Grease monkey, that funky monkey

(Originally written April 2009)

Every vocation that involves working with people has its unique frustrations, and being a car mechanic has a lot of them. I thought I'd take a few mintues and write down some things I hear daily from customers that end up hurting, not helping, them in the long run.

#1. " Ever since you worked on item A, item B has been making this noise:"

This captures the essence of the obnoxious customer: totally ignorant, but suspiciously claiming they're onto your game. 99.99% of the time the two items are as unrelated as mechanically possible; this makes you sound stupid, and makes your mechanic not want to help you out.

#2. "Really? 'Cause I was on this online forum and IT said..."

Yes, really. I don't give a flying rats fanny what some benevolent do it yourself-er in Nebraska told you was wrong with your car. I looked at it, I'm telling you what the problem is. I actually had to undergo a significant amount of training for this job, so let me do it efficiently and not spend 20 minutes explaining something that while painfully simple to me is beyond your comprehension.

#3. "Well, I'm really hoping this is the problem..." Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Ok. Here's what my job is: I look at your car, find what's wrong, and tell you how much it will be to fix it. What you do from there is your business. I have zero control over (a) which part is broken, (b) how many parts are broken, and (c) the absurd price of parts these days. I do not determine that that metallic sound coming from your brakes is merely a pebbly caught behind your backing plate and not the last millimeter of metal brake pad backing that's been saving your life for 2 months since it started making noise. Which transitions nicely into...

#4. "Yeah, it just started making that noise this week."

Don't lie about your automotive neglect. It is just awkward to explain to you that due to the condition of said component we know you're lying, and as a result of your neglect the job will cost 3 times what it would have had you gotten it serviced when it ACTUALLY started making noise.

#5. "Are you sure it needs that?"

Well, now that I think about it, you're right, it probably doesn't. Thanks for helping me come to the right conclusion.

#6. "My husband said it needed this."

This ties in with a few others I've already stated, but it is equally, if not more awkward to explain to you that your husband doesn't know what he's talking about; that said, many women in this situation have come to that conclusion a long time ago.

#7. "Do you guys do oil changes?"

Oil changes are the most elemental service to perform on a vehicle, and every automotive shop in the world does them. It would be ludicrous not to.

#8. "You guys are the experts....but you're sure it isn't this? I mean, you know way more than I do, but I thought this meant that..."

If you would like to have a coherent conversation about the physics of automobile parts, I would be happy to. However, simultaneously purporting to be compotent while being fashionably self-depreciating only makes you look like a schmuck when your eyes glass over once I mention words like reluctor ring or neutral safety switch.

#9. "Oh...you can't do that now?"

See this impact gun in my hand? See that car on the lift? While individually unincriminating, taken together they mean that I'm WORKING, like, on another car. Poor planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part. If you're leaving tomorrow for Florida, maybe you should have come in before today to get those head gaskets taken care of.

#10. (Usually on a phone call) "The check....what was it...check engine?...yeah..that light came on in my car. What's wrong with it?"

One of ten thousand things. There are literally hundreds of possibilities for why this light came on. Systems independent of the engine trigger this light all the time. Just the way it works.