Being a painter. Is it worth it?

serjik911

serjik911

Promoted Users
Hello Everyone,
Half year ago I got hired in professional autobody collision repair shop as a car painter . Which was always my dream.
When i had an interview, i was offered 23 $ per flag hour. However, they have the system of everyone working in shop combine their hours and splitting to anyone equally. for example, i got 90 hours per week, and other guy got 110 hours, so we got paid for 100 hours each. On my question how many shop does in average per week, manager gave me an answer that they "aim for 90-100 hours a week for everyone" And if i will be fast, they will raise the from 23 to higher.. So, 100 hours a week with pay 23 per hour was great deal, i thought.
So i started to work , and first thing i figured out, that getting 100 hours a week is pretty tough. I had to work around 11 hours a day to do that. Starting at 6am and finish 5pm kinda gives you no life between monday to fiday. Am i slow in work? I have been in couple facebook groups at autobody , and they claim they do 100-150 hours a week easy. but i dont know how to make myself even faster than i am now....
and first few months showed me that shop average is around 75 hrs a week. So even if i push to 100 hours, i still will be paid for 75 hours. After doing some math, i ended up with 32$ per actual working hour. Which is not bad, but not the way to save some money or sooner retirement. And, by my opinion, 32 is not enough for breathing all the chemicals we do while working 11 hours a day.
Please, dont get me wrong, that im not thankful for job or i want be paid high for doing nothing. I'm very glad that i have a chance to get a job in a real shop, with good spray rooms, great material and awesome people, this all is great, but im talking with my friends who are in different fields, and im giving up. My close friend, who quit autobody half year ago and started tile installation company, now doubles or triple me in wage.
So my question is here: am I on right path right now? should i continue to do a good job, and waiting for chance being as an automotive painer, for better place to hire, or for raise at my current job?
Or do i expect too much from this field? Should I switch career? I have a got chance right now to keep working at place i work and finish my computer science degree and switch in half year to IT. I really dont know, and nobody to ask, but here.
I will appreciate any advice, thank you!
 
"150 hours easy"?? No way. I have only seen two guys in my career who could do 150 hours a week with any level of consistency. I could never come close to that when I was working commission. The goal in commission is 2 hours for every hour worked. You are doing that it sounds like. Anything more than that is hard. I quit my last commission job as the work wasn't distributed evenly. I got all the difficult, hard stuff, other guys got the gravy. I had the most experience and was making less cause I had to do the jobs the other guys couldn't.
I think that pay system stinks. If you have options, you may want to explore them. Working collision you won't get more satisfied with your job. It will only get worse. Your body starts to break down and in 10 or 15 years you won't have other options.
 
I work in the IT field so I will attempt to give you some guidance as best I can:
- The IT field pays pretty well but you need to have a few years of experience before the higher wages kick in.
- You typically get a raise by changing jobs/employers rather than getting promoted from within.
- You can expect to be put on an on-call rotation at least once a month where you will be expected to carry a pager and be available 24/7 to deal with outages and problems.
- Just like with automotive paint jobs, when something goes wrong everybody tries to blame someone else for the problem. There was a saying at my old company, "if it's not working it's networking" :D
- I love the IT field and have been at it for over 20 years. The hours are good and there's no heavy lifting or paint fumes. Well… There is heavy lifting when you have to install a new server in the rack.
- BONUS – in today's market a lot of IT jobs are remote or work from home. I've been working from home for the last 7 years.

PM me if you want to have a more in-depth discussion,
Emil
 
You’ll get faster as you go. The question of it being worth it, that depends on what you value. Money, the life, satisfaction? I was not a painter, but a body man. Of all the shops I worked in, the painters made the big bucks. I averaged 80 hrs week doing body work. I made good money when I started doing restorations for myself.
 
I really enjoy doing paint/bodywork as a hobby and I've gone in, deep.
No way I would want if for a career! Too hard, for too little pay and too much chemical exposure.
I mean no disrespect to the pro's who are on here - you guys rock.
In today's world, if you have chops in some niche, you can do very well.
By no means, mean to brag, but I get respectable $ coaching folks in my niche. That makes for a nice living and the ability to pursue my hobby.
And I am not special. It can be done!
Not trying to push my business here, but if you are interested here is my website: https://followmetrades.com/
Just offered as an example of what you can do.
 
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I misunderstood my dad after graduating high school in 1975.
He said,
"Get a job in The air conditioning".

I got a job IN air conditioning. Which I don't regret but would definitely done something else in hindsight.Maybe....
It afforded me experience in every Trade craft and being outdoors,traveling, different people, places and things Every day but often times, brutal working conditions.
The old saying is still True Today,
"When you Love what your doing,you Never Work a day in your Life"
Find That....
 
just a tip.....the key to getting faster is not to rush around and move quicker or work harder. its about working more efficiently. working efficient means working easier. anything you do, even if its just something that takes a couple seconds, done repeatedly compounds over the day or week. i have everything i do so refined over the years that i am super quick and will do things in 1/2-1/3 the time of everyone else and im not rushing around at all. i just waste zero time doing anything unnecessary and i know exactly what i am doing because i have done it 1000 times before so its all effortless. when you get to that point the billable hours will increase. remember, any time spent in your day that does not result in something seen or a gain in quality or speed is a waste of time.
 
Chris_Hamilton said:
"150 hours easy"?? No way. I have only seen two guys in my career who could do 150 hours a week with any level of consistency. I could never come close to that when I was working commission. The goal in commission is 2 hours for every hour worked. You are doing that it sounds like. Anything more than that is hard. I quit my last commission job as the work wasn't distributed evenly. I got all the difficult, hard stuff, other guys got the gravy. I had the most experience and was making less cause I had to do the jobs the other guys couldn't.
I think that pay system stinks. If you have options, you may want to explore them. Working collision you won't get more satisfied with your job. It will only get worse. Your body starts to break down and in 10 or 15 years you won't have other options.
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Should the painter prep for primer, spray primer and block it after? Cause that's what I do now as well. Also, buffing- usually after my paint job there is only few dirts that needs to take care off, no need to cut and buff the whole surface, does buff like that included in refinish time or it's for body repair time?
 
Look up the poem " I bargained with life for a penny" Says a lot.
In some of the Bob Proctor videos I've watched he asks the question " What do you want, what do you really want? " In the book Think and grow rich , Napoleon Hill says that most successful people already know what they want so decisions are arrived at fairly quickly. And very seldom changed quickly because they already knew what they wanted to do.
 
serjik911 said:
Should the painter prep for primer, spray primer and block it after? Cause that's what I do now as well. Also, buffing- usually after my paint job there is only few dirts that needs to take care off, no need to cut and buff the whole surface, does buff like that included in refinish time or it's for body repair time?
Click to expand...
Just depends on the Shop. Some have helpers, others don't. Usually the big shops will have helpers who can prep and detailers who do the buffing afterwards. But each shop is different.
 
Walmart is on XM radio asking for truck drivers, and they say first year average is $110,000, but a year or so ago it was $90,000. All they do is pick up a trailer at the warehouse, and drop it off at a store, hook up to an empty and return to warehouse. Shortage of drivers nation wide being the reason.
 
every minute spent talking in the shop is money out of your pocket. i timed my painters without them knowing it and they spent an average of over 11/2 hrs a day standing and talking bs.

if i had it to do over i would have never touched a paint gun. the price i paid was far more than any reward i got out of it. find another way to make your living and do this as a hobby.
 
I agree with that completely, I know my current situation is not because of that though, my problem is that the pace in which I used to work is flat out half speed now and shit just piled up. Doesnt matter really, its all done after these last few projects.
 
Jim C said:
just a tip.....the key to getting faster is not to rush around and move quicker or work harder. its about working more efficiently. working efficient means working easier. anything you do, even if its just something that takes a couple seconds, done repeatedly compounds over the day or week. i have everything i do so refined over the years that i am super quick and will do things in 1/2-1/3 the time of everyone else and im not rushing around at all. i just waste zero time doing anything unnecessary and i know exactly what i am doing because i have done it 1000 times before so its all effortless. when you get to that point the billable hours will increase. remember, any time spent in your day that does not result in something seen or a gain in quality or speed is a waste of time.
Click to expand...
Work smarter not harder. ;)

Take my advice with a grain of salt coming from a backyard hack but if I was the OP I would try to get a job at a high end restoration shop, learn the business, build a nest egg, and then strike out on my own. High end being the key point. If you are good and choose a good location you will likely have more work than you can handle. Make a plan and execute….

Don
 
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