Learned a few things recently....

[CROSSBOLT]

Had what we thought a cardiac event with the wife last Friday night. Tests proved it was not a heart problem (Thanks for the blessing!) but we're left with no ideas or even opinions to the cause of a huge spike in blood pressure. Our opinion is that with SEVERAL blood pressure medications there is a chemical war going on that CAUSES these alarming spikes. So what WE are doing is restricting to just one med for that and seeing what happens. I learned years ago that MDS were unwilling to discuss drug interaction, cumulative effect or whatever. This may be because they all are getting "incentive pay" for writing prescriptions for that or this brand.

This segues to car dealer techs who always are in such a hurry to throw parts at a problem until it goes away. These guys are paid a base salary or hourly to work. Where they make their real money is beating the flat rate book. Forbes, please straighten out any "kinks" in this idea! Throwing parts is the quickest way. The downside is YOU gotta pay for all those parts. The fix is usually pretty quick when it is a problem that is common and the experience level is high. At any rate, the problem is caused by the DEALER that sets the rules of how things are done. This is oriented to maximizing his profit which overall is a good idea but the customer is at the bottom of his priorities. This situation is worse when you consider warranty on new RV owners. They wind up having to battle THREE different organizations when anything pukes: the dealer, the manufacturer of the RV and the manufacturer of the busted thing on the RV. They all pass the buck to whomever they can to get the customer off the phone or outta their face. You all know how I feel about most scooter/motorcycle dealers so we won't go there, today.

Ever wonder about salvage yards that do not seem to do any business but have no interest in actually selling what they have? Farm equipment that just seems to eventually dissolve into the ground? Both salvage yards and farm stuff with trees, bushes and weeds overtaking everything? I worked at a John Deer dealer for about three years after I cashed in aviation. Every year we would inventory everything including over an acre of old combines, cotton pickers and implements. Every year the techs had to crawl in, under, around and under this pile of junk to get the numbers. Every now and then we were allowed to grab a part but that stuff just sat there for years before I showed up. When I asked the question why don't we either sell that stuff or scrap it I always got some vague, BS answer. I finally concluded that salvage yards, farmers and farm equipment dealers DEPRECIATE that stuff every year! They would all lose their "mailbox money" if they got rid of that stuff!

So what's the point? Of all this ranting? Most everything is either done or not done for economic reasons. Economics seem to have higher priority than ethics. You become less of a priority after you actually purchase something. I have no idea what can be done to minimize the effect on any of these scenarios except learn all you can about everything. And learn to do your own work where possible.

[stuo]

Karl,

Your last sentence says it all....

Stu

[Stig / Major Tom]

Karl,
Very happy to hear that things weren't as bad as they first seemed!
You know my recent story - so, don't want to think any more friends & family are having medical issues.

Who was it that said - he is now at the age where he no longer buys any green bananas.
Ah, me.

Fortunately - this isn't the end of our story, is it?

Stig

[CROSSBOLT]

No!

[LidoCA]

Sweet!!

[Forbes1964]

Glad your wife didn’t have a heart attack. Praying that the root cause is identified and corrected. As for auto repair, there are several forces at work. At my job, I have the reputation of being slow but thorough. But we get paid by the labor hour. My reward for being thorough is often getting the job where the other tech threw a part at it, and now we ha e an angry customer who is willing to give us the benefit of the doubt ONCE. But it better be right this time. Meanwhile, I’m watching the parts thrower get the 3 brake jobs or easy water pumps because he’s the only one free because I’m doing his recheck. So he goes home with a big check. The other blessing/curse is that the customer is pleased with me. So he SPECIFICALLY requests me the next time he has a peculiar problem. I’m honored. But now I’m stuck again. Needless to say, the incentive is to throw parts because the misdiagnosis are quickly forgiven because the parts thrower turns the most hours in the shop .

He doesn’t take the time to determine if it’s the abs module or the control unit. He replaces both because proper diagnosis may take two hours. But we will only get paid for one. Or worse yet, he may simply read the code and throw both POSSIBLE parts while getting paid one hour diagnostics and refusing to spend more than 10 minutes.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[CROSSBOLT]

Seems like no good deed goes unpunished, eh, Forbes? Neither your fault nor your quick co-worker. Dealer.

The results of using just one BP med seems, at least so far, to be successful. She just picked on and has had fairly stable BP readings.

[Stig / Major Tom]

Man o man, can I identify with you, Mr Forbes.
My work wasn't paid by labor hour.....but I too was known as a careful, thorough worker. I rec"d a folder full of commendation letters over the years from various agencies that I did projects for. Plus, the agency director asked me to undertake 3 personal projects for him.
However, for 20 of my 30 yrs I worked under 2 clueless supervisors, and alongside 2 sloppy but fast coworkers.

The tension that situation creates is amazing, isn't it?

I signed some papers, turned in my truck keys, shook hands with only the custodians in my maintenance dept.....and quit.

I still dream that I'm building things,  after 30yrs, and point out things I  built as we drive around the city and county. Strangely, I  loved my work.

Hang in there Mr Forbes!
Stig

[Forbes1964]

Man o man, can I identify with you, Mr Forbes.
My work wasn't paid by labor hour.....but I too was known as a careful, thorough worker. I rec"d a folder full of commendation letters over the years from various agencies that I did projects for. Plus, the agency director asked me to undertake 3 personal projects for him.
However, for 20 of my 30 yrs I worked under 2 clueless supervisors, and alongside 2 sloppy but fast coworkers.

The tension that situation creates is amazing, isn't it?

I signed some papers, turned in my truck keys, shook hands with only the custodians in my maintenance dept.....and quit.

I still dream that I'm building things,  after 30yrs, and point out things I  built as we drive around the city and county. Strangely, I  loved my work.

Hang in there Mr Forbes!
Stig

It’s amazing how bad circumstances can cause you to begin to not like doing what you love.

We have diametrically opposed goals. Ford (and ALL other carmakers) say some version of “fix it right the first time” when they didn’t BUILD it right the first time. They say that only one part caused the problem. And they baulk when we tell them that there were actually TWO failed parts. If a spark plug goes bad under warranty, then replace ONLY that plug. They score us on parts per repair, cost per repair, and whether it was fixed right the first time.
The SHOTGUN GUY drives the numbers up. And Ford threatens to audit. So the manager then finds ways to fix the numbers. And we find that we’re getting short changed for OUR time.

But then the incentive when the customer is paying is better safe than sorry. Or get all you vs. get now. So when a spark plug goes bad, replace ALL of them. When I say front brakes are bad, rears will last until the next service , give the customer the choice of all now or just the front. We had one service writer who would tell the customer that ALL needed to be done NOW!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[CROSSBOLT]

That last sentence, Forbes, indicates the violation of the trust of the service writer. People, customers not well versed in auto repair have to trust someone to maintain a vehicle. When these transgressions occur, something is lost for at least a long time. The service writer, aircraft mechanic and the cycle shop tech is hurting the whole business. The business owner or manager is unresponsive to change anything to benefit the guy who is really paying the bills: the customer. This is one of the reasons I have been so intolerant of dealers and techs who specialize in "snowing" customers with problems. The guys like you get screwed by the boss and the parts throwers. I do not know if anything can be done considering the sad state of integrity and competence these days. I know you will plug along with integrity and competence because you understand laying treasure in heaven. That is important but would be difficult to explain to an unbeliever.

[Forbes1964]

That last sentence, Forbes, indicates the violation of the trust of the service writer. People, customers not well versed in auto repair have to trust someone to maintain a vehicle. When these transgressions occur, something is lost for at least a long time. The service writer, aircraft mechanic and the cycle shop tech is hurting the whole business. The business owner or manager is unresponsive to change anything to benefit the guy who is really paying the bills: the customer. This is one of the reasons I have been so intolerant of dealers and techs who specialize in "snowing" customers with problems. The guys like you get screwed by the boss and the parts throwers. I do not know if anything can be done considering the sad state of integrity and competence these days. I know you will plug along with integrity and competence because you understand laying treasure in heaven. That is important but would be difficult to explain to an unbeliever.

Exactly. Because I work with an unbeliever who simply cannot understand why although I’m sometimes angry, i refuse to be miserable. And I refuse to make others miserable, including the parts thrower. I’m content in what the owner’s maintenance guy told me. — The the owner said that he’d rather that I work on his personal vehicles than anyone else because he feels that I’m the best and the most thorough.

Of course, none of the MANAGERS passed that information to me even though I know the owner told them as well.
I’d like it to be reflected in my paycheck though. But just knowing is somewhat of a reward.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Forbes1964]

In fairness to the other honest techs, SOMETIMES it is poor communication of the problem on the part of service writer and/or the customer. I remember chasing down an obvious rattle and thinking it was repaired only to realize that it was a faint background rattle that was being drowned out by the rattle that I heard. Then there’s the customer who says it only happens in the morning on a full moon at high tide when he drives 55mph on the bridge that crosses the flint river while in the northbound lane. [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]. But the service writer says it happens all the time. Then there is the customer that does not have time to waste riding with the technician on a test drive because “he should be able to figure it out because he’s getting paid to do it”.
Then there’s the customer who refuses to believe that his rotors are worn beyond resurfacing because he just heard the noise this morning. Some techs are crooks. But some customers are crooks too like the woman who says we scratched her front bumper when it was in my stall ALL day,  and all I did was replace a rear tail light lens.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[CROSSBOLT]

Ah, yes, I understand COMPLETELY!