new tech hired in no tools

[Ben]

I HAVE BEEN ASKING AROUND FOR ADVICE ON DEALING WITH TECH GETTING HIRED ON AT MY PAY OR A LITTLE UNDER AND NOT ONE TOOL TO THIER NAME I GET IN ARGUMENTS WITH THEM AND MY BOSS IS LIKE JUST GET ALONG AM I AN IDIOT I HAVE BORROWED WHEN I STARTED OUT BUT JUST A FEW TIMES THEN I BOUGHT MY OWN BUT IT SEEMS KNOW GUYS DONT WANT TO BUY THIER OWN AND CALL ME A JERK .

Topic

[MARK FELDSTEIN]

Yeah ! That’s the one. Funny how you look at something every day and forget exactly what it says. I’ve put a Mr. Potato Head and a Mr. Bill doll in the bottom drawer for the curious. 😉

I’ve got some others with a pix of a guy holding a wrench beating another tech who borrowed his tools.
I really like this one though.

[Bluesnut]

I wouldn’t get into arguments with any of them. Just tell them and your boss that tool loaning is not on your agenda; unless the boss wants to start sending a weekly sum your way to cover wear and tear or loss.

[W00DBar0n]

i tend to let them borrow a tool once, after that i hand them a piece of paper with the local tool truck number.

[celticbhoy]

If you have to borrow it more than twice, you need to buy it. Luckily I’ve only had to borrow a couple of tools from the tech next beside me. Been on the look out for a good price on thin-walled impact sockets… difficult to come around.

[W00DBar0n]

[quote=”celticbhoy” post=63038]If you have to borrow it more than twice, you need to buy it. Luckily I’ve only had to borrow a couple of tools from the tech next beside me. Been on the look out for a good price on thin-walled impact sockets… difficult to come around.[/quote]
hate say it but i make my own.
just get good with a lath.

[Jameson]

borrowing tools is no joke. I hate to ask to borrow a tool, but I always let people borrow mine once or twice. And like a lot of you said..after that they need to get their own.

every time i have to borrow a tool, i go to Amazon and add that tool to my wishlist. And if Amazon doesn’t have it, I find it in the SnapOn catalog and text my dealer the part number so he can order it for me.

I,ve been lucky enough to work with mostly honest techs, so I haven’t to deal with any theft, but you never know. Obviously you have to keep borrowing the same tools, you need to go buy your own

[Craig Kinghorn]

I have been working on my own car and that of friends for years so have a pretty comprehensive set of tools, despite the fact they are all pretty mid range they still cost me a lot of money and the amount of times you end up replacing stuff because someone lost something or broke it is reason not to loan tools. I start college next month on the road to becoming a tech, if I have my own tools at this stage of the game how on earth can someone that has been hired in a professional capacity have no tools???

Tough love people! If you keep loaning them your tools then why would they need to buy their own?

My motto is , Il only ever not have the right tool once

[zero]

Need it once: Borrow it

Need it twice: Borrow it

Need it 3 times: Buy it

Starting my third head gasket tomorrow, gonna need to buy a torque angle gauge now. Nuts.

[Bruce]

We have a guy thats been here for 6-8 months. He has a fair amount of tools, but he is always barrowing tools. Not a day goes by that he isn’t barrowing something from somebody. Now I dont mind lending a tool to a guy, but like has been said already, if you barrow a couple times its time to buy your own. I told him the other day that he needed to buy some damn tools. He said, “No I have enough, besides I can just barrow it from yall if I dont have it.” Pissed my off big time. I dont remember what I said exactly but pretty much that I had to work to buy tools for me, not for him. He hasnt asked to barrow anything since.

[Robert]

Alright well, since the majority of you seem to feel the same way, let me pose a question.

I just got hired at Firestone as an apprentice/general service tech. I have no tools currently, but I am starting a technical school soon and they will provide me with tools. However there is going to be about a 2ish month gap in where I would have to borrow tools. Should I just bit the bullet and buy simple tools for now? Or should I just wait until I get the set from the school?

I really don’t wanna annoy the techs I’ll be working with, I would like to learn as much as possible from them.

Thanks all.

[Joe]

When I went to tech school they gave me a tool allowance rather than a set of tools. If this is the case then go ahead and get a decent starter set or something now and use your tool allowance to buy something like a nice set of ratchet wrenches or whatever.

[Ken]

At my old shop, we all shared each other’s tools and we were very cool. Me and the smog tech didn’t even bother locking our boxes, and neither did the boss and he had a lot of Snap-On. But he did have video cameras, heh heh heh. The diagnostic/smog tech would borrow tools from me all the time, he just didn’t have that many tools. Oh man and he would lose them and misplace them and almost never returned them, lol. But I loved him like a little brother and I could never be mad at him. And besides, a lot of my tools were from Harbor Freight and I got my Gearwrenches on sale baby, hah! Like Eric’s reliable old beater. If someone hit it with a shopping cart he’d just laugh. And if I lost a screwdriver or a socket, I’d be like, “Oh well, guess I’ll have to spend $10 to buy an entire new set!” Lol.

At the shop I’m at now I never keep my box locked either. There’s nothing there that if I lost I would cry over. Now if I had Snap On and lost a single socket, you bet I’d be crying spending five hours looking for it. Our master tech has a mixture of all sorts of tool brands from Snap On to Harbor Freight. We’ve got a new tech school grad and he is decked in Snap-On. I look at a single socket set of his and it’s like, “Man, those twelve sockets cost more than my entire second drawer.” Lol. Strange when I think of it like that.

I never lock my beater car either. It’s like, if you have your windows rolled down and car unlocked, people don’t think there’s anything of value in it. There could be ten thousand dollars in cash in it and people would just pass by it. And leaving my toolbox unlocked is kind of the same thing a little. I trust them and who in the world would want to steal my cheap Genius sockets or my Kobalt pliers (handles which are horrible by the way, and they’re hideous, but they work fine, lol).

New techs have no excuse. There is a plethora of good quality affordable tool brands. Harbor Freight (oh there’s some junk alright, but mostly fine tools), Craftsman, Stanley, Husky, Kobalt, parts store tool brands (a little questionable) like Duralast, Autocraft, OTC & Lisle (affordable specialty tools), OEM Tools, Gearwrench, Tekton, Sunex, Genius, Channellock (they make sockets too), J.H. Williams, Mountain, Titan, KD Tools, Carlyle (a bit more expensive), Grey Pneumatic, SK, Proto, Blackhawk, Armstrong, and more.

New techs starting out making nothing an hour should not be getting twenty grand into debt with the tool man, starting out just doing oil changes. If I were just doing tires and oil changes, I could probably buy less than $100 in tools and be set, lol.

There’s just no excuse, especially when they’ve got ridiculous rims on their cars or $200 sneakers or an iPhone. You better sell that iPhone and buy some tools right now or there is going to be some hazing and paddlin’! No I kid, hazing is one of the most sadistic human practices man has ever devised, and those people have no souls. That was a bit heavy, lol. Anyway, make him buy some tools, and don’t get into debt.

[Author]

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