Its been a busy week between the SUWA staff retreat, several reticulation jobs, getting ready for Forge next weekend as well as preparing for preaching at a local youth pastor’s induction this weekend.

In times like these the blog just drops off the radar. I have been enjoying the conversation regarding hospitality and mission, but haven’t had the headspace to respond.

It has also been ridiculously hot and humid for the first 3 days of the week, followed by a heap of rain. Humidity sux, but it seems we are in for more of it. On Monday it was 36 degrees, humid and blowing warm easterlies all day. I did a retic installation that took 10 hours and by the end I was pretty wiped out. I think I have been playing catch up ever since.

Today I was met with a request from a person on a disability pension who asked what my hourly rate was, because she was worried she couldn’t afford to have work done. I wasn’t sure how to approach it. I’m happy to give a discount for people who are doing it tough, but haven’t got a set rate for pensioners. As I was driving to her home I thought maybe it would be fair to let her tell me what she felt was a reasonable price. So I put the ball in her court and she suggested a rate that was well below what I normally charge, but wasn’t at all silly.

She had been saving up for 3 months to have the work done and had a fairly small amount of money, so it was nice that at the end of the day she still had almost half the money left for other needs. Everyone was happy and the job got done. I think I’ll stick with that approach as very few people will ever feel ripped off if they can set the price.

Over the 3 months since I started ‘Brighton Reticulation’ I have learnt a heap and actually feel like I know what I’m doing now. If I meet a question that is beyond me then its a phone call to Total Eden who always seem to have an answer. I’ve also learnt that many people in this type of work avoid fault finding and problem solving, but I’ve been finding that one of the more energising aspects of it. Installations pay better, but the challenge of figuring out ‘what’s gone wrong’ here is always a bit of fun.

Some older houses are complete nightmares when it comes to tracing wires and pipes, so I typically try to avoid them, but as I only work north of Joondalup, most of what I do is fairly new.

Oh crap, I’m in ramble mode… Anyway, that’s my Friday afternoon ramble finished…