own experience. Tiling as a career? Its a short term thing. And for every 20 that start out on the tiling route who have come out of industry only 1 will come to love it. The rest will all drift back to other things.

 

[mikethetile]

we had all this in the nineties, with apprenticeships gone and replaced with short courses
it was recipe for disaster but it worked itself out and will again

its a very simple process, the cream always rises to the top, some of those going on the courses were able to learn fast and complete a good job, they rose with the cream
the more cream you pour in the less room there is for the bottom end, they cut each others throats over rubbish , nuisance jobs for idiot customers

the bad ones went out of business and sold their kit, seeing it again now, it doesnt take long for the market to adjust as customers wise up to the simple fact that you get what you pay for

the more cream in the market the less room for chancers, standards and customer expectations rise. its an upward spiral that will benefit the trade in general

 

[user123]

wow, Mike...

 

[fergy7197]

one thing to remember - these are people that have worked in the public sector fer years, most will have no sense of commercial viability, they havent worked to major targets and been totally accountable(hence the reason the public purse is empty) and the government is so inefficient.

I think we have nothing to fear.

The bubble wrap that is the public sector will now be gone, the real world WILL bite.

as said quality and experience shines through.

 

[merlecollins]

one thing to remember - these are people that have worked in the public sector fer years, most will have no sense of commercial viability, they havent worked to major targets and been totally accountable(hence the reason the public purse is empty) and the government is so inefficient.

Very valid point which I have witnessed over the years

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Some very valid points, above. As most agree anyone worth their salt, need not feel threatened. Good reputation is everything imo, I am not against enyone having a go but some will be in for a shock. Tiling is nowhere near as easy as it seems, to be a real Master craftsman takes years

 

[merlecollins]

Some very valid points, above. As most agree anyone worth their salt, need not feel threatened. Good reputation is everything imo, I am not against enyone having a go but some will be in for a shock. Tiling is nowhere near as easy as it seems, to be a real Master craftsman takes years

Well said by a real Master Craftsman

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

i just can't see what is going to pull us out of this recession we don't have any industry any more , it's the same money going round and round unless industry can bring new money from other country's????:yikes:

 

[mikethetile]

Fipple,

when did you work for pimlico plumbers and on what jobs

pimlocos have long held their position of being the top plumbers in london, nothing to do with employing newly trained ex stockbrokers, ive always found them to be down to earth cockneys like myself, ive never met any upper class plumbers working for them

pimlicos do a lot to train new plumbers but their standards are high and only the best get retained. those that succeed with them can expect earnings over 60k a year

 

[Pebbs]

Well as usual, you give me plenty of food for thought. I have admitted openly that on the ceramic tiling side, my contracts are down by 70% on last year. These in the past were always my fast earning contracts, I used to be able to finance the stone and marble works of the back of the ceramic contracts. I dont believe this was due to people who had been made redundant and then had re-trained, but to the influx of eastern european tilers in London and the South East. It seems these days that every site I work on, where Ive nailed the stone and marble contract, but the ceramics have gone to another company. All the ceramic tilers are Eastern European or Portugese, I wont comment on the quality of the work (I think you know my feelings about this). Every day I am constantly rung by men looking for work, and these are good tilers, who basically cannot find work and I dont have anything to offer them. Then I am rung by men looking for work, with little or no exp to show, who believe they can take on any job I throw at them, I cant risk it, I never would.
On the stone and marble fixing side, there is a real shortage at the moment of good fixers. On Friday another stone fixing company rang me up asking if I could spare 4 men for a stone cladding contract as they couldnt get any good fixers. The answer was no I wish I could but Im on a overflow situation right now with to much work and not enough good fixers.

Merle pointed something else out, and that is the introduction of pods on large contracts, they are tiled off-site and then craned into the location. This makes good sense financially for a contractor, but the standard of work is ......!

If you have any worries about an influx of pen-pushers coming into the industry, you may be right. However, I think they will all be in for a big reality shock when they are out 'on the tools', I think a lot of them will be beating a hasty retreat when they see that what we all do is at times a vile dirty bone aching job. You know and I know there are days when you get home, exhausted, filthy and too tired to even talk only to face it all again the next day.

Pebbs

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Very well put, Pebbs

 

[fipple]

Know that feeling far to well!...luging boxes if tiles/materials...in short im a multiskilled tradesman..have been for 20yrs...been constantly doing the trade form 15yrs straight ,,,had the odd break way back to get a second wind...my hands ar as tough as nails...by neck aches and allsorts of pains...ive met plumbers with hip ops due to all the bending...every trade has its price..So pebbs is totally right...its an excausting job at the best of times...only the strong remain

 

[andy8758]

Interesting post guys. But it is no good worrying about unskilled ex-public sector workers stealing your work.

A few of you have latched onto the truth already:
- A good quality trades(wo)man will always find work - because they ARE good at what they do.
- There has always been pressure on skilled tradesmen. Loss of apprenticeships. Influx of foreign workers. etc. etc.
- Have you heard the moans from plumbers, electricians, brickies, plasterers....?
- The ability to blue sky think a solution to commonality issues in a diverse community (public sector work) does not make you a good tiler.
- We are in a recession. Some of you will not survive and will have your businesses go bust, be made redundant, and have worrying periods where no new work is on the horizon. THAT is what the recession means. Many more will survive and see the next boom when business gets good again. Until the boom means 4 million chinese immigrants arrive, all with cheap tiling skills to take up the slack with too much demand for tiling work and too few tilers available.

Ah well - thats (working) life. :8: