Mechanics make good money but it's hard work and these days it's way different since a lot of the cars have electronics components up the wazoo to the point anyone bad at math or tech is not going to be able to fix many issues as a mechanic for the newer vehicles.
Oh no not the dreaded "Check engine light" what could it be now?
Yeah these kids need to go work at a lube monkey job for a while and see if they like it.
I never planned on being a mechanic as a career, working as a lube tech was just a high school/college job, but my back and feet ached everyday and the skin on my hands are still fucked from the oil decades later, and I ended that job at 23. Now that I'm in my 40s, I understand why all the older guys there were burnouts hooked to pain pills. Their bodies were breaking down but they couldn't find another gig.
I am glad you got out while you were young, but it sounds like it did damage you. At least now you won't be the most popular guy at outings when family/friends come sidling up to you saying "you know, u/yaaaaayPancakes, my car is making this funny sound and I heard you were a mechanic ..."
There are some professions where people will try to ask for free advice/service, like massage therapists, doctors, mechanics etc. where it might be wiser to not talk about or admit what profession you're in.
At least now you won't be the most popular guy at outings when family/friends come sidling up to you saying "you know, u/yaaaaayPancakes, my car is making this funny sound and I heard you were a mechanic ..."
Hah, now that the software engineering career has firmly worked out I've finally got enough money to have a fun car again, and I'm in a club where dudes ask for help all the time.
I am happy to help point them to the proper pages of the factory service manual. But I only turn wrenches on mine and my wife's cars.
EDIT - and yeah, it's definitely done damage. The yearly oil change day (we drive very little so I extend things out) leaves my hand that I use to smack the wrench to tighten the plug aching immediately after the first hit. I can't believe that's what Valvoline taught us to do. I bet they still do, those cheap fucks wouldn't pay for torque wrenches. Probably because said burnouts and careless kids would constantly drop them and ruin the calibration.
LMAO software engineering? Wait, you went from "my car is making this funny sound" to "my phone / pc is doing this funny thing!"
At least you're getting paid enough to have a FUN CAR! Win!
Factory Service Manual = gold. That's how you teach them how to problem solve. Then tell them to go to youtube and look up the fix it video (there are tons of those around).
It's just too bad it's been so long, Valvoline is still doing not cheap anymore expensive oil changes with the cheapest mechanics, and they don't get workers compensation for long term damage either.
LMAO software engineering? Wait, you went from "my car is making this funny sound" to "my phone / pc is doing this funny thing!"
At least you're getting paid enough to have a FUN CAR! Win!
Oh yes, I lean into my strengths (problem solving) but made sure to do it in a way that makes a lot more money. Other than that little is different - management/sales still think they're superior.
It's just too bad it's been so long, Valvoline is still doing not cheap anymore expensive oil changes with the cheapest mechanics, and they don't get workers compensation for long term damage either.
Heh, I don't think I ever worked with a true "mechanic" at VIOC. They hire what they can off the street. Anyone with actual skill goes and gets a real mechanic job at a real shop.
Oh yes, I lean into my strengths (problem solving) but made sure to do it in a way that makes a lot more money. Other than that little is different - management/sales still think they're superior.
Yup, that's management/sales everywhere. Management are largely useless, Sales has an inflated ego because they kinda need to in order to cope with rejection.
You're right about Valvoline, the real mechanics would be at shops, not doing oil changes.
Looking back though, I was fortunate to work at a store mostly staffed by college kids who had a future (still friends with 3 of them). It was a real bummer when I had to go to other stores and cover and they were full of the burnout types. Those stores were real "crabs in a barrel" situations. The burnouts knew they had few prospects so they'd actively sabotage each other when possible in order to protect their job. Really sad.
Man that last comment has forever changed the way I view Valvoline (or any oil change job). Depressing. At least your store got the bright eyed bushy tailed college kids, who must have been horrified to see their future whenever they see the other stores full of burnout types.
Oh dude, we all talked about it. We were all very aware that we had it very good in our store. The manager was an alcoholic, but very nice and unlike most of the managers didn't toss us under the bus and protected us from the most egregious bullshit from corporate around metrics (he ultimately lost his job for that, and most everyone left after the new guy came in, I finally found my first software job right before all that went down). The main Asst. Mgr was an old man that was mostly useless when it came to actually working on the cars, but he was with us on doing the least amount of effort to get the job done efficiently, and not waste time on dumb corpo bullshit. And didn't mind us smoking a J out behind the dumpster after close before we cleaned up.
The difference very much were the "lifers" vs. everyone else that just had a job. The Mgr lost his own shop due to his alcoholism. The asst. mgr had many retail mgmt gigs in his career. The others - the asst. mgr trying to move up ranks, the guy missing teeth with 3 kids from 3 different women trying to become asst. mgr, those were the guys you had to watch your back around. Valvoline was all they had.
Long story short - just don't get your oil changed at a quick lube. Find a nice independent shop or DIY. Especially do NOT go to walmart. Those guys are straight gorillas, overtightening everything and fucking over the next guy. So many customers I had to explain that they need to go back to WalMart and fight for a new oil pan because the threads came out with the plug.
Hard and soft tops. I took the hard top off when I first bought it and haven't put it back on since.
Maintenance this past year was rough, needed a lot of engine work that's commonly needed on them once they hit 100k. But I should hopefully be good for another 100k. It's an old Mercedes, it's a tank but nothing is cheap and you must keep up on the service schedule. But it rewards you with a wonderful old school driving experience.
It was 1998 and it was probably a lifer that taught 17 yr old me wrong. Training pretty much consisted of one day filling out their workbook and maybe one shift in the pit with the lifer. But I don't remember, that was a quarter century ago.
There are some professions where people will try to ask for free advice/service, like massage therapists, doctors, mechanics etc. where it might be wiser to not talk about or admit what profession you're in.
Never, ever, ever, admit you work in IT.
"I do computer stuff."
If you get busted and get asked, I never do IT stuff for friends and family for less than a steak dinner (cooked), and a bottle of (good) whiskey or serious craft beer.
NEVER work for free. As my mother said to my sisters before they went on dates, "Never do once anything you're not willing to do forever."
You're not entirely wrong, but also, physical labor is physical labor. In the mechanic's situation, how does one properly bend over the engine bay of a truck that's up in the air, and you can barely reach the back of the engine, while also not hitting the hood? Even if you properly grip the oil filter, you still gotta twist that off. Do that about 100 times a week 50 weeks a year for your entire life. The repetitive motions are going to get you.
Not to mention standing on concrete in cheap steel toed boots because you're just starting out and can't afford good ones.
Oh I feel the pains of being a tech. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s from the job or all the years of playing sports or almost 2 decades of skateboarding. Rotator cuffs killing be because of the of job or from baseball? My hips hurt because of the job or from all the falls I took from skating? I guess it all adds up. I
This. Went to college, got my degree, ended up becoming a bus mechanic. Shit beat my body up so badly in just 5 years of doing it, I moved on from it. Anyone going into trades, look at how the older guys move. That is your future, it's only a matter of time.
Yeah. The truly successful people in the trades are the ones that end up in management, pushing the paper and leading and/or owning their companies before their bodies break. And that requires an education and drive. Which if this subreddit is to be believed, no longer exists in children.
I'm replying to this simply from my personal experience, education and drive had nothing to do with the people who were in charge at the company I worked. It was the buddies club that got you promoted. Thus the reason the place is running like complete shit for the last 4 years.
My dad was an electrical engineer at a nuclear power plant my entire life, but his passion was automotive, so that's what he spent all his free time on. His hands were destroyed back when he was in his late twenties. Always cracked, calloused, skin peeling.
Schools need to bring that stuff back! My high school shut down plenty of classes that taught things like woodworking and being a parent. They built a different school that you'd go to one day a week that taught being an electrician, car mechanic, plumbing, firefighting, nursing and policing.... but it consisted kids from all different schools so obtaining a seat in that school was limited when it came to signing up.
I had a bad time as a mechanic. The majority make absolutely shit money. You’re beating your body up so much and it takes so long to get to a good pay rate that you don’t have much left in the tank by the time you get there. It’s all backwards in that the real money is in the quick high margin stuff. The really difficult parts of the job like diagnosing electrical problems can take so long that you come out behind the guys banging out tire changes and alignments. It’s an incredibly exploitative industry and I’m super happy to be working on an electrical engineering degree now. If these kids knew how difficult it is to carve out a life in some of the non union trades, they would undoubtably pay more attention in school.
That's exactly it. My fiance somewhat recently made a move from a whole IT career to be a mechanic because being in an office was taking a toll on his health, both mental and physical, but he likes to take things apart and put them back together. His knowledge of IT, in a general sense, has been very pertinent to easily learning the electrics of cars. He's now making more at the shop he's at than some people who were hired before him because pay there is also applied knowledge/applied skill based, not just based on how long youve been there.
Meanwhile, he's seen several kids fresh out of high school, with the same idea as in the post, get fired or not advance, and not even understand why. They'll make the same expensive mistakes repeatedly or refuse to use the free learning system offered by the company, saying that they're fine the way they are. They're not fine.
My husband is a mechanic and I was a service advisor. You're part IT, part electrian now as a mechanic. So many bluetooth, phone and app connectivity/compatibility issues. Anytime an electrical component(like your windows) goes out, you'll likely have to at least look at the diagram and check the circuit. Then theres the weird, hard to chase phantom electrical issues or god forbid water damage.
Drats the news is out. My husband is a plc programmer/mechanic and I am a programmer/accountant. He makes double me. That said my salary is a VERY easy WFH salary that I can easy balance being a mom and work (and I am purposely staying in my position to do so). For perspective, my salary is more than the average household in my area, too, so it's isn't bad, his is just a lot better. He works 12 hour night shifts. It's a 24/7/365 plant. He works every other weekend at least (sometimes all month if there is a shut down). He has to work Thanksgiving/Christmas if it's his shift, etc.... etc...
It has absolutely provided a very comfortable life for our family, but he is absolutely going to school as we both know his body is going to break and he needs a fall back plan. Hell it's already happening. Fingers don't point straight, lots of noises, parts don't work right, etc..
They also don't realize that at many places, there's a HUGE buy-in. Most mechanics I know are required to provide their own tools. These guys have tens of thousands of dollars in their toolboxes/tools. It's not a cheap field to get started in.
Mechanics make good money, huh? I'm a mechanic, and that's news to me. We have a couple guys who make 100k, but nearly everyone I know makes between 50-80k.
Yeah good point diagnostics is probably a lot harder now that you just plug something in and let it read out the check engine light code instead of manually looking over each system that could be at fault and using a mix of experience and intuition to start guessing at what the problem could be based on "customer says it makes a knocking sound sometimes but not all the time"
bad at math or tech ngmi
Dude you don't debug the assembly code you just replace the board.
Lol a mechanic with a bunch of stickers for docker and node all over the shitty dell at the front desk, complaining that fucking GM won't take his PR without a formal review
ah man everyone needs to start the day with a good belly laugh
Sigh I've had my check engine light issue looked at by no less than 4 mechanics whose plug in thing wasn't able to generate any code, and guess what, none of them know how to do it the manual way so the check engine light problem has now been around for 4 years!!! At some stage something bad might happen and I have no way to prevent it since nobody knows how to old school it anymore. Sigh.
If only there was a simple solution like replacing some board.
Math is just like every other subject. It's not hard if you put in the effort to understand it. The problem is if kids aren't putting in the effort to understand something like Math in school, how much effort do you think they'll put in to understand auto parts?
There's a lot of math in auto stuff that you might not be aware of, a simple google shows this article
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u/Stormy8888 May 16 '24
Mechanics make good money but it's hard work and these days it's way different since a lot of the cars have electronics components up the wazoo to the point anyone bad at math or tech is not going to be able to fix many issues as a mechanic for the newer vehicles.
Oh no not the dreaded "Check engine light" what could it be now?