By Eric Schell, CEO & Founder of OneTap | Former Maintenance Technician

I hear it constantly. From agency owners. From dispatchers. From guys in management who haven't touched a wrench in fifteen years. From my 85-year-old neighbor watering his yard at 2 PM on a Wednesday.

"Nobody wants to work anymore."

They say it at industry events. They say it on LinkedIn. They say it to restaurant owners in Nashville to justify why a basic plumbing call costs $800 and takes a week to schedule. They say it to landlords in Atlanta. To property managers in Tampa. To small business owners in Charlotte and Austin who just need someone to fix a busted HVAC unit before summer hits.

I was a maintenance technician. I know dozens of techs. Plumbers, HVAC specialists, electricians, general maintenance pros who can fix just about anything you put in front of them.

They want to work. They want to work badly.

What they don't want is to generate $4,000 in revenue a week and take home $900. What they don't want is to miss their kid's baseball game because a dispatcher booked them a call at 6 PM that could've waited until morning. What they don't want is to front $300 in parts on their personal credit card and wait three weeks to get reimbursed.

That's not "nobody wants to work." That's "nobody wants to get screwed."

The Numbers Don't Lie. People Are Choosing Trades.

If the "labor shortage" narrative were true, trade school enrollment would be falling off a cliff. It's doing the opposite.

Trade school admissions have doubled since 2014 (EdSmart). The skilled trades are seeing a surge in interest from a generation that watched their peers take on six figures in college debt for jobs that pay $45K.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported that postsecondary vocational and trade program enrollment grew by 7.3% in the 2023-2024 academic year, outpacing traditional four-year university enrollment growth for the third consecutive year (NSCRC).

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that demand for HVAC technicians alone will grow 6% through 2032, with plumbing and electrical trades seeing similar trajectory (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook).

People are training. People are entering the field. Trade programs across Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas are seeing record enrollment. The pipeline is not empty.

So where are they going?

They're Leaving. Not Because They're Lazy. Because the Math Doesn't Work.

I worked alongside a tech. Call him Mike. Mike was one of the best HVAC guys I've ever seen. Ran calls all over Nashville, from Germantown to Franklin to Murfreesboro. Could diagnose a compressor issue by sound alone. Fifteen years of experience. Customers requested him by name.

Mike quit the industry to drive for a rideshare app.

Not because he loved driving strangers to the airport. Because driving 40 hours a week put more money in his pocket than turning wrenches for 70. He set his own schedule. Nobody was skimming 60% off the top. Nobody was calling him at 11 PM on a Saturday telling him he had an emergency dispatch across town.

Mike didn't stop wanting to work. He stopped wanting to work for a system that punished him for being good at his job.

Then there was a guy I worked with. I'll call him James. James was an electrician. Sharp. Reliable. The kind of tech every agency fights to keep. James had a two-year-old daughter. He calculated that between his hourly rate and the cost of childcare, he was netting about $4 an hour after a 10-hour day once you factored in drive time and the parts he fronted out of pocket.

James didn't leave because he was lazy. James left because staying was financially irrational.

These aren't Nashville-only stories. This is happening in every major metro in the Southeast. Skilled techs in Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte, and Austin are making the same calculation and reaching the same conclusion.

I Lived It

I'm not guessing about this. I was in it.

I worked 90-hour weeks as a maintenance tech in Nashville. I was good at the work. I liked the work. I'd bring in thousands of dollars in revenue for the agencies I worked for and walk away with a fraction of it.

I'd show up to a job at 7 AM. Finish at 9 PM. Check my phone and see two more calls dispatched to me because "you're already in the area." I wasn't in the area. I was 45 minutes away. But the dispatcher had a board to clear, so my night was gone.

Weekends? Those belonged to the agency. Holidays? "Emergency" calls that were rarely emergencies but always billed like ones.

I didn't burn out because the work was hard. The work was fine. I burned out because the system was designed to extract everything I had and give back as little as possible.

And when I finally hit my limit, I guarantee you someone in that office said, "Nobody wants to work anymore."

The Real Reason Maintenance Companies Can't Keep Techs

It's not complicated. But admitting it would mean changing.

They don't pay enough. The average maintenance technician brings in 3x to 4x their take-home pay in revenue. That gap isn't profit. It's overhead. Trucks that sit idle. Dispatchers shuffling paper. Layers of management. Legacy software. The tech sees a fraction of the value they create, and they know it.

They don't respect their time. A tech who finishes a job at 5 PM should be done. Instead, they get one more call. Then another. The expectation isn't productivity. It's availability. 24/7, 365, or you're "not a team player."

They make techs front the costs. Parts, gas, tools, wear on their personal vehicle. I've watched techs put $500 on a credit card for parts and wait weeks for reimbursement. Some never got it. That's not employment. That's a loan your employee didn't agree to.

They offer zero path forward. Work harder. Get more calls. That's the career ladder. No equity. No ownership. No upside. Just more hours for the same percentage. The only way to make more money is to sacrifice more of your life.

When a tech leaves, the company says "nobody wants to work." The tech says "I wanted to work. Just not like that."

Who are you going to believe?

The Narrative Protects the System

Here's what makes the "nobody wants to work" line so toxic. It's not just wrong. It's strategic.

Every time a maintenance company in Nashville, Atlanta, or anywhere in the Southeast tells a customer "we can't find good techs," they're doing two things at once:

1. Justifying higher prices. "Labor is scarce, so you'll have to pay more." Convenient excuse for a $750 service call. The restaurant owner in East Nashville doesn't question the price because they've been told it's a supply-and-demand issue.

2. Deflecting blame for turnover. If the problem is "lazy workers," then the company doesn't need to look in the mirror. Doesn't need to raise pay. Doesn't need to fix the scheduling. Doesn't need to stop treating techs like replaceable parts. The narrative keeps the system intact.

And everyone repeats it. Customers repeat it. Industry publications repeat it. Conference speakers repeat it. It becomes accepted wisdom. "There's a skilled trades shortage." "Young people don't want to get their hands dirty."

Meanwhile, trade school enrollment is surging. Techs are out there. They're just choosing to work for companies, or for themselves, where the math actually works.

What Keeping Techs Actually Looks Like

It's not complicated. I know because I asked them. For years. In the field. Over lunch. After long shifts.

What techs want:

Fair pay that reflects the revenue they generate. Not 25% of what they bring in. A real cut that respects the skill, the licensing, the experience, and the physical toll of the work.

Control over their schedule. Let them pick the jobs. Let them decide when they're done for the day. Rideshare apps figured this out a decade ago. The maintenance industry is still dispatching techs like it's 1998.

No more fronting costs. Parts should be paid for before the tech walks into a hardware store. Period. A technician's credit card is not the company's line of credit.

Transparency. Show them what the customer is paying. Show them where the money goes. If a tech generates $800 on a job, they should know exactly why they're taking home $200. And that reason better be more compelling than "overhead."

Respect. Answer their calls. Don't stack their schedule until midnight. Acknowledge that the person crawling under a house in July heat is the reason your company exists.

None of this is radical. It's basic. The industry just hasn't had to offer it because the "nobody wants to work" narrative gave them a free pass.

Why I Built OneTap to Fix This

I left the field and built OneTap because I got tired of watching the best techs I knew leave an industry they loved.

OneTap gives technicians what the traditional maintenance system refuses to:

More money. OneTap takes a fraction of what traditional agencies skim. That means a tech doing the same job walks away with dramatically more in their pocket. Not because the customer pays more. Because the overhead is gone.

Their own schedule. Techs on OneTap pick their own jobs and set their own hours. No dispatcher calling at 10 PM. No mandatory weekends. If you want to work five days a week and be home for dinner, you can do that and still earn more than you did working seven.

No fronting parts. OneTap provides virtual cards so techs can buy what they need for the job without touching their personal money. No reimbursement delays. No out-of-pocket risk.

Transparent pricing. Techs see what the customer is paying. Customers see what the tech is earning. No hidden margins. No mystery math. Everyone knows the deal before the job starts.

The maintenance industry doesn't have a labor shortage. It has a respect shortage. It has a pay shortage. It has a system that chews up skilled people and then blames them for leaving.

OneTap is built for the techs who want to work. And deserve a system that works for them.

Join OneTap as a technician and start earning what your work is actually worth.

Get started as a customer and get connected with top-tier techs who love what they do. Because they're finally being treated right.

Eric Schell is the CEO and founder of OneTap and a former maintenance technician based in Nashville, TN. OneTap is available now in Nashville with expansion planned for Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte, and Austin.

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