One Tuesday that made me question if flat rates are actually fair

Had a day last fall that swung hard both ways. Morning job was a simple HDD swap on a Dell OptiPlex, 20 minutes max, customer paid the full $85 flat rate without blinking. Then the afternoon hit. A laptop with a broken hinge turned into a 3 hour maze of stripped screws, hidden clips, and a ribbon cable that refused to cooperate. Charged the same $85 for that nightmare. Same price for a 20 minute job and a 3 hour slog. Is that just how the trade works, or do any of you adjust your pricing on the fly when a simple job turns into a monster? Feels backwards that the easy ones subsidize the hard ones, but I can't figure out a better system that customers would actually accept.

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christopher_wells419d ago

Is it just me or does every shop have that one Tuesday where the universe tests your whole pricing model? Had a similar thing last month, swapped a battery in 15 minutes for the flat rate and then spent damn near four hours fighting a MacBook that had more screws stripped than I've seen in my whole career so far. Same $90, felt like I should've charged double, but honestly the easy money days are the only thing that keeps me from going crazy on the rough ones.