Getting Scrawed
Personally, I don’t think I am all that dumb.
Yes, I have my unique, uh, “Quirks” but I am certainly not dumb.
Obviously Corporate America tends to think I am. Otherwise somebody, somewhere would have already picked me up as a Service Manager. Over and over I see some stupid college educated muldoon who has absolutely no clue about the auto industry being promoted to run a company they could not figure out if their life depended on it.
Okay, cards on the table: I have had 5 separate interviews with a particular company about joining the Service Department in capacities ranging from Line Tech to Shop Foreman to Service Manager. This particular company has a history of not having a mission that will ensure it’s own survival. I really REALLY wanted the job I applied for.
<Begin Serious> I am in my 5th decade here on Mother Earth and I am tired of leading people around by their left foot’s middle toe to TRY and get them to do the right thing. You know, things like:
Keep the speed in the parking lot under 10 mph.
That is NOT YOUR CAR, do not treat it like it is. Be respectful of other people’s property.
Test drive every single car you work on. I don’t like having to be the one that says “I don’t know why the wheels fell off…”
DO NOT LIE TO CUSTOMERS!!! The customers deserve better, you can tell the truth and take the heat. It IS what you get paid to do.
Accept responsibility. If you broke it, own up, get it fixed and move on. It’s automotive, shit happens.
<End Serious>
Is there really anything in the above statements that are going to cripple anyone who is at least TRYING to do the right thing? Honestly,with the exception of BOOB RIPOFFSKI (well known international automotive ripoff and all around sonofabitch) these things should come easily to the people in our industry. I can not for the life of me understand why, when I say these things to people, I get attitude or I am told I am “dissing” them.
Folks, when I started in this biz approx 30+ years ago, being “dissed” (disrespected) got you a punch in the mouth. If I EVER told a fellow tech to go jump in the lake after he told me to slow down in a customer’s car, I would be picking myself up off the ground with a split lip and a couple of loose teeth. If I then told the manger what happened he would knock those loose teeth all the way out. And THEN fire me. The respect levels have just gone in the toilet. I feel that if I ever yelled at a lot attendant in today’s auto shop, he would be in therapy for years and sue me when he was diagnosed as having Post Traumatic Troy Yelled At Me Syndrome by some quack who gets paid for inventing new excuses for why people can not behave like civilized human beings. And, by the way, popping someone in the chops for being a complete moron and not listening to me IS IN FACT civilized behavior.
Okay.
So.
As most people realize I have, in fact, worked in a variety of positions in my life and most all of my managers have respected my intelligence enough to grant me freedom to do my job with a minimum of supervision. That includes fixing cars and not questioning my methods, telling me that a house on such and such street needs the closet bends rerouted to allow for handicap access (when I worked as a plumbers laborer) or giving me the keys to a Nissan Dealer and saying “Don’t let the techs burn the place to the ground…”
Currently, I work in a large suburban dealership. I have made a segment of said dealership go from a “money flushing down the drain” fiasco to a money MAKING concern. And yet there is no room for advancement. There is no way for me to get out. I will never be considered for a management position. I will die there unless I leave.
Why? You may ask? Let me explain…
Look, tires are not cheap. Figure a cheap set of 4 is gonna run $400 and up. If the dealer does an alignment and they still burn up in 10,000 miles, the customer is pissed, the dealership is gonna eat the next set to make the customer happy, the customer is gonna get another crap job wheel alignment and the process starts all over again. The dealership suffers a loss in time, money, customer satisfaction and on top of all that there are really no consequences to the morons that can not do a thorough job.
So they give me the job of alignments while a massive recall is in the works. All of the affected vehicles require a wheel alignment as part of the recall. The dealership goes from a 5-6 wheel alignment capacity a day (with about a 7% “comeback” rate along with at least 2-3 SETS of tires per month) before I start to a capacity of 25 alignments a day with a less than 0.1% “comeback” rate and NO TIRE REPLACEMENTS due to alignment incompetence. Gee, you would think an accomplishment like that would get you more than an ” ‘atta boy. “
Sorry, Troy, but you don’t have a degree in Business.
Sorry, Troy, but you don’t have experience supervising 164 million people.
Sorry, Troy, but you don’t have a degree in Marketing
Sorry, Troy, but you don’t have enough of a submissive attitude towards the upper management incompetents who have no idea how a shop operates.
Sorry, Troy, but bean counters rule the world and it is better if you just stayed at the alignment rack because…well, just because.
So, after applying for jobs that I could do blindfolded (and these same people were scared out of their wits when I took over all the alignments because they thought I couldn’t do that, either) and not even getting the courtesy of a phone call saying “Thanks, but no thanks”, the gloves are off. What do I have to lose anymore.
If you people are too proud or too well educated to just ask people “What do you want?” when they come in for service, hey, don’t expect me to bail your ass out for free. You’re management, you’ll manage…