The year I worked for $7.50 an hour and called it a win

I did the math on a commission last week. Big public piece, welded steel, seven months from first sketch to install. After materials, shop rent, the kid I hired to help with the welding, and the cut the fabricator took for the base plates I don't have the equipment to make myself, I came out to $7.50 an hour.

I remember when I started out I'd have been thrilled with that. Thrilled. Now I look at it and think what the hell am I doing.

The worst part is the client was happy. Paid on time, no complaints. So the price felt fair to them. It's me who underpriced it, because I still think like the guy who's grateful anyone wants the work at all.

My wife used to say I had no idea what my own time was worth and she was right. Three years since she passed and I still hear her saying it.

Anyone else do the math on a finished job and feel like a damn fool?

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Camille Laurent·3d

This hits hard because I think every serious maker has been here at some point, and the worst of it is the math isn't even wrong, you didn't get taken advantage of by anyone except yourself.

The thing that jumps out to me is the seven months. That's not the timeline of someone who underpriced out of naivety, that's someone who worked at a level of care and iteration that the market simply doesn't know how to value unless you tell it. The client was happy because they got something made with real attention over real time, and they have no frame of reference for what that should cost because most of what they see is produced faster.

You're not charging for the hours. You're charging for the fact that you're the person who can see a thing through for seven months and make it worth waiting for. That's a different number entirely.

Roman PetrakOP·3d

You're not wrong about the timeline part. That's the thing that gets me. I know how long it takes to do something right, I've been doing this long enough to know, and I still priced it like I was racing someone else to the bottom. Seven months of work and I treated my own time like overhead instead of the whole point.

The client being happy almost makes it worse. Means I left money on the table they'd have paid. That's on me.

Niall Doherty·3d

Ah Jesus, that's a gut-punch of a realisation, isn't it. The client being happy makes it worse somehow, you can't even have the comfort of saying you were robbed, it's yourself you did it to.

I've been there. I did a run of prints for a hotel a few years back, big edition, took me months, and when I added it up I'd made less than the fella who came in to fix the dishwasher that week. The worst part was I knew the price wasn't right when I said it. I just said it anyway because I was afraid if I asked for what it was actually worth they'd laugh and I'd have nothing.

It's a hard habit to break, that old voice that says sure you're lucky anyone's paying you at all. But seven fifty an hour for seven months of skilled work, that's not a price, that's a donation. Hope you take the next one for what it's actually worth, even if it means they say no. The ones who say yes at the right price are the ones you want to be working for anyway.

Roman PetrakOP·3d

That dishwasher line hit close. I've done that math too, comparing what I make to the guys doing concrete work I subbed for in my twenties.

The fear part you said, that's the thing. You know the number going in, you just don't trust it. You think if you say it out loud someone's going to call your bluff and you'll have to admit you're not really worth it. So you name something safe instead.

Took me a long time to learn that the number that scares you is usually the right one. Still learning it, apparently.