the thing is all the pepole i met and do work for have a repected for what i do ,no rip offs no maid out stuff or extra charges.i don,t know what a reg. job would be like. unlike landscaping or road work i can,t call the shots and get upset when they play there games. thats a whole differant post. at lease i.m not the only one with that deal. we always say the guys with the monster boxs most of the time they have a wife in the heath care biss.so they can spend there money on tools. if i had a wife like that that would save 3500 on health care that a year might buy a nice box, or tools. i,m not a box type guy mine are older a reg. size i like haveing tools more than show. point of fact one guy that worked with us was let go then got unmaried. then met his next wife high up in the red cross. has open up his own shop. the other guy i work with stoped and talk to him he said for the last 3 year after he open up he has put all the money back in the shop for tools or stocking parts or tires that kind of stuff to get it rolling cause wife makes 100.00 grand a year. don,t need his cash to live. i,m happy he made it but it was not cause he was a great whench just lucky right place right time. thanks for the rant. als
I know what you mean about being honest with the write-ups. I earned a reputation at a couple of different places I've been at because of being upfront with the customer. If there was an "upsale" it's because it was needed, not to pad the bill and add to my hours or commission, but to add to the safety and peace of mind for the customer. If someone came in for brakes and needed lower control arm bushings, after I had a chance to look the car over, the customer was made aware of it. So keep up the good work in that respect, als.
As for the tool box thing: I've always equated that with compensating for something :-D I've rebuilt entire cars out of a seventeen year old MAC Economizer and a five year old roll cart. You make money with the tools, not storage. Had to kind of play it rough with one kid I worked with in my last job. He had a huge MACsimizer toolbox, the hydraulic brake flare tool which cost him something like $500.00, a bearing splitter tool which cost him another $300.00, but kept coming to me to use my $20.00 Craftsman serpentine belt tool. I've always had an open toolbox policy: if I've got it, you can borrow it, just put it back where you found it. But after he used my basic tools so much I had to put my foot down. He was spending so much money a week on the tool truck for all the fancy tools and toolbox that he had no more money for the basics like a good impact, a serpentine belt tool, disconnects for fuel lines, or a DMM. And for all the money he was paying for his huge toolbox, it was mostly empty. And his fancy hydraulic flare tool wasn't all it was cracked up to be. In his hands he didn't get any better flare or do it faster than I could with my old manual $20 set. And, yeah, his wife worked for Cornell University. So all his paycheck was going to his toys while she paid for the house and her toys.
But I know what you mean, als. I've been at it so long, it's hard to find another mindset to do something else. Around here the best management is failed techs, or ones who have never been techs, so it's hard to work your way off the line, as you're considered too valuable turning a wrench. And good
techs, the guys who can use scanners and are good at it, are so sought after that once you prove yourself on those, forget it. That's my rant.
