[Jeff Alton]

Originally Posted by bell

I've been flat rate for about 8 years now.....
I absolutely hate it. Don't get me wrong I do pretty good at our indy German shop, but the lack of consistent paychecks really kills the ability to be in a steady budget, 1 slow week and it knocks me down for a month....
2 slow weeks and im screwed.
Just feels like I'm always playing catch up.

The shop ownership has no business putting techs on flat rate if they can't provide a full schedule of work. That said, we are backed up over 100 hours all the time and we don't pay flat rate. We pay hourly with bonuses based on efficiency. I would not want my staff wondering what their paycheck would look like each pay period. Also, lets say you have 3 or 4 techs. How do you split the jobs evenly to ensure everyone has access to the jobs that are easier to beat book time on? Likely your best tech gets more of the difficult jobs which are harder to beat and gets financially penalized.

In our area with the costs of land, taxes, utilities, equipment etc, there is no way to pay a tech even close to 50% of the posted rate. Thinking that is possible is a joke.

Cheers