What other careers have you considered?

[Konrad]

As a tech, what other career paths have you considered? We have all seen the safety videos with the eye patch guy telling us ‘it only took a second’. Maybe you are just tired and want a change in your life, or you are looking for a bigger pay check.

Below are just my thoughts and maybe a rant.

I have had trouble sleeping lately. My mind keeps racing and it’s telling me to move on. I have been an Audi tech for 8 years now and have been wrenching mostly on Audis for about 12. I even worked as a technical instructor for Audi and that was pretty much the least rewarding thing i have done so i went back to wrenching. As for right now i’m a master tech and i’m certified for every platform and engine. Every day is a learning experience but it feels like the learning curve has plateaued. It’s all TSBs and pattern failures. I love everything about cars, but this is not what i wanted when i decided to make a living from my passion. I used to wake up excited to get to work and get the next ticket, but now it feels like a job. I pretty much reached the top of this career path and now it’s just a dead end.

There is a discussion topic in this forum regarding pay and it is an issue. Flat rate techs bust their knuckles every single day and their pay does not reflect the effort. You really have to love what you do just to keep going, and that is fading for me. In the past i didn’t mind the low pay, deplorable work conditions, or faults in management. I’m becoming jaded and the pay is starting to get under my skin. Before i didn’t care what i got paid as long as i could be around my favorite cars.

Switching to another brand is not an option. This brand is something that is very personal to me and i treat each car as if it were my own. It’s like a relationship. This is my one love, and i just couldn’t invest myself like that again. Like a dysfunctional relationship, it has to end. There is real love there, but we both know it can’t last.

Audi is part of the VW group and so the engineering language is shared between all group vehicles. My options are to move to higher end VW group vehicles like Bentley or Lamborghini. I have worked on both and it was all familiar territory. It would be like working for Audi, but with some minor differences. This would temporarily make my job more challenging and satisfying, but i would have to start from the bottom again and the earning potential wouldn’t improve by much.

Now i’m considering switching to a different industry. Maybe something union. Renewable energy is something i have been taking a hard look into. Even going back to school and finishing my engineering degree – i just don’t want to end up in cubicle at Motorola designing a keypad for a phone and being surrounded by hundreds of others performing some similar brain numbing task.

What are your thoughts?

Topic

[Bill]

I often thought about becoming a Gynecologist instead of being an automotive tech. The parts never change when a new model comes out and i coulda retired rich by now.

Seriously, I’m becoming as sludged up as you are. If you’re gonna change your profession you better do it before it’s too late. I’m really not an Audi fan. If i had to work on em every day i would be insane by now.

I just parted ways with my employer as I wasn’t an asset to the company anymore. I lost some of the passion,i like you once had. I had a choice between a $12.00 an hour cut in flat rate pay to perform light duty work (Lube tech)or leave.
I chose the later. Kinda a kick in the ass after being a tech for 45 years.

[Bruce]

Military, but to old for that now.

I have to much time and money invested in this to move on. Besides I enjoy it more than I dont, so I dont see a point in moving on for me. I will, however, try to get a job as a fleet mechanic for a company or government.

[celticbhoy]

If my health was better and my fiance wasn’t extremely against it, i’d give boxing a shot if automotive didn’t work out. Other than that, i’ve always like the idea of opening my own pub, but in all honesty, i can’t see myself doing anything other than working on cars.

[Andrew]

[quote=”FourRings” post=62701]i just don’t want to end up in cubicle at Motorola designing a keypad for a phone and being surrounded by hundreds of others performing some similar brain numbing task.[/quote]

That would be my worst nightmare, indeed! I had a bit of office work experience in my life (dealership owners wanted to train me into service manager so I started with doing warranty claims and all that) and it was much, much worse than any workshop I was in. Minutes turned into hours, literally.
I am thinking about getting an engineering degree, may be some sort of online course (mechatronics seems like something good for me), so I can get into service / field engineer sort of job. I am about to build a house with seriously big garage / workshop with lift so I can still save a huge money on maintaining my own vehicles and may be do some occasional side work for cash or buy and fix broken cars for resale.

[EndSupremacy]

I would love to go into the military as a helicopter mechanic or aircraft mechanic. However I have a hearing impairment that has that option obsolete. I tried doing it. Before I was a mechanic, I was a union construction laborer. I made really good money doing that. About 3 months ago, I got the opportunity to get back into the union. However, construction is slow right now and I haven’t done construction since I got back in the union. Once my number is up on the “out-of-work list”, I’ll be making about $40/hr. Until then, I’m unemployed and have my own mobile mechanic side business (which doesn’t make a lot of money).

[Benjamin]

i got booted from the military (long story). did home remodeling until the money ran out, then retail work and finally school. while i was unemployed before, i got hired as an insurance salesman for primerica(a scam), a salesman for kirby vacuums(a bigger scam), and i delivered burgers and tacos. at this point, i’m pretty much done, mechanic on cars or in a steel mill. i don’t really care as long as i can swing a hammer or turn a wrench.

[Krys Kozlowski]

To be perfectly honest, I switched to Audio engineering, which is more fun and pays more by the hour, but also is a bit rare of a profession so not much work around here in Frankfurt. Considering going back the other way after moving back to the states, we’ll see 😉

[Ed Curry]

Hi, i’m new to forum but not really to cars. this forum is by far the best I’ve come across; real people. I got a job as a welder after I left my last tech job and honestly I didn’t like it. i’m true to my cars and my cars are true to me. I don’t know what that means but I like it. anyway, for those thinking of switching careers make sure you exhaust all of your options before taking a different route. I’ve worked in the auto field for mostly small shops so I can’t say I understand what it feels like to be raped by the dealerships but Like someone said above, it may just be the employer and the work environment that you don’t like and not the job itself. I went to school for welding and now im not so certain its something I want to do anymore so before you invest time and money into a new career use the old skool trick called ‘research’. I currently work at a grocery store cleaning toilets b/c I can’t decide what to do lol sooo you cant get worse than that! :cheer:

[Rob]

Something ‘technical’ was a given.. i grew up in a company that made steel structures for buildings pretty much. I like math (that had a clear purpose) and physics.. Language, chemisty and biology not so much at all.

Started work as a mechanic when i was 18, for several years i worked on really different things, construction equipement, generator sets and platform/boom lifts, clean room equipment for IC production and then in a food manufacturing plant (shifts).

I enjoyed this a lot, the first company was a rental company. Interesting equipment, but repairing customer damage and routine diesel maintenance gets boring quick. The second company was really hi tech, each component almost like a little work of art, extensive documentation, procedures, and silly overalls. The reduced productions after a few months and i was last in, first out. Then the food factory, loads and loads of different technical systems to work on here, from automation electronics to steam, refrigeration, termal oil, water treatment plant, biogas production, air pressure lines, high pressure water systems, clean-in-place equipment and ofcourse the good old belts, chains, bearings, seals etc etc to be replaced. Got to work very independantly there, just walk around with a two-way radio, it beeps, you respond. You get to deal with loads of different people, and when the shift is over you go home, never know what you’ll be doing tomorrow.

But from things i’ve seen with coworkers, without further education ‘first mechanic’ would be end of the line (i was 3rd, close to 2nd when i left). Shift supervisor (3 ppl below you) wasn’t going to happen.

So i went back to school for a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering. After that i’ve worked for several companies who produce one of a kind factory equipment/machinery. A large part of my day is spend behind a computer these days with software like Solidworks and Inventor.

So i considered, and followed trough with becoming an engineer. I do miss it from time to time, dirty hands, fixing things, little worries, getting things done fast without meetings powerpoint presentations from sales.. 😆 I still get to making my hands dirty in the weekend, but thats just not the same. Its rare these days that i get to build/assemble some testing device or prototype, i always enjoy doing that when i can.

Oh and when i was a kid i considered farming and demolition 😆 😆 must have been the large equipment. Big power, noise and some distruction still work for me on a really childish level 😛

[Tommy Hotopp]

I’ve really always wanted to be a mechanic. I couldn’t really tell you where my passion for automobiles came from, but as far as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to wrench.

I did ten years active duty Air Force as a parachute rigger. Wanted to be a mechanic when I went in, then tried to cross train into the mechanic career field during my time. Obviously neither one worked out. So I separated, took the Post 9/11 GI Bill and ran with it. I’m about 75% done with an automotive degree, and have started working towards knocking out ASEs.

[Jamie]

I know several former dealer mechanics from both VW and Audi. Perhaps in Canada conditions are a little different but they more or less moved on for similar reasons – management being the big one.

In any case they were all scooped up pretty quick. A couple ended up at shops that primarily work on German cars and didn’t have the strain to preform or volume a dealer had. The other techs ended up at high performance shops that primarily work on German platforms and their skills, knowledge and attention to detail were highly valued. Almost no service oriented work outside of their own cars, more cool stuff and building, tuning and in some case salary vs flat rate.

I’ve also delt with a couple of former VW dealer techs that started their own shop. In their area there was no German specialist. They also get to work on a wider range of stuff including a lot of air cooled restorations. VW-Audi owners will always take their car to techs that know the vehicle inside and out. Worked well for them.

Something to consider? Hope it all works out for you, loosing sleep because of your job is no good.

[Chevypower]

Legendary lead guitar player in a world famous rock band. Only problem there is that even after 10 years, I’m still a shitty guitarist…

Boeing. They’ve got to have some kinda shit that needs fixin.

Still, I love Chevrolet, and fixing them is usually a blast. I had a ton of fun in high school welding classes.
A part of me used to think Diesel would be good, but I don’t want to spend more money on bigger tools, and I don’t want to lift heavy ass parts all day. Besides, you can’t tell me that your shop has a wrecker that drags everything into the comfortable shop. I’ve seen tractor/trailers on the side of the road with a flat or 10. The first time they tell me to go out on the side of Interstate 5 in the dark, snow, and rush-hour traffic to fix a truck on the side of the road, I’m gonna tell them where to shove it.

This is a good topic though. It keeps creeping up in the back of my mind. I’m sick of blowing ungodly sums of money on the tool trucks. I’m sick of working too hard for not enough mulah. Most of all, I fucking hate changing oil & tires.

[Nolan Kettle]

Career firefighter or Paid EMT
been a firefighter/EMR in CT for almost four years and its about the only line of work other than autmotive that i have a ton of passion for. But unfortunately jobs as a career FF are scare and being an emt pays poorly.

Wrenching has always been my passion, I was never the kid to have the new electronics or video games, i always had minibikes and dirt bikes and always wanted to have tools. And now that i have the oppurtunity to obtain a formal education to become a diesel tech I will be pursuing that career, Grew up around trucks because my dad always drove and spent a lot of time in a diesel shop with my dads best friend who was like an uncle. cant really see my self doing anything that doesnt involve working on something.

[Mike Miller]

After years of working in dealerships and small shops I started to become burnt out . Shop politics and bad choices on my part (literally ran out of town because I was stupid enough to sign a no competition clause for a large Chevy dealer in a small city) I quit . I than shuffled around in the job market for a couple years before I became an automation tech for a large company. After four years of going back to school and hard work I became the head tech and have loved every day of it for the past nine year’s. I make better money than I did wrenching on cars and don’t have the stress of flat rate hanging over my head.

I still have the itch I can’t scratch for working on cars and still work on them in my spare time . Also watch the vidio OUT MODED he is speaking the absolute truth on that . I am no more than an out moded auto tech because I moved on to automation. Im on hell of an automation tech now and I’m fine with that. So if you move on you will need to be fine with what you become or be unhappy.

[Author]

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