cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/42676060
Trucks are for every tradesperson that does the things you lack the time, training or tools to do when something breaks at your residence. Trucks help you move.
I always wonder about that:
- I knew a guy with a truck to commute alone into Boston for a desk job. Does home improvement projects but most of the time it’s an excessive vehicle
- Family up the street - a couple of the grown kids live at home and all have trucks. On the one hand it’s a family of Trades, but on the other hand the trucks are spotless, customized, and I never see tools.
Trucks don’t do that, vans do.
In Europe every tradesperson drives a van because it is a lot more efficient and can haul way more than trucks ever can.
Well then I guess I need a new vehicle because I’m a handyman and I use a truck. Dealing with a van full of stuff and trying to slide drywall in is kind of difficult. However, I can easily snap them on top of the bed of my truck and get moving. And it cost me a whole lot less to maintain this truck than it would to maintain a van. You ever tried carrying a ton of gravel in a van? I wouldn’t. Takes much longer to load and unload that way.
Vans, you’re thinking of vans. Becuase you can lock up all your expensive tools in a van, it keeps rain off your supplies, it gives you a mobile workspace with AC, and you can take out the seats or reconfigure it for the job at hand. All the tradesmen I know drive vans. All the idiots I know who want an expensive mall crawling pavement princess so they look like they could do actual work, buy trucks.
I’m glad you know enough people to make uninformed opinions about my professional needs. Are you going to recommend, like another poster here, that I buy a second dedicated vehicle that costs more than I make in a year for the occasions where I need to transport stuff that you can’t load in a van? AC? You think I could afford to run the AC?
By the way is my 2005 Ranger with 200k+ miles that is worth less than $4k a pavement princess? Am I an idiot for owning one general purpose vehicle that covers all my personal and professional needs?
No, but I wouldn’t call delivering gravel high skill labor that I couldn’t do.
Sure there are legitimate needs for trucks. The vast majority of truck owners buy them to look cool, instead of actually doing truck things with them. Be proud that you may be the exception to the rule.
And if said tradesperson doesn’t want their equipment to get wet in the rain they get a van instead.
Or they just get some storage bins. I find them to be highly effective. Allows me to load just the tools I need for a job so unloading and loading is very fast.
