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we had one lady who’s car stank so bad you could smell it in the entire 14 bay shop!! i refused to get in it and made the servce writed pull it on and off the rack and put the LOF sticker in the window. it smelled like dead bodies and rotten ass!! i had a student the other day refuse to work on a car at his job because there was soiled underwear on the shifter! wtf! nasty! i worked on a company’s fleet van one time and the guy drove it put his cigarettes out on the floor and threw all his trash on the floor, it took me a half an hour (which i billed them for) to clear enough room to remove the dog box to see the engine! nasty! one time i repaired a rain water leak on a catering van that had living roaches and combat roach bait things all through it! glad they never catered an event i went to! :sick:
we had one lady who’s car stank so bad you could smell it in the entire 14 bay shop!! i refused to get in it and made the servce writed pull it on and off the rack and put the LOF sticker in the window. it smelled like dead bodies and rotten ass!! i had a student the other day refuse to work on a car at his job because there was soiled underwear on the shifter! wtf! nasty! i worked on a company’s fleet van one time and the guy drove it put his cigarettes out on the floor and threw all his trash on the floor, it took me a half an hour (which i billed them for) to clear enough room to remove the dog box to see the engine! nasty! one time i repaired a rain water leak on a catering van that had living roaches and combat roach bait things all through it! glad they never catered an event i went to! :sick:
i hate to say it, but get used to it. even after i was master ASE certfied and co-owned a shop, i still had men come in and ask to speak to a “real mechanic”. the best part was that my male business partner would say “she’s one of the only real mechanics in this town, if you don’t want to deal with her good luck finding one better!” it was always nice to earn ppl’s trust. as a female mechanic, when you mess up everyone knows about it, but if you do a good job word travels faster than if a man does a good job. so use it to your advantage. don’t half ass your way through auto tech school, you have to be good or you will get walked all over. put ur heart into it and learn everything you can, if you don’t you are wasting your time! good luck and “stay dirty” lol.
i hate to say it, but get used to it. even after i was master ASE certfied and co-owned a shop, i still had men come in and ask to speak to a “real mechanic”. the best part was that my male business partner would say “she’s one of the only real mechanics in this town, if you don’t want to deal with her good luck finding one better!” it was always nice to earn ppl’s trust. as a female mechanic, when you mess up everyone knows about it, but if you do a good job word travels faster than if a man does a good job. so use it to your advantage. don’t half ass your way through auto tech school, you have to be good or you will get walked all over. put ur heart into it and learn everything you can, if you don’t you are wasting your time! good luck and “stay dirty” lol.
hi trish,
i’m glad to hear you have chosen this career. it is ever changing and i guarantee you will learn something new everyday or every hour somedays, lol. what textbook are you using in school? title and publisher please. this is my first year as a teacher and our book sucks, but a good textbook makes a different. are you in an adult program or are you still in high school? do you guys have Today’s Class or CDX? if you don’t know what those are then you aren’t using them, lol. they are online programs for learning automotive that are purchased through the school. they are both awesome programs. most states pay for them through grants so it’s usually no expense to the school. as far as advice, i could write all day and givve you advice, but as a women you must know from the start that you have to be good, really good, or the industry will chew you up and spit you out. a man can be a bad technician his whole life and get away with it, but a woman can’t do that. if you aren’t good they will be cruel and chase you out, it could be a slow process or a speedy one, depends on where you are. if a man screws up a job, it’s like no big deal he’s human. if a woman screws up it’s because she’s an idiot and shouldn’t be under the hood. news of you screwing up will travel faster than bob’s screw up in the bay next to you i guarantee it! i was an awesome student, my teacher completely sucked and i didn’t learned hardly anything from him (one of the reasons i think that makes me a good teacher), so i taught myself wahtever i could get my hands on. being a technician is something you have or you don’t. it’s in my blood line and i was always good at it. you have to have a strong personality, but know when to listen and learn too. you can’t be timid or quiet or they will walk all over you, but don’t be loud and obnoxious, just learn your shit so you can be confident with confidence, lol. you can always ask me stuff, i will help you as much i can. my best student is a female and she is amazing. she already has 5 ASE certifications, she won the state Skills USA competition in job skills demonstration (where she showed the judges how to take apart a cylinder head), and she has the highest score in the whole school (500+) students for the WorkKeys test, she’s just simply awesome and if i had at least 5 of her every year i’d teach for the rest of my life. her one downfall is that she has missed so many days of school that if she’s late even 6 minutes, i have to kick her out of my class 🙁 in the beginning she slacked, wanted to sleep in, etc. but then she started having real illnesses and it ate up her days. so go to school like you’re supposed to. nobody respects a female mechanic who whines and who is always sick, that will get you fired faster than any man. i never whined, and i worked harder than most of the men. you have to have a strong work ethic and you will spend the first year proving yourself to everyone you deal with – EVERYONE! i could sugar coat my advice and tell you it’s so easy and the men will accept you, but the reality is that you will have it harder than any man, so you have to bust your ass to show them that you can and will do it. so if i haven’t talked you out of it, lol, drop me a line whenever. i am super busy, so it may take me awhile to get back with you. learn everything you can and watch eric’s videos. there are a bunch of other YouTubers out there with awesome videos too. Scanner Danner is one, he did a video with eric once. good luck, hope to keep in touch with you.hi trish,
i’m glad to hear you have chosen this career. it is ever changing and i guarantee you will learn something new everyday or every hour somedays, lol. what textbook are you using in school? title and publisher please. this is my first year as a teacher and our book sucks, but a good textbook makes a different. are you in an adult program or are you still in high school? do you guys have Today’s Class or CDX? if you don’t know what those are then you aren’t using them, lol. they are online programs for learning automotive that are purchased through the school. they are both awesome programs. most states pay for them through grants so it’s usually no expense to the school. as far as advice, i could write all day and givve you advice, but as a women you must know from the start that you have to be good, really good, or the industry will chew you up and spit you out. a man can be a bad technician his whole life and get away with it, but a woman can’t do that. if you aren’t good they will be cruel and chase you out, it could be a slow process or a speedy one, depends on where you are. if a man screws up a job, it’s like no big deal he’s human. if a woman screws up it’s because she’s an idiot and shouldn’t be under the hood. news of you screwing up will travel faster than bob’s screw up in the bay next to you i guarantee it! i was an awesome student, my teacher completely sucked and i didn’t learned hardly anything from him (one of the reasons i think that makes me a good teacher), so i taught myself wahtever i could get my hands on. being a technician is something you have or you don’t. it’s in my blood line and i was always good at it. you have to have a strong personality, but know when to listen and learn too. you can’t be timid or quiet or they will walk all over you, but don’t be loud and obnoxious, just learn your shit so you can be confident with confidence, lol. you can always ask me stuff, i will help you as much i can. my best student is a female and she is amazing. she already has 5 ASE certifications, she won the state Skills USA competition in job skills demonstration (where she showed the judges how to take apart a cylinder head), and she has the highest score in the whole school (500+) students for the WorkKeys test, she’s just simply awesome and if i had at least 5 of her every year i’d teach for the rest of my life. her one downfall is that she has missed so many days of school that if she’s late even 6 minutes, i have to kick her out of my class 🙁 in the beginning she slacked, wanted to sleep in, etc. but then she started having real illnesses and it ate up her days. so go to school like you’re supposed to. nobody respects a female mechanic who whines and who is always sick, that will get you fired faster than any man. i never whined, and i worked harder than most of the men. you have to have a strong work ethic and you will spend the first year proving yourself to everyone you deal with – EVERYONE! i could sugar coat my advice and tell you it’s so easy and the men will accept you, but the reality is that you will have it harder than any man, so you have to bust your ass to show them that you can and will do it. so if i haven’t talked you out of it, lol, drop me a line whenever. i am super busy, so it may take me awhile to get back with you. learn everything you can and watch eric’s videos. there are a bunch of other YouTubers out there with awesome videos too. Scanner Danner is one, he did a video with eric once. good luck, hope to keep in touch with you.they sure do. the dealership gets paid a certain amount per hour of labor from the manufacturer to cover the labor for warranty repairs. that’s why the dealership likes when a $15 hr tech does warranty work vs a $25 hr tech, because they make more money when the first guy does it. that’s why they have lube techs and lower paid mechanics doing their PDI’s because then the dealership gets to pocket the difference.
they sure do. the dealership gets paid a certain amount per hour of labor from the manufacturer to cover the labor for warranty repairs. that’s why the dealership likes when a $15 hr tech does warranty work vs a $25 hr tech, because they make more money when the first guy does it. that’s why they have lube techs and lower paid mechanics doing their PDI’s because then the dealership gets to pocket the difference.
i don’t like the flat rate system as a technician either guys, but you have to think of it in a business perspective too. for example: i own a shop and i have 3 mechanics. i have rent to pay on my building, advertising, utilities, property insurance, workmans comp insurance, FICA and Soc Sec taxes to match my employees, on top of payroll, and all the other overhead that doesn’t go away just cause there’s no work to do. if the employees in my shop don’t turn at least 90 hours of billed labor a week, i can’t pay all of my overhead and i will go out of business within a few months. where do you think the money comes from to pay the employees if they aren’t producing paid labor hours from the customers (revenue)? how does a shop make money? off of labor and parts sales. the percentage of markup on parts from cost is not as much as you think, big chains like advance, o’reilly’s, and auto zone have caused us not to be able to mark up our parts like we used to in able to compete with their over the counter/walkin prices. so labor is my money maker and if there’s no labor being done, there’s no customers paying, and there’s no bills getting paid. that’s why the flat-rate system makes sense with shops, especially independant shops because they don’t have the extra money to pay a guy $10 an hour standing around doing nothing, not producing revenue. that would be $400 gone to the employee with $0 coming in from the customers! but on the flat-rate system that same guy would get paid for what he did, if he turned 40 hours he’d get paid $400, but at $70/hr of customer pay he’d bring in $2800 of labor revenue for the business. the shop has to make money to make payroll. so you can knock flat-rate as much as you want, but until you run a business you can’t really understand that that’s the only way small shops survive-from the flat rate system. how else could you pay those 3 mechanics their paychecks if they don’t turn(sell) enough hours to cover their pay? where does the money come from is it’s not coming from customers? i have several coins planted in my backyard waiting for that money tree to grow, but it’s not. so tell me where would it come from?
i don’t like the flat rate system as a technician either guys, but you have to think of it in a business perspective too. for example: i own a shop and i have 3 mechanics. i have rent to pay on my building, advertising, utilities, property insurance, workmans comp insurance, FICA and Soc Sec taxes to match my employees, on top of payroll, and all the other overhead that doesn’t go away just cause there’s no work to do. if the employees in my shop don’t turn at least 90 hours of billed labor a week, i can’t pay all of my overhead and i will go out of business within a few months. where do you think the money comes from to pay the employees if they aren’t producing paid labor hours from the customers (revenue)? how does a shop make money? off of labor and parts sales. the percentage of markup on parts from cost is not as much as you think, big chains like advance, o’reilly’s, and auto zone have caused us not to be able to mark up our parts like we used to in able to compete with their over the counter/walkin prices. so labor is my money maker and if there’s no labor being done, there’s no customers paying, and there’s no bills getting paid. that’s why the flat-rate system makes sense with shops, especially independant shops because they don’t have the extra money to pay a guy $10 an hour standing around doing nothing, not producing revenue. that would be $400 gone to the employee with $0 coming in from the customers! but on the flat-rate system that same guy would get paid for what he did, if he turned 40 hours he’d get paid $400, but at $70/hr of customer pay he’d bring in $2800 of labor revenue for the business. the shop has to make money to make payroll. so you can knock flat-rate as much as you want, but until you run a business you can’t really understand that that’s the only way small shops survive-from the flat rate system. how else could you pay those 3 mechanics their paychecks if they don’t turn(sell) enough hours to cover their pay? where does the money come from is it’s not coming from customers? i have several coins planted in my backyard waiting for that money tree to grow, but it’s not. so tell me where would it come from?
i have worked with the flat-rate system at the dealership, hourly system at an independent shop, i was on salary when i co-owned my shop, and i’m on salary now (although it’s teacher’s salasry so it sucks!). so i’ve dealt with them all. obviously, the best is when you’re an owner on salary, it’s good money and easy to budget. i really think the systems depend on the experience level. if you are an experienced tech with good knowledge it is easier to make money then a guy who’s just starting out when on the flat-rate system. getting paid hourly is better for the guys still learning the ropes. most independent shops can’t afford to pay hourly because they don’t have a lot of disposable capital to pay techs who aren’t producing revenue. my guys were paid flat rate when i had my shop. i used to always tell them to figure out what the bare minimum of hours they needed to turn to pay their bills. say it was 35 hours. so on the weeks that they turned 45 they needed to save that difference for the weeks that they only turned 25. “banking” those big checks to offset the little ones is how you survive on flat rate. i was a single parent with two kids under the age of 4 when i started turning wrenches and i survived because i was good with my money, so i always hated hearing the whiners about their crappy paychecks when they had a home with dual income or no kids. personally, for me i preferred getting paid hourly vs. flat rate. when i was getting paid hourly it gave me the chance to work on anything and learn new things because i was getting paid no matter what i did. now i wasn’t the slack off type that stood around on the clock with her thumb up her ass either, i worked when i was on the clock and the cameras he had in the shop made sure of it. when you negotiate hourly if you are used to flat rate you need to take your average flat-rate gross pay and find an hourly gross paycheck using usually a 45 hour week, that way you will make about the same or more, but it will be steady pay. i made $18 flat-rate at the deaership when i left, but only made $16.50 hourly at the independent shop, but i made a ton more getting paid hourly. anything over 40 hours is overtime too! the best pay hands down is salary if you negotiate it right and get paid what you are worth. i never settled for what they first offered me, i always knew what i was worth and i always got paid what i negotiated, except of course as a state paid employee, as a teacher your screwed either way. you don’t teach for the money you teach because you like to teach. not to mention the 6 weeks i get off in the summer, 1 week at thansgiving, 1.5 weeks at xmas, and 1 week for spring break-that’s why you teach, lol. sorry so long!! stepping off the soapbox now.
i have worked with the flat-rate system at the dealership, hourly system at an independent shop, i was on salary when i co-owned my shop, and i’m on salary now (although it’s teacher’s salasry so it sucks!). so i’ve dealt with them all. obviously, the best is when you’re an owner on salary, it’s good money and easy to budget. i really think the systems depend on the experience level. if you are an experienced tech with good knowledge it is easier to make money then a guy who’s just starting out when on the flat-rate system. getting paid hourly is better for the guys still learning the ropes. most independent shops can’t afford to pay hourly because they don’t have a lot of disposable capital to pay techs who aren’t producing revenue. my guys were paid flat rate when i had my shop. i used to always tell them to figure out what the bare minimum of hours they needed to turn to pay their bills. say it was 35 hours. so on the weeks that they turned 45 they needed to save that difference for the weeks that they only turned 25. “banking” those big checks to offset the little ones is how you survive on flat rate. i was a single parent with two kids under the age of 4 when i started turning wrenches and i survived because i was good with my money, so i always hated hearing the whiners about their crappy paychecks when they had a home with dual income or no kids. personally, for me i preferred getting paid hourly vs. flat rate. when i was getting paid hourly it gave me the chance to work on anything and learn new things because i was getting paid no matter what i did. now i wasn’t the slack off type that stood around on the clock with her thumb up her ass either, i worked when i was on the clock and the cameras he had in the shop made sure of it. when you negotiate hourly if you are used to flat rate you need to take your average flat-rate gross pay and find an hourly gross paycheck using usually a 45 hour week, that way you will make about the same or more, but it will be steady pay. i made $18 flat-rate at the deaership when i left, but only made $16.50 hourly at the independent shop, but i made a ton more getting paid hourly. anything over 40 hours is overtime too! the best pay hands down is salary if you negotiate it right and get paid what you are worth. i never settled for what they first offered me, i always knew what i was worth and i always got paid what i negotiated, except of course as a state paid employee, as a teacher your screwed either way. you don’t teach for the money you teach because you like to teach. not to mention the 6 weeks i get off in the summer, 1 week at thansgiving, 1.5 weeks at xmas, and 1 week for spring break-that’s why you teach, lol. sorry so long!! stepping off the soapbox now.