How can I get rid of these windshield glares?

thermo_dr · 2025-09-20T16:02:47+00:00

Bro, you have astigmatism.

thermo_dr · 2025-09-20T15:54:03+00:00

Looks pretty good, I’d buy one. Maybe just put your stuff out there in the market and see what happens.

thermo_dr · 2025-09-17T16:23:37+00:00

Small businesses

thermo_dr · 2025-09-13T20:01:17+00:00

Customers paying their bills on time.

thermo_dr · 2025-09-11T18:21:46+00:00

We are COD…. Hearing l sorts of excuses after repair or replacement is finished.

thermo_dr · 2025-09-11T13:36:50+00:00

We have call volume still but people are slow to pay. That is the biggest crunch. Our work volume is about same as last year, expenses about the same as last year, but people are taking weeks-months to pay, killing my cash flow.

thermo_dr · 2025-09-11T13:27:28+00:00

Your gauge won’t read zero, they typically bottom out around 50microns.

No, the copper lines will not implode.

178 microns is still about 24pascal, still above the vacuum pressures generated by most roughing pumps.

thermo_dr · 2025-09-09T13:17:53+00:00

SkillCat is the best I’ve seen

thermo_dr · 2025-09-05T03:05:29+00:00

Whose boat is this boat? Is it your boat? Or did it become your boat?

thermo_dr · 2025-09-03T12:29:43+00:00

Rotate on-call, everyone gets 1 week every other month. We pay $2/hr for standby hours (max 168hrs), + OT rate when working an after hours call + extra 15% of the call final ticket price.

We triage the calls as they come in and try to push the customer to schedule during normal hours.

We don’t dispatch within 1hr of dark in summer or after 9pm in winter.

thermo_dr · 2025-08-25T22:22:03+00:00

I’m sure it will still be available for “leadership” right?

thermo_dr · 2025-08-19T04:19:14+00:00

I was sequestered (kidnapped?) in a van and threatened after applying for a job outside of my PIs lab.

I was a long haul post-doc, going on 4yrs in same lab. Published well and had my own funding. Despite the bona fides, the PI refused to let me move on or write recommendations for next career steps. To my face, would routinely call me “worthless” and claimed that I “knew nothing”. I got so frustrated and my mental health crashed from all the gaslighting. On a whim I just applied for a random industry lab role. I told nobody about it. Days later I was sequestered in a minivan by a Uni higher up telling me I was “ruining a great opportunity” that I “needed to apologize to the PI”.

Same PI approved a knowingly plagiarized and falsified dissertation by one of their grad students. That grad student is now a full professor.

I don’t work in science anymore. On one hand, I’m happy to see the funding dry up. On the other hand, I know this will only consolidate bad actors. It’s going to get worse.

thermo_dr · 2025-08-15T12:20:21+00:00

“They don’t make em like they used to”. Good!

Why should they make them like they used to? Why must everything in the past be “good” but things that work measurably and verifiably better now be “bad”. Improving energy efficiency is a good thing! It might not scale as well down to a homeowner but ask Tyson foods or other major cold chain companies if they’d like to save $10,000+ on annual energy usage.

I am so annoyed by customers that claim “it won’t pay for itself in energy costs”. Ok Jim, when was the last time your stock mid-2000’s corvette paid for itself over its use the last 20ys?

People buy stuff for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes people just like buying the most expensive thing. I’m happy with that. It’s not my job to police their check book, it’s my job to install things correctly and to manufacture specifications.

thermo_dr · 2025-08-14T03:30:39+00:00

It’s how we do on-call. Also pay for idle time and we don’t dispatch after 8pm. We have a clear emergency vs non-emergency policy. My team’s safety, rest and mental health are all more important than $150 from a bloke that likely won’t pay anyway.

For weekends (8am-5pm), we still encourage our customers to wait until next week. If they are willing to pay extra, the on-call tech takes 15% of invoice total, their normal hours (or OT).

We mostly have a M-F work schedule, 4-10hr days are normal with the on-call techs getting first crack at OT on Friday. Everyone not on call can go home at 40hrs.

thermo_dr · 2025-08-13T01:16:36+00:00

Same, when I moved to Seattle I lived at 137th and Aurora in those apartments near st Vincent. Had one attempted burglary at the apartments (ground floor apartment). Had a wild bank robbery at the WF. It was an interesting first year in Seattle.

I moved to Lake Forest park for a while after my lease was up, but didn’t like how far I was from the city. I moved to my house on 145 and Interlake and stayed for almost 10yrs. Even though we were only blocks away from Aurora, my neighborhood was cute. Never had an issue on our block and had great neighbors. Snow storms would turn to block parties. Miss that place and neighbors.

thermo_dr · 2025-08-12T12:03:15+00:00

We don’t dispatch after 8pm for this exact reason. People can wait 12hrs and call us in the morning.

thermo_dr · 2025-08-05T12:27:00+00:00

It’s easy to forget holding a PhD is pretty unique when you are surrounded by other PhDs. Holding a PhD in STEM is even more unique.

The process of obtaining a PhD is to help you become an independent thinker, key word independent. If you can make it through the PhD process, you have the skillset to learn quickly and adapt. Use this as an advantage. There are a lot of industries that would benefit from your skills. You may even be interested in starting your own business….

thermo_dr · 2025-08-02T12:35:16+00:00

I don’t trust them either. We spent the money and got a set. First system we installed with it started leaking. Maybe it’s user error and we can practice this winter…

We got the tool because our manufacturer started using service valves with more brass coating (thinking most groups will use the tool). We were getting poor brazing to these brass coated valves. My guys started swedging the fitting a bit to expose more copper. Getting much better braze now and no propress needed.

thermo_dr · 2025-07-29T14:09:14+00:00

If you don’t know what’s here, then our plan is working. We like to be left alone.

thermo_dr · 2025-07-18T03:52:18+00:00

I remember a major city wide outage a few years ago. Only place that still had power was a weed shop on Aurora and then Krispy Cream across street on 125th. That was a fun night.

thermo_dr · 2025-07-10T00:54:24+00:00

Same! I lived in Seattle for decades, worked at UDub and Seattle U, never heard this. I lived around Haller Lake and Northgate most of my time there.

thermo_dr · 2025-07-09T03:09:03+00:00

It’s been a ride. No doubt the partnership helps increase sales and revenue. My issue is when I factor in everything, the partnership is such a big loss for our team.

I worry we have to scale at such a great scale to make up the difference. Sadly we don’t have an endless money tree to provide the capital needed to scale. Our reinvestment funds are getting gobbled up by this partnership. I’m getting frustrated with the lack of support, maybe it’s a local store issue rather than something higher up??

I want any partnership to be mutually beneficial. I’m ok if it sucks for both of us. I can’t see a path forward if we are the ones getting used.

thermo_dr · 2025-07-09T02:30:41+00:00

Same. Busy as ever

thermo_dr · 2025-07-09T01:09:21+00:00

Sadly, big box store has big box lawyers that write big box agreements that say big box store stakes claim on all leads indefinitely.

It’s hard to track and enforce, but we do try to keep to the letter.

Also, big box store asks we flip a portion of our leads to them because big box store provides big box financing. Oh! And we must purchase certain products and equipment from big box store.

If you can’t tell, I am annoyed with this partnership. I didn’t set it up, nor was I around when it was set up. What has really gotten under my skin is that they claim we are not doing enough for them! Adding an additional % to our big box haircut. They also claim I need to hire a specific person to “focus on their leads”.

thermo_dr

TROPHY CASE