I own a small glass business in northern mich. I have been the installer, salesman, estimator, floor sweeper etc. etc. for 16 of the last 20 years. 4 years ago I hired a part time employee that works 3 days a week mon. wed. and fri. I did this simply because of my age (55yrs.) and my arms are getting sore, arthritis etc. I used to have to retail at least $1,000.00 dollars per day to pay for my overhead, my wages, and secretaries (full time) and insurances for vehicles, workmens comp. all the stuff it takes to run a business. We try to get our customers to bring in as much of their glass work to our shop as possible, auto, residential, anything we can do in our shop to save time and vehicle wear and tear. My labor rate is 48 bucks an hour (mobile) and I haven't raised that rate in over 10 years. I dont pay health insurance on my part time employee, and I cannot believe how much more work we have to do to break even now. I am just happy to get a guy that I can break even with on his 3 days at my shop. We pour the work on as much as possible on those 3 days, and I try to do estimates, sales calls on the other 2. It is almost not worth it cost wise to go out and do a small putty glaze window for even a minimum 1 hour labor charge. I am not complaining, I am extremely happy to be able to give this man work, I pay him what a full time installer would make wage wise. Whenever possible, I combine trip charges, and try to give someone a break when I can, but it is to the point where I have to get minimum charges everytime I drive somewhere, so I can just exist in business, much less make a profit. I understand where Eric is coming from business wise, and also understand about delivering 3 tons and giving a discount of some kind. Even if the discount was small, most people would feel better. I always try to stay on top of those types of things with customers, I apologize a lot when I have to charge a minimum service call, for those smaller jobs, most people take it better if the owner personally explains a situation like that.