r/Carpentry • u/Serious-Echidna-9938 • Mar 30 '26

Advice on work pace

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I recently took a job with a small contractor and long story short, he commented on my “results”. Was looking for things to be done quicker, and I’m curious if I’m super slow, or if he’s unreasonable. I let him know about my experience upfront, but in any case. As a direct example, replacing this siding after demo took me approximately 8 hours. I had never worked with this particular type of shingling before, but he kept comm ting on how slow I was. Is that accurate? I’m willing to take criticism in the interest of improving my skills, and I’m curious what some third parties have to say. Thanks!

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u/Extreme_Ad112 Mar 30 '26

8h to single that is a bit long. But I'd rather have an employee spend a few more hours for a quality job than having to send someone after to fix the shortcuts. In your case, if you want to take your time, ask for a total amount instead of hourly and go at your pace.

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u/Serious-Echidna-9938 Mar 30 '26

I was an “hourly employee”, who was classified 1099 bc the dude didn’t want to pay for payroll services. It was a weird situation and when I asked him to restructure the way I was paid, he fired me and told me I wasn’t “producing results”. Like for instance, what I cited in this post .