$20 an hour flipping Burgers

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by horses4courses

You're right about that.
In and Out often paid more to their employees than other franchises.
Always appeared to give them a harder working and focused work force.
Yet, they still kept their prices on the low side.

Reasonably increasing prices for them won't lead to a big downturn in sales.
Smart business model.

I think paying higher than your competitors can have rewards for both sides in many situations. Looks like In & Out did not raise prices to the levels percentage wise others did, probably because they were paying closer to $20
new wage than the old $16 minimum. People who visited me from out of state when I lived in Cali wanted to know when we were going to In & Out. One thing the food was consistent and so were the wait times. You weren't ever wondering if they were waiting for the cows to produce milk for your milkshake because you were sitting in the same spot in the drive thru for the last 15 minutes.


Another big thing I noticed in pay level differences was Grainger vs McMaster Carr. I would be shocked if anyone here other than me heard of both of them.


They are Industrial Supply Houses that sell similar items, and have similar job positions. The difference is Grainger is publicly traded and they carpet bomb radio ads, usually on sports broadcasts like Nascar. McMaster Carr is privately held & does not advertise, I don't even think they have much of an outside sales force. You pretty much hear about them through word of mouth. Since they are private, on a guess Grainger is 10x the size of McMaster.


Here is the kicker, McMaster pays well above industry wages, Grainger lower. If they were in the same locale McMaster would pay $5 an hour more. McMaster also has a better stock of catalog items, carries higher quality products about the same price as Grainger and provides much better customer service.


I worked at a Grainger a little more than 40 years ago, they still want you to throw a catalog at a customer and tell them to pick out their own crap
They are my last resort for industrial supplies. I probably average a McMaster order a week, been buying from them for over 30 years. They went 25 of those before screwing up back to back orders. I wonder if it was the same employee? One order they packed bent tool steel rods , not the UPS typical mangle job as the packaging looked fine, then when they replaced the bent up tool steel they sent the wrong size.


By the time Grainger processes your order your items from McMaster Carr have arrived. Another caveat, the McMaster Carr website is the gold standard.

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

I think paying higher than your competitors can have rewards for both sides in many situations. Looks like In & Out did not raise prices to the levels percentage wise others did, probably because they were paying closer to $20
new wage than the old $16 minimum. People who visited me from out of state when I lived in Cali wanted to know when we were going to In & Out. One thing the food was consistent and so were the wait times. You weren't ever wondering if they were waiting for the cows to produce milk for your milkshake because you were sitting in the same spot in the drive thru for the last 15 minutes.


Another big thing I noticed in pay level differences was Grainger vs McMaster Carr. I would be shocked if anyone here other than me heard of both of them.


They are Industrial Supply Houses that sell similar items, and have similar job positions. The difference is Grainger is publicly traded and they carpet bomb radio ads, usually on sports broadcasts like Nascar. McMaster Carr is privately held & does not advertise, I don't even think they have much of an outside sales force. You pretty much hear about them through word of mouth. Since they are private, on a guess Grainger is 10x the size of McMaster.


Here is the kicker, McMaster pays well above industry wages, Grainger lower. If they were in the same locale McMaster would pay $5 an hour more. McMaster also has a better stock of catalog items, carries higher quality products about the same price as Grainger and provides much better customer service.


I worked at a Grainger a little more than 40 years ago, they still want you to throw a catalog at a customer and tell them to pick out their own crap
They are my last resort for industrial supplies. I probably average a McMaster order a week, been buying from them for over 30 years. They went 25 of those before screwing up back to back orders. I wonder if it was the same employee? One order they packed bent tool steel rods , not the UPS typical mangle job as the packaging looked fine, then when they replaced the bent up tool steel they sent the wrong size.


By the time Grainger processes your order your items from McMaster Carr have arrived. Another caveat, the McMaster Carr website is the gold standard.

I was in industrial equipment and construction for many years. Know both well, and I can attest to the accuracy of your post. Grainger is still doing business in 1985. Very difficult to work with, and they had a service c enter down the street. McMaster Carr is much better to deal with.

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by tucker6

I was in industrial equipment and construction for many years. Know both well, and I can attest to the accuracy of your post. Grainger is still doing business in 1985. Very difficult to work with, and they had a service c enter down the street. McMaster Carr is much better to deal with.

I am stunned to quickly find someone who knew them both, I have known quite a few small business owners than never heard of McMaster Carr. About the only complaints I would have is they are not competitive when it comes to the larger metal sizes, not even close, we are talking over $10 a pound for items others sell at $3. That is ok if I want 10# of something, but not a couple hundred. The other complaint is they do not stock much in the way of insert grooving, turning and threading tools.


The only thing I see Grainger doing different than 1985 is dropping that stupid business to business rule. They used to refuse to sell to the general public, they wanted a new customer to produce a business card. I always violated that rule, piss on Grainger and their company doctrine. The female boss was always snooping on me, she did not like me advising customers

and the fact my following was killing the target time spent on customers.
There could be two other guys working the counter with no customers, I had a line in front of me. Age 16-17 I worked sheetmetal, 18-19 machining, I started wrenching on cars at 12, at that same age did a summer as a carpenter's helper. Did a year of logging at 20, back could not take it. Two years working electric wholesale, 21-22, ended up at Granger at 23.


I was not afraid of anything, I volunteered for jobs constantly I had previously not done, I had the electro-mechanical aptitude to figure it out.
Had to give the background to state my case, I would be the perfect inside salesman or outside for a place like Grainger. My biggest repeats who requested me were plant maintenance electricians and mechanics. Nothing like the guy that throws a motor on the counter than looks like he removed it from the Titanic. Often I would even be able to sell them more items, I would ask if the motor starter was in the same shape as the motor. I then explained a failing motor starter can take the motor with it. Sometimes I would sell them a motor starter on the spot or they would bring the other item or items for me to look them over.


During these episodes Sharon, her real first name, forgot the last, would be glaring at me with steam coming out of her ears. She said "what happens if that man electrocutes himself and we get blamed?" I told her my advice will avoid any chances of that. Some of the guys did not know motors and switch gear well so I showed them how to wire them for the different voltages. The instructions are inside the covers, but it is better if I also explained. She kept telling me to do as the others did and hand the person a catalog and tell them to get back in line. I refused and told her to fire me. She never would, she also complained I ran up the phone bill over what was allowed for a branch. Our computers only kept our branch inventory. We had a couple branches not too far from that Irvine Ca location. Especially on big ticket items, I would try to hunt down the item at a nearby branch. She told me to stop that and show them the other local locations in the catalog. That was pre cell phone.



I was in constant battles with that woman and proudly brought her to tears a few times. The problem was I was a lot smarter than her, knew the product lines better in spite of her being with Grainger 15 years or so. She cried out of frustration with me as she thought I had future potential but would not abide by the rules. I did not say anything mean to her. The issue was I ran an electric wholesale company office in East La, that the recession of the early 80's and poor ownership ran into the ground.


I quit and went back to machining where I have stayed to this day. My Grainger career lasted 4 months, I quit, I was not fired. From what I hear
Grainger survives around these parts selling to the government. The Springfield Va location was shuttered a half dozen years ago. The Richmond store is 45 miles from me, they do not stock crap, maybe WD-40 and rags. I did try a couple times for things because I did not want to wait till tomorrow for a McMaster order. I quickly gave up as it was the same old Grainger. Even prepared for a plan D (the 4th option) they would not have that in stock.


Another thing I like about McMaster as I will buy items with Made in USA on them I long thought were no longer made here


That was quite the anti Grainger rant I ripped off.

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

I am stunned to quickly find someone who knew them both, I have known quite a few small business owners than never heard of McMaster Carr. About the only complaints I would have is they are not competitive when it comes to the larger metal sizes, not even close, we are talking over $10 a pound for items others sell at $3. That is ok if I want 10# of something, but not a couple hundred. The other complaint is they do not stock much in the way of insert grooving, turning and threading tools.




Another thing I like about McMaster as I will buy items with Made in USA on them I long thought were no longer made here


That was quite the anti Grainger rant I ripped off.

Where McMaster Carr shines is their work up front with engineering companies. The Parts List literally says McMaster Carr part no. 1234567 or equal. You never see Grainger on a parts list. So MC took the time to go to the source, made life easier for the mechanical engineer by recommending the correct parts, and got spec'd in at the beginning. In the field, no one looks for the "or equal" when you have the part number in front of you. Good business model. All the work up front and then sit back and wait for the call that always comes.

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by tucker6

Where McMaster Carr shines is their work up front with engineering companies. The Parts List literally says McMaster Carr part no. 1234567 or equal. You never see Grainger on a parts list. So MC took the time to go to the source, made life easier for the mechanical engineer by recommending the correct parts, and got spec'd in at the beginning. In the field, no one looks for the "or equal" when you have the part number in front of you. Good business model. All the work up front and then sit back and wait for the call that always comes.

Also a lot of Grainger items are poor quality, especially electrical switch gear.
On that stuff if I did not like how it looked I sent people to Consolidated Electrical Distributors. They probably have more USA locations than anyone of the electrical supply houses.


I was stoked when I found a funky capacitor of the likes I never seen

at McMaster. I never saw so many spade terminal connections. The damn Trane AC bastards or whomever they were only sold to their their licensed service techs. McMaster even had a tech line that put me in touch with a guy who told me how to hook it up.


I did not know there were parts lists with McMaster part numbers on them, that is great. I know one thing, most people want an exact replacement, myself included. I had a Vector Control Drive go out on a CNC Lathe of mine that ran the spindle. Damn thing was obsolete and my local repair house said they don't even fix those. I had to buy a new one that was quite different, it must have had 50 wire connections that I had to read up on and I had to calibrate it the best I could. I got it to work, it isn't perfect but no harm done. I could never get it perfectly calibrated, some spindle speeds it runs lower than programmed others higher, totally weird, understanding using frequencies to control motor speed is above my pay grade.

[Tom]

I had good luck with bot Grainger and MC.
We had a local Grainger that would deliver within the hour if it was in stock. And they took me out to lunch frequently!

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by Tom

I had good luck with bot Grainger and MC.
We had a local Grainger that would deliver within the hour if it was in stock. And they took me out to lunch frequently!

So you were on the take just like Fani Willis? I knew it!!!

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by Tom

I had good luck with bot Grainger and MC.
We had a local Grainger that would deliver within the hour if it was in stock. And they took me out to lunch frequently!

If you want to pimp Grainger you should give specifics. What did you commonly buy and did you require any technical assistance? I do believe the locations are not created equal, that could be by design or it could depend on the branch manager. The Grainger location nearest me in the Capitol of the Confederacy doesn't stock crap. I am tempted to peak in the warehouse. I have a feeling there is a basketball and tennis court in there. Looks like the Grainger in Irvine Ca. I worked at is no longer in existence.



I don't go to machinist forums much any more as the one I was a long time member of was bought by a liberal run marketing company and they allowed lying greenies to run roughshod. Most people complained about Grainger and praised McMaster Carr. In fact I only recall one McMaster complaint, a guy complained about the size of the boxes saying he was paying to ship packing paper. That was back when McMaster passed on their shipping discounts, now in the Biden era they stopped doing that, I noticed their freight charges have went up quite a bit.


Obviously limiting the box sizes makes loading trucks quicker and more efficient. I just re-gifted the extra shipping supplies. At the Santa Fe Springs Ca location I used to will call at I would walk by the dumpster and snag a few boxes full of shipping paper. Everything they packed was ready to ship, even if will called, on will calls the only thing different was the shipping label. No one ever said anything about my dumpster diving.

[Tom]

I was not pimpinganyone. I comment with a fact.
No, I never needed tech assistance, we knew what we were doing!

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by Tom

I was not pimpinganyone. I comment with a fact.
No, I never needed tech assistance, we knew what we were doing!

Pimping was my choice of words, I did not mean anything negative by it. I just rarely hear anyone disagree with my Grainger bashing so I am curious what the reason is behind someone who likes them, especially since I believe you referred to using McMaster Carr.



As for tech assistance nothing wrong with needing it, no one can know everything. I have certain things that never stuck in my head well and the older I get the shorter they are retained.


A good example is the property of machinable plastics, I might machine them once or twice a year now. I do remember many types that are a pain in the ass, so if someone asked for something out of acetal co-polymer (thermal instability) or something like 6-6 nylon (stringy burrs, hard to remove) I will try to steer them toward something easier to machine. With McMaster a couple mouse clicks and a little reading and I am ready to sell them on 6-12 nylon and Delrin brand acetal. Oh what do you know, Grainger doesn't sell 6-12 nylon or Delrin brand acetal homo-polymer.

[ElKabong]

As a buyer, supply chain mgr, then director, we used both McMaster Carr and grainger. McMaster was easier to deal with especially if you had SAP or another functional ERP system. Their CSRs were great to deal with

MSc was the worst. Fastenal was the last gasp. Expensive and not much CS, but they bailed us out in a pinch once in awhile

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

As a buyer, supply chain mgr, then director, we used both McMaster Carr and grainger. McMaster was easier to deal with especially if you had SAP or another functional ERP system. Their CSRs were great to deal with

MSc was the worst. Fastenal was the last gasp. Expensive and not much CS, but they bailed us out in a pinch once in awhile

Never used MSC or CS. Agree with Fastenal.

[ElKabong]

Just an aside, if ya'll recall I bought as much stock of this type / origin as I could after Trump promoted hid tax breaks. Look at grainger's stock history. My only wish was that I held on to it longer. With the tax breaks it opened opportunities for working scmucks like me. I sat and watched EEs and SEs rake in huge $ during the tech boom. I missed that boat, didn't want to miss the 2017 opportunity

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

As a buyer, supply chain mgr, then director, we used both McMaster Carr and grainger. McMaster was easier to deal with especially if you had SAP or another functional ERP system. Their CSRs were great to deal with

MSc was the worst. Fastenal was the last gasp. Expensive and not much CS, but they bailed us out in a pinch once in awhile

I had to look up SAP and ERP, and I will guess CSR is customer service rep CS is customer service.


MSC, those bastards bought out Rutland Tool in the early 2000s which I believe was SoCal only. They closed the location closest to me that was even open Saturdays, that branch was only 12 miles away. At the branch 30 miles away that was on my McMaster run route they not only raised prices 30% they also cut what they stocked in half. All Rutland branches ended up shuttered pretty quickly, raising prices while cutting inventory is not a good business plan. MSC website also stinks. I swear if I owned a large industrial supply company I would hire away the agency or people employed by McMaster to run my website and pay them 50% more or whatever they demanded. I will say one good thing about MSC, prices can be almost double each of what others sell metal cutting inserts for but you can buy just one instead of everyone one else selling packs of 5 or 10. Sometimes you want to try a different product out to see if it works good. Being a small podunk machine shop homie can't get free samples.


Fastenal? Are you kidding me? Since they decided to keep the Covid protocol crap as in cashless transactions only and no in store shopping, shipping or will call only, I will only buy one thing there, water soluble metal working fluid in 5 gallon pails. The reason is if I bought online I have to pay for shipping weight of 45# and a hazardous liquid shipping charge. That ends up costing $150 a pop for each bucket, FTS when Fastenal is like 5 miles from the Walmart pharmacy I go to monthly.

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

Just an aside, if ya'll recall I bought as much stock of this type / origin as I could after Trump promoted hid tax breaks. Look at grainger's stock history. My only wish was that I held on to it longer. With the tax breaks it opened opportunities for working scmucks like me. I sat and watched EEs and SEs rake in huge $ during the tech boom. I missed that boat, didn't want to miss the 2017 opportunity

What caused it to start going ape shit 4 years ago? I stopped owning stock after the crash of 2008. Not from fear but but I spent the brokerage account money on smoking crack, $1200 a night prostitutes, and expensive hotel rooms to party with the whores. Oh no, that wasn't me I thought I transformed into Hunter Biden for a minute. I had to reinvent my business as my customer base was vaporized to never return. I had to sell off most of my equipment and then buy new stuff. I also gave decent severance packages to the 6 employees I laid off. I wish I was a heartless immoral jack ass like Donald Trump. I gave the biggest amount to my salesman, that guy could sell ice to an Eskimo. I gave him 3 months pay and a down payment on a house.
I stink as a salesman, I am too honest, and won't embellish. The house down payment wasn't bad it was in the Mojave Desert in 29 Palms and the real estate market had crashed hard, hi brother got him a job at a car dealership.



Anyway ElKabong why didn't you call me 40 years ago and tell me to spend my last Grainger pay check on their stock? I worked there in 1984, the first chart I clicked on only went back to 1985. I assume it was around the 1985 price, a week's gross pay of stock would be worth $75,000 today.