My buddy recently asked if I had any leads on stagehand work, because he spontaneously quit his IT job last month. He said that compared to the stress of modern IT work, he’d rather be a local roadcase pusher.

Oh you mean a one man shop. Unless you're already famous it's just going to be a hobby shop, the furniture market is completely fucked by overseas competition. We made furniture for David Iatesta, which I guess is some fancy ass design house. A ~40 4poster king size bedframe in red oak was our priciest standard option, we sold to them for ~$2.5k, they sanded a little more, and added ugly finishes and sold for $10k+

The fat ass that hasn't physically produced a piece of furniture in 25 years, changes plans halfway through builds, checks scrap for "egregious waste", nickles and dimes overtime, always has out of scope tasks for anyone he takes a disliking to, I could go on... is absolutely a micromanager. The foreman was paid the most to be in charge on the shop floor, make decisions on the fly, handle vendors and materials purchases, but was frequently overridden by a voice yelling from a lofted office space. Just because they own the business doesn't mean they can't micromanage. Sounds like the stuff a micromanager owner would say

https://www.iatestastudio.com/product-details/nantucket-lamp-M205

I turned so many of these omg