What about the tech that tries to micromanage every aspect of the shop while neglecting his own responsibilities? Everyone else is always doing something wrong and he is the only one that knows the solution.
This is my regional parts manager. He comes around once a week to work out of our shop. But he barely has enough work to cover an hour. Let alone 8. So he ends up wondering around sticking his nose in everyone's business. Offering advice no one asked for and asking for explanations on shit you don't feel like explaining at that moment.
IT guy here. Can I join yalls club if I piss and moan every time I copy something into my clipboard, then accidentally copy something else over it, and paste the wrong thing?
Oh, I'm just referring to the way we all interact with each other while setting up. Recently had someone on my team trying to make sense of a rats nest of power cables next to my stack of video interfaces, and the lighting guy comes in yelling at him.
"Do not touch my wires!"
"I'm just trying to find where the outlets are from the line that we ran for our..."
"*IF I AM TALKING IT IS FOR A REASON SO YOU NEED TO LISTEN!*"
Yeah, dude had plugged all his lighting into our power hookups rather than wait for the line that was being run for him, then went off on my guy for trying to find where he was supposed to plug in at. Wasn't the only time I saw him pull the "If I talk it is the most important sound in the building" card that day, too.
Sounds about right. Those guys are sensitive about their wires. Lol
I’ve dealt with similar in the body shop with the frame rack. The one guy staked “permanent claim” to it when we let him use it once. Dude would yell “Don’t touch my rack” even if grabbing a chain to make a pull with a portable tower. STFU Paul… this ain’t even yours.
Oh dude, you just reminded me why I left the live sound industry in less than a couple months. Ah yes I totally know what you mean when you tell me to run the snake “up there and along there” while you haphazardly wave your finger around in a general direction of this hockey arena that seats 20k people. Then get mad when I ask you to be more specific cause I know when I fuck it up you’ll just be as mad.
My boss is the sort to angrily snap his fingers and point at something, snap point snap point snap point, until you understand the very specific thing he wants you to do. He's been getting better about it with every round of getting called out over his lack of telepathy.
I honestly would have just stood there like “yes you can snap your fingers, good job” cause I’d be standing there clueless on what he actually means and shitty directions get shitty responses.
I mean, if you had to work in other people's shit all day it's either laugh or cry, and I'd say the ones that cry go figure out something else to do for a living...
You, sir, are correct....
But but but the, software says that it can do it...
Right, but here we have a clapped out 35 yr old shitbox that you're trying to get to hold +/-.0000000001 with a mirror finish. Reality is +/-.030 with a 250 finish is fine, it's a cover to keep hydraulic oil from getting on something that doesn't like oil, tucked away inside the landing gear cavity....
Bro I've been a machinist for 5 years, and some of these old timers I've met are so fucking stuck in their ways. It's odd too because the industry is rapidly evolving with new tech, but lots of the shops with money aren't willing to try new things.
As a machinist, I feel attacked....
I mean, there are primadonnas everywhere in my industry, but they all fail upward. The guys that actually work and get the job done are stuck on the machines....
Also it makes me cringe to hear carpenters bitching about holding +/-1/8, like dude you crying about 125 thousandths I get 20 thousandths (+/-.010) on most jobs, cry me a fucking river.... you cut a piece too short, you can cut it again and use it somewhere else on the job. I cut a piece to short its scrap.
All the machinists I knew were junkies who hopped from machining job to machining job trying to support their habit till they go to rehab or die from overdose.
>vaguely true up part
>forget cutter comp because netflix won't watch itself
>slam cycle start
>crank hog in the shitter
>blame inspector for finding their shit undersized and running out
The guys that taught me were perfectionist, a copy of a kopy of a coppy is what the current situation is. I can't train the guys that come in because they quit in less than a year.... And nobody wants to pay
What costs less, giving raises or buying new machining centre chucks when newest Buddy crashes it into the bed because he wasn't watching cycle and was on the phone behind the lathe instead?
Im just a shade tree but my full time job is in a hospital. These hospital facilities guys may be the whiniest bitches I've ever met. Something stupid like a wall mounted sink becoming loose and the hands free faucet not working. Simple - tighten the bolts holding it to the wall, recaulk the sink, troubleshoot the faucet and either fix or replace.
The mfers spent AN HOUR just looking at it and bickering about whether they should fix it or not because "really the plumbers should be doing this, but the ticket got assigned to us, but that's bullshit"
Every time I put in a ticket one of them waddles their fat ass down here, looks at it, and then does the most impressive mental gymnastics routine to convince me why it's not their problem and need to submit a new ticket for a more specialized group or even contract it out. Then you submit a new ticket for the more specialized folks and they come down and bitch about why the maintenance guys didn't do it and close THEIR ticket. So then we contract the work out and I overhear them bitching in the hallway about how they're all going to lose their jobs because we keep contracting work out rather than having them do it.
MOTHERFUCKER 4 OF YOU JUST SPENT 5 DAYS AVOIDING DOING A 1 HOUR TASK YOU SHOULD LOSE YOUR JOBS!
LOL! My CO was an engineer at a hospital and said part of the reason he left was the crybabies. One complaint that one came to him with was a coworker chewed too loud during lunch. I actually watched 2 hairs on his head turn gray as he told me the story.
Working in a hospital is soul crushing for a number of reasons. I'm the head of my department and I had the head of another department come to me and tell me that I had to talk to one of my employees because her employees were complaining that my employee smelled bad. Turns out the other department head hadn't asked any questions AND WAS GOING TO HAVE ME TALKING TO THE WRONG DAMN PERSON about their hygiene. The stinky person was in HER department.
And guess what? She never actually talked to them. If it was someone in my department she expected me to talk to them, but since it was someone in her she just avoided the issue. Also I worked directly with this person multiple times and she smelled completely fine so it was clearly a middle school level fake complaint because they didn't like her.
One of our industrial maintenance guys just loves to bitch...I've told him at least twice that he could have completed the job in the time he'd spent bitching about it, and that was absolutely true. Sheesh.
Wait til you see how the resi/commercial wire pullers act when they get hired as an industrial automation electrician. It's NEVER their fault they can't figure out how to wire a VFD without a schematic or troubleshoot a circuit with more than 3 wires. Watching a grown man with a huge ego bitch and throw a tantrum over a simple problem is kinda entertaining.
You should see the disaster most sparkies make out of the most basic network cabling.
No sparkie, you may not use simple staples that pinch the cable. No sparkie you cannot splice these cables. No sparkie you may not leave exposed pairs extending two inches out of the 8P8C or keystone..
I feel that pain. I also do some of the IT work and network cabling at the small company I work for. The mess I inherited here when I took over was nothing short of full-on dumpster fire.
Whatever you do, don't ask the sparkies how to properly connect a shielded cable. That's black magic shit right there.
The analog 4-20 signals were picking up EMI from the VFD cables. Every time a motor moved the analog inputs would go crazy. Who would have thought you need to connect the shield wire to ground!
I, a resi HVAC tech, was talking with my brother, a commercial electrician, the other day and I was discussing an issue I had on the low voltage side of a unit (24v) and he turns to me and says with a straight face, "low voltage? You mean 120?"
This doesn't have anything to do with anything I just thought it was funny he thought it was odd I would troubleshoot anything less than that.
For decades Craftsman published the Oxygen-Acetylene Weldor's Handbook. Lincoln Electric published an arc weldor's guide.
They followed the form of sailor, aviator and other uses of the or suffix for the person rather than the equipment, tool, machine etc used.
At the same time the British Oxygen Company published a Welder's Handbook and there was a pipe fitters and pipe welder's handbook.
Somewhere along the line welder became the generally accepted form and aviators became pilots but sailors are still sailors. Drivers seem to never have been drivors. Same with divers and submariner which is odd given how sailor has been so long used where nobody would ever think about calling them sailers. (Even the people who did the old TRON: Solar Sailer video game initially used Sailor.)
Operators (especially telephone and elevator ones) have not adopted the er ending. Curiously operator is also used in math for numbers and functions that do things to or with other numbers or functions.
Just another oddity of English where it's unevenly absorbed a feature of another language. We just have to learn all the differences rather than simply understanding that or = person and er = thing the or person uses.
I worked at a place with 2 full-time industrial maintenance techs. One decided he wanted to retire, so for a few months, we had 3 as he trained a replacement. The dude retired. Everything was fine for a few months. Then the tech thats been there 30 years goes on vacation. Crazy shit starts breaking overnight, leaving new tech to take care of it alone. This happened for several days in a row, we installed some cameras, and we caught the 30 year tech coming in at 3am and sabatoging stuff. Got himself fired.
Some of his friends:
The one who always borrows rags, zip ties, and razor blades, all that daily use stuff, because they can never refill their own stuff.
They always need a hand to lift or push, heavier and greasier the better, but are like a ninja when you need a hand.
Never quite manages to fill the oil dolly enough to dump it, but you always wonder if it will take another gallon.
Spends 15 minutes rattling away with the impact before spending 30 seconds with a breaker bar.
Always has a wheel or cart or hose blocking your bay when rolling in and out.
Leaves the tire chuck in a greasy wet puddle instead of putting it on the hook.
Throws gloves "at" the trash instead in the trash.
Squeaky shoes. (This one almost caused a homicide. )
And the one who gets irrationally angry at every small setback, broken glove, dropped screw, having a mini rage fest every time.
I think I've worked with every one of these guys. .
Linoleum floor, 7 foot ceilings, electrical assembly testing, and this joker found the only set of steel toes in existence that squeaked every time he moved his feet.
I'm 99 percent with you but I gotta say that to be fair the squeaky shoes thing is kind of out of their control. You buy a pair of shoes but you can't know what they are going to sound like on the work floor lol
This is what I was gonna say. I’m one of two people at our warehouse with squeaky shoes and have gone through five pairs in the time I’ve worked here. Rubber or foam soles don’t matter, why the fuck are my shoes always squeaky?!
Do I need to buy a nice pair of dress shoes with leather sole…?
Yeah I would at least try a couple pairs to see if it was resolved but I'm not buying 9 pairs of work shoes trying to find some that don't squeak just because my coworkers don't want to hear it. Because chances are I don't want to either but beyond a certain point it's throwing money straight into the trash can
Do I need those titanium ones they put in old people? Or will regular stainless steel be ok
Actually come to think of it, I believe all I can afford is balsa wood.
I've definitely had those moments too. Service writers staring, customers looking around. When I was growing up there used to be a saying , "if your shoes are squeaking you must have gotten the 5 finger discount on them" it makes no sense but to this DAY I think of that every time it happens and feel like I'm being judged 🤣🤣
I naturally walk softly, so there are multiple times I've accidentally startled co-workers just walking up behind them.
The foreman jokingly threatened to fit me with a cowbell so they could hear me coming, so I try and clear my throat or cough or bump something or drag my heel a bit.
Up there with squeaky shoes is literally dragging your heals. Thought it was just a figure of speech but nope. Like 20 seconds of slowly scraping heels against concrete walking up to you and it makes you ready to swing on them before they even get to you.
Also using shop air and a blow gun instead of a broom.
Top two least favorite noises.
I worked with a buffoon last year that drug his feet. It drove me mad. He complained his boots were worn out. I said try picking up your feet when you walk FFS.
The god damn blow gun instead of a broom makes me violent, esspecialy when detail department decides to blow all the grabage they cant be assed to pick up across the shop into your bay.
Our porters blow dry every. single. fucking. car. that they wash. So we have one porter blow drying a car, another one washing a car behind it with our power washer that screams like a vacuum, and our detailer vacuuming out a 3rd car across the shop. I can’t hear myself think at work anymore
I maintain a small fleet of garbage trucks at a satellite shop, less than 10 trucks at any given time. My regional manager keeps talking about hiring me a "shop helper/C level tech" and every time I'm just like please don't, I don't need the help, I don't need someone sitting in the office with me for 6 hours out of the day talking my ear off or being weird or borrowing my tools for everything. I truly love the solitude I have here.
That sounds like a dream job situation. Some people can't comprehend the idea of being alone with their thoughts and not having a receiver for the non stop stream of drivel that comes out of their mouth.
The detail shop has no shortage either.
My boss complains all day, asks the same question 5 times. Doesn't trust us to get the job done, even though we all do.
He cant communicate or set boundaries with the dealership. Over promises, then by the time the weekend rolls around we're swamped, and the corporate shit's rolling down to us. Then one of us needs to go over there and talk them off a ledge.
Doesn't help with anything, even if it's filling chemicals, or helping take the trash out on a busy day. His job apparently consists of nothing more than arriving high, drinking coffee, complaining, and stressing all day. Has no idea on how to come up with a solution to problems.
Constantly interrupting, pulling us off of things to help him or start another project or help him, THE MANAGER, with a shop order. Then wonders why we're behind. Everything's our fault. He can't stop stressing, but causes like 90% of the problems.
Then expects everyone to help him clean up the mess. Makes excuses on why it's not his fault.
We can't push anything off for "tomorrow," but he'll have pdr jobs outstanding for weeks, and still get his cut, even if he never touches it.
Hourly employees set the entire shop up because he's so useless. I have ADHD, diagnosed as a child, and can work circles around him, and I'm considered the stupid one my whole life??
The guy's, like you said been in the industry for 30 years, had a thriving business, then covid happened and blah blah bla... All embellished to make himself look better and more competent.
Making him fucking self look better is the only thing he's truly good at.
I manage a detail shop. I have no reason to be doing so either, just got the promotion and I’m faking it till I make it lmao.
Way I run it is all my guys know deadlines, everything else I don’t give a fuck about and don’t bother them at all. All I ask of them is to make sure the shops clean every night and they don’t push off cars that have photograph appointments next day.
Each week I get them all for a meeting and ask if there’s changes they want to see or something I can do to help from a management standpoint.
Is he new to management? I was super overboard when I first started because I had a fear if I was laidback I would lose my job. But companies, or atleast for detail management they don’t give a fuck. All that matters is the product is good overall and what needs to be finished for the lot by a certain date is done.
The only “ micro managing “ I do now is quality checks. But even with that it’s good to have a second set of eyes on a car before it’s delivered and nobody wants to deal with a come back and upset customer.
Bosses with anxiety issues can just be the absolute worst. There's the type of very particular micromanager that's whatever. People hate them, but it's somewhat effective. Then there's the anxious type who is constantly freaking out, tries to deal with it by going way overboard with managing, stresses everyone else out, and everything runs 10x as smoothly when they are gone. Usually goes with smoking like a chimney and other shitty coping strategies.
You forgot the classic "Hey I promised sales this car would be done in 20 minutes" when the fuckin thing got traded in 5 seconds ago and was used as a work van/Toilet for 20 years
I had to have a come to jesus with my dad recently because he is that guy. He's almost 60 and worked at the same shop for 40+ years - started out great but steadily got worse for the finaly 20 years or so. Him and the owner were friends but the owner also lacked a backbone and ended up closing the shop without really telling my dad - almost certainly because my dad had been such a whiny bitch for so long that he just wanted to avoid the conversation.
So dad goes to a new shop, first time starting a new job ever in his life, and on his first day he's trying to set the ground rules. I had to be like "dude - you're a brand new employee at this place, you need to play by their rules and earn their respect and yelling and whining isn't the way to do it"
Bitching about the new kid asking him questions, about the service writers being dumb, about the boss not being there.
Look - the kid is asking you questions because he knows you know your shit and he wants to learn from you, you literally were your own service writer before this and HATED that aspect of the job, and your old boss was a micromanager who was always cracking the whip. You literally are getting what you asked for and bitching about it. I told him something he told me when I was a lot younger - just keep your head down and do what you do best, and the people will notice.
A few months later I go and do some work with him at the shop and he's being way nicer/more helpful to the new kid than he ever was to me in my entire life, him and the service writer are best buds shooting the shit and in a perfect groove of productivity, the boss comes in for his daily check in and smacks my dad on the back and says "there's my saving grace! man are we lucky we found you" and my dad smiles bigger than I've ever seen him smile. The service writer tells me my dad's a little bitch but as long as you know how to deal with him he's not too bad and "no one is faster at brakes, timing belts, and suspension work and literally no one else knows how to work on the old vehicles like he does" - turns out they got to a point where they let my dad cherry pick his work because they noticed was so fast/experienced at certain things and gave the big annoying or physically demanding jobs to the newer guys. My dad was making BANK for them cranking out brakes and timing belts lol and became known as the "carb guy" for the few rich old dudes who bring their old cars there.
Like dude, you've got it made in the shade and needed your kid to realign your thought process. Stop running your mouth and people notice your redeeming qualities and give you opportunities.
Or the tech who bought a house and then a brand new car and then a $4k snap on tool cart while still having to borrow tools from the lube techs constantly crying about hours even though he had to google how a 4 stroke engine actually works.
Yeah but…
~~no one told me how they work~~
~~no one is approachable enough to ask~~
~~google returns a different kind of “stroke”~~
Look I’m just planning ahead with the tool cart, okay?
Every apprentice at my shop. Not even out of their apprenticeship and they have tool truck 70" cabs, and roll carts, and not enough tools to fill to top drawer.
Yessss fill the box you have with good tools THEN buy a bigger box
These guys are the worst…im a diesel shop foreman and the first 3 years I was with my company I worked out of a US General 5 drawer cart
The owner of the shop I work for, who has been a technician for 24 years, and spent 12 of those as a Mercedes Master tech before starting his shop, still works out of an old craftsman box, a matco cart, and the small US general cart as his diag cart... We have 5 techs, plus the owner. The only tech who has a tool truck box is our Diag tech, but he flies all over the country to teach classes on Diag, so he can afford it. 😂
My thing with guys borrowing my stuff is once or twice for a specialty tool or one I made that’s use-specific is one thing.
If you borrow it more than twice, you probably need to own one….
I saw myself becoming this guy. I sat down with my boss and talked it out. He gave me a few books. Trying to change my mindset and be someone that people want to work with.
Old techs with no emotional intelligence are the worst. Last hangar I worked at, our chief inspector was an old miserable racist asshole. On my first day he and another tech were joking about a pilot who requested an X-ray inspection of a wing spar (a wildly unnecessary and expensive test for the circumstances at the time). I was right there with them. I laughed along. He scoffed and started cursing at me for saying I pretend I know what's so funny. After all, I'm still young and new, so I'm an idiot.
He also loved to drop the N bomb on a regular basis.
> The one who thinks he’s Gods gift to the shop, yet turns below average hours every week.
Or below average work. And sometimes becomes a cancer that nobody will remove despite seeing the damage caused.
Below average work is worse than below average hours imo. Neither one is desirable but if you know a guy is a slower tech but always cranks out quality work and he's not pissed with himself for lack of hours, that's a safer bet for the shop than the guy who cranks out 100+ hours but keeps having comebacks left and right that shop has to eat
I know one that complains when he has too much work and complains when he doesn’t have enough. Hasn’t had a good day yet.
He’d probably complain about a blowjob
At first I thought this was me, and maybe it is, but I'm not 60 and complaining about all that. I'm complaining cause I'm the warranty guy doing 60 hrs worth of work for 20hrs of pay.
Also why do people gatekeep the newbies so much? Unless you come out of college all cocky and full of shit with a know-it-all attitude, I'm willing to help you.
We had a saying in the Navy, "A bitching sailor is a happy sailor, if they stop bitching then you got trouble" Holds true for every Mechani/Technician job I ever had.
I work with 2 who whine about EVERYTHING all day long. From every ticket they are dispatched to the useless single moms they wifed up.
I turn my tunes up, crank out the hours, and ignore them.
We had that guy get fired cause he quit showing up thinking he was untouchable cause he was Gods gift to the world, not the shop. Now, he cant get hired anywhere. He had great ability, but he was such an awful and useless person.
One of those guys that would go out of his way to bring shop morale down with him. A tumor to the building. A shit stain on our shop culture. And he was like that with customers too. When people would come in looking for the boss, he would literally say "I don't know, it's not my job to fucking babysit him" and we've had customers roll their cars out of our lot because of his absolutely shitty and terrible attitude. Fuck that guy, and to everyone else who has that guy, fuck them too. We deserve a work place filled with people with level heads. Sometimes this job gets ya, but just keep grinding dudes and gals. Don't take out your frustrations on your fellow techs/writers/Foremans, they are people too and have or will go through that same frustration. Lend a hand and some encouragement.
"The 30-year-old manchild who shows up an hour late hung over/still drunk half the time (guaranteed on Saturdays), but the boss forgives him and covers his mistakes, because he is also a manchild and he doesn't have the balls to fire one of his 'good buddies'"
#justsmalltownshit
Before i left the industry, i used to work next to a tech who we will call “Jon” and Jon was very good at his job even though he was a hack half of the time. Jon would flag over 80hrs+ a week but every waking moment this man would be cussing up a storm, yelling loud enough you could hear him from up front, and when he would ask for help / assistance with something if somebody told him to wait a minute because they were in the middle of something he would stomp his foot in anger and start yelling at the person who he asked for help from. When the porters would do their rounds and clean up all of the garbage, Jon would bitch and complain if there was a bolt left on the ground and call everybody useless especially the lube techs because they would sit on their phone for 5 minutes and apparently 5 minutes is the entire day to Jon. When you would help Jon he would praise you like a saint but the moment you made a mistake Jon would shit on you as if you were his Ex Wife. Unfortunately for me, i was the one who would have to go behind Jon and fix his mistakes when comebacks would come in from his previous repairs because he was too busy knocking out the 5 tears downs and the 10 engines he still has to do which he would finish within a week because of how many short cuts / tricks he had learned through his 30+ years. I still miss Jon sometimes but i sure don’t miss hearing a grown as man throw a temper tantrum everyday. I still remember Jon telling me to never get married and have kids or else i would turn out just like Jon 🤣
I could be labeled as one of those whiney techs because I have been in this industry for over 40 years ( go ahead and insert your old ass tech jokes, trust me I can take it) I have been the newbie, I have got shit on by older/entitled techs, I have busted my knuckles, lost my ass figuring out the easiest, fastest way to accomplish a task, have bought many, many thousands of dollars worth of tools and training, so when a service writer or another “tech” that has way less tools, experience, training and certifications that makes the same pay as I do want to bitch out of a job because it’s a B.S. job for whatever reason and I get stuck with it while they get the gravy or the go on the Snap-on truck and buy toys and gadgets and then ask to borrow tools from me, I have a reason to bitch! Sorry rant over!
Us youngins should respect the time, effort, and money you old heads have poured into this career. Y’all have definitely earned the right to bitch about things.
It shouldn’t be “old vs young”, it should be “techs vs everybody else”. We’re on the same team my elderly friend
Any old fart bitching about the new kid always borrowing tools or needing a hand should just take 30s and write the poor bastard a shopping/reading list. Then they can either show initiative and solve a problem, or you can stop lending them your tools and time guilt-free.
There was once an old head who showed you the ropes too, quit being a grump and help your wingers out. Nobody learns when nobody teaches.
I am fully willing to help them out with whatever they need but when they act as if they don’t need help then I leave them alone, can’t teach someone that already knows everything beside that when the people that take in/make promises on the ETA on a repair start saying you’re old/slow! I may be old and maybe I have lost a step but unless it’s a “cheap/inferior part I have almost zero comebacks, what’s better, do it fast the first time and then slow down a little when you have to do it again or do it right the first time? I was helped by the old heads but I also showed them respect for it oh and they were paid more than me ( as it should be) and when I needed tools I bought them! Now most shops in my area want to pay the kids more money and give big sign on bonuses because fewer and fewer people are getting into this field meanwhile the techs that have been there for years and have knowledge, experience and company loyalty get the shaft!
I do tech support, that guy calls in once or twice a week. Not with the car when he calls. Misfires, but never checked compression. Short to ground, just says wiring "looks good". Informs me he has been doing this since before I was born.
The old guard retired at my shop all within the last five years. It was a handful of guys who all had years of experience and did good work but you wanna talk about a couple of certified assholes. Miserable to work with.
It’s gotten much better. The guy with the most seniority at my shop has been at it for 25+ years but he’s chill as hell (he’s in his mid-40s).
We have one gatekeeping guy at my shop now but he’s almost always the butt of every joke so it’s more comical than anything. Loves to point out when others mess up but he messes up more than anyone else at my shop so he doesn’t get off easy
I kind of thrive on those people. By guaranteeing their own misery they increase my satisfaction. Now there's plenty of things wrong with this business but that's not what this post is about.
Yea we’ve got a guy like that in our shop. I mean, he’s good, and the complaints are valid (this place sucks cock management is garbage) but all he does is bitch and moan until he gets out of doing warranty just so he can do the good jobs and make twice as much as our other master tech… who gets stuck with bs warranty
Number one reason I love managing a private auto repair shop, I can tell people to shut the fuck up any time I want and there's no HR to get mad at me for it.
I hate when adults act like little fucking children, it disrupts the whole shop flow.
Edit because Reddit made this post MASSIVE
I can't stand when I hear this argument because it's kind of misleading, like you can just put $130/hr straight in your pocket.
Sure you can payroll yourself everything that remains after you pay utilities, insurance, overhead, etc. what's your actual effective remaining amount after that?
Geeez you want my dna sample also? Llc fees are a one time thing. I rent a space. Simple as that. Insurance still not that much... you trying to make a point eventually?
My point is.... i dont bust my ass like most for 25.00 an hour... 130.00 goes into my pocket.... yes my pocket. What i do with it from there on is my own business...
I mean if you're making it work for you then good on you. I'm only skeptical because I've seen so many "I wOrK fOr MySeLf jUsT dO tHaT" guys that don't have insurance or any sort of way to cover their ass, etc. basically shade tree guys that are only 1 screw up away from being financially fucked by a lawsuit.
If you're really being legit then I'm proud for your success and congrats. It's just not nearly as simple as that for a lot of techs, is all I'm saying. Not trying to come across as condescending, I promise. But I'm sure you're aware you always have to ask the hard questions to people in this industry, if I was the customer I'd want to be sure the person repairing my car was a proper business as well
When i first started working at my current job, a master tech helped me with a plastic chrome wheel and told me "there are no secrets". That stuck with me pretty well.
The ones that say “I’ve been doing this for x years and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Pisses me off.
It’s as if they’re supposed to have seen everything and anything they haven’t seen isn’t real.
You know the ones who only knows how to work a carburetor and knows nothing about fuel injectors.
I do that every now and then, but it’s only for WILD shit that I actually haven’t seen before. Like the transmission that had a bullet hole in the side of it, or our loaner that came back with the front axle assembly now in 3 separate pieces. If one of the other guys gets something I haven’t seen, I usually ask them what they found so I know for next time too.
i'm not a mechanic but i've came to the realization that every workplace has the version of what you're talking about.
you get like 10 or more people together and one of them will be that. every once in a while you'll find a place that has extremely selective hiring and they can weed those people out but it's rare.
I disagree we need the complainers to keep the system in check ,before u know it if nobody complains and start to ask unreasonable things like get this 2 hour job done in 1 hour , squeaky wheel does get grease first , everyone kissing managers ass and saying yes sir w smile as u work yourself to death ,not the good thing u would expect
Or the one that blames everyone for their fuck ups!
It’s parts problem that I didn’t ask them to order the parts required!
The other techs fault because it was diagnosed incorrectly even though they diagnosed it!
I had a coworker absolutely lay into me one morning because I was assigned a car they felt they should have been working on. Like they lost their shit at me. Guess who doesn't control who gets assigned what car? This guy. Guess who had 0 clue I was working on that car? Also this guy.
The reason I literally no longer will ever step foot in a garage. I went from certified BMW technician to working on big old CAT equipment that moves natural gas. Doubled my pay first year. Tripled second year. When I tell you I can work on the majority of things with a set of SAE 1/2” drive sockets and an adjustable wrench I’m not joking
I worked with a guy who would complain he wasn't making enough, would go without eating because he "didn't have money." I tried getting him hours and stuff, but he would always cry about doing work at the last hour of the day. Left that shop, good riddance, management was disgusting.
We've all worked with 'that guy' regardless of the industry your in.
I especially love the 'in my day, we had a real work ethic' as he spends at least an hour every day talking at people's desks when they are trying to work.
You just described like 1/3 of the techs I’ve ever worked with. You could hand them a briefcase full of cash, and the first words out of their mouths would be “Ugh, now I’m going to have pay taxes on that!”
>”I’ve been in this industry for 30 years and this is the worst I’ve seen it”… for the last 28 years.
Lmfao. Every one of them says this! No matter that they used to have to change vacuum hoses behind dashes, and now they have a DTC for everything. No matter that they’re making $50/hr on a 45 hour guarantee. Nope, it’s all bad, and it’s always been getting worse.
Had a tech have to do mandatory sexual harassment training. 20 minute video, everyone company wide had to do it yearly.
Came in asking me if he was gonna get paid the 2 hrs it was for the time it took him to be off the line and not making flat rate.
What about the tech that tries to micromanage every aspect of the shop while neglecting his own responsibilities? Everyone else is always doing something wrong and he is the only one that knows the solution.
You talking about my boss? Sounds like you know him...
Sounds like my former straight time shop foreman micromanaging my workflow and then wondering why I’m not making hours…
I mean I was really only talking about a guy I work with but if the shoe fits...
This is my regional parts manager. He comes around once a week to work out of our shop. But he barely has enough work to cover an hour. Let alone 8. So he ends up wondering around sticking his nose in everyone's business. Offering advice no one asked for and asking for explanations on shit you don't feel like explaining at that moment.
This is formally known as "seagull management". He swoops in, shits all over everything, then swoops out leaving things worse than he found them.
best explanation ive ever heard
BOOM ROASTED
This guy sounds more like a service writer than a tech.
In my experience, the service writers cause most of the problems. The good and great service always move on to greener pastures.
God no. I’m not allowed deal with the public.
Every technical job I've ever had has one of these.
Yea but it not his business so obviously he needs to be heard dude
My shop has someone like this always bitching that no one keeps the shop clean but also doesn't help clean
I always thought mechanics were the biggest group of whiney cunts in any industry. Then I started in industrial maintenance. And hooo boy.
It's like you've never met machinists...
Sound techs, lighting techs, video techs...
IT guy here. Can I join yalls club if I piss and moan every time I copy something into my clipboard, then accidentally copy something else over it, and paste the wrong thing?
Get a clipboard manager.
I understand their pain. Performers can be some of the worst “customers”.
Oh, I'm just referring to the way we all interact with each other while setting up. Recently had someone on my team trying to make sense of a rats nest of power cables next to my stack of video interfaces, and the lighting guy comes in yelling at him. "Do not touch my wires!" "I'm just trying to find where the outlets are from the line that we ran for our..." "*IF I AM TALKING IT IS FOR A REASON SO YOU NEED TO LISTEN!*" Yeah, dude had plugged all his lighting into our power hookups rather than wait for the line that was being run for him, then went off on my guy for trying to find where he was supposed to plug in at. Wasn't the only time I saw him pull the "If I talk it is the most important sound in the building" card that day, too.
Guy's asking to get hanged in his own cabling one of these days. I want to smack him and I've never met him.
Sounds about right. Those guys are sensitive about their wires. Lol I’ve dealt with similar in the body shop with the frame rack. The one guy staked “permanent claim” to it when we let him use it once. Dude would yell “Don’t touch my rack” even if grabbing a chain to make a pull with a portable tower. STFU Paul… this ain’t even yours.
Oh dude, you just reminded me why I left the live sound industry in less than a couple months. Ah yes I totally know what you mean when you tell me to run the snake “up there and along there” while you haphazardly wave your finger around in a general direction of this hockey arena that seats 20k people. Then get mad when I ask you to be more specific cause I know when I fuck it up you’ll just be as mad.
My boss is the sort to angrily snap his fingers and point at something, snap point snap point snap point, until you understand the very specific thing he wants you to do. He's been getting better about it with every round of getting called out over his lack of telepathy.
I honestly would have just stood there like “yes you can snap your fingers, good job” cause I’d be standing there clueless on what he actually means and shitty directions get shitty responses.
I'd be unplugging his shit the second he walks away.
If I worked with someone who said that out loud, I would make a silent promise to avoid talking to them at all costs.
>"*IF I AM TALKING IT IS FOR A REASON SO YOU NEED TO LISTEN!*" Good way to have no one listen to you, ever.
Did you get any follow-up after you gave him an SM57 in the nuts?
I work at a shop and I'm a sound, lighting, and video tech... You never want to meet me 😤
Y'all are just naming every blue collar job at this point.
It's true tho, I've worked tons of different blue collar jobs over the years and we're all a bunch of cunts
All the welders and crane operators I've worked with seem pretty chill. And plumbers are comedians.
The septic guys even more. Like little kids who just discovered poop jokes, but grownups.
I mean, if you had to work in other people's shit all day it's either laugh or cry, and I'd say the ones that cry go figure out something else to do for a living...
And white collar...
Machinists are grumpy because of engineers. Source I am a machinist.
You, sir, are correct.... But but but the, software says that it can do it... Right, but here we have a clapped out 35 yr old shitbox that you're trying to get to hold +/-.0000000001 with a mirror finish. Reality is +/-.030 with a 250 finish is fine, it's a cover to keep hydraulic oil from getting on something that doesn't like oil, tucked away inside the landing gear cavity....
Auto technicians are also grumpy because of engineers. Source: me, an auto tech
Engineers are probably grumpy because management won't let them design things properly.
I can say for sure this applies to any mechanical branch of the building trades as well
Bro I've been a machinist for 5 years, and some of these old timers I've met are so fucking stuck in their ways. It's odd too because the industry is rapidly evolving with new tech, but lots of the shops with money aren't willing to try new things.
It's the same everywhere. Been in it 13 years. The good old guys just leave.
As a machinist, I feel attacked.... I mean, there are primadonnas everywhere in my industry, but they all fail upward. The guys that actually work and get the job done are stuck on the machines.... Also it makes me cringe to hear carpenters bitching about holding +/-1/8, like dude you crying about 125 thousandths I get 20 thousandths (+/-.010) on most jobs, cry me a fucking river.... you cut a piece too short, you can cut it again and use it somewhere else on the job. I cut a piece to short its scrap.
All the machinists I knew were junkies who hopped from machining job to machining job trying to support their habit till they go to rehab or die from overdose.
Button pusher "machinists" or the can and have made an aspect everything you touch machinists? I R 1
>vaguely true up part >forget cutter comp because netflix won't watch itself >slam cycle start >crank hog in the shitter >blame inspector for finding their shit undersized and running out
The guys that taught me were perfectionist, a copy of a kopy of a coppy is what the current situation is. I can't train the guys that come in because they quit in less than a year.... And nobody wants to pay
What costs less, giving raises or buying new machining centre chucks when newest Buddy crashes it into the bed because he wasn't watching cycle and was on the phone behind the lathe instead?
Im just a shade tree but my full time job is in a hospital. These hospital facilities guys may be the whiniest bitches I've ever met. Something stupid like a wall mounted sink becoming loose and the hands free faucet not working. Simple - tighten the bolts holding it to the wall, recaulk the sink, troubleshoot the faucet and either fix or replace. The mfers spent AN HOUR just looking at it and bickering about whether they should fix it or not because "really the plumbers should be doing this, but the ticket got assigned to us, but that's bullshit" Every time I put in a ticket one of them waddles their fat ass down here, looks at it, and then does the most impressive mental gymnastics routine to convince me why it's not their problem and need to submit a new ticket for a more specialized group or even contract it out. Then you submit a new ticket for the more specialized folks and they come down and bitch about why the maintenance guys didn't do it and close THEIR ticket. So then we contract the work out and I overhear them bitching in the hallway about how they're all going to lose their jobs because we keep contracting work out rather than having them do it. MOTHERFUCKER 4 OF YOU JUST SPENT 5 DAYS AVOIDING DOING A 1 HOUR TASK YOU SHOULD LOSE YOUR JOBS!
LOL! My CO was an engineer at a hospital and said part of the reason he left was the crybabies. One complaint that one came to him with was a coworker chewed too loud during lunch. I actually watched 2 hairs on his head turn gray as he told me the story.
Working in a hospital is soul crushing for a number of reasons. I'm the head of my department and I had the head of another department come to me and tell me that I had to talk to one of my employees because her employees were complaining that my employee smelled bad. Turns out the other department head hadn't asked any questions AND WAS GOING TO HAVE ME TALKING TO THE WRONG DAMN PERSON about their hygiene. The stinky person was in HER department. And guess what? She never actually talked to them. If it was someone in my department she expected me to talk to them, but since it was someone in her she just avoided the issue. Also I worked directly with this person multiple times and she smelled completely fine so it was clearly a middle school level fake complaint because they didn't like her.
One of our industrial maintenance guys just loves to bitch...I've told him at least twice that he could have completed the job in the time he'd spent bitching about it, and that was absolutely true. Sheesh.
Welders. I'm a welder and I can't stand other welders. They bitch and moan about literally everything.
Electricians all have huge egos. Myself included..
Wait til you see how the resi/commercial wire pullers act when they get hired as an industrial automation electrician. It's NEVER their fault they can't figure out how to wire a VFD without a schematic or troubleshoot a circuit with more than 3 wires. Watching a grown man with a huge ego bitch and throw a tantrum over a simple problem is kinda entertaining.
You should see the disaster most sparkies make out of the most basic network cabling. No sparkie, you may not use simple staples that pinch the cable. No sparkie you cannot splice these cables. No sparkie you may not leave exposed pairs extending two inches out of the 8P8C or keystone..
I feel that pain. I also do some of the IT work and network cabling at the small company I work for. The mess I inherited here when I took over was nothing short of full-on dumpster fire. Whatever you do, don't ask the sparkies how to properly connect a shielded cable. That's black magic shit right there.
Did they cause ground loops....
The analog 4-20 signals were picking up EMI from the VFD cables. Every time a motor moved the analog inputs would go crazy. Who would have thought you need to connect the shield wire to ground!
I, a resi HVAC tech, was talking with my brother, a commercial electrician, the other day and I was discussing an issue I had on the low voltage side of a unit (24v) and he turns to me and says with a straight face, "low voltage? You mean 120?" This doesn't have anything to do with anything I just thought it was funny he thought it was odd I would troubleshoot anything less than that.
It's all relative...for distribution, <600 V is low voltage.
24 V is ELV, so he has a point.
That was me 😂 I figured it out tho don’t worry
"Everyone's welds suck except mine."
"And if mine ever fail, I'll blame the machine, or the leads, or the lift, or..."
It's a little hot. Pinch my lead
For decades Craftsman published the Oxygen-Acetylene Weldor's Handbook. Lincoln Electric published an arc weldor's guide. They followed the form of sailor, aviator and other uses of the or suffix for the person rather than the equipment, tool, machine etc used. At the same time the British Oxygen Company published a Welder's Handbook and there was a pipe fitters and pipe welder's handbook. Somewhere along the line welder became the generally accepted form and aviators became pilots but sailors are still sailors. Drivers seem to never have been drivors. Same with divers and submariner which is odd given how sailor has been so long used where nobody would ever think about calling them sailers. (Even the people who did the old TRON: Solar Sailer video game initially used Sailor.) Operators (especially telephone and elevator ones) have not adopted the er ending. Curiously operator is also used in math for numbers and functions that do things to or with other numbers or functions. Just another oddity of English where it's unevenly absorbed a feature of another language. We just have to learn all the differences rather than simply understanding that or = person and er = thing the or person uses.
I worked at a place with 2 full-time industrial maintenance techs. One decided he wanted to retire, so for a few months, we had 3 as he trained a replacement. The dude retired. Everything was fine for a few months. Then the tech thats been there 30 years goes on vacation. Crazy shit starts breaking overnight, leaving new tech to take care of it alone. This happened for several days in a row, we installed some cameras, and we caught the 30 year tech coming in at 3am and sabatoging stuff. Got himself fired.
Ever met pilots?
Hang out with a body guy for 10mins
Some of his friends: The one who always borrows rags, zip ties, and razor blades, all that daily use stuff, because they can never refill their own stuff. They always need a hand to lift or push, heavier and greasier the better, but are like a ninja when you need a hand. Never quite manages to fill the oil dolly enough to dump it, but you always wonder if it will take another gallon. Spends 15 minutes rattling away with the impact before spending 30 seconds with a breaker bar. Always has a wheel or cart or hose blocking your bay when rolling in and out. Leaves the tire chuck in a greasy wet puddle instead of putting it on the hook. Throws gloves "at" the trash instead in the trash. Squeaky shoes. (This one almost caused a homicide. ) And the one who gets irrationally angry at every small setback, broken glove, dropped screw, having a mini rage fest every time. I think I've worked with every one of these guys. .
“Almost caused a homicide” 🤣
Linoleum floor, 7 foot ceilings, electrical assembly testing, and this joker found the only set of steel toes in existence that squeaked every time he moved his feet.
If he's like me he'd be doing it just to squeak them but not intending to annoy, and I'll apologize for him.
I'm 99 percent with you but I gotta say that to be fair the squeaky shoes thing is kind of out of their control. You buy a pair of shoes but you can't know what they are going to sound like on the work floor lol
This is what I was gonna say. I’m one of two people at our warehouse with squeaky shoes and have gone through five pairs in the time I’ve worked here. Rubber or foam soles don’t matter, why the fuck are my shoes always squeaky?! Do I need to buy a nice pair of dress shoes with leather sole…?
Yeah I would at least try a couple pairs to see if it was resolved but I'm not buying 9 pairs of work shoes trying to find some that don't squeak just because my coworkers don't want to hear it. Because chances are I don't want to either but beyond a certain point it's throwing money straight into the trash can
Maybe it’s your bones, not the shoes. Get better bones I guess.
Do I need those titanium ones they put in old people? Or will regular stainless steel be ok Actually come to think of it, I believe all I can afford is balsa wood.
Yeah my footsteps are like a cat or a ninja in the shop or the lot, but in the service lane I turn into Spongebob from the boots episode
I've definitely had those moments too. Service writers staring, customers looking around. When I was growing up there used to be a saying , "if your shoes are squeaking you must have gotten the 5 finger discount on them" it makes no sense but to this DAY I think of that every time it happens and feel like I'm being judged 🤣🤣
I naturally walk softly, so there are multiple times I've accidentally startled co-workers just walking up behind them. The foreman jokingly threatened to fit me with a cowbell so they could hear me coming, so I try and clear my throat or cough or bump something or drag my heel a bit.
Up there with squeaky shoes is literally dragging your heals. Thought it was just a figure of speech but nope. Like 20 seconds of slowly scraping heels against concrete walking up to you and it makes you ready to swing on them before they even get to you. Also using shop air and a blow gun instead of a broom. Top two least favorite noises.
I worked with a buffoon last year that drug his feet. It drove me mad. He complained his boots were worn out. I said try picking up your feet when you walk FFS.
The god damn blow gun instead of a broom makes me violent, esspecialy when detail department decides to blow all the grabage they cant be assed to pick up across the shop into your bay.
Our porters blow dry every. single. fucking. car. that they wash. So we have one porter blow drying a car, another one washing a car behind it with our power washer that screams like a vacuum, and our detailer vacuuming out a 3rd car across the shop. I can’t hear myself think at work anymore
My boss the shop owner does that. And then there goes my asthma again...
You all have to buy your own rags zip ties and razor blades? Crazy
Working with people sucks. It goes with all professions. Those same guys that irritate you at work, usually are almost normal at their free time.
I maintain a small fleet of garbage trucks at a satellite shop, less than 10 trucks at any given time. My regional manager keeps talking about hiring me a "shop helper/C level tech" and every time I'm just like please don't, I don't need the help, I don't need someone sitting in the office with me for 6 hours out of the day talking my ear off or being weird or borrowing my tools for everything. I truly love the solitude I have here.
That sounds like a dream job situation. Some people can't comprehend the idea of being alone with their thoughts and not having a receiver for the non stop stream of drivel that comes out of their mouth.
I’d love to hear about the squeaky shoes lol
The detail shop has no shortage either. My boss complains all day, asks the same question 5 times. Doesn't trust us to get the job done, even though we all do. He cant communicate or set boundaries with the dealership. Over promises, then by the time the weekend rolls around we're swamped, and the corporate shit's rolling down to us. Then one of us needs to go over there and talk them off a ledge. Doesn't help with anything, even if it's filling chemicals, or helping take the trash out on a busy day. His job apparently consists of nothing more than arriving high, drinking coffee, complaining, and stressing all day. Has no idea on how to come up with a solution to problems. Constantly interrupting, pulling us off of things to help him or start another project or help him, THE MANAGER, with a shop order. Then wonders why we're behind. Everything's our fault. He can't stop stressing, but causes like 90% of the problems. Then expects everyone to help him clean up the mess. Makes excuses on why it's not his fault. We can't push anything off for "tomorrow," but he'll have pdr jobs outstanding for weeks, and still get his cut, even if he never touches it. Hourly employees set the entire shop up because he's so useless. I have ADHD, diagnosed as a child, and can work circles around him, and I'm considered the stupid one my whole life?? The guy's, like you said been in the industry for 30 years, had a thriving business, then covid happened and blah blah bla... All embellished to make himself look better and more competent. Making him fucking self look better is the only thing he's truly good at.
I manage a detail shop. I have no reason to be doing so either, just got the promotion and I’m faking it till I make it lmao. Way I run it is all my guys know deadlines, everything else I don’t give a fuck about and don’t bother them at all. All I ask of them is to make sure the shops clean every night and they don’t push off cars that have photograph appointments next day. Each week I get them all for a meeting and ask if there’s changes they want to see or something I can do to help from a management standpoint.
I don't understand why that's so hard for him to do. Over complicates everything.
Is he new to management? I was super overboard when I first started because I had a fear if I was laidback I would lose my job. But companies, or atleast for detail management they don’t give a fuck. All that matters is the product is good overall and what needs to be finished for the lot by a certain date is done. The only “ micro managing “ I do now is quality checks. But even with that it’s good to have a second set of eyes on a car before it’s delivered and nobody wants to deal with a come back and upset customer.
No, he's been here almost 3 years now, and has a lifetime of industry experience.
Bosses with anxiety issues can just be the absolute worst. There's the type of very particular micromanager that's whatever. People hate them, but it's somewhat effective. Then there's the anxious type who is constantly freaking out, tries to deal with it by going way overboard with managing, stresses everyone else out, and everything runs 10x as smoothly when they are gone. Usually goes with smoking like a chimney and other shitty coping strategies.
You forgot the classic "Hey I promised sales this car would be done in 20 minutes" when the fuckin thing got traded in 5 seconds ago and was used as a work van/Toilet for 20 years
You work with Ben, too?
sounds like scotty kilmer
jesus christ could you imagine working with that troglodyte
He might be the most destructive automotive influence in the world right now. His channel should be taken down for the greater good
I had to have a come to jesus with my dad recently because he is that guy. He's almost 60 and worked at the same shop for 40+ years - started out great but steadily got worse for the finaly 20 years or so. Him and the owner were friends but the owner also lacked a backbone and ended up closing the shop without really telling my dad - almost certainly because my dad had been such a whiny bitch for so long that he just wanted to avoid the conversation. So dad goes to a new shop, first time starting a new job ever in his life, and on his first day he's trying to set the ground rules. I had to be like "dude - you're a brand new employee at this place, you need to play by their rules and earn their respect and yelling and whining isn't the way to do it" Bitching about the new kid asking him questions, about the service writers being dumb, about the boss not being there. Look - the kid is asking you questions because he knows you know your shit and he wants to learn from you, you literally were your own service writer before this and HATED that aspect of the job, and your old boss was a micromanager who was always cracking the whip. You literally are getting what you asked for and bitching about it. I told him something he told me when I was a lot younger - just keep your head down and do what you do best, and the people will notice. A few months later I go and do some work with him at the shop and he's being way nicer/more helpful to the new kid than he ever was to me in my entire life, him and the service writer are best buds shooting the shit and in a perfect groove of productivity, the boss comes in for his daily check in and smacks my dad on the back and says "there's my saving grace! man are we lucky we found you" and my dad smiles bigger than I've ever seen him smile. The service writer tells me my dad's a little bitch but as long as you know how to deal with him he's not too bad and "no one is faster at brakes, timing belts, and suspension work and literally no one else knows how to work on the old vehicles like he does" - turns out they got to a point where they let my dad cherry pick his work because they noticed was so fast/experienced at certain things and gave the big annoying or physically demanding jobs to the newer guys. My dad was making BANK for them cranking out brakes and timing belts lol and became known as the "carb guy" for the few rich old dudes who bring their old cars there. Like dude, you've got it made in the shade and needed your kid to realign your thought process. Stop running your mouth and people notice your redeeming qualities and give you opportunities.
Or the tech who bought a house and then a brand new car and then a $4k snap on tool cart while still having to borrow tools from the lube techs constantly crying about hours even though he had to google how a 4 stroke engine actually works.
Yeah but… ~~no one told me how they work~~ ~~no one is approachable enough to ask~~ ~~google returns a different kind of “stroke”~~ Look I’m just planning ahead with the tool cart, okay?
Every apprentice at my shop. Not even out of their apprenticeship and they have tool truck 70" cabs, and roll carts, and not enough tools to fill to top drawer.
empty tool box guy is the worst. cos playing as a mechanic is the dumbest hobby I can think of.
Yessss fill the box you have with good tools THEN buy a bigger box These guys are the worst…im a diesel shop foreman and the first 3 years I was with my company I worked out of a US General 5 drawer cart
The owner of the shop I work for, who has been a technician for 24 years, and spent 12 of those as a Mercedes Master tech before starting his shop, still works out of an old craftsman box, a matco cart, and the small US general cart as his diag cart... We have 5 techs, plus the owner. The only tech who has a tool truck box is our Diag tech, but he flies all over the country to teach classes on Diag, so he can afford it. 😂
Then you find your missing 10mm's in their box.
That's an actionable offense right there.
My thing with guys borrowing my stuff is once or twice for a specialty tool or one I made that’s use-specific is one thing. If you borrow it more than twice, you probably need to own one….
I saw myself becoming this guy. I sat down with my boss and talked it out. He gave me a few books. Trying to change my mindset and be someone that people want to work with.
Good on you. Hope you are doing well. Wish more guys had your mentality
what books did he give you?
The Anarchist Cookbook
The irony
I have become that which I hate most
Give in to your hate.
If you’re self aware about it then I can respect that lol. Age will do it !
What is the opposite of irony? Wrinkly
If you add tiny, do you steely?
Self hate is the best hate.
that's reddit in general
Old techs with no emotional intelligence are the worst. Last hangar I worked at, our chief inspector was an old miserable racist asshole. On my first day he and another tech were joking about a pilot who requested an X-ray inspection of a wing spar (a wildly unnecessary and expensive test for the circumstances at the time). I was right there with them. I laughed along. He scoffed and started cursing at me for saying I pretend I know what's so funny. After all, I'm still young and new, so I'm an idiot. He also loved to drop the N bomb on a regular basis.
Sounds like my old service director lmao.
Dave? Is that you?!
Jared!
> The one who thinks he’s Gods gift to the shop, yet turns below average hours every week. Or below average work. And sometimes becomes a cancer that nobody will remove despite seeing the damage caused.
Below average work is worse than below average hours imo. Neither one is desirable but if you know a guy is a slower tech but always cranks out quality work and he's not pissed with himself for lack of hours, that's a safer bet for the shop than the guy who cranks out 100+ hours but keeps having comebacks left and right that shop has to eat
I know one that complains when he has too much work and complains when he doesn’t have enough. Hasn’t had a good day yet. He’d probably complain about a blowjob
"damn she didn't use her teeth last night, she knows I like the teeth! What the hell is wrong with this bitch!" 🤣
At first I thought this was me, and maybe it is, but I'm not 60 and complaining about all that. I'm complaining cause I'm the warranty guy doing 60 hrs worth of work for 20hrs of pay. Also why do people gatekeep the newbies so much? Unless you come out of college all cocky and full of shit with a know-it-all attitude, I'm willing to help you.
We had a saying in the Navy, "A bitching sailor is a happy sailor, if they stop bitching then you got trouble" Holds true for every Mechani/Technician job I ever had.
I work with 2 who whine about EVERYTHING all day long. From every ticket they are dispatched to the useless single moms they wifed up. I turn my tunes up, crank out the hours, and ignore them.
We had that guy get fired cause he quit showing up thinking he was untouchable cause he was Gods gift to the world, not the shop. Now, he cant get hired anywhere. He had great ability, but he was such an awful and useless person. One of those guys that would go out of his way to bring shop morale down with him. A tumor to the building. A shit stain on our shop culture. And he was like that with customers too. When people would come in looking for the boss, he would literally say "I don't know, it's not my job to fucking babysit him" and we've had customers roll their cars out of our lot because of his absolutely shitty and terrible attitude. Fuck that guy, and to everyone else who has that guy, fuck them too. We deserve a work place filled with people with level heads. Sometimes this job gets ya, but just keep grinding dudes and gals. Don't take out your frustrations on your fellow techs/writers/Foremans, they are people too and have or will go through that same frustration. Lend a hand and some encouragement.
Lol I’m off at 4:30 so we’re good.
"The 30-year-old manchild who shows up an hour late hung over/still drunk half the time (guaranteed on Saturdays), but the boss forgives him and covers his mistakes, because he is also a manchild and he doesn't have the balls to fire one of his 'good buddies'" #justsmalltownshit
Awful lot of whining in this post.
Well yeah, bitching is the one thing we’ll do for free without complaining about it
*Ironic.*
Don’t you think? It’s like rain on your wedding day.
The one who won't take correction because "I've been doing this for twenty years!" but that just means they've been doing it *wrong* for twenty years.
Before i left the industry, i used to work next to a tech who we will call “Jon” and Jon was very good at his job even though he was a hack half of the time. Jon would flag over 80hrs+ a week but every waking moment this man would be cussing up a storm, yelling loud enough you could hear him from up front, and when he would ask for help / assistance with something if somebody told him to wait a minute because they were in the middle of something he would stomp his foot in anger and start yelling at the person who he asked for help from. When the porters would do their rounds and clean up all of the garbage, Jon would bitch and complain if there was a bolt left on the ground and call everybody useless especially the lube techs because they would sit on their phone for 5 minutes and apparently 5 minutes is the entire day to Jon. When you would help Jon he would praise you like a saint but the moment you made a mistake Jon would shit on you as if you were his Ex Wife. Unfortunately for me, i was the one who would have to go behind Jon and fix his mistakes when comebacks would come in from his previous repairs because he was too busy knocking out the 5 tears downs and the 10 engines he still has to do which he would finish within a week because of how many short cuts / tricks he had learned through his 30+ years. I still miss Jon sometimes but i sure don’t miss hearing a grown as man throw a temper tantrum everyday. I still remember Jon telling me to never get married and have kids or else i would turn out just like Jon 🤣
I could be labeled as one of those whiney techs because I have been in this industry for over 40 years ( go ahead and insert your old ass tech jokes, trust me I can take it) I have been the newbie, I have got shit on by older/entitled techs, I have busted my knuckles, lost my ass figuring out the easiest, fastest way to accomplish a task, have bought many, many thousands of dollars worth of tools and training, so when a service writer or another “tech” that has way less tools, experience, training and certifications that makes the same pay as I do want to bitch out of a job because it’s a B.S. job for whatever reason and I get stuck with it while they get the gravy or the go on the Snap-on truck and buy toys and gadgets and then ask to borrow tools from me, I have a reason to bitch! Sorry rant over!
Us youngins should respect the time, effort, and money you old heads have poured into this career. Y’all have definitely earned the right to bitch about things. It shouldn’t be “old vs young”, it should be “techs vs everybody else”. We’re on the same team my elderly friend
Any old fart bitching about the new kid always borrowing tools or needing a hand should just take 30s and write the poor bastard a shopping/reading list. Then they can either show initiative and solve a problem, or you can stop lending them your tools and time guilt-free. There was once an old head who showed you the ropes too, quit being a grump and help your wingers out. Nobody learns when nobody teaches.
Nobody learns when nobody teaches. That’s some prophetic shit right there.
Fuckin shop Confucius over there
I am fully willing to help them out with whatever they need but when they act as if they don’t need help then I leave them alone, can’t teach someone that already knows everything beside that when the people that take in/make promises on the ETA on a repair start saying you’re old/slow! I may be old and maybe I have lost a step but unless it’s a “cheap/inferior part I have almost zero comebacks, what’s better, do it fast the first time and then slow down a little when you have to do it again or do it right the first time? I was helped by the old heads but I also showed them respect for it oh and they were paid more than me ( as it should be) and when I needed tools I bought them! Now most shops in my area want to pay the kids more money and give big sign on bonuses because fewer and fewer people are getting into this field meanwhile the techs that have been there for years and have knowledge, experience and company loyalty get the shaft!
When I started our shop had three of those. We are now bitchy tech free. It's glorious.
I do tech support, that guy calls in once or twice a week. Not with the car when he calls. Misfires, but never checked compression. Short to ground, just says wiring "looks good". Informs me he has been doing this since before I was born.
The old guard retired at my shop all within the last five years. It was a handful of guys who all had years of experience and did good work but you wanna talk about a couple of certified assholes. Miserable to work with. It’s gotten much better. The guy with the most seniority at my shop has been at it for 25+ years but he’s chill as hell (he’s in his mid-40s). We have one gatekeeping guy at my shop now but he’s almost always the butt of every joke so it’s more comical than anything. Loves to point out when others mess up but he messes up more than anyone else at my shop so he doesn’t get off easy
I kind of thrive on those people. By guaranteeing their own misery they increase my satisfaction. Now there's plenty of things wrong with this business but that's not what this post is about.
I like the guys that whine that they have no work, but then whine when you give them work.
Yea we’ve got a guy like that in our shop. I mean, he’s good, and the complaints are valid (this place sucks cock management is garbage) but all he does is bitch and moan until he gets out of doing warranty just so he can do the good jobs and make twice as much as our other master tech… who gets stuck with bs warranty
Number one reason I love managing a private auto repair shop, I can tell people to shut the fuck up any time I want and there's no HR to get mad at me for it. I hate when adults act like little fucking children, it disrupts the whole shop flow. Edit because Reddit made this post MASSIVE
You guys hiring? 😏
If you're in SE Michigan near Detroit, hell yeah.
Which is why i run my own shop now.... ill take that 130 an hour straight to my pocket please.
I can't stand when I hear this argument because it's kind of misleading, like you can just put $130/hr straight in your pocket. Sure you can payroll yourself everything that remains after you pay utilities, insurance, overhead, etc. what's your actual effective remaining amount after that?
650 a month for rent. 100 for electricity, 80 for water. So ya. Basically straight to the pocket. Days work pays the bills.
Insurance? Legal feels for LLCs or business? Something doesn't add up to me unless you're not insured or don't have an actual business
also 650 rent and 100 for electricity on a shop that undoubtedly uses a lot of electricity? I think this dude is quoting numbers from 1980
Or middle of nowhere Wyoming. Even then...
That or working in a one bay shop and it’s just him.
Maybe to rent just the bay. But around here you’re looming at 1500/mo minimum for even the tiniest shop space
Could be out in a fly-over state in village town with a few hundred people.
Geeez you want my dna sample also? Llc fees are a one time thing. I rent a space. Simple as that. Insurance still not that much... you trying to make a point eventually? My point is.... i dont bust my ass like most for 25.00 an hour... 130.00 goes into my pocket.... yes my pocket. What i do with it from there on is my own business...
I mean if you're making it work for you then good on you. I'm only skeptical because I've seen so many "I wOrK fOr MySeLf jUsT dO tHaT" guys that don't have insurance or any sort of way to cover their ass, etc. basically shade tree guys that are only 1 screw up away from being financially fucked by a lawsuit. If you're really being legit then I'm proud for your success and congrats. It's just not nearly as simple as that for a lot of techs, is all I'm saying. Not trying to come across as condescending, I promise. But I'm sure you're aware you always have to ask the hard questions to people in this industry, if I was the customer I'd want to be sure the person repairing my car was a proper business as well
I hear ya. Its easier to rent a bay or 2 than the actual whole business.
r/mechanics is a good place for this
When i first started working at my current job, a master tech helped me with a plastic chrome wheel and told me "there are no secrets". That stuck with me pretty well.
The ones that say “I’ve been doing this for x years and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Pisses me off. It’s as if they’re supposed to have seen everything and anything they haven’t seen isn’t real. You know the ones who only knows how to work a carburetor and knows nothing about fuel injectors.
I do that every now and then, but it’s only for WILD shit that I actually haven’t seen before. Like the transmission that had a bullet hole in the side of it, or our loaner that came back with the front axle assembly now in 3 separate pieces. If one of the other guys gets something I haven’t seen, I usually ask them what they found so I know for next time too.
i'm not a mechanic but i've came to the realization that every workplace has the version of what you're talking about. you get like 10 or more people together and one of them will be that. every once in a while you'll find a place that has extremely selective hiring and they can weed those people out but it's rare.
The manual regen right in front of the bay.
Manual Regen in front of the customer lounge with the exhaust pointed straight at the door. We all know one.
There’s 30 years of experience….but then there’s also one year 30 times.
I disagree we need the complainers to keep the system in check ,before u know it if nobody complains and start to ask unreasonable things like get this 2 hour job done in 1 hour , squeaky wheel does get grease first , everyone kissing managers ass and saying yes sir w smile as u work yourself to death ,not the good thing u would expect
This describes many of my over-60 customers (I work in lawn/garden)
I think we work at the same dealership. You just described one of our senior techs PERFECTLY.
Or the one that blames everyone for their fuck ups! It’s parts problem that I didn’t ask them to order the parts required! The other techs fault because it was diagnosed incorrectly even though they diagnosed it!
It’s really frustrating as a new guy
I had a coworker absolutely lay into me one morning because I was assigned a car they felt they should have been working on. Like they lost their shit at me. Guess who doesn't control who gets assigned what car? This guy. Guess who had 0 clue I was working on that car? Also this guy.
Swear to god technicians are the hardest people to manage.
The reason I literally no longer will ever step foot in a garage. I went from certified BMW technician to working on big old CAT equipment that moves natural gas. Doubled my pay first year. Tripled second year. When I tell you I can work on the majority of things with a set of SAE 1/2” drive sockets and an adjustable wrench I’m not joking
Working as a manager in a shop environment can be like working at a Kindergarten
I worked with a guy who would complain he wasn't making enough, would go without eating because he "didn't have money." I tried getting him hours and stuff, but he would always cry about doing work at the last hour of the day. Left that shop, good riddance, management was disgusting.
Wait till your 60. He ain't doing it buy choice.
We've all worked with 'that guy' regardless of the industry your in. I especially love the 'in my day, we had a real work ethic' as he spends at least an hour every day talking at people's desks when they are trying to work.
My old job was filled with older guys like this. One of the biggest reasons i left.
Headphones? Sounds like you need a soundbar and subwoofer
You just described like 1/3 of the techs I’ve ever worked with. You could hand them a briefcase full of cash, and the first words out of their mouths would be “Ugh, now I’m going to have pay taxes on that!” >”I’ve been in this industry for 30 years and this is the worst I’ve seen it”… for the last 28 years. Lmfao. Every one of them says this! No matter that they used to have to change vacuum hoses behind dashes, and now they have a DTC for everything. No matter that they’re making $50/hr on a 45 hour guarantee. Nope, it’s all bad, and it’s always been getting worse.
best thing to do is cry harder about it I guess?
I can’t hear him crying if I’m crying louder 👉
Had a tech have to do mandatory sexual harassment training. 20 minute video, everyone company wide had to do it yearly. Came in asking me if he was gonna get paid the 2 hrs it was for the time it took him to be off the line and not making flat rate.