Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 11 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 19 years, 5 months ago by
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I have been an auto mechanic for 13 years. I have worked very hard to learn my profession, considering that cars have changed drastically over the years and I have to constantly re-educate myself to learn new and complex systems. But I’m still regarded as a grease monkey and a thief. Why hasn’t public opinion of my profession changed in 50 years?
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Name : Keith, City : Taylor, State : MI, Country : United States,I would guess that the grease monkey opinion of mechanics is similar to the lower opinion that a lot of people have of certain types of manual labor. Maintenance people, factory workers, plumbers, etc. I don’t get it, either. It’s just a classist view some people take. My boss, who has worked in the same building for more than 10 years, was amazed that after six months of working there I knew the maintenance men’s names. She asked ‘How do you know their names?’ My response was simply: ‘I asked them.’ I could tell she thought it was below her to even bother with such trivial matters. It is upsetting that people feel this way. At any moment a person can find themselves working at a job that they’d never ‘stoop so low’ to before.
Also, every job, especially manual workers, is extremely important to the functioning of our world. I know it’s a yucky thing to have to just suck it up and deal with it. I even have to do it as a college-educated consultant working at a university. You have no idea how many professors treat me like I am some idiot and talk down to me when they call me for help. They don’t even see the irony in that – that they aren’t capable of solving their own problems. They simply don’t have those skills, much like the people who bring their cars to you don’t have those skills. (I’m sure you can work in some psychology about how a person, when feeling insecure, demeans the other person who holds the power in that situation.) I love my mechanic and would hope I’ve never given him the impression that you get. I’m sure there are other customers who do. It’s something you get in every customer-based job, probably more so in your profession than mine. It would be nice if more people did start to change their opinion of auto mechanics. Until it happens, you’ll just have to continue to show yourself as the more socially evolved person!
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Name : Stacey, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jehovahs Witness, Age : 28, City : Boston, State : MA, Country : United States, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,If I just blindly trust any mechanic, I, as a single woman in an expensive car, risk letting the ‘bad one’ take me to the cleaners. I don’t know much about my car, but I’ve had some guys try to pull a fast one on me. On the other hand, the one who speaks professionally, kindly, tries to explain what’s up & why, and doesn’t pressure me- well, I’ll drive across town to see him again. I can empathize– I train & sell horses on the side, and have to overcome the ‘horsetrader’ mentality in the same way you do the ‘grease monkey’ mentality–I have to earn it!
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Name : Kat26809, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Methodist, Age : 29, City : Birmingham, State : AL, Country : United Kingdom, Occupation : Software Trainer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,for what it’s worth, i adore my auto mechanic. i think he does a tremendously good job, that he works very very hard and i dont believe that i have ever been ripped off by him. because he is so great, im biased against other mechanics, in that ‘mine is better than yours’ way, but since i trust him so totally, that trust extends to other mechanics and i dont feel that they’re trying to swindle me out of money. i think that to a certain extent, people feel that way because they know *nothing* about the workings of their car. need new bushings? the common person doesnt know the going rate. a mechanic does. do you see what im saying? i think it’s a fear based on consumer ignorance, and perhaps there’s a twinge of truth in there. YOU dont overcharge your customers and use used parts and charge for new, but there are certainly mechanics out there who do. And as far as the greasemonkey thing goes, I can tell you a story about my mechanic. His specialty is Volvos. He deals with mostly early 80’s models, but in there gets plenty of 90’s cars. A few years back he had gallstones and wound up in the hospital. All day long, for his entire stay, people streamed into his room, wishing him well. A nurse finally asked him ‘geez…are you a doctor? you seem to know a LOT of people here!’ to which he replied ‘heh. i fix their volvos.’ No one who he deals with considers him a greasemonkey.
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Name : dana, Gender : F, Age : 28, City : new haven, State : CT, Country : United States, Social class : Middle class,The entire automobile industry has a black eye when it comes to the consumer. Used car dealers, the salesman who dickers and bickers with you buying a new car, the repair shops charging exhorbitant fees, especially dealer shops–these are just a few reasons people distrust mechanics. I’m sure you are fair and trustworthy, but time and time again when consumer groups, readers digest and auto magazines have sent people out with bad running cars (usually a pulled spark plug wire), more than 50% of the repair shops couldn’t find the problem, found it but charged for extra work, or charged for fixing the problem when it wasn’t. We have to trust you, but we, especially women, don’t often know the possible problems, so we get taken for a money ride. And then you have places like the national muffler shops who talk you into much more than you need in order to make more money. My girl friend went to one. She needed front disc brakes and regular back ones. The shop wanted to charge her $990! I had her take it to another mechanic that a friend recommended (he was a former mechanic, now an engineer). Total cost? $210. There are many more stories like this. Suggestions–Display your rates. Give a written estimate and keep within 10% of the cost, even if it means losing a little money once and a while. Keep your costs competitive without cheating yourself. Keep a neat, clean shop. Try to give real times for pickup. Customers hate to wait. Be courteous at all times, even if the customer is making a jackass out of himself. A few days after a job is done, call the customer to make sure the job was done properly and the customer is happy. You don’t want the customer running to another shop if you made a mistake and blabbing it all around town. Make guarantees and stand by them. Good Luck!
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Name : Jeni B., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jewish, Age : 33, City : Boston, State : MA, Country : United States, Occupation : Software Technician, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,In my experience, trusting an auto mechanic can be a difficult decision. I have had good and bad experiences. My mechanic in Virginia turned out to be bad. He replaced my alternator with a ‘new’ model that died within a month. He also took a deposit on work that he never did, and refused to pay me back. On the other hand, my ‘new’ alternator died while I was moving to New Jersey, and I wound up having to get a mechanic in a small rural Virginia town to replace it. It would have been very easy for the mechanic to take advantage of the situation, but he charged a fair price and bent over backward to help.
Unfortunately, I have to say that my bad experiences outnumber my good experiences, so I tend to distrust mechanics. In addition to personal experience, I can point to any number of undercover news programs that show examples of mechanics purposely damaging a vehicle to get more business, or charging a customer for work not needed or services not rendered. All of this has contributed to a stereotype that I have to resist. I can imagine that the experiences of others are similar.
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Name : John K., Gender : M, Age : 27, City : Cranford, State : NJ, Country : United States, Occupation : Chemical Engineer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I have dealt with mechanics over 30 years now in different states. I rarely find one I can truly trust. They have been either white or asian for some reason. But they have been mostly unfriendly, untalkative and sometimes surly. I have been gypped numerous times, and probably more than I know of, unfortunately. No doubt, they work hard, I’m sure. But maybe they are just not as knowledgeable as I would expect, rather than sneaky.
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Name : Jeremy-Jones, City : Oak Park, State : FL, Country : United States,I’m a college professor who teaches theater and speech classes; I teach some stagecraft (building scenery and props, hanging lights, etc). I long ago noticed that in my ‘lecture’ clothes, lots of people talk to me, but in my ‘stagecraft’ clothes, I’m invisible to about half the people. Also, other faculty and administrators are much more willing to disrupt or cause problems for stagecraft than they are for lecture classes. Oddest of all, a different group of students comes to see me in my office (for office hours) than comes to see me in the shop. I’m the same guy with paint on his clothes, but during my 2-3 hours in shop clothes, the social world does change around me. So your situation might be the straightforward problem that so far no one has invented a way to fix a car at a desk in a clean white shirt.
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Name : John B., Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, Age : 42, City : Rural area, State : CO, Country : United States, Occupation : College professor, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,I agree that manual laborers are discriminated against in general. I have worked as a carpenter for five years and part-time doing electricity, plumbing and some automotive work. In all cases, people’s opinions change immediately when you tell them you are a ‘blue-collar’ worker. I think that at the turn of the millennium, American culture should be beyond this type of unfair stereotyping.
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Name : Chris, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 19, City : Southampton, State : NY, Country : United States, Occupation : Carpenter, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,There has been discussion of legalizing prostitution. I feel that it may be useful to compare the problem with ‘prohibition’ when alcohol was banned. By making ‘prostitution’ illegal it makes it a more profitable occupation with less ‘quality’ control. Prostitutes may wish to be protected like other workers but they also may not like the competition if prostitution is legalized. Imagine a sex McDonalds where reasonably priced, reasonably pleasant, and reasonably safe sex is available. What will this do family life and ‘relatiionships’. How many men and possibly women will want to pay for ‘home cooked meals’ when such a McDonalds if readily availabe ?
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Name : SOF, Gender : M, Disability : very sensitive to toxic people, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : jewish atheist, Age : 63, City : college park, State : MD, Country : United States, Occupation : teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,What about all the TV programs on this topic, all the books in the library on this topic, all the magazine articles on this topic? I know there are honest, decent and competent mechanics out there. I have dealt on a few lucky occasions with them, and some of my friends have received ‘excellent’ treatment from mechanics with whom they have a long-term relationship. Nevertheless, the problem is real and very serious. What’s more, major corporations such as oil and car companies are involved, and they could do much to fix the problem if they really wanted to.
I and many others do try to do our own work, but we do not have the special tools and diagnostic equipment, and we do it only occasionally, so that we constantly have to ‘look things up,’ which slows us down a lot.
Again, the problem is not just auto mechanics. I have had people offer to ‘fix’ a VCR for more money than it actually took to buy a better replacement. I even had a shoe repair person offer to re-sole a shoe for more money than I paid for a very good pair of replacement shoes. We are talking about a ‘religion’ or ‘creed’ that says that any weakness or vulnerability in others is an opportunity to take advantage – and some even believe that it is their duty to do so.
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Name : joshua goldin, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Humanist, Age : 60+, City : College Park, State : MD, Country : United States, Occupation : teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,I am an ASE certified Master Auto Technician. And for the record, I HATE the term ‘mechanic’–especially when it is being used to describe me or my job. I take pride in myself, my profession, my accomplishments, and my abilities. I strive every day to improve them and the opinions of my customers. It is my job to save my customers money, time, and mental stress by correctly diagnosing and repairing their problems quickly, correctly the first time (and in the unlikely event that I am unable to do so, take the appropriate measures to rectify the mistake–yes, believe it or not, I am suffering from the terminal disease of being human for which there is no cure but it is treatable). Well, public opinion for the auto repair field is, as you know, not good and it hasn’t been helped by the fact that there are some crooked people in this world who aren’t educated and have, in the past, been drawn into the profession because ‘in the good ole days’ automobiles weren’t very complicated and they could support themselves fixing cars. This combined with investigative journalism who ‘uncovered’/bashed using mass media those ‘mechanics’ who used questionable methods to generate revenue for the shops that employed them. Technology has advanced far beyond that of those times. On any given day I wear any number of hats while carrying out my duties: technician, electrician, service writer, diplomat, salesman, educator, psychologist, P.R. officer, chemist, etc. Education is a requirement for sucess now; it is just like most other service jobs which now account for over half of the income generated in the U.S. The average customer has no idea just how complex their vehicle really is. The ‘tuners’ portrayed in the recent films based on street racing has shed some positive light on the industry spawning thousands of ‘custom’ and ‘speed’ shops and about a hundred times as many lowered imports sporting canister mufflers. Anyway, I think that the best way to overcome the negative opinion and animosity of the public at large is to present them with ovewhelming evidence that you are an educated, competent, honest, caring professional that is willing to stand behind your work and let everything take care of itself. We Technicians have a special gift–an aptitude for solving difficulttechnical problems in complicated machines that are controled by more computing power that the fastest desktop on the market. Take pride in that.
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Name : an opinion, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Mormon, Age : 20, City : columbia, State : SC, Country : United States, Occupation : auto repair technician, Education level : Technical School,
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