u/Funny_Expression_840

Run a small plumbing shop. Last year was rough, phones ringing all day, half going to voicemail, lost a $4k repipe in March bc i called the guy back next morning and someone else was already there.

Tried the usual stuff. Jobber was overkill, Housecall Pro almost worked but the sms side is weak, and the actual sales platforms are built for saas reps not for someone triaging a leak at 8pm. So i hired two devs off upwork and we built our own thing over 3 months. Inbound texts get sorted by job type, and if the customer goes quiet for 2 hours the system pokes them again. Conversion on inbounds went from like 30 to mid 60s.

Idk if this is a real takeaway but contractors get ignored by software. The workflow is weird, the customers are weird, and most tools out there were built by people who never spent a Saturday in a crawl space.

I'm 26 and spent my teens doing construction work, so my body handled a lot early on. But for the last few years I switched to a desk job and now sit pretty much 8 hours a day for work plus another 2 for studying. Basically living in a chair.

About 3 months ago I got diagnosed with a disc extrusion, protrusion and sciatica. My sciatic nerve gets compressed and my foot goes numb whenever I sit for too long. Been through a bunch of meds, got an orthopedic cushion, tried a few things but nothing really moved the needle.

At this point I'm open to trying anything. Recently came across people mentioning collagen powder as something that might help with inflammation. Honestly I'm skeptical and don't know much about it, but I'm at the stage where I'll try whatever.
Would love to hear what actually worked for anyone here.