Taking an oil furnace service emergency on Halloween pays better than a normal Tuesday night.
I am in my mid 20s, I have no children or immediate family, as well as have been “in between” partners for about eight months, which means that I get stuck with a lot of the extra work that comes up at the local contractor. The other AC techs all have families, so they don’t want to take an emergency oil furnace service at 4 in the AM, nor do they really want to work on holidays, or late shifts, or on-call work. Holiday pay is really lucrative, which is why I try to take as much of it as possible. The HVAC contractor I work for has something called a “shift differential” which adds on a certain percentage to your pay depending on when you work, and working at midnight pays better than working at noon. Taking an oil furnace service emergency on Halloween pays better than a normal Tuesday night. Does this plan make sense? Basically my approach is to take all the shifts that none of the other HVAC pros want to work, as well as make more money because of it, then if I had a family or a real social life it would suck, but for a loner like me it’s the best way to make the most money from heating as well as cooling repairs. I must admit that Halloween is a terrific night to do emergency HVAC repairs, because usually the customers are already tipsy or drunk when I get there. I went to a Halloween party to get their natural gas oil furnace working again, which was so much fun that I stayed there to hang out after the task was done… And I still made double pay for my shift differential.