Too many people feel comfortable asking professionals of all walks of life to do something for them “as a favor,” aka “for free.”

Their skills are super marketable, and if it was easy, we would do it ourselves, but those facts seem to go out the window when we want something done for cheap.

OP is a carpenter and welder. His neighbor asked for a favor.

So I work in the trades and my neighbor is retired and he recently asked me to fabricate a roof rack for his RV to put his boat on.

I really don’t like to do side work because my regular work is hard enough but it’s my neighbor so I agree and said no problem, fairly simple, 5 hours worth of work, 150 bucks.

This is friend and neighbor price. I make a lot more than that in real life.

On the flip side, everyone else he talked to wanted a bunch more money. Go figure.

He quoted him a timeframe and a price, but the neighbor said he watched a video on YouTube and it’s not that hard.

He balked at it because he saw a video on YouTube and it’s easy and doesn’t take that long and I’m charging him an arm and a leg. I told him that is video editing. Fab takes time.

Okay, no problem I told him if he did the Fab I would do the welding for free. The Fab is the most work and it’s not as much fun as the welding.

This is the malicious compliance because he told me that the fabrication work is easy. Over and over again. It’s like a reverse UNO card, I let him do the easy part of everything.

Four days and counting and it’s still not done. The neighbor has admitted it’s not easy.

This is in real time because it’s still not finished at the time of posting. This started Sunday. Today is Wednesday afternoon, so four whole days available to do it.

It’s still not done. 4 hours in my estimate.

Unfortunately a bunch of the cuts got rejected by the QC and the welder because they weren’t square and his design is a poor design so it needs gussets and the like.

Likewise all of the weld locations that are not ground down to bare metal but are showing rust, so he needs to take the top bit of the rust off. For those in the know, it’s a mix of new and old square tube and angle.

If I weld something up and it breaks because of crappy design it’s on me. You have an RV that’s going off road and you have a 6-ft reach on this roof rack with a boat vibrating on a forest service road.

I’m not going to weld 1in square tube to 1 inch square tube and say it’s okay. I’m a certified welder and I’m well aware of limitations of 1-in Dom square tube no matter my penetration. Gussets gussets gussets.

Today, Wednesday afternoon, get home he’s still working on it. That’s four full days that he can work on it, the Fab work that I said would take me 4 hours but he didn’t want to pay for.

And now he’s asking a lot of questions. I love the guy and I’ve lived here a long time and I’ll live here much longer but shouldn’t he be looking up those answers in the comments on the YouTube tutorial?

I’m sorry, but life is not a YouTube video tutorial.

In the end, he didn’t even have OP do the welds and the work is pretty shoddy.

He understands now. He is almost finished the fabrication and he looked at me after doing hours of grinding on Wednesday and said this is not that easy.

Yeah, that’s why I told you to do it. Could have been done on Monday and you would be camping this week.

Sorry for the rant but I’m a carpenter and a welder and everything is so easy, yet no one wants to do it themselves, why can’t I just do it for free?

Try asking a mover after their 40 hours of the week if they can move all of your stuff just for pizza and a beer. Think about it.

I should have got into HVAC.

Breaking news edit!!!: It has been welded!!! Not by me! And I’m guessing it’s a handyman because a lot of those welds look cold and no prep was done on painted or rusty surfaces.

And yes, it’s really all professionals.

The question everyone in IT loathes…

It’s only a hobby as long as it’s fun.

Never reveal your skillset.

Of course you could always go this route…

He should have learned his lesson.

He probably didn’t, though.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.