I'm very lucky and fortunate enough that I don't have to bid on alot of jobs. I just don't take them. I've been the guy that bid jobs and didn't get them because someone wanted to lowball another contractor. I'm done being that guy! I don't want to work on a project to be miserable and not make a good days pay while breaking my nuts for someone who doesn't appreciate it. Let everyone else fight for the peanuts and work for the cheapskates, there's plenty of that going around. I'd rather go fishing or hunting and wait for the phone to ring, it will eventually. It's taken me 20 years to build up the customer base I have and being a sole proprietor my customers know what they are getting when they ask me to do work, trust and hard work done right the first time. I have alot of service accounts that I take care of and lots of other customers in between. The lighting retrofit projects have been keeping me very busy as well. 30 years in the trade this year for me and I still love what I do! (And I've never been fired or layed-off in 30 years!)
I love CT. I know I am in the minority here...but here is why
I live <1 mile from the sound, and < 1 mile from the CT river. Great options for family boating (Sag Harbor, Greenport, 3 Mile harbor, BI, Mystic, Watch Hill, the list goes on) Great options for fishing - all within about 10 mile from the dock ....Hatchet's, LSS, Plum Gut, Six mile, CT river, black point etc etc great school in Old Lyme - top 15 in the state. Less taxes in Old Lyme than i paid in Hamden for 2x the house and 3x the land doesnt get ridiculously cold in the winter and doesnt get ridiculously hot in the summer
The grass isn't always greener on the other side.
I have had a few job offers to head to California, England, and Colorado... turned them down because i want to STAY in CT.
"Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's budget office and the General Assembly's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis now agree the state's major spending account will end the fiscal year June 30 with a $43.4 million surplus. That's a drop of $461.5 million from January estimates, according to budget documents released Wednesday"
????? How do you miss an estimate by 418 million?
Its like guessing there are 115 doughnuts in this box.
I'm an accountant - and I don't believe for a second the higher-ups in the state missed the fact that everyone was realizing capital gains like crazy in 2012 ahead of the new ObamaCare 3.8% tax that went into effect in 2013...
I know Malloy's cronies need sandals on to count to 20 (and a bit of luck), but someone had to have looked at the tax revenue generated by that sell-off and realized it wouldn't continue into the future - there was a political spin to that grossly overstated early number in an election year hoping to generate votes from indigents who are the only ones who would notice such a pitiful amount in the first place...all the while employers across the state are still being taxed additionally on their payrolls to repay the debts incurred to the Feds from the last round of hand-outs (ie extended unemployment benefits - which I agreed with at the time.)
What a novel world that would create - people in public office who have real-world work experience because after their one-go as a government knucklehead they have to go back to reality if they want to keep putting dinner on their table..