Interesting story about a bit of a mean guy. Not too nice a fella, this rattlesnake

I’ve pulled them before with shovels and a farm jack, and it is a nightmare, dangerous too. Now we have machinery to do it, or a truck and chain, wouldn’t do it manually any more

The overhead running a legit business is unreal.

My general advice is don’t use post mix concrete, use regular stone mix and backfill immediately. The backfilled dirt will hold it in place and slow the cure, giving you hours to go back and tweak as you go. That rapid post makes no sense, there’s no urgency in the setting phase, that’s the opposite of what you want.

And remember, if you do a good job it can last 20+ years, so don’t be lazy and take a shortcut because it’s “good enough”. You’re better spending $300 on a rental machine to dig the holes than to set a post that isn’t deep enough. I’m in Canada where frost can be hell, my posts go 4’ down and usually 5 bags concrete per post, then another 3 bags down the post once it’s all assembled. Your 40’ fence I could easily put in 50 bags. Don’t base your shopping list on that, but know that if you care about longevity it takes patience and hard work, like anything else in life

My time to shine. I own a company that does fences, we specialize in custom vinyl. Obviously this varies by region, but I’ll price vinyl $95-130/ft, and $300 per gate. Depending on if I liked you, what I knew about the soil, travel time to your job, I’d probably come in around $5300, installed

It might sound insane, but my 4 man crew costs about $1100/day to keep on the road. 40’ in bad conditions is 2 days minimum, can easily spill into 3. My materials would be around $1500, so worst case I’m netting in $500 for 3 days of work, which is damn near unsustainable considering the amount of machinery I’ve got in play

I had this happen to my Angelfire account in 1997, logged in and I had access to someone else’s crappy website. After that I stuck to Tripod.

Sucked because the hit counter on that page was huge, I was almost ready to take down my “under construction” gif

I own a company that does fences, whenever someone suggests a big gate my first reaction is always “nope”. They never stay square, they’re too heavy. It might be a few months if they’re getting regular use, maybe a year if you’re lucky, but either way I fully wash my hands of that shit. I won’t warranty it and I do everything I can to discourage them.

If you’re insisting on a driveway gate you need to find someone who can weld aluminum tube and make a frame with built-in hinges that’ll rest on a pin. I don’t know the actual name of that style of hinge, similar to a J bolt but my welder makes a huge plate for them to attach to a wall or post. Then you can cover that frame with wood, or preferably something even lighter.

I’ve made a 24’ aluminum and vinyl gate like this that rested on a single hinge, and it worked. It was expensive, impractical, and had other issues, but gosh darn, it didn’t sag.

Wood is just too heavy and not strong enough for a gate that gets used regularly, any fix you make is temporary

Debt collectors. The businesses took the risk when they loaned money or provided some kind of service on credit.

I don’t use debt collectors any more, but I have a construction company and a few times a year people just decide not to pay for their work. If someone really truly refuses to pay I could take them to small claims court, and I have, but it’s a ton of work and lawyers won’t bother with anything under 10k. I’ve literally had a judge say “so petty” about me taking someone through small claims for a $1200 they’d been dodging for years So some jerk can stiff me for $1500 and I have basically no recourse. I’m not talking about some impoverished person who I took advantage of, these are people with nice homes who make a habit of not paying bills. I’ll work with people who are short on cash and honest.

Even though debt collectors are 0/3 in the times I’ve used them, it’s at least something to fire off a final ‘fuck you and your credit’

Who says they don’t already? I knew a guy who worked for a major government agency who’s job was to look over horrible pictures to try to figure out where they were taken.

I bet the most skilled people do work for them, not just youtube. But talking to that guy, it’s a tough job, not for everyone. Instead of a random streetview image it’s a scene of abuse, so…

Not sure if it’s the same everywhere, but if I pull a dividend I don’t pay tax initially, but when I do my income taxes it’s part of my income and I’d have to pay tax on it then

During the whole yo-yo craze, did you accidentally break the classroom’s fishtank with a yo-yo, landing you a month’s worth of detention? During a detention session where the teacher is not present, you rummaged through her desk for your yo-yo and discover personal ad written by the teacher, ultimately deciding to respond to it as a prank?

The company, which operates more than 19,000 discount stores worldwide, agreed to pay the $12m fine

In March, Dollar General announced that its 2023 fiscal year operating profit was $2.4bn.

So they have 19,000 stores, on average profiting $126,000, and their share of the fine is $630?

That fine should be 12mil per day to actually see some action. One time it’s just the cost of doing business

Do you know what a Shit Barometer is? Measures the Shit Pressure in the air. When the Barometer rises, and you’ll feel it too, your ears will implode with the Shit Pressure. I tried to warn you, Bubs, but you picked the wrong side!
Beware, the Shit Winds are a-comin’.

I don’t think there’s anything inherent in construction that is causing a higher suicide rate. Construction labourer is a job just about anyone can get and male dominated.

I’ve hired some people who seemed like they weren’t in a great place. It’s low skill and it doesn’t hurt to take a chance on someone and hope the stability will help get them on the right track.

I haven’t had any coworkers take their own lives, but I could see someone at the end of the rope being more likely to find a job on a construction site instead of a dentists office

Last month, Wells Fargo reportedly fired over a dozen employees for using tools that fake productivity at work.

Wells Fargo has approximately 194K employees as of May 2024

So 0.006% of their employees?

I have to imagine there are times they come across a bill collector or someone either doesn’t know their job or just doesn’t give a shit and lets them off the hook.

You’re working at Comcast in the collections department, you’re having a shitty day and an envelope full of legal looking papers comes across your desk saying to void a $300 bill? Fuck it, push the ‘void’ button and on to the next one, who cares.

I’d guess Heart Shaped Box and About a Girl, for starters

I just checked back and that picture is gone from the article. It had a crowd of people with 4 or 5 if them holding up signs on what looked like printer paper with messages like “protect our students” but the signs and fonts looked unnaturally crisp, almost like a meme template

I don’t agree with his Bart-killing policy… but I do approve of his Selma-killing policy

Why does the picture in that article look so fake? Is it just the lighting? The signs look like a terrible photoshop