The less glamorous side to the business.

[cledry]

I occasionally see posts from people who enjoy picking locks as a hobby who want to put this skill to use as a locksmith. I don't want to discourage people from becoming a locksmith, but from a realistic viewpoint ... picking locks is a very small part of what I do. I suspect most locksmiths have a similar workload.

Typical work day is go to shop at 8:30, e-mail out photographs and invoices from previous day. Check e-mail for any new jobs. Check board for jobs, if no jobs I will then set about writing out and e-mailing estimates. I usually send out 2 or 3 estimates each day. I usually get on the road by 10:00 AM and finish around 5:00 PM but run calls if they come in until about midnight. I usually only do about 5-8 night calls a week, probably because we don't do automotive and aren't a cut-rate service.

We have a 4 man shop and each man has things they are particularly good at. This is how jobs are paired with locksmith. I tend to do a lot of MK jobs, electronic locks, safes. Another guy tends to do the heavy work, hanging doors, replacing frames, pivots, closers. We have a couple of guys that are left to do the ordinary rekeying, lockouts, things of this nature or act as helpers when needed for one of the bigger jobs.

Since we are required by many customers to provide before and after photographs of jobs in order to be paid, I take a lot of photographs. I usually carry an inexpensive P&S but one that is good at higher ISO, I prefer not to use flash. I am throwing together a set on Flickr of typical jobs to give an idea of what it is like. Of course if you are an automotive locksmith or strictly an institutional locksmith things will look different. I'll add to the Flickr set from time to time. http://www.flickr.com/photos/78397778@N06/sets/72157630068187571/ If you see a photo that intrigues you feel free to question or comment on Flickr or here.

[gibson]

an awful lot of the stuff we do has nothing to do with locks, per se. for instance, doors and door closers. we get a complaint from a client that their lock doesn't work. you go to the site and find that the door is dragging and needs to be re-hung. or the door closer isn't closing the door with enough force for the latch to engage. the end result is that the door doesn't lock, but the problem is not with the lock itself. electrical wiring is another example. to install a mag-lock (the type that mounts to the frame, not a mechanical locking mechanism), you have to run wiring, mount a wall switch, install a power supply, etc. again, no lock to talk of. paper work gets to be a pain in the, er, neck, but then if you weren't busy you'd be complaining about lack of jobs. ah, well. i spent 22 years working as a programmer (COBOL, CICS for all you dinosaurs out there), and i'd rather be cleaning the graphite from under my finger nails than sitting in a meeting listening to someone drone on and on (pretty much like i'm doing now).