The customer who told me I was "just a carpet guy" at a party in Chicago

I was at a BBQ in Naperville last summer and this guy in finance starts asking what I do. When I said I install carpets, he actually laughed and said "oh so you're just a carpet guy, not a real contractor." I was like buddy, I've been doing this 12 years and make more than you. He kept talking down to me all night about "real trades." Anyone else get treated like a second class worker just because we don't frame houses?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant.nina29d ago

Got to a party in Evanston once where this lady kept calling me a "floor decorator" after I told her I refinish hardwood. She'd pat my arm and go "oh how cute, you make floors pretty." I just let her go on for like 20 minutes about her art collection. Finally she asked where I got my "floor painting" done and I told her I actually did it myself in my own shop. Then I casually mentioned I had just bid on refinishing the entire main floor of a 15 million dollar mansion in Winnetka. The look on her face was priceless lmao. Sometimes people just don't get that skilled labor is still skilled labor whether you're slinging carpet or doing brain surgery.

jordang321mo ago

I hear you on the "oh so you're just a carpet guy" part. That kind of attitude rubs me the wrong way too. I've seen plenty of carpet installers who take more pride in their work than some white collar folks do in theirs.

murphy.barbara1mo ago

Used to roll my eyes at guys who got defensive about being "just" a tradesperson. Thought it was an overreaction. But then my brother in law spent twenty years doing drywall and his son told him "it's just mudding." Watching him explain the craft behind it, the muscle memory, the way you can feel a bad patch job before you see it. That changed my mind real quick. There's a difference between knowing how to do something and actually being good at it, and that goes for any line of work.