The Unappreciated Tech: From Mechanic To Factory Worker - A Call To Action For The Automotive Industry

Three months ago I left a 27-year career as a professional automotive mechanic. I have zero regrets.

Dealership owners and service managers seem to be incapable of understanding that professional techs are sick and tired of being taken for granted and treated like we're expendable and disposable assets.

The tables are turning. Professional techs have been leaving the trade in record numbers. As we leave, we're told they have drawers full of resumes and techs pounding on the door trying to get in.

It's somewhat gratifying to watch their help wanted ads renewed week after week and month after month. We're expendable and easily replaced, remember.

They resort to bribing the techs they have left into recruiting for them. Wouldn't it be easier and likely cheaper to just treat the techs appropriately in the first place?

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to another exciting thought-provoking episode of the Jada Mechanic Podcast.

My name's Jeff and I'd like to thank you for joining me on this journey of reflection and insight into the toils and triumphs of a career in automotive repair.

After more than 20 years of skin knuckles and tool debt, I want to share my perspectives and hear other people's thoughts about our industry.

Support yourself a strong coffee or grab a cold Canadian beer and get ready for some great conversation.

Three months ago, I left a 27-year career as a professional automotive mechanic. I have zero regrets.

Dealership owners and service managers seem to be incapable of understanding that professional techs are sick and tired of being taken for granted and treated like we're expendable and disposable assets.

The tables are turning. Professional techs have been leaving the trade in record numbers. As we leave, we're told they have drawers full of resumes and techs pounding on the door trying to get in.

It's somewhat gratifying to watch their help wanted ads renewed week after week and month after month. We're expendable and easily replaced, remember.

When job postings don't work, billboards don't work, word of mouth doesn't work, they resort to bribing the techs they have left into recruiting for them.

This isn't a signing bonus for a new employee. This is a monetary reward for existing employees talking their friends and peers into working with them.

Wouldn't it be easier and likely cheaper to just treat the techs appropriately in the first place?

It's not the young techs leaving, not the oil changers or the apprentices. It's the seasoned techs leaving, the shop foreman, the individuals that know their value. They've simply had enough of the disrespect.

We're walking out with more than our heads held high. We're walking out with decades of experience, decades of training and hundreds of thousands of dollars in special tools and equipment.

These are our assets, assets that the dealerships take for granted and treat as their own.

The industry has to change. Owners and managers have known about it for years and have done nothing about it.

I'm not saying there aren't good techs left, but I'm sure as hell saying that those that are left need to capitalize on the fact that they are an irreplaceable asset and start demanding what they're worth.

Amen. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another thought-provoking, excellent episode of the Jada Mechanic podcast.

What you just listened to was a very good friend of mine, Dan Litchardson's.

Dan put that post up a little over three years ago in a Facebook group. It got shared and it got some major traction.

At the time I hadn't met Dan, I didn't know Dan's story. Dan turned out that Dan lives in my little corner of the world, Kingston, Ontario.

But that post that Dan put up resonated with so many people.

It kind of put me on this way in an indirect way of realizing the kind of skill set and quality of tech that's leaving this industry.

Tonight, we're going to talk to Dan. We're going to get to know Dan.

We're going to hear what Dan has done since Dan put that post up and where Dan's gone.

I can tell you I know Dan well. He is a phenomenal technician. He has a ton of experience. He is a salt of the earth kind of gentleman.

He's everything that a shop owner would want. Yet he washed his hands of it all and walked away from it.

He's going to tell you his story tonight. I think you're all going to really, really take something away from his story.

It's going to rub some people the wrong way.

But I want people to just hear Dan's story and think about what Dan did and realize that when you have the skills that Dan has, you can go anywhere you want to go.

So without further ado, how's Dan tonight?

I'm pretty good, thanks.

Good, man. Good.

So Dan, tell us after that long winded intro, are you still a tech Dan?

I carry the license. I keep it renewed. I keep it current just in case.

But I am no longer a practicing automotive tech.

Right.

And I don't think it'll ever leave me completely. But yeah, but no, I don't do it for a living.

So everybody, Dan, you left the industry and you went to work at a factory, but not just any factory, right?

You're working at the local Goodyear tire factory in Nappany, Ontario, Canada, which is about, what do we say, Dan, 45 minutes from where we are right now?

It was a 25 minute drive for me. So it's really not that far.

I mean, I've since moved just outside of Kingston, but now I'm only it's a 20 minute drive.

Yeah. And you've been you've been at the plant. How long now?

Oof. July 2019. So just about four years. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, a few months of that was COVID. We were shut down and yeah.

And six months of that was in that was in a classroom. But yeah, I've been I've been a practicing I guess you'd call it industrial mechanic now for about three years.

Yeah. And let me tell you, I feel like a first or second year apprentice again.

Because they went through quite a blitz around here, didn't they? In terms of trying to could we say, Dan, that they were actively trying to recruit?

What we would call up here a licensed tech licensed automotive technicians. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Work in the plant. Because I know, like, I saw the ad when I was off on COVID for almost the year when I was laid off, I went through the process, did the interviews, went, did the testing, you know, ended up my personality would have, as the experts say, would have clashed.

Hard to believe, right? But you work with a lot in your in your in your day to day. You work with a lot of really skilled, what we call up here, licensed class a some master level at the dealer level, right?

The OE level. Yep. Technicians that have left the industry to go work at essentially a factory fix a machinery that builds good your tires. So what's that like with the with the like, I don't think you had any kind of difficulties transitioning at all, right?

Yes and no. I have had some issues getting my wrapping my head around AC electrical. Yeah. Why the hell is there a third wire? You know, I just I, I couldn't I couldn't I just couldn't wrap my head around it. That was that was the biggest thing. And the other thing was just realizing that everything in there can kill you. But other than that, for the most part, it's nuts and bolts.

Yeah.

Yeah, you said. For you said, last night, you carry most of your tools that you need, like pretty much in your pockets. You know, yeah, I, I wear coveralls and some guys where word, you know, just pants and shirts and uniforms and carry a little tool pouch. But, uh, 90% of what we do, we do with a set of metric and standard Allen keys, a small pair of channel locks, adjustable wrench, and some duckbill pliers.

It's, uh, it's, you know, it is what, and that's just my end of the plant. There's, there's three areas of the plant. So I deal with a lot of steam and, and, and hydraulics, but, uh, that's, I mean, 90% of what I do that I'm comfortable with that. And then of course I got a big toolbox that we roll around and.

Right.

It's nothing like the box that I have in my home garage. Now it's not my big snap on that pick, but occasionally I'll tell you, I never used an adjustable wrench when I was wrenching on cars.

I'd be lying if I said I never did. I've used them all the time. They make a great hammer.

Once in a while, you'll grab a volt meter, right? And once in a while you might some of the guys in there do a bit of welding and stuff. But I mean, like, it's, it's night and day difference, right?

Yeah.

So now tell us, give us your backstory because it's fascinating. So.

So I started in the trade in the early nineties. I, uh, I did a year at university and quite quickly realized that it wasn't for me.

And, uh, and, uh, I ended up taking a summer job at a speed shop in Nepean, Ontario.

And, uh, I think I was, yeah, I was driving a 63 galaxy at the time. This is, this was 91 or 92.

And, uh, and, uh, yeah, I, I got the job pumping gas at this, uh, little gas station and speed shop. And, you know, one thing led to another and they got really busy and, and, uh, asked if I knew my way around a toolbox and the way around a car.

And I said, well, I guess I've been kind of car crazy since I was a little kid. And they said, you know, who did all the work in your galaxy? Well, I did.

Well, come give us a hand in the shop. And that turned into an apprenticeship. And, uh, I had a great time doing it. You know, my cut my teeth working on.

Try power. Uh, I guess what was it? It would have been a, it would have been a cat 59 Cadillac. The first, the first job I ever did was, was rebuild three, two barrel carbs on a, on a 59 Cadillac.

The tri-fire. That's so cool. Yeah.

And then of course, went through the, the height of the, uh, the five liter Mustang craze and, uh, and, uh, I remember that I've always been a bow tie guy, but, but I really liked those, that those Fox platform cars.

So I was always a sauce spot for them. I was always a bow tie guy too, until I got around the Mopar stuff. And then I don't know if it was just repeated blows to the head or whatever, or sniffing too much gasoline.

But I mean, it was, I just something about those, the fact that they were ugly.

I can see the attraction because I mean, I've got a bit of a soft spot for them. And, and, uh, I mean, I've been without a project car for, for a decade for many reasons.

Uh, and you know, we can get that later on, just the whole trade killed it for me. It was, it was a hobby and a passion and turned into a career. And, and the career killed the hobby and passion.

Yeah. But I recently bought another, uh, I bought another project car and, and, you know, I'm starting to get some of that passion back.

And I was going to ask that's not, is that a Mercury Zephyr or is it a, it's actually a, uh, it's a 78 Fairmont Futura. Yeah. Okay.

And I bought it from a guy who could be me in a parallel universe. You know, he's, uh, he's the same kind of guy that I am and he loves cars and he's got multiple cars and it just, uh, it, it worked out.

And I gained a friend by buying that car. So I'm, I'm pretty happy with it. It's not going to stay forward powered. You know, it's, it's of course going to, I'm going to, I'm going to piss everyone off and shove an L S into it.

Well, that's how you fix everything, right? That's really, I'm going to make it fast, cheap and reliable.

That's right. I love that. It just, it just cranks up the, the, the blue oval faithful when they, you know, lift the hood and you've got an L S in it.

And like our guest on Tuesday, that episode dropped young column.

You want to see head roll. He's got a Porsche with an L S swapped in it. So I mean, yeah, but I mean, let's, let's be real. That's an upgrade on a Porsche. I don't care what anybody says in the liability.

Like it, you know, anyway, but before we get too far off track, I, uh, I started my, my, uh, venture into the trade at a speed shop.

Uh, did a couple of years there and the market dropped out and we hit a massive recession and I ended up leaving Ottawa area and heading back to Kingston.

And, uh, it was, it was a struggle to find some work and I ended up, uh, working for free for a, uh, speed shop here in town.

I just wanted the hours towards my apprenticeship and, uh, that turned into, um, not really a job, but I would, I would hang out and help out and got to meet some people in the industry.

And, uh, and then I got to meet a bunch of the, um, independent, um, owner operators, small shops.

And then I quickly decided that I wanted to spend my apprenticeship, not in one spot, but move around from independent garage to independent garage and learn as much as I can about every brand that I could.

Right. And, uh, gain as many skills as I could.

And, uh, and I did that. It wasn't until I was just about done my apprenticeship, which actually stretched into five years for me because of the recession in the industry.

Yeah.

But, uh, it wasn't until I was done my apprenticeship that I ended up into, into shifting into dealership life.

And, uh, that was, that was, you know, when I got married and, and, and started to build a family, it was, uh, it was, I needed the, uh, I needed the security and the benefits.

Yeah.

What I didn't count on was flat rate, but, uh, I, uh, I did okay.

I did okay. And then I just went, I went from dealership to, uh, to dealership.

Got pretty close to master level in Chrysler.

Did a bunch of stuff with Ford, late nineties for Ford. And it wasn't, wasn't very good stuff. I didn't know. I hated working on it.

You never get, you ever get that feeling where your, your fingers just want to, you know, they don't want to touch the wiring. It was the way the connectors fell in your hands.

We weren't wearing gloves back then. It's, I couldn't stand working on Fords.

Now I own one anyway. Yeah. I went from dealership to dealership and, um, I got a little bit jaded, uh, as many of us do at, uh, at the Chrysler dealership.

And I think it's the same one that you worked for.

Oh, that was a, yeah, that was, that place was assessable.

We've talked about it and we won't talk about it here because it's just going to, you know, I'll probably, if I talk about it long enough, I'll call out the person that I feel is the most responsible at the time for why everything went bad. Right.

Old McDonald. And, um, it, you know, it, um, it just was, yeah. I mean, that was the dealership that, that promised me the world, right.

That, that got me to come leave Ottawa and come back to Kingston where, you know, I'd grown up here too. Right.

And that had been, I'd left a really good, really good lucrative dealership job to be closer to my family.

And that dealer promised me a lot. And of course, like a lot of dealers, a lot of shops, a lot of dealers, uh, they didn't promise you walk in and, you know, I didn't walk in with any kind of attitude.

I walked in with confidence. I knew what I could do. They, that's why they had several times tried to recruit me. And that's why they finally got me.

They needed a guy that could do drive building electrical and hey, you know, well, when I got there and they're established guy, his hours took a hit.

Um, all of a sudden they pulled the rug out from underneath me and just took a, you know, the labor ops away from me. Not because, and this is the thing you, people are going to go, oh, you must have too many comebacks.

Zero, zero comebacks. It wasn't that I couldn't do the work. It wasn't that I couldn't get the work done. It wasn't that I was, you know, doing anything, shit, and none of that.

It's just, was it a unionized shop when you were there?

So it had just, I think the union had been gone two years from what I understand. It was still so like a bleeding wound in terms of like, you didn't dare say that word, right?

Like you saw if you, if you whispered it, guys would look over at you like, why did somebody say that you were?

The rumors I heard is it cost more than a million bucks to get the union out.

You know, the union had done a lot of good things for them in terms of getting them decent pay, getting them better shop equipment, getting them paid holidays, getting them benefits.

And so the people, though, the guys that had walked across the picket line.

We're still in the building and we're really looked after.

And you could see that even when they finally, I guess it cost them over a million to get the union to go out.

It had to have them eventually enough staff felt the union had done what it was supposed to do and they voted it out, which is a good thing for the owners, right?

You don't want one.

And this is not a whether I don't, I'm not a union person.

I don't think, you know, if you're running your business properly, I think more unions mostly waste money.

They don't necessarily make you more.

I completely agree with you.

You know, part of my part of my hiring process there was was the fact that I firmly believe still due to this day that I can stand on my own two feet.

And if I if I mess up, I've got big shoulders all on it.

Yeah. So when you were trying to go or when you had gotten there, was the union there when you were there?

The union was there. Yeah.

And I couldn't understand what I was paying union dues for because they weren't doing anything for me.

Yeah. You know, I wanted to come in early and it's just the way I am.

You know, I'm up at the crack of dawn every day.

So as soon as there was somebody opening the doors at the dealership, I was I was right behind them with my coffee in hand and I would I would if I had something left over from the night before, which wasn't often because I always like to stay late to finish it.

I would I would get to work on it.

And of course, that that brewed some bad blood because people thought that I was I was, you know, trying to to float my hours by working extra time.

I mean, anyone could have done it.

It wasn't I was just trying to get done what I had sold.

Yeah. And and, you know, it was it was it was difficult there.

I met some great guys. I think there are some good technicians that came out of that place.

But there was there was a lot of underhandedness and backstabbing.

You know, I started when I started there.

I was still an apprentice.

I was I wasn't licensed and they brought me in to do automatic transmissions.

And I can remember I was that was the one thing that that I had I had I hadn't done in the trade yet.

Yep. And I was terrified of them.

You know, to me, looking at the inside of a valve body is the equivalent of brain surgery.

Yep. And I was terrified of it.

But I took the job and and I was very methodical and clean about how I would take stuff apart.

And I remember coming in one day and all the parts of this transmission that I had taken apart and laid out so carefully were just jumbled up in a big mess on my bench.

And I was just what the hell am I supposed to do now?

And it I mean, it got worse because, you know, there were there were guys there and this this is akin to to the podcast that I listened to today that that dropped Tuesday.

You were talking about training.

I took every training course that they would throw my way.

If it meant I was out of the shop for for for eight hours, they paid me the hours and they paid me the travel time.

But they also paid the hotel bill and they gave us a meal allowance.

So what what also came out of that was was I gained a skill set.

And that was right about the time when Chrysler was mandating that the tech that did the warranty repair have the skill set to do.

So, you know, there was there was two or three of us in the dealership that had the skill set to do one thing.

Here's this this young apprentice that was gaining skill set after skill set after skill set.

And it wasn't even licensed yet.

But I was getting, you know, when when the industry was slow, I was I was I was available to do work.

And it turned into fuel and water, coal and drive ability, which soured old McDonald.

And there was, you know, there was another guy that that he's at the other Chrysler dealership now.

And he and I got to be good friends from when I worked there and we went to training together and we helped each other out.

It's a flat rate world. But if I was on a waiting list doing nothing, I'd go over and help him bang off the rear brakes when he was doing front.

Exactly. You know, it was it was the same deal when when when he was standing around doing nothing and I was hustling to get a bunch of stuff done.

He'd come over and help me out. And the looks we got.

Yeah. Yeah, it scared me.

We didn't care who got the hours. It was just, you know, it was it's what you did. You helped out.

I can remember so many times that every dealer I've ever worked at like that was just especially tire season.

And you've done it, too. That's kind of how you do it, because that's how you get through it.

Right. It doesn't matter whether they're his tires or your tires.

If you're both doing a set at the same time, because you know how that's how scheduling goes.

You grab the balancer, he grabs, you know, or vice versa, and you just get them done, you know, because like you've got so many appointments that day for them.

Yeah, that's the only way you get it done. If you stand there like a jerk off and block both machines and try to hustle through and without and say, no, I don't want to help you because, you know, you're not going to help me.

It doesn't work. It's I wish I knew how many people have gone through that dealer and have been pushed out because of that.

You know, that name that we said, because you you ran into that wall. I ran into that wall.

Yeah, lots of other people. He wasn't the reason I left. But no, but he was probably part of it.

He was probably part of it because management wouldn't stand up for me.

I don't want to say I got the union out, but I know that that my vote against the union was certainly part of getting the union out.

And I did exactly what they wanted me to do. I hustled. I did every course they asked me to do.

I got every specialty that they asked me to take when they asked for me to take over the front end rack after the front end guy moved on to his own shop.

I didn't really want to, but I did it. Somebody had to stand up and I made the agreement that if you'll allow me to keep all my other skills so that I can do those other jobs while I'm doing front end stuff, then yeah, I'll do it.

Yeah. And and it was OK for a little while. And then they started getting a whole lot of blowback from probably from other tax.

Yeah. But and then they wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't they wouldn't stand behind what they promised.

And that started to that just irks me. Yeah. If you say you're going to do something, you damn well do it. Yeah, that's that's the way I grew up. That's the kind of man I am.

That's what I demand. And that's and that's what I expect. Yeah.

You've heard me using analogy like a dangling carrot, right? Don't don't do that to me. Right. Don't put it on a string that I can't touch it like it either.

Tell me I I'm not having it or give it to me and show me that I'm not having it.

To to to take to get the goal and I'll I'll go on the path. It's not a problem. Right. I understand I have to work for what I want.

Yeah, I found that dealer to be very, very toxic and very, you know, people pretended like they were your friend, but they were in this.

They were snitches and bitches everywhere. They were constantly this guy's doing this.

And I mean, I and the worst was, you know, one of the service advisors was the guy that had been there the longest. He was like that, too.

He was, you know, he cut your throat. He was the one that across the picket line with the other ones. Yeah. Yeah.

And there was another guy that nobody else like because he was, you know, he was he was loud and kind of brash.

But I got along great with him and I got along great with him because I was happy to, you know, I was happy to be able to do something for him.

I got along great with him because I was happy to adjust my labor times a little bit here and there to help a customer out, especially if they were going to do, you know, multiple things that I had recommended.

And like yourself, I was always an advocate for only doing what the car needed. And, you know, never, never would I ever do an unnecessary repair.

I couldn't I couldn't stand the wallet flushes. I wanted to earn my living right.

And I kind of made it my mission throughout my career as an automotive mechanic to try to dispel the myth that that, you know, we're out to rip people off.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've said it before. I've never seen a car that was over maintained, but I've seen a lot of services that didn't need to be done as often as they were done.

Yeah. So, you know, maintenance is maintenance and repairs are repairs. And it's the both a car needs both without question.

But, you know, nothing irked me more than just watching guys, you know, make eight hours by lunch because they had four flush machines going.

And have I had four four flush machines going on a car at once? You're damn right. I have. Right. It came in so. Yeah.

So I'm not going to be the hypocrite and said I never made money like that. But it wasn't I had a skill set that allowed me to take a broken car or a car that didn't work right.

Give them the analysis on what it needed and give them back a repaired car. If somebody values production more than that ability, then I just any more in my career, I don't jive with that particular mindset or management, whatever you want to call them.

I mean, it's it's not how I was brought up. It's not how I was. I came up and it's hard for me now to just to just stomach that.

You know, it's it doesn't impress me. You've heard me all say I don't care. Wow. He made 20 hours today. What did he fix? Oh, nothing.

You just changed hooked up some machines and flushed and fluid out. Cool. Wow. You're the man.

So how did you how did you wind up at Toyota?

Well, I left that Chrysler dealership and I went to an independent shop across the street. It was a used car dealer. Yeah, OK. I know the one that was. Yep. They they got themselves into some hot water and anyway, that was I made sure that the whole service department was was above reproach on that. And I took that because they gave me a guaranteed salary.

And and. And I basically got to run the show and run it the way I wanted to, which meant I could recondition the vehicle to a standard that I was comfortable signing my name to.

And and you know, I was doing retail repairs and I was able to interact with the customers and I was service manager. I was was the service writer.

I was the warranty administrator.

And I was the instructor because you know, I had at least one apprentice under me at the same time, which was great until, of course, fit hit the Shan and and and you know.

That business ground to a halt.

Yes, it did. I don't think they did anything that that any other dealership didn't do.

I think they just did it very successfully and the old boys club sent the powers that be crashing down on them.

For sure, for sure.

Anyway, the one of the owners of that hightailed it out of province and he had always treated me with the utmost respect and dignity.

And I was going through a nasty separation and divorce and he offered me the opportunity to follow him out east.

So I did.

It wasn't very long that that I was out east and I quickly realized he was full of a lot of empty promises.

And one thing led to another and we went our separate ways.

And that's when I went back to dealer life.

And I did. I worked a couple of years at Honda, which again, I really enjoyed.

Great bunch of guys. Great product.

Yeah, fantastic product. If you want to make fantastic product, great customer base.

Not only. Yeah, not only that, but it was it was a product that you could you could you could believe in.

I could have I could have spent the rest of my career working for Honda except for I mean, the general manager of that place was an absolute sleazeball.

You know, I was I was extremely productive.

I had zero comebacks.

I was the guy they called out to talk to a customer to explain a difficult situation, even if it wasn't the job that I was doing.

But I've always had this uncanny ability to talk to anyone on their own level.

Be it. I don't want to generalize, but you know, a ditch digger, if you want to call it, I could get down on their level or I could turn around and speak eloquently enough to to to to explain a situation to a federal judge.

Yeah, it's I've never had an issue doing that.

I've always enjoyed doing that. Yeah, my my history, too, and in the dealership for the longest time when I was in Ottawa, was that was the same thing.

It wasn't necessarily was my customer. But if they if the advisors up front that I had a really good rapport with didn't know the answer to a question or one customer wanted to know why it was something they called me up and I come and I wouldn't spend hours talking to them or half an hour.

But I mean, there was more times than not that I probably spent 20 minutes at the advisors desk filling the customer in on what was going to be done, why it should be done, why maybe the other shop that had attempted the repair didn't do the repair properly and so on and so forth.

Right. And I'm the same way as you if if you're confident in your skills and you have a reasonably good attitude, I know what the best attitude.

But if you have a reasonably good attitude, talking to anybody, they're all the same level. Right. They're just it's it's a customer relationship.

That's it. I've never, you know, a hockey player from the NHL could walk in. I'm going to talk to them the same way. You know what I mean? As somebody that's just works down the street at the grocery store and she needs her minivan.

It's doing a weird thing. She wants to talk about it. I treat them the same. It's the way how it should be done. Right. I agree. Everybody's money is the same color.

And, you know, you've got to treat like I was the same. You know, you want to fix that car like your mother's driving it. Right. You want to you want to treat that customer like it's your mother's budget that you're thinking about.

And it's always worked good for me. You know, it's it's always been good.

And Honda was lucrative. You know, there was there was a lot of things that paid really, really well. A lot of them were unnecessary.

I'm going to I'm going to go out on a limb and say a lot of them were unnecessary repairs, but they were mandated by the provincial biannual inspections.

You know, if here's here's an example, we all know that that that that a Dodge truck ball joint has an allowable 60,000 play.

Well, there was an allowable play, according to Honda on an inner tie rod. But the ministry guidelines said there was there wasn't allowed.

You weren't allowed any play, which took precedent over manufacturer specs. So Honda was good enough.

They would pony up and they would pay under warranty to keep the customers happy. So there was a lot of gravy that way.

And same with a bunch of, you know, as every brand goes, there's there's there's a lot of stuff that you you learn to do well and learn.

You learn how to do it properly and quickly. But there's a lot of things you have to learn to take a take a hit on to, you know, somebody else described it.

It might have been the podcast that I was listening to today. Reringing the Camry. In this case, it was re-ringing an Odyssey van.

Yes, you took a bath. It was it was a 12, 14 hour job. I don't care how good or how fast you are.

And it paid eight. Yeah. But you would do one of those for every 32 inner tie rods you replaced that paid, you know, an astronomical amount of money.

Yeah. Or the really easy or the really easy timing belts and all the Honda's had. Right.

And stuff like that. And the control at what point at what point do you really want a bitch? Yeah.

And anyway, I was we had a guy that that went out sick hospital ill and he was halfway through re-ringing an Odyssey.

And of course, they needed it done. So they came to me and they said, look, you know, this is this is an unusual situation.

But will you finish this job? Absolutely. I will. Absolutely. Well, we can't guarantee, you know, this guy's already been I'm not going to drop names, but this guy's already been paid for for the majority of it because he had spent most of the time on it.

It was paid out. Yeah, we can't we can't pay one. I'm like, I understand that, you know, but it's got to be done.

And and and I know the customers I've I've I've worked on their vehicle before and actually spoke to them before.

So, yeah, you know, I'll finish it up. Which which I thought got me in the good graces with with the service manager and the general manager.

And it it wasn't long after that that I realized that the guy working next to me who had a fraction of the experience that I did and nowhere near the productivity that I maintained.

Right. And a much greater comeback rate than I did than I had. I had I had I don't think I ever had.

I had one comeback and I ended up proving that it wasn't my fault. Yeah. Anyway, you know, I found out that he was making four dollars per flat rate hour more than I was.

And, you know, here I am working at one hundred and fifty, one hundred and sixty, one hundred and seventy percent efficiency rate and not having any comebacks.

And I find out that the guy next to me was making four dollars per flat rate hour more than I was. So I questioned it. Yeah.

But I wasn't I wasn't rude about it. I went to the service manager and the service manager said, oh, you'll have to talk to the general manager.

So I asked to speak to the general manager. And then I and I didn't come off strong. And I basically said to him, you know, I know it's not any of my business and I'm not going to discuss how I found out.

But it's come to my attention that ex-employee is making four dollars per flat rate hour more than I am. I have more mechanical experience.

I haven't been at this dealership as long as him, but he's only been here six months longer than I am than I have than I've been.

But I have more by this time I was Honda gold certified. I have more training. What do I have to do to get to his level?

Yes. Oh, you've got to keep your bake cleaner. Well, I could keep my bay cleaner, but you know, we have cleaners for that every night.

And and that will sacrifice sacrifice productivity if you want me to make the base spotless between every job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

He was just a greasy slimeball that that, you know, would had his favorites of, you know, people that would go out partying and drinking with them.

And if you weren't part of that crowd, so be it. So, I mean, that that that put the bug in my ear.

Well, I'm not going to hang around this place because what the hell, you know, I know my worth.

And I went and talked to the Toyota dealership literally across the parking lot. And and it was funny.

I went into that interview and of course it was a big dealer group. Yeah.

And there's a process to go through when you're applying at a big dealer group. You have to sit in front of the board and they ask you all these questions.

And it was funny when I when I had first moved to Nova Scotia, the this woman that I was dating had tried to get me into this other big dealer group.

So they had called me in for an interview and I had gone through this interview process once before and I flipped it right around on them.

You know, why should I come work for you? You know, let's let's look at this.

You called me. So let's look at this as as me interviewing you. Yeah.

And that that I mean, they were they were completely taken back and and I ended up not going to work for them.

But here I was standing in front of the same board again.

Two, three, four years later and not begging for a job, but saying, you know, I'm not happy where I'm at and you wanted me before.

Perhaps we can work something out now. And I'm glad I did. I mean, I had to shave the beard. Yeah.

Because that was which hurt because, you know, I've had my beard for a long time.

I anyway, I shaved my beard to get the job and that was that was the that was the best dealership I ever worked at.

I had the absolute best service manager, Craig Passmore, wherever you are out there.

I think he's running his dealer principle, I think, at a dealership in a Toyota dealership in P.I.

Stand up guy. He was he had your back for everything.

You know, he would make sure that you got you got paid for every every last minute of of time that you worked on it, whether it was retail or warranty.

Yeah, that place never ran out of work.

Yeah, all kinds of work.

And I regretted leaving there.

But but it was it was it was an amazing stepping stone.

I learned a heck of a lot.

I learned what a real service manager and a really good dealership is to work for.

Let's back up a bit. Not too far, but I want to.

So when you talk about re-ringing the Odyssey, right?

And this is a scenario that I think they come to you and they say, well, we can't pay you for that.

The times are in paid out. The tech has been paid.

He is unable to finish the job. Like you said, he's in the hospital.

Why do they not have like an apprentice that can come along in the shop?

Because we've all you and I have worked with them, right?

They're kind of you. They're being brought up. They're brought along.

That can be one of those jobs where is a really good mentor opportunity for you and for the young apprentice to finish that job because he's already paid hourly anyway.

Right. And what a great experience.

He would probably come at that job with such enthusiasm and vigor because maybe last week he was just doing recalls and oil changes.

And now he gets to actually put an engine back together.

Yeah. Why did they not have to know it's a it's me and the mad scientist got to rip apart the block and change the piston rings you fried.

You know, it was it would have been it would have been great to do that.

It would have been great to do that. And I don't know why they didn't.

Yeah. I don't think I was the first person they asked.

Yeah. But I think they came to me because they knew I wouldn't say no.

Right. Yeah. Well, they knew it was done right. Right. Yeah.

I you know, because you've heard me say like I will not donate my time anymore.

It's not to say that I've never done it. People hear me all the time and like he's never done it.

That's not true. I've donated lots of hours. Right.

Yeah.

I had a sheer guts and determination and pride if I have to know what's wrong with this thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But you know, it's always been in my metal that it's going to be I decide when when somebody tells me doesn't matter who.

Right. I'm the toolbox has got a set of wheels on the bottom of it for a reason.

If I'm not OK with it, that means that it's not OK.

If I'm willing to do it, it's because I see something that will pay off later.

I'll see. I'll learn something. I'll get an experience.

Like you said, I'll develop a skill set. I'll do it.

If you come to me and tell me I have to and I don't feel it's beneficial and let's talk, you know, eight hours, eight hours of your pay.

Let's let's go above what you were getting paid then and say easy math.

Let's say you're getting 40 bucks an hour and it's eight hours.

That's 240 bucks.

You mean to tell me there is a dealer owner out there that doesn't have 240 dollars that they can pay to get a job done?

Oh, they absolutely do.

Of course they can.

They've got 2400 dollars.

They've got 24.

Money is not the issue with the dealers.

They have the money.

It's just the principle of we don't want to set precedents.

Right.

And I think that's a that's a key point with a lot of what I think has been where so much has gone wrong in this industry is that instead of looking at us as individuals and saying if I let if I do that for that person, everybody will expect the same.

Instead of standing up and saying I did that for that person because of these reasons and it's not favoritism.

Right. It might be because of the situation.

Whatever.

Yeah.

It just worry about what precedence is it set.

And that's why I can't do the right thing.

And we now as a collective industry have pretty much decided that you have to start doing more.

What is the right thing to do?

Because we're just not I mean, look at it.

Right. Look at yourself.

So you went on to Toyota and had a really good experience.

Yep.

I had I had an amazing experience.

That was it was the kind of place where where there was something seriously wrong.

If you weren't making 110 hours per 80 hour pay period, most of the time we were making 140 and banking the 30 because 110 was the cut off that would bump you into the next tax bracket.

Yes.

Yeah.

And and it was bad enough in Nova Scotia.

And then you're paying you know you're again paying taxes at the gas pump at the grocery store, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know the routine.

Oh.

And at the same time, you still got to buy tools.

You still got to stay current.

It was but still it was it was a great place.

And and I regret leaving.

But you know, I still know people at that dealership and talk to them on a regular basis.

But it's not the same place now because, you know, the really good people are still there.

And now he's doing great things at another dealership.

But they should have had someone step up to take his place that would do things the way he did because the positive morale in that shop was was incredible.

You know, it was first first break.

So 10 o'clock every every morning, the parts truck went to the dealership and talked to them on a regular basis.

It was like so 10 o'clock every every morning, the parts truck would take off and go to Timmy's and drive into the shop with everybody's coffee order.

Yeah, you know, and this came out of petty cash.

It wasn't something that we paid for.

It was it was, you know, if we had if we had a really, really good month, there would be a giant McDonald's breakfast for us one day.

It was just out of the blue.

It was it was, you know, it was they showed the appreciation.

It's not like it was akin to the oh, you know, thanks for all your help.

We're going to have a pizza party for you because they also ponied up and and paid well.

You know, at that time, we weren't making we all made really good money because the hours were there.

But the hourly rate probably wasn't as strong as it could have been.

But none of us complained because we were all, you know, at the point we were getting into the high tax bracket.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, fair distribution of the hours, the whole thing.

Yeah, there was never any there was never any argument.

There were there were a couple of people that got fed a little bit.

But I'm not going to say unjustifiably so.

They'd been there for a million years and they had cut their teeth and they had they had earned their stripes or earned their wings, if you want to put it that way.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing we talk sometimes where, you know, I've seen it.

I've worked with the the I can still remember when I the first dealer worked out in Ottawa.

There was a gentleman there that was at the time.

Oh, he had to be 59, 60.

Like he was getting really close to retirement age.

And every morning he came in and they gave him probably like three break jobs.

And then the afternoon they give him some oil changes and maybe a PDI.

And he consistently made his eight hours.

You know, he didn't tackle a timing belt on a neon.

He didn't tackle.

I mean, he was he was a beat up old man.

They didn't have him pulling the transmission out of a caravan.

They just gave him, you know, lower skilled work that he could consistently hit the time on turn it out.

He had no comebacks, no real issues.

He wasn't too arrogant that if he if he had something on his hoist, he would ask what it was, you know, he didn't bother.

He wasn't one of these guys that would look at it like this and, you know, And he didn't see something because he didn't want the warranty to know for fear of doing it.

Right. We've seen those cats of the dealership. Right.

Like I didn't see that rear main Lincoln because I don't want to do the remain.

He would write up everything that he was supposed to write up because he knew that he wasn't going to get saddled with it.

And they just for all intents and purposes, like you said, they took care of him.

He'd been at the dealer over 20 years.

His brother had worked at the dealer with him and dropped dead at that dealership.

He would breathe his last breath at the job right there.

So, you know, is that fed? No, it's not fed. It's taken care of.

And I think as we if there was if there was more of that in the trade, there would be less people leaving.

You know, I I ended up leaving that dealership for.

For a couple of reasons, but the main reason was it was it was time to come back to Ontario.

It was time to be close to my aging parents.

They needed some help and it was time to be close to my to my children who, you know, I spoke to every day in the time that I was gone, but I spent 10 years away from I spent every every long weekend back in Ontario and every holiday back with them and had them out for visits and everything.

But it wasn't the same thing. It was it was just time to come home.

And and I would have loved to have come right into the Toyota dealership when I came back.

They were in fact my that was my first stop and they said, well, we know the service manager of the dealership you were at.

We know him well and that we would love to have you on our team here.

We just don't have room for you right now. Yeah.

If you can stick it out and find another job to last you, you know, six or eight months, then you're going to be the first person we call.

So I I thought, you know, well, I had such a wonderful experience at Toyota before that.

This is yeah, I'm going to find something just to tide me over until I get into this place because I've got that good feeling.

And and I did I worked at I worked in a motorcycle shop for I think it was close to nine months.

And really enjoyed that because that was a whole different kind of clientele.

Can you imagine can you imagine having clientele that came in were throwing their money at you?

Yeah. Well, you know, I have this amount of budget, so let's do this.

And then you get halfway through it and the customer calls you up and wants to speak to the guy working on his bike.

You know what? Maybe maybe I can find some more money to do this.

And and you start to do that and he'd call you back in the next week.

You know, when you're halfway through that big rebuild, you know what?

If you're into it this far, let's do this. I'd never seen anything like it.

And I got to ride motorcycles around. It was it was you know, it's a cool job.

Completely. I'd never had a service manager said you need to get more tattoos and grow your beard out longer.

That was a pretty cool place to work.

But then Toyota called and the money wasn't there. Right.

So then Toyota called and said, hey, we've got a spot for you.

And I don't think they even got the words out of their mouth.

And I was running to my service manager's office to put my notice in because that that's where I wanted to be.

And I fully expected to be able to go from what I knew from the brand and the way Toyota wanted their dealerships run.

I expected to come into the same thing. Yeah.

And the demographic, man, the demographic was so different between the East Coast and and and the Toyota dealership here.

Yeah, I don't know what it was, but.

You know, I went from almost triple digit salary to to really being able to to, you know, keep my my myself fed.

Yeah, yeah. It was it was it was a struggle to make.

I'm just going to go and say it was a struggle to make. I didn't make 50 grand a year there. Yeah.

And, you know, I was I was I was making 90 at the Toyota dealership on the East Coast.

Yeah. What gives? It's the same product. It's the same warranty ops.

It's the same. How different was the door rate? Not different at all.

There you go. Really, really close. So, you know, I don't know what the changes.

I don't know. I really. But it started to get me more and more jaded because then it was, you know, can you do this?

Can you do that? Can you do this? Can you do that?

And at first it was like I was the new guy. OK, I want to I want to prove I'm a team player.

Sure, I'll go out and I'll scan that car in the parking lot or you know what?

OK, I'll I'll take a point to hit just so we can sell this job.

And but then it started to become more and more expected.

Yeah. And yeah, it got sour.

It got sour fast and and I really don't know what made me completely.

Flip my train of thought, but I was I was sick and tired of it.

I was, you know, no, I'm not going to stand up for this.

I will I will do anything that you want me to do.

And I was I was the guy that that that, you know, that they would seek out to do the hard stuff.

Yeah. You know, that place had a old writer.

Old right hand drive diesel Land Cruiser as a as a plow truck and it would barely run.

And we were slow one winter and the shop foreman at the time who I ended up replacing.

He was an amazing guy. I'd been there for, you know, 30 years.

Anyway, he said, look, we're slow.

You know, he seemed like a pretty bright lad.

Do you want to take a crack at that at that old Land Cruiser and see if you can't fix it up a little bit?

He goes, I'll generate a straight time work order for you and have at it.

Sure. Well, the next thing you know, I was I was in there and I was I was learning how to tweak the pump and and play with the wastegate a little bit.

And the next thing you know, that thing was plowing snow like you wouldn't believe.

And the guy that drove it, he came back in and he was cursing and swearing.

I don't know what the hell you did to that thing, but it's never run that good.

And then it was it was a good feeling because that was the kind of stuff that I that I like to do.

I like to do what other guys couldn't or I shouldn't say couldn't what other guys didn't want to do because it wasn't lucrative.

It wasn't the norm. It wasn't lucrative.

Yeah. The challenge gets addicting. Like that's the thing.

Yeah. It doesn't ever, you know, like what will make you give up time on a job or what made you do this or make you do.

And sometimes that ego thing just gets gets, you know, to be able to say puff your chest a little bit more the next day and go, man, that one was a kicker.

But I kicked it finally. You know, that's that's where I I I thrived in that environment.

I don't know where it comes from. It's just something that like, you know, and I didn't fix them all.

There's cars that I didn't fix. Right.

There's cars that just kicked my butt and we either ran out of time or ran out of money or whatever.

I just never could get to the bottom of it was too intermittent stuff like that.

But I fixed enough of them that I had, you know, I was proud of what I could do.

And at the end of the day, you have to get paid.

And when the customer says enough's enough, I'm not paying for any more.

That's you've got to agree to wash your hands of it, too.

And and I never had an issue with that.

I would I would work my guts out for someone as long as as long as they were going to, you know, keep paying for it.

I didn't I didn't create the flat right flat rate lifestyle.

I just was forced into it and I didn't write the rules, but I was going to follow them.

Yeah. Was that I go ahead. Go ahead.

I was going to say I ended up getting fairly jaded.

The place went through some some management changes, some ownership changes.

Yeah. And I saw a lot of good people, you know, shoved out the door and some real slime balls take their place.

Yeah. And that that led to me being more and more jaded.

And then that amazing, amazing shop foreman that that the place had for so many years decided he was done.

And he went to bat and and took me aside and he goes, Look, I'm going to be out of here in a year.

I want you to take my place. I'm going to start grooming you.

I'm going to start, you know, putting a bug in in all the upper management years that that I want you to take my place when I leave.

OK, well, I really appreciate that. That that made me feel good.

It made me feel justified in in all and doing all the hard work and all the extra things that I had done for so long.

Yeah. But at the same point, it was like I the writing was on the wall.

I was I was at that time. I'm 50 now, so I was 45, 46, starting to get sore.

You know, you can only pound it out on the concrete floors for so long.

It it I started look like like you're doing now.

I was looking for the exit strategy and and, you know, the the moving into the shop foreman position was was what I had hoped would be my exit strategy.

In moving into that, I had to be at a certain skill level.

That was just something that Toyota mandated.

So that meant that that this dealership that that almost never sent anyone to training had to send me for training.

Right. Which was which was OK.

I was I was all right with that.

But I remember I remember talking to the instructor at the course who is this this Irish guy.

And and thick accent.

But oh, was he ever bright?

Was he ever bright?

And I remember telling him that that, you know, I I've got this idea that I might want to leave the industry and and and and go into industrial mechanics.

And he patted me on the shoulder and Danny, my boy, I don't care what you have to do, whether you have to lie to them to get in there.

You do what you have to do and you get in there.

Yeah.

And I didn't lie to them.

But I went into the interview and I and I I I went through the the mechanical aptitude test the same way you did the one on the on the computer.

And I came out of that.

And I remember going to the the HR guy and Larry.

Sorry, I wasted your time.

Yeah, there's no way I passed that.

He left.

So then I moved on to the seven or eight other interviews that that that got me into that place.

And and and I don't want to say I sold myself because I don't think I needed to.

I think that my personality rang through and and it was a right fit.

And I think that's the only reason I'm still here.

How powerful is that though that the guy your trainer at Toyota?

Right.

How powerful is that that your trainer at Toyota says to you if you can leave the dealership and get into that industrial job, you do it.

My boy that we've we in the industry have got a lot of people that are not going to be able to get into that industry.

You do it.

My boy that we've we in the industry have got to acknowledge.

And again, this is going to be a really dealer heavy conversation.

But I mean, it's it translates.

It goes to other places, too.

When you have trainers, because I've sat with lots of technical trainers.

They're teaching guys in shops, not in dealerships.

And and they lament very similar things, you know, have said that's a gravy train with biscuit wheels, boy.

Like, you know, we have to realize that if the culture of the shops and the culture of the industry sometimes is how screwed up it must be.

If you've got the people that are training and telling you to.

Leave it.

You know what I mean?

Now, some people may say, well, that's a bad attitude, but it's not.

They're just they're looking at you, a talented guy.

They know you and going, hey, that's you know, you're aging out.

You're at a particular dealership.

And, you know, they all talk to one another.

They know they know that that dealership that you're at, it's had some issues.

It was going through some growing pains, you said.

And I think we need to we if we would address the reality in the room a lot more in this industry, we wouldn't have the problem that we're having.

So you went through the interview process.

I went through that interview process.

It was intense.

It was a lot of questions like sitting in that room.

With all those guys, you know, I can't remember their names.

I was a few.

It's been a couple of years now since I did it.

And I didn't get accepted because my attitude and personality is not the same as yours.

You know, but it wasn't a technical aptitude problem.

That's what they said.

They just said, you know, we're not sure you would fit this environment.

They're probably very right.

And that's OK.

No, no love lost.

But you you went into it and you've progressed pretty good.

Now, when I say that, before I say that you have some other people that you have worked with that are just like yourself.

There are mechanics that left dealerships.

Some of them even left the dealer you had worked at.

Right.

Another one I know from when I worked at the Hyundai dealer store here, he works at the plant.

There's another young gentleman that worked when I worked at Nissan that now works with you at the plant like they have.

There's another one at the used car lot that the Nissan dealer owned their top tech.

He now works there like there.

Did we say that last night there's like 20 that you could probably name off the top of your head?

I started trying to count last night and I lost track at 11 or 12.

Yeah.

Because, you know, there's there's four different shifts and there's three different areas of the plant.

And we're so spread out that you can't possibly know everyone.

But yeah, 11 or 12, I counted right off the top of my top of my head.

Yeah.

Former high performing automotive techs.

Yep.

We were we were at the at the the epitome of our game.

You know, we were at the at the high point in our career.

We were the most productive.

We had all the experience, all the special tools, and we walked away.

Yeah.

And here's here's what happened.

You know, when when I left Toyota, I was like, oh, I'm going to go to Toyota.

When I left Toyota, I was making that was 2019.

I was making two or three dollars an hour more than I did in 2000 and 2001.

Yeah.

And you know, I know Dutch is an advocate for for taking care of yourself.

Yeah.

But, you know, when you're only making 24, 25 bucks an hour and you've only made 24, 25 bucks an hour your entire career, by the time you're you're clothing and feeding kids and and and paying a mortgage and then on top of that, you're you're you're paying into dental and medical benefits and uniforms.

There isn't anything left over to save.

So here we had a a rival trade seeking out the the talent pool from a nine to one.

Yeah.

Because for whatever reason, demand was so high that the Goodyear plant in Appanee has been around for 32, 35 years, whatever.

But you had guys aging out, right?

You had guys that had had their 30 years in and they're done.

So all of a sudden this plant is losing, you know, people left, right and center, just just, you know, not because people were disgruntled, but because it was retirement time.

So, you know, there wasn't enough guys in the other millwright trades and electricians to to to start pulling into it.

So they quickly realized that the automotive trade, well, we don't hold certificates as as machinists or millwrights or electricians.

We can adapt.

You know, what what have we done for our entire careers?

We fix things.

Yeah.

We think outside the box and we get stuff done.

And that was that was the draw.

But then there was also the draw that the the base the base wage was.

I think at the time it was close to to 30 percent higher.

And on top of that, there was 10 percent of your 10 percent of your income went straight to your pension.

The the company.

How does it work?

If you if you contribute four percent, they match your four percent.

And if four percent is the maximum you contribute and if you contribute the maximum, they'll they'll match it and add two percent.

So I contribute four of my of my gross income and they match it with six percent.

So 10 percent of my gross income goes directly into my pension every year.

There are.

Quarterly performance bonuses based on how well the plant does.

All those go into my into my retirement RRSP.

If you have perfect attendance, there is there is a you know, a healthy bonus that goes directly into my into my retirement RRSP.

So my retirement RRSP, which I had nothing before in four years without a whole lot of other, you know, me stimulating it has has increased exponentially and and you know, continues to do so.

I never had any hope in hell of having any kind of a pension or retirement plan in the automotive industry.

And on top of that, here we have this industry that that is is paying all of my uniform costs.

And and, you know, almost all of my of my health care.

So what was costing me five hundred dollars, six hundred dollars a month.

Twelve months of the year is is now included by my by my new career.

It's like, not only not only am I making 30 30, you know, 30 grand a year more than I was now on top of that 30 grand a year, there's there's another.

Seven, eight thousand in in other expenses that I don't have anymore.

Not only that, but I'm not buying tools.

Yes.

And not only that, I'm not spending 40 hours a week at the dealership and then another 20 hours of my own time just trying to stay current.

You know, nobody, nobody ever paid me for that time.

That was that was what I did on my own, just so I could stay current, just so I could stay sharp, just so I could stay productive.

Yeah, just so you can stay at the at the, you know, you don't get left behind in your job, right?

You don't get left behind in the shop, right.

That's feeding the addiction.

You know what I mean?

You know exactly what I mean, dude.

You know, I've gotten better.

I don't geek out on it as much as I used to.

But yeah, I used to.

And it was like I felt compelled, like I have to because, you know, I want to be, you know, I want to be, you know, I want to be the boss of the business.

I want to be, I want to keep my skill set at least at that level.

If not try to push for the next.

Yeah.

When you talk about like it's, you know, $500 a month that you're putting that all of a sudden is being saved.

That's like working three extra shifts.

You know what I mean?

That you don't have to work now.

It's it's this industry can learn a lot from that because, like you said, we're very lucky in Canada.

I remember joking my mom and I the other night about how she has friends and they want to have a child so they didn't have the necessary, a great health care plan where they were in the U.S.

So they're saving up money to go have their first child.

You know what I mean?

We're lucky up here.

But it's still when you think about glasses, braces, contacts, like, you know, chiropractic treatment, massage, orthotics for your shoes.

I just I got them for my boots.

Friggin things are expensive.

You know, it's a thousand bucks on my feet.

When we look at that kind of stuff, some of us get clouded and we get too focused on what's the job pay an hour.

Right.

And I think that comes from our background.

You and I both write our background of, OK, so I'm doing the math in my head.

I get paid X per hour.

The job pays X.

Right.

I know how much money I'm going to make to do that job.

Now, then it becomes a game of getting it done as fast as possible so you can get another one.

So we lose sight sometimes.

We don't think ahead.

I'm terrible with money management.

I'm terrible at investing for my future.

I'm doing better than I was, but I'm still not where I need to be.

And see, I've flipped 100 percent.

You know, I don't know whether it was because I couldn't, but there was never any money to invest.

But now that I now that I have some more disposable income, I try to live at that same level that I did on my own.

I did on my my old income.

But but I know full well that I can't keep this up forever.

You know, my everything hurts.

You know, my eyes hurt, my hands hurt, my teeth hurt, you know, holding a flashlight in your mouth for so many years.

And I know I know it's finite.

Right. I I'm 50 now.

I maybe have another 15 years and I am going to give it my absolute everything.

And I know I'm not as fast as a lot of the young guys, but I outweigh some of these guys by by, you know, 100, 120 pounds.

Yeah. When there's heavy shit to lift, I I'm the bulldog.

I will I will do whatever I can to slug it out and and be part of that crew and do my part.

I simply cannot be what I was in the automotive trade.

Like I like I said at the beginning, I feel like a first or second year apprentice now because there's a lot of stuff that I don't know.

AC Electrical, I'm much better at it now.

I'm comfortable with it now and I know how to be safe around it.

But I was it was like it was so daunting when I first went in there.

Oh, yeah. Dealing with with with PLCs and and different platforms and different programming.

It you know, if I dealt with it every day, I would probably be proficient at it.

But at my end of the plant, I'm dealing with older equipment that has been there since the plant was was first built.

Yeah. And I get to do what I love and what I do best.

And that's that's fixed stuff and make it work.

And, you know, I don't want to I don't want to steal David Freiburger's Freiburger's terminology.

But at some point you just have to get it running.

Don't get it right. Just get it running. Exactly.

Because there aren't parts, you know, with this this whole pandemic has changed, has changed every industry out there.

We can't get parts, you know.

What are you supposed to do? Well, and that's an interesting thing, because like I've seen that now you're kind of stepped away from the industry.

But now everybody in the industry right now is talking about EPROM, right?

And how they're able to salvage a module now, like, you know, because you know, in the dealer, there was only one way to do it.

And that was the way the dealer way. And that was it.

The way that these guys have been able to hack this and, you know, chip repair and swapping chips so that, you know, it's amazing.

And I sit there and watch these way smarter cats than me do these videos and talk about this kind of stuff.

And I'm lost. I'm totally like lost.

They're just like at another level.

And it's so cool. But it's been driven by the part shortage.

It really has. And then I'll tell you, even the parts that you can get, the quality is terrible.

Yeah, it's terrible. You know, brake rotors don't last as long as they did two years ago.

I don't care what anybody says. They're rusting up faster than they were.

You know, front end parts garbage, garbage.

Like, I see the same thing with with pressure transducers and steam fittings.

You know, what would last six months is now lasting a month before it has to be replaced.

It's it's the quality is just it's gone.

And what do you do? You adapt and you try to overcome.

But it is what it is.

So you mean, oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Now you go ahead.

OK, so you made a good comment when we were talking real quick last night.

You said that you'd seen now with all the kind of that the plant had hired away from Kingston, these techs that are now working for you or working with you, right?

You're working over them, whatever they're on your team.

You see that there's now a shortage that's even compounded within the technician shortage.

But in my area, I would agree 100 percent.

I talk to people all the time in my area.

I can't think of a shop that isn't trying to hire a tech right now.

There was a shortage and there's a massive shortage already in the industry.

And in my local area, it's huge because they sucked up a lot of the talent.

Right. So you're saying that now you're talking last night.

It's driven the prices up or the pay up in my area a little bit.

It's still not anywhere near where it needs to be.

We're still underpaid in this area by growth.

I agree.

But you're saying now that you're seeing some of the guys in the in the it's getting closer to what it's, you know, paying for your job.

And you're seeing guys that are like we talked last night, we talked to two guys that that went back, you know, left the the shift work thing, I think, is what is hard on some people.

Right. To make it is personally, I love it.

Yeah. I mean, I'll be on I'll be on nights this weekend.

And I don't have any problem adapting to the to the flip flop back and forth.

Personally, I like it.

I love having days off during the week.

You know, if I've got to deal with with which I haven't had to deal with my entire life, if I have to deal with medical appointments or legal stuff or, you know, I'm doing a bunch of renovations to my to my house.

I can do it myself and I can do it during during the week on my time off.

Yeah.

I'm still working the same amount of hours that I that I ever did it at a shop, but it's it's spread out.

Now it's 12 hour shifts and it is what it is.

Do you find I mean, I'm going to think that I already know the answer to this because I know what you're like.

I was going to ask you, did you find the 12s hard to do?

But then I think you and I are probably cut from the same that most days we were probably there already 10 anyway.

Yeah. Right. So two more to make a difference.

Like I was I was I don't have any problem with it.

Yeah. I was the same when I was at the dealer, like we are eight to five was our regular shift.

And I was there most days, seven fifteen till after six.

You know, that was just that was the day for me.

So it wasn't quite 12. But there's also days I was there till nine.

There was lots of nights where the sales department would come walking through the shop and I'd still be there working on something.

And they'd be like, you're still here. Yep. OK.

And the way that worked is they locked everything.

You would bring your car in and park it in the service bay so that the security system was all like set up in the showroom and all that kind of jazz.

But we didn't have security system back in the back shop.

And you just drove out the door at the end or the shop and it would open and come down and everything was locked.

And that's how you left. If you didn't bring your car in by that time and you walked through the man door and then got in your car, you'd set the alarm off.

But you could drive out and it was cool.

And I can remember so many nights the one I can't remember the salesman's name, but he'd come out there and he's like, you're still working.

And I'd be, you know, arsed deep in some caravan with the interior torn out of it, right?

Fixing wiring under the carpet and all that kind of jazz.

And he'd just shake his head and laugh.

And there's some nights too, like the salesman, they had all off brand stuff, right? They didn't drive.

This is the thing. A lot of people like salesmen, they tell you that's the greatest product in the world.

But like most of the salesman cries when they go Honda, right?

So the one old guy, he'd be all the time, he'd be like, will you look at my Honda? Sure.

So like I'd be there at night and I'd look at his Honda, I'd put a set of brakes on it or, you know, put the water pump or tie rod or something like that.

Like it's just they started to realize that, okay, like, wow, he's not scared to work on other brands.

No, man. I, you know, my background before I came here was, you know, a little crappy shop where we worked on anything.

We worked on sobs, worked on Volvos, worked on Dodges, worked on it didn't matter if it had wheels that came in, right?

With old Triumph? Sure. Bring it in like garbage.

I worked for a lot of years for an independent guy here in Kingston.

And he taught me so much when he was a grouchy old bastard and a horrible, horrible businessman, but a very, very sharp mechanic.

And he always taught me just be smarter than the car.

And that gave me the ability to one day be working on a 38 Buick or a 36 Pierce Arrow.

And, you know, there's only so many times you can fix a cracked flathead six cylinder head because it's overheated.

You've got to start figuring out what the hell you can do to fix the overheating problem.

And, you know, it would be smarter than the car.

So, I mean, at that time I had I had worked at Ford for a little bit and gone back to this independent garage.

And I remember a Ford vehicle having an external water pump.

And I think it was I think it was one of the double overhead cam bubble generation Taurus's.

It was the three liter six cylinder had had this external water pump.

And we added that ended up saying, hey, why don't we just get one of those and add it to it?

And we pumped coolant into the back of the cylinder, the head at the same time.

And, you know, we adapted and we overcame.

It was be smarter than the car so I could work on any of that old stuff.

And then the very next day, be, you know, like you said, arsed deep into the wiring problem on some new vehicle that that it was just all a question of be smarter than the car.

Yeah. And I love that challenge. Yeah, I did too.

Right. Like, and it didn't always pay well, but I was lucky.

I've had I've had good I've had good warranty clerks and I've had good advisors, you know, like really valued what I would do for them and made sure that it was going to be OK.

Right. Yeah. Here's my take on things, Jeff.

These dealerships, a good dealership.

Isn't a license to print money, but does very well.

At least it was when I left and I could have I could have foreseen staying in that industry.

If you had a good dealership with a good dealer principle that understood everything that that everyone went through, we as technicians are adaptable.

There really isn't anything we can't do.

I mean, lots of techs out there are are are are pretty gruff and don't have the personality to deal with to deal with the general public.

But lots of us do, you know, I'm not going to toot my own horn, but but, you know, I've I've done the service advisor and the service manager role.

I didn't like being a manager to my peers, but I liked the role because because I could step up and explain to Mr.

and Mrs. Smith why this wasn't, you know, a warranty claim and and why we had to do what we had to do.

And and if you if you have a good dealer that recognizes those traits and and allows those personality traits to flourish, when guys start to age out, you can move them into other positions.

You know, the time with that solve.

If you went if you went to a service advisor that that knew what it was like to work on that vehicle or similar or any vehicle and and you know understood why you couldn't do it in the allotted one hour labor time.

If you had everybody working together as a team, man, what an industry it would be.

Yeah. And so here's an interesting thing.

We've got a an episode that's going to drop. I think it comes out Tuesday. If not, it comes out very soon.

There's another guy on TikTok, Chris Craig, and he's an advisor and he talks about so Chris before he became an advisor was attacked and he didn't stay attacked very long.

And he went into an advisorship role and he moved around a lot. He's got a lot of horror stories from being an advisor, but he he everything he says the key thing with what you take from Chris is.

Everything is a learning opportunity. Just going to treat it that way.

But we had some interesting conversations about how, yes, you know, if we could get more techs.

If the pay wasn't such a pay cut when you're done, when you're aged out physically right and you can't, you know, so because we all say, well, you know, like you talked about the the form and roll looked like it was going to be your your way to transition out to finish out.

You know, we can only have one form in most shops.

We should run two shifts. Maybe you can have two, right?

But there's so many techs that when they age out like, yes, it'd be great if you could go work in parts.

It'd be great if you could go, you know, work the service advisor position.

I've never, ever, ever worked with a parts guy that was like had been an old tech.

You know what I mean? In a dealership scenario, they tend to be young kids that they brought in because their their PC skills were good, right?

Or they were good. Yeah, you know, but I always thought that would be great if you had the old techs that, you know, could transition it.

But it's such a pay cut, right? It really is.

The advisor. That's that's the other thing that that has to change.

I mean, you're never going to retain any talent if if if the money isn't there, not not when, you know, while I'm a perfect example, me and 20 of my peers at my new career.

You know, we all left. Why did we leave? We can be as disgruntled as we want.

We left for money. And we left for for the security that the money provided.

And not only the the difference in in in our disposable income, but the the difference to our to all of a sudden we had a retirement plan.

Yeah. You know, and if I'm one of the older guys at the at the plant, right?

So I hate to say that, but I am. But you've got guys that are coming in.

Late 20s, some mid 20s, some early 30s.

They conceivably put in another 30 years. I can't.

I'm never going to max out my pension, but but I'm going to do everything possible to to jam as much into that that pension RSP and my other personal RSP and tax free savings account that I can now that that I was never able to do before.

When I only hope and it's so funny, like when I interviewed there, I was again the oldest guy interviewing that day.

And it was the same thing. It was younger.

And I think of the three other people that went in with me that day and we all did her testing.

Wouldn't you know what the same other three plus myself, we were all automotive techs.

All interviewing for these jobs, right? Because I've been popped up on indeed and popped up on, you know, job monster and all that kind of stuff.

And it's like they're hiring and, you know, if you have three 10s, three 10t certification, you know, automotive truck coach come apply for this job.

You know, we need your skill set.

And, you know, I remember it was good because you know how it is when you're tech, you go anywhere, right?

You end up talking shop and it but there I was.

So I'm thinking as I'm doing the interview, I'm here with three other mechanics that are trying to get out.

And then, you know, and in the plan as well, even some of the established guys that are have retired out now, they jumped to the plant 30 years ago where they had been techs.

They weren't all mill rights, right?

The guy that took me through, I can't remember his name, but we did the, you know, the on hands rebuilding the pump.

He was an old tech. He'd been a tech.

He still worked at home.

You know, it's talking about his custom side by side that he built, right?

He's still a tech, but he got out of the industry 25 years ago and took this great job when they built the plant there.

Right. Like so it kind of made me laugh because.

You know, somebody back then probably would have never said to him, oh, you're a quitter or, oh, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Like, look at you. It's all they probably would have went.

Look at look at John.

You know, he got himself a really good job when the plant opened 25 years ago.

Now he's retiring out. He's like.

But yet I see this this animosity lately towards like young Collins.

That's that's he's catching a lot of flack from some people that are like, you're quitting.

You got somebody said, oh, you have no passion.

It's not I've known you a while.

It's not you don't lack passion.

I don't lack passion.

Somebody that gets burnt out and wants to quit and leave and go to somewhere else.

They know it's not that they don't have passion, but everybody has a limit.

Right. Everybody has.

There was a there was a time not that long ago where I would I would work my eight to five.

And then I would spend another four or five hours working on my race car.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which wasn't really a race car, but it was a cross or whatever.

It was my my toy car. Yeah.

And and and I mean, I miss doing that.

I can't wait to to have the time to to start playing with my my new project, because, you know, now I now I have a little bit of disposable income that I can throw at it.

And I've got to weigh the balance between how much do I want to put into retirement?

But hey, I'm I'm old, but I want to still have fun and I want to do this while I can still wrench.

So, you know, I fully plan to open the QA one parts catalog and order everything for a Fox body for this this old Fairmont Futura and and go to town.

And it's like it's totally reinvigorated my my the passion that used to be there is relit the flame.

You know, I was I was out of my garage this afternoon hanging hanging LED lights thinking, OK, well, I can bring the future in here this this winter.

And and I chopped half the built in workbench out of the garage so I could I could slide my my epic toolbox into that corner.

And and and, you know, I'm looking at it going, OK, well, the compressor is there.

I don't have that many more air tools, but I can run airlines here.

And it's just all that passion is starting to come back.

It never fully leaves you. Yeah.

And, you know, I still think that if the automotive industry could could fuel that passion while not grinding away and chewing us up and spitting us out, then then what a fantastic industry it really would be.

Yeah, I don't have the answers, but but I don't regret leaving it.

You know, I know some guys talk about like their dealership.

Maybe they send them to, you know, they won tickets to the Molson Indy or something.

Right. And they came home absolutely jazzed about, you know, fixing cars again and wasn't that cool and all that kind of stuff.

But I think the reality sets in really fast when you come back because you're still back to that same.

Oh, look at this first job I got handed today.

Like it's I'm not going to make any money on that.

Like it just that that or, you know, if we if we step away from the flat rate commission based our kind of argument for a minute, if you get that car that just kicks your butt, you know, and there's a deadline and everything else.

That's the grind. You know what I mean?

And we all just accept it and we embrace it.

And it's cool. We we we work through it.

I don't know. You know me. I don't have the passion for cars anymore.

You know, I'm all about the fish and thing.

But I mean, it's the same thing. Like, I know lots of texts that well, actually our friend Mark, Mark still loves wrenching on cars.

Right. But Mark wrenches now on like his phone thing is he wrenches on boats, you know, or he went into that thing where now Mark does, you know, standalone gensets and stuff like that.

Like he there's so many things that if you're got that skill set that we have, I'm not saying, you know, that to leave the automotive industry, but just keep that in mind.

You know, if you just think that, like, if you're so burnt out, don't think, OK, I want to go completely the path and go into culinary or go into computers or something.

I mean, do ultimately at the end of the day, do whatever makes you happy.

But realize that you can take like you did that skill set that you have of fixing things, making things work, getting it running, not necessarily running right, but getting it running.

You can take that and people will pay good money for that skill set that you bring that outside of the box thinking that problem solving ability that, you know, grind and grit and determination of, you know, all that intuition that we develop from how something feels and sounds and smells and, you know, how it acts.

That's all stuff that people need.

And it's sometimes it's a skill set that you don't learn it any other way.

You're just going through it.

And it's I think it's a talent that is the next generation coming up.

We don't you and I got it a different way because we pissed around on, you know, old stuff when it was before reason, the job.

You know what I mean?

You've heard me talking all the time about how Ian and I would fart around on that green old truck is before we ever were mechanics.

Right. It's what got us.

So we developed a way of thinking in a way of that's when we had the passion.

The passion's not gone.

But, you know, the grind is is the job.

The grind is the job.

It's the way we have to approach the customers, the way we have to approach the vehicles.

It's and I'm not in a bad place.

I'm not. I'm in a place where, you know, nobody's forcing me to turn X amount of hours by the end of the day.

I don't I left that life a long time ago and I will not do it again.

To me, it just doesn't jive.

It's not that I can't produce.

There's just so many variables outside of my control that affect my production that it's a moot point at this point.

We don't even discuss it.

You know, did you fix the car?

Yeah. Do we get it done on the day that need to be done?

Yep. Cool. Right on. Perfect.

Here's your paycheck.

Yeah. Yeah.

If we could go to that.

Then then I think we would have a whole lot more people that we could sell this industry to.

And it's not a case of I'm not saying that production doesn't matter.

You and I have produced a lot of hours in our day.

I've never had a problem production wise.

You know, it's just when we start to move up in that skill set, like you said, you were known as the guy that could go and fix anything they gave you.

You got to the bottom of it.

You fixed it. You made it work.

I had that same thing.

That has to be better compensated than we're currently doing in this industry.

And there's so many.

I agree.

There's so many different.

You're taking that guy that that that can do all that and you're taking him out of regular production where he can.

Make the money.

Yeah.

You don't have 20 of them in a shop, right?

You don't have 20.

You might be lucky to have four and say in a 20, you might have 25 percent of your guys.

You know, can do it.

You might have another that another that you usually have one guy that enjoys doing it right.

But, you know, how you stop enjoying it when when you can't buy a pizza on Friday night or a six pack of beer because there isn't enough of the paycheck to do it.

Yeah.

Or you had just an absolute butt kicker of a week where it just seemed like it was one problem car after another.

And you got through it, man.

And you walked to there with 40, 48, 50.

And then you watch the guy that, like, if his own car didn't start tomorrow, he'd have to come and ask you what was wrong.

Yeah.

And he made 60.

Yeah.

And his base a mess because every empty, you know, it's full of transmission fluid jugs and transfer case with coolant and, you know, spark plugs are piled up on the end of the bench because he did a bunch.

Yeah.

He's done a week full of wallet flushes.

Yeah.

So we have to remember that what we're selling here isn't time.

What we're selling is a repair and we're selling value.

And sometimes that's going to be a lot more expensive than just an amount of hours put into the repair.

We have to think about the value of who are we putting on that job?

What are they worth to us?

What are they normally could be doing?

And then it's got at least match that.

And that's just good business, not just from paying the tech, but it's just good business.

It just makes more sense.

You know, would you?

So I guess I don't have to ask, but I'll ask it anyway.

You're not you don't regret the change you made.

No, not at all.

No.

And you would tell you would probably tell other people to write if if you're not happy.

Seek that something like that.

Yep.

Now, now that being said, if if the industry was different, I would go back to it.

Yeah.

It's not that I it's not that I dislike it.

You know, it it it has always been my dream to have a speed shop.

But I don't think I don't think in our little corner of the world, I don't think that you could have that anymore because nobody wants to pay.

Yeah.

You know, nobody wants to.

Everyone wants the instant gratification of bolting something on.

Nobody wants to pay for custom workmanship.

Nobody wants to.

So it is what it is that the harsh reality is to to exist in our society with ever increasing costs of living and and and costs of housing.

You go where the money is.

Very well put.

Do I regret leaving?

No.

Would I go back if money wasn't an issue?

If I was independently wealthy, I would probably go back because yeah, probably because it's what I know.

You know, it was it was close to 30 years that I did that.

And and as much as as much as I was disgruntled and wanted to leave and as much as I really enjoy my new trade, I mean, my new trade has given me a whole lot of money.

I really enjoy my new trade.

I mean, my new trade has given me a whole new skill set that that I didn't have before.

You know, with my house renovations, I have I have I have wired things and moved outlets around and added circuits.

And and, you know, I would never have thought of doing that before, even though, you know, I, you know, wiring was my jive.

I love doing hard wiring stuff, but, you know, I'm not going to do it with the AC electrical because that that's going to kill me dead.

And it's going to hurt the whole time.

I am I used to joke and say, even if I won the lottery, the running joke, as I said, if I won $10 million tomorrow, I would come back and buy the dealership.

And then I had like a list of people I used to just tease them and say, I'd fire you, you and you.

And then I would just work here just for the fun of it.

Yeah. So it's just I'm I'm my answer is the same.

I mean, I, you know, I'll have to transition out eventually.

But I mean, I still enjoy this industry.

But where I get off now and in this industry is doing like you and I are doing.

We're talking about it, right? We're trying to make it better.

We're trying to have the conversations about what makes it better for people.

Why why did a guy like yourself leave?

Why did a guy at the top of his game leave it all behind?

You know, and it's not always to shine negative.

I don't want to do that.

You know, and I will have people on that are killing it and loving it and in it and doing well.

I've had them on before. I'll have them on again.

I'll have more of them. But it's we have to tell both sides of the of the of the equation,

because that's the only way that that people that are listening can can hear.

Why people go, you know, I mean, do you think it's a generational thing?

I honestly don't. I really don't, man.

Like, think about it. We all got we all got duped when it was pretty easy technology, right?

It was a carburetor and a distributor.

And so that was going away when when you and I were both coming up.

But I mean, it was still there was enough of them out there.

And we were still like I read Hot Rod magazine from the time I was probably 12 years old.

And I, you know, always bought them.

Fryburger like Roadkill, all the car.

I like that was my life. You know what I mean?

That's what I wanted to do was like take a small block Chevy.

And if it made 400 horsepower last week, I wanted to make 410 this week.

That was what I wanted to do. You know, that's what got me into it.

I'd grown up around it. My father is an autobody guy.

So, I mean, I was always around all cars.

But when I got into the reality of the job, I realized that's not reality.

I didn't mind what I was still doing, because at the end of the day, you're still taking something broken and you're improving it.

That's addictive. Certain people really like that.

So it's not a generational thing that the idea that people say, well, the young people, you know, they don't have this or they don't have that.

The young people have just the same skill set that you and I do. Right.

It's just in a different way.

What they get off on is they can go and hook up a computer and load software and EEPROM work and stuff better than any any of us ever will.

It's just where they're comfortable.

They grew up with those components in their hand from the time they were four. Right.

Some kids have a cell phone when they're four that they're playing with.

Their technology is their thing. It's not a generational thing.

It's not that they don't want to work.

But man, they're smart enough to know that if I'm going to walk in and I'm going to get paid only $18 an hour and I've got to be in charge of somebody's $100,000 Chevy, you know, suburban, escalate, whatever, and I'm in charge of making sure that that thing leaves with the wheels torqued properly, all the oil in the engine, the TPMS relearn, the oil, you know, oil life reset and all that jazz for $18 an hour.

Or I can go, do you want fries with that for $18 an hour?

And I don't have to buy a bunch of tools and I don't have to spend $250 on a pair of work boots.

And I don't have to get docked out of my paycheck, you know, $50 a week for uniforms.

If we can realize that we're not playing ball yet with where we need to be to get the young people in, we're getting better. We're better.

But we still have, when we look at the cost of everything and we look at the tooling is such a huge thing.

The tooling is such a huge thing.

And I was talking to a shop owner, local shop owner today, and he's trying to get somebody to come in.

He just bought a used, a used Mac-miser from our friend Chuck.

And it's going in his shop and he's going to start filling tools into it so that if he gets a really good apprentice, third year apprentice, you know, somebody about to write his license, whatever, her license, and they're lacking, that's going to be theirs to use.

We, I'm starting to see more and more shops do that.

But I mean, think of it when you and I were coming up 20 years ago, there wasn't, you couldn't have walked into any dealer or any shop and they would have bought you a tool cart and they would have bought you tools.

You know, it was just expected that, oh, you want to change oil here.

You want to do brakes. You want to do tires. You want to do, okay, you're going to need a torque wrench.

You're going to need a torque stick. You're going to need a $200 Ingersoll impact gun.

You're going to need all these sockets. You're going to need a wrenches like,

Oh, and don't be borrowing people's too many times or we're going to, you know, they're going to tell you to F off because three times and it's done.

I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't be holding to them to that kind of thing, but it's such an obstacle now with the price of what stuff is.

It makes a difference, right? You know, when I started a good year, it's like,

so I guess I should start to, what do I need for a tool list?

Have you got a tool list? Oh yeah, don't worry about that right now.

Well, I do have to worry about it because I don't want to come in here day one and not be prepared.

Well, here's what's going to happen. Day one, we're going to give you a toolbox.

Wait, what? Yeah, we're going to give you a toolbox and then there's a tool list and,

and then we're going to give you, you don't have to take it, but we're going to give you the opportunity to, to take part of our, our tool purchase program.

So we're going to give you a, a $3,000 chunk of money to go buy tools from our suppliers.

And it will be a zero interest payroll deduct and until it's paid off.

So if you don't have extra stuff that you want to bring in, don't bring your snap on stuff in here because you know, yeah, other people might be using it then, then, you know, leave the good stuff at home, but you know, we'll take care of you. And I was thinking to myself, wow, nobody's ever done that for me before.

It was, I mean, I got some hand-me-down stuff along the way from a couple of old texts here and there, but it was never stuff that they couldn't live without. It was just, you know, this will make your life easier.

Here's this old nine sixteenths that I've bent and you know, with two 90 degrees in it, and it'll be great for adjusting distributors. Yeah. Yeah.

I was given it when there was no more distributors to adjust. Right. So I've done that too.

I've had some extra hammers. I've had some extra wrenches, some extra pliers. Right.

And I've seen the kid come in and he's a good kid. And you know, it's like you see them and they're spending a fortune

every week on the tool truck. And it's like, okay, do you need a set of slip joint pliers?

Yeah. You need a set of side cutters. Okay. I'll bring you some in. They're just sitting at home in a bag.

They're not doing anything. They're riding around the back of my vehicle. Like, you know, they're good stuff.

They're old, but they still work like quality stuff. Well, what do I owe you for it? Just whenever.

And that's the answer I get whenever, you know, which means then, you know, no, something's going to happen.

You know, no stress. It just means that I appreciate you. And, you know, I can see that you're you're making an effort.

You're working hard. And that's what I want to do to help you stay doing what you're doing.

You know, so I want to thank you for having this conversation. Oh, thanks for having me on.

It's it's I think, like I said earlier, it's important. And I mean, you know, I've been I've been jiving to get you to do this

because it's a different perspective than than anybody that's been on yet. Right.

Like there's lots of us that have left, but they're kind of harder to connect with, you know.

And because of how I knew how you would be was why I could have you on because you're going to be, you know, honest and upfront and level headed about it all.

The the biggest thing for me to get used to not doing it every day is OK.

Number one, I drive a new vehicle for a couple of reasons.

I need something dependable to get me to and from work every day and not that an old vehicle can't be dependable.

But I I I bought a new vehicle because I needed something new that I didn't have to keep working on.

And well, I wanted something that I don't have to lie and lie underneath and in my gravel driveway anymore.

That being said, I can't leave anything stock and and but I have no problem farming out the stuff that I won't.

I don't want to do anymore. You know, for the first time for the first time in my life,

it wasn't that long ago that I paid someone to build me an exhaust system or I paid someone to put a lowering kit in my dually.

And and it was it was a hard pill to swallow. I paid Mark to fix my boat.

Yeah, it was it was like, well, number one, now I can afford to number two, I don't I don't want to do it anymore.

And now, you know, I don't have the boat anymore.

I had to I had to I had to let it go because other stuff had to take priority.

But I don't regret it. But but now, you know, I I take my truck in and I have it serviced at a small shop with a the a young owner

operator has has gone out on a limb and he's doing it on his own.

So I support him. You know, I don't I don't I don't ask what it costs.

I don't expect to get any better deal than I would anywhere else.

I expect it'll be a little bit less than the dealer. But that's you know, that's I'm not getting the pressure.

So it's just nice to be able to do that.

And it's nice to be able to be the customer a little bit for a change as well.

Yeah, I yeah, I hope to get there one day where, you know, I mean, right now I'm I mean, I drive a Jeep is pretty reliable.

But I mean, it's not going to stay reliable forever.

That's just the reality of it. And then, you know, but I'm the same way, right?

If I need my boat done, I just take it to a professional. I take it to Mark because I want you know, for me, it's my leisure time.

It's my fun time. It needs to be at least as reliable as my daily.

That's because that's you know, I'm working for I'm working for my free time at this point.

Yeah. And if you've got to spend all your free time working on on on something that you use for your for your free time, then it stops becoming enjoyable.

So at that point, yeah.

And that's the fine line, right?

When we talk about the guys that go home from the job and then try to build a clientele or try to build a you know, they side hustle or whatever you want to call it side work.

That's not that I never did it.

But I always wanted to make enough money when I was at the job that when I came home from the job, I didn't have to continue to work.

If I did it, it's because I wanted to do it. I wanted to help a friend out.

You know, I was helping the friend out at that point just for free, just for fun, just just to, you know, I didn't want to have to or have to go home at five and work till nine, you know, three nights a week to X amount of break jobs or something like that.

Just to have that extra money to go on vacation next year. And I don't knock the guys that do it.

If you want to do that, man, do it.

I just I want to we shouldn't have to.

You're not coming home from your job now and taking your skill set and going out and farming it, you know, to customers to undercut.

You get it right. You just you just do your job and then you come home like every other trade.

But, you know, anyway, I won't take up any more of your time.

I see your little cute doggy there was going to want to play with you.

Yeah, she wants to go out.

Mine's outside right now. So I'll have to get her in.

I want to thank you, man, for coming on here.

This is a and I appreciate your support for the for the podcast.

You've been you've been awesome in terms of, you know, telling me how much you enjoy this episode and that episode.

And, you know, like you said, you've you've been listening to a bunch of them because it's just you put them on in the background.

And and that's that's what it's about. That's why I do this.

Right. I do this.

You know, I can't believe how much I actually relate to to some of these other guys, you know, and even the guys that that I have.

Difference of opinions with and I don't I've never met them.

I don't know them. I probably never will meet them.

But but, you know, I understand their point of view and it's it's it's it's enjoyable.

Dude, my my phone blows up with people that I've never met that just say every day I probably get a message from somebody saying, You know what you said in that episode or what he said in that episode or what she said in that episode resonates to my core.

You know what I mean? Like there's such a common thread, a common story between so many of us.

Right. You're not the only guy that's done what you've done.

You're just the only guy that I knew from the plant that that, you know, would would tell that story.

And and like I said, I had you on because you wouldn't tell it with a thank F and I got the heck out of it.

You know, you didn't come across like that. And that's what I don't want.

You know, I don't want it to be all angry and mad at it.

I just want people to have a nice level headed conversation.

They can say, this is why I did it. This is why it happened.

This is why I think it's happening. And this is what we should do.

I spent a lot of good years in that trade and they weren't all bad.

So, I mean, I'm not going to sit here and shit talk it.

There was I had a lot of fun, met a lot of great people.

Well, friends for life, that kind of thing, you know, is actually right.

That's what that's what I hope we can be. And that's the thing.

Like, you know, starting like where we started that post that you put up almost four years ago resonated with me because it was like, I don't even know that guy.

But my God, I'm standing there applauding what he's, you know, saying.

I couldn't believe the reaction it got.

You know, I know that it got something like 1100 shares off mine alone.

And then it was shared by, you know, countless other people.

And and I didn't realize how much of an effect it actually had.

It just, you know, when we started, when you asked me if I would if I would sit down and do this, I kind of reread it.

And then I reread some of the comments. And and there was people that, you know, I don't know.

And they're in a completely different country, you know, completely different demographic.

And they're like, yeah, you know, right on, brother, you know, whole we feel you.

And it's it's wow. So it's not just here and it's not just me and it's I don't know.

Yeah. And that's what that's so that's in closing. That's what it's going to take.

It's going to take people that feel the same way to tell their story and speak up and do something.

We can't all just sit on our hands and complain. Right.

You got to I say it all the time. If you're not happy at the job right now,

there is no better time to go find another job than right now.

You will go and make more money wherever you go because you can negotiate for it. They have no choice.

We have them, unfortunately, at the advantage at the moment is on our side.

So if you're not happy and you're listening to this, you know, the last thing that that that someone at Toyota said to me when I tried to implement some changes to make things better and it wasn't tax, if you don't like it, there's the door.

Yeah. Well, at one point it was just, you know, OK, there's the door.

And by the way, I'm taking 30 percent of your tax with me.

Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and like comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it.

And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning.

As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise.

And I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change.

Thank you to my partners in the ASAP group and to the Change in the Industry podcast.

Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for.

Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again next time.

The Unappreciated Tech: From Mechanic To Factory Worker - A Call To Action For The Automotive Industry

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Ford Mustang

Toyota Camry

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