The Apprentice Math: He Isn't Cheaper in Year One. He's Cheaper Forever After.

Your lead tech says green help costs more than it saves. You say you have to grow your own. This workbook settles it with your numbers — including the one cost nobody puts on paper: the hours your senior guy spends teaching instead of billing.

How it works

• The First Year — four quarters at your ramp, your wage, and your billable rate, with the senior tech's teaching hours priced at the senior tech's rate; shows the quarter it stops losing money (in the sample: month five, at −$4,542 then +$5,104)
• Green vs Experienced — the comparison on the only honest basis, dollars per PRODUCTIVE hour: year one $40.06 vs $41.05, a tie; year two $27.89 vs $41.05, $25,000 a year
• Making the Ramp Faster — the teaching that compounds versus the teaching you repeat, the order to hand tasks over in, and the retention moves that are cheap this year and unaffordable in year three

Built for

HVAC · plumbing · electrical · auto repair · landscaping · any shop deciding between a helper it trains and a tech it poaches.

What you get

One .xlsx file, four tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no subscription. Change the ramp, the wage, or the billable rate and the verdict moves with them.