I've had a brief tenure, so far only a quarter of a century, in this wonderful profession. I love the stories and discussions from the "old timers" who were wiping lead when I was wearing three cornered pants. The old timers get together and swap tales about plumbing exploits but many of my contemporaries get together and talk about "their next career" or "why they left plumbing" and similar topics.

It appalls me to think of all the "ex-plumbers" who are now selling cars, fixing appliances or just working maintenance somewhere. Maybe some of them wouldn't have made it anyway but I fear we've lost quite a few top tier people in recent years. I seriously doubt you'll find many half century, or even 35 year veterans 15 - 20 years from now. There are many contributing factors but I have a couple of points that I view as very important.

First of all, I see too much of a mercenary attitude being fomented in our profession. Admittedly, I yell loud and long about profitable pricing and rewarding performance but I think greedy operators often take it too far. I've seen it enough to know it's a genuine problem.

Where does the greed show up? First of all, I don't see training taking place. Greedy business owners don't put apprentices in trucks with journeymen and they don't put them into classes. I'd like to think that things are getting better but we still have a long way to go. Even 1 truck operators should figure their pricing so they can fund an apprentice. Otherwise, how are we going to grow our profession?

Commission pay systems or 100% performance pay systems and the like seem like "no brainers" to these owners. They like the idea of paying only when the tech produces. This wouldn't be quite so bad except typically, what owners look at is "the going rate" when they set their pay rates and as such, are often only a little more than scale when all the dust settles. This is crazy. (Gentle reader, you know where you stand and I hope it's on the generous side).

Just think about it... In the service industry, we're asking our techs to sell, perform and account for every dollar they bring in (along with a huge list of minutia to keep the trucks rolling). Oh, sure, the owner says "Hey! I'm the one who gets the customers, it's my credit, my trucks, my phones ...yadda yadda yadda." So, let me get this straight, most of the time it's a licensed plumber in charge of marketing, business planning, customer service training etc. ad infinitum and somehow with that level of expertise on the business end you think you have a big claim on what the tech produces? I believe we're nearing the end of the "just know your costs and charge accordingly" phase of the plumbing renaissance. Many of you are going to have to get better at your marketing and management in order to be profitable. The Market will only bear so much "fat in the budget" before it says "no sale." On the other side, you still see a dwindling base of production personnel and an even bleaker outlook for bringing in new folks. Good people are going to require an investment in pay scale as well as training.