Bad attitudes

kellyf · May 17, 2012

I work in a nice air conditioned shop.The floors are clean.However business is slow.There are quite a few people with nasty attitudes.Just to throw the topic out there,how many techs out there are feeling the strain of low pay checks and long hours?How do you maintain a good attitude when your pay is half what it use to be?

ktmlew · May 18, 2012

I work in a nice air conditioned shop.The floors are clean.However business is slow.There are quite a few people with nasty attitudes.Just to throw the topic out there,how many techs out there are feeling the strain of low pay checks and long hours?How do you maintain a good attitude when your pay is half what it use to be?

Wish I had the answer. I was one of those guys with "a bad attitude"...just couldn't understand what management was thinking? The 126 report was the most important thing in their eyes...I felt keeping customers happy so they would return should be the primary concern. No customer, no business?

I was last in the dealership in summer of 2005. I asked about when we were getting an IDS. Response was "we haven't really even considered that". We had one NGS that worked intermittently and a WDS that rarely worked. I was there just under 3 months and WDS was out for repair at least half-dozen times. Pretty hard to diag a 6.0L with no WDS...

Parts dept had NOTHING in stock. ZERO parts for 6.0L. I mean no ICP, Injectors, etc. Any request for parts was answered with 10:00AM day-after-tomorrow. So you could not repair an diesel same day. That meant Thursday and Friday were the only day anything got finished.

Except for one tech. His bay was adjacent to the SM office. They were golfing buddies. He stayed busy all the time doing 95% customer pay work. Always had parts. Seemed suspicious to me...

But I'm a whiner... Posted Image

Matt Saunoras · May 18, 2012

I've been guilty of a bad attitude once in a while. It happens when you work in a garbage hole and in a place that can't seem to increase business even though we constantly turn out legitimate repairs. I haven't had a 40hr week in over a month.

We've been dead in the water with truck work lately. This time last year I had 3 cabs off in 3 weeks time. Right now I can't remember the last cab that was pulled in our shop. Something weird is going on with business, I can't put my finger on it as of yet. We should be growing more. There's 2 of us here that are more than qualified to handle any diesel that rolls through the door but it just doesn't happen. I honestly wonder why we can't drum up some e-series work, as bad as it sounds I would kill for something a little challenging right now. I've turned back into a lube tech a fast as I got away from it.

oh and did I mention that when the trucks do roll in they almost never run and when they do it's barely. Doing a 6.0 right now that has 17 dtcs in memory including but not limit to, FICM, EGR, fan clutch, 2 contribution codes and wif. Tell me all this shit happened at once.

Keith Browning · May 18, 2012

Is it a matter of a good attitude or what you are willing to put up with or there is nothing else out there for you that is worth jumping at?

I have put up with more shit... declining business... absent owners... lack of management, childish asshole co-workers, lack of professional behavior... pay cuts... being told "you suck" and "you are over paid" as a group... watching people you have worked with for years leave... constantly hearing how un-happy people are... enduring a dealer sale...

I like what I do. I am still putting food on my family's table. My children are healthy and happy and even when I go home frustrated (which is often) I still have my pride. Having a bad attitude serves no purpose. I guess what I am trying to to say is that things are never so bad as they can't get worse so why make it worse?

Mbl35 · May 18, 2012

Just puttimg this idea out there for you guys.... indi shops are competing with you. So why.not compete with them Have a discussion with the other techs in

your shops about doing maintenance and repairs on all makes and models.

It's pretty much all cpo work exept for the occasional aftermarket warrenty

customer. Sell coolant flushes, belts, sparkplugs, brakes,.tires,.alignments,

timing belts. Run it by your sm's and owners. Same thing go's for the diesel

stuff, oil changes, fiters, front end work, ujoints etc.. You will see your hours

going up. But they will need to advertise.

DieselD · May 18, 2012

Is it a matter of a good attitude or what you are willing to put up with or there is nothing else out there for you that is worth jumping at?

I have put up with more shit... declining business... absent owners... lack of management, childish asshole co-workers, lack of professional behavior... pay cuts... being told "you suck" and "you are over paid" as a group... watching people you have worked with for years leave... constantly hearing how un-happy people are... enduring a dealer sale...

I like what I do. I am still putting food on my family's table. My children are healthy and happy and even when I go home frustrated (which is often) I still have my pride. Having a bad attitude serves no purpose. I guess what I am trying to to say is that things are never so bad as they can't get worse so why make it worse?

I totally get this point of view however when is putting up with being unhappy enough? I did this same very thing for years. I sacked up and delt with stupid shit all day. Told myself to push through it and give it time to improve but you can not sit around and wait your whole life for a company to pull their head out of their ass. In my experience I have worked at 3(second was a 7week stretch) different dealers for a total of about 13years and eventually they all seem to get to the same point in frustration levels. As much as tried to suck it up wrench I got really tired of dealing with the BS, I have been told Im worthless as a tech(to my face), forced to work for free on another techs major recheck or loose my job(motor overhaul), directly told by management the customer is not worth taking the time to fix his truck correctly the first time and if you do you will not be paid or fired. All while I was one of the top techs in the shop. If you confront management it was a dick sucking contest trying to tell me how great I was and I can not leave blah blah blah. The best was telling me I was stuck working there and couldn't get a better job that was going to pay me as well so I should just deal with it. I laughed and smiled as I couldn't believe what I heard. Game on I thought to myself and set out to prove them wrong. A year later I did just that and ended up with alot better job for a salary wage greater then what I could pull flat rate. Jokes on them! I have been getting phone calls ever since to come back.

I understand the business and put up with a lot because I know thats the name of the game. It can be a good living but I believe every tech has his breaking point both mental and psychical. I mean really how long are you going to be able to wrench on a diesel? Most of the work is heavy line stuff. If your lucky you will get into a foreman position which ends up paying you less money for more responsibility and headaches.

When the job starts affecting your personal life and you bring that anger home or dread going back to work on monday its time to pull the plug and find something better.

kellyf · May 18, 2012

We do work on other models here.I work on both gas and diesel.The only thing I choose not to do is major trans work.I get paid a respectible flat rate wage,however mostly do warranty work while 15 dollar an hour guy borrows my tools to do gravy.If I TURN 30 HOURS A WEEK it is a good week.I just wish it was better.that's all

Fredsvt · May 19, 2012

I work in an indie shop, in the area of NJ we're in, almost all shops within about 10 miles of us are starving.

The local Honda dealer, who usually has 21 guys in the shop, last week, had 2.

The HD truck shop near us closed for a week, last week, because he had no work.

Move up the GSP, over the Driscoll bridge (Keith will know this one) and shops up there have more work than they know what to do with. I spoke with one guy that works in Woodbridge, NJ, they're looking for an experienced diesel guy, as their owner wants to get into fleet accounts.

I've been sent home early (salary) and missed half days over the course of the past couple of weeks. It's the slowest I can recall, ever, where I'm at.

In the particular area of NJ I'm in, so many people have lost jobs, many, many small companies closed up in 2009, never to reopen. There was a property tax reval that in some cases quadrupled or worse property taxes. Some homes went from 4k per year to 16k or more, for not much house. Many up and took off out of state. The lack of general vehicular traffic in the area is a big clue.

I also think many people at this point are waiting to see what happens in November. They're saving/socking away what money they can. Amongst a lot of other things, like food, survival gear, weapons, ammo, etc. The number of customers we've spoken to that are doing this is quite amazing. All due to what's gone on in DC. If someone isn't tossed out, it's over.

jimmy57 · May 19, 2012

Yes, If they don't spread the tax burden fairly and let the middle class have some relief it will not get better.

I'm not buying the 30 + years of trickle down.

The middle class spends money when they have it. You can't lay off people to get stock price up and continue to have money in consumers' hands.

Mbl35 · May 19, 2012

Yeah, I saw a video on youtube on how a large amount of buisinesses in the New Brunswick area shut there doors,

supermarkets, garages etc. Scary stuff.

Keith Browning · May 19, 2012

Maybe the fact that I live on warranty work is nothing to complain about. Posted Image

Jim Warman · May 19, 2012

It is what it is... we can either (at least) survive what we do or we can flourish at it. A day or two ago, I was frustrated enough to tell a nameless face in the shop that I was <THIS> (holds index finger and thumb nearly touching) far away from running away from home - I get like that sometimes. I was frustrated because some of the posturing ("we" tell customers things they like to hear just so they will stop phoning) was attempting to swallow me alive.

I threw my purse to the ground, took off my bra and got back to the task at hand.... Now, I gotta admit that I might be pretty "lucky", while I no longer own the title "shop foreman", neither my duties nor pay scale have changed (straight time trumps flat rate)... but I didn't get here by sitting in the back row whining to myself. FWIW, nobody is indispensable, but if someone has a question, if the answer is "better ask Jim", you have a leg up on the situation.

Anyway.... we each have a great amount of power over our own lives. I'm not saying that we can easily change our situation (when I got this job, I wasn't even looking for one) into something we like, but the situation we have is..... errrrmmmmmm, the situation we have.... if we can't learn to like it, we at least owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to learn to accept it and deal with it.

This is easy for me to say because I live in the Alberta oil patch... And the Alberta oil patch is a lot like sex. When it's good, it's great - and when it's bad, it's still pretty good. This is, of course, in an "am I keeping busy?" context.

A wise man once declared that the three key factors in running a successful business are location, location and location. If you are in the wrong location (and I wont pretend to understand the way Americans conduct their politics), change it. For some, it might be a difficult decision, but one of these days I'll post my timeline and you will see moving vast distances isn't all that bad.....

So... where the fuck was I????

Instead of wallowing around in some pit of misery, do something. Either learn to accept that life isn't the grand thing you hoped for (and it isn't - I turn 62 this year [mike, the instant you say "I can't do that" is the instant you begin to die] - not only do I relish working on 550s, I rarely ask for help moving "heavy stuff"), or change your situation.... Again, I can't speak for the way Americans do business, but "the land of the free" don't sound all that free (at the risk of alienating some folks, that seems to be "living a lie").

FWIW, I like our political model better than yours... just sayin'.

Bottom line... if your job ain't about to change, you either need to change the job or the way you look at it.... You only get one trip on the merry-go-round we call "life".

Alex Bruene · May 23, 2012

Just puttimg this idea out there for you guys.... indi shops are competing with you. So why.not compete with them Have a discussion with the other techs in

your shops about doing maintenance and repairs on all makes and models.

We work on all makes and models of trucks (with some exception) and trailers too. We are a medium duty truck shop that can do Ford Warranty, basically.

As much as I used to hate the QC-550, although I have no shortage of work, I'm finding it to be a very useful tool to make even more money... both retail and warranty. As much as they like to say you can't upsell warranty, marking something as RED on an inspection sheet (that is created and endorsed by Ford) almost guarantees you getting work off of it. I can't even count how many belt tensioners, oil leaks, rads and hoses I've been doing because of this form.

lmorris · May 23, 2012

Bottom line... if your job ain't about to change, you either need to change the job or the way you look at it.... You only get one trip on the merry-go-round we call "life".

And if that doesn't work...shut the fuck up, just say'n. I have worked with, and told off my share of negative nellies, nobody needs to hear the constant bitching if you are not willing to make a change.

Jim Warman · May 25, 2012

My own take on working on all makes... this deals especially with newer vehicles... "no more than 10 years old and the badge on the front matches the sign outside".

Don't get me wrong, I spent many years as a jack of all makes - but you will, in this manner, remain a master of none.

There are still shops out there that are trying to figure out where the PS reservoir is on some cars.