Is Your Ego a Problem?

[EricTheCarGuy]

Well is it? What are your experiences with ego? Have you run into issues at work? How do you think ego effects the workplace?

Topic

[drthrift035]

You find people in every industry with Ego problems. At one point in time I was trying to get into University to get a degree and then become a lawyer. Thinking that if I was out of Automotive I could get away from Ego’s but I was wrong. Long story short, I went back to automotive work because I love it and I am aware that Egos exist everywhere. The people who get ahead are the ones humble enough to admit their mistakes and work on improving themselves. The people with the big egos make silly mistakes and keep themselves behind while others move ahead. Also egos can be a real danger to other people working in the shop as well as the customers.

[Gumpy Guss]

Good question.

Ego gets in the way all the time. We like to think we’re pretty darn smart and no mechanical or computer contraption is going to outsmart US.

But reality bites, hard, every time. Every time you think you’re so smart, and you jump to an unwarranted conclusion, you usually quickly find out that your’re WRONG, the problem is still there, and you’ve just wasted an hour and $88 replacing the wrong part.

The solution is to constantly tell yourself that although you’re good enough, smart enough, and darn it people like you, that means nothing to a brake caliper or to JavaScript function X99(). You have to constantly take a humble attitude, the old Wayne’s World “We are not worthy” chant, and try to avoid going off half cocked. A daily challenge. You ahve to remind yourself to do the due diligence and gather sufficient and conclusive evidence before getting out the impact wrench or modifying a line of code.

[Kevin Criswell]

Ego was the reason I left a shop.

After the shop I headed for 8 years closed I was back in the market for a new shop to work for. I get a call from a local shop that was looking for a drive-ability technician. I go in, talk to the owner and we settle on an agreement and I moved my tools in. While unloading the senior “tech” walks over sees my diagnostic cart loaded with scanners and a couple of lab-scopes and comments that “he never needed any stupid computer to fix cars”. For 2 days all I got was crap from the other “good ol boy” techs about how silly it was to have all the diagnostic tools I had “We just pull the battery cable son, and that fixes them “engine lights” right up”.

So first job I get is a crank position sensor that is failing when the engine is hot. I verified the fault using the Pegisys and lab scope and go to the lead tech to inform him of the fault. He tells me to replace the fuel filter :huh: and pull the battery cable. That kind of thing went on for a bit and I left after I found the head tech fixing a head gasket leak with a bottle of sealer and charging the customer for a gasket replacement (guy even charged for a head inspection and resurfacing).

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