Those who have chosen this or any other service business as a profession understand better than most that you can no longer remain spectators as the great parade of life passes by. We are participants! We keep the parade route clean, we tidy up the stands and every once in a while we find ourselves struggling to keep stragglers from wandering off.
As participants, we accept a certain set of rules and responsibilities as a part of the job: a fair number of rules and an 18-wheeler filled with enough responsibility to drown even the most conscientious among us.
For the most part, the majority of us can live with these rules and responsibilities. However, every once in awhile, someone marching by in this great processional of life decides to wander off into your world or mine, and the results are such things as magazine columns are made. In some cases, they are genuinely and innocently lost, and in others they choose to test security or challenge your authority. In the case of the 'innocents' you and I encounter every day, patience is generally the order of the day, and even the most trying situation can be resolved with empathy and a sympathetic smile. In the case of those who would willfully and mindfully challenge you, the 'system' and the general order of things, there are times when all the understanding and patience in the world just won't do.
I don't have many problems dealing with those who genuinely have no clue about who we are and what we do. They seem to realize they need us whether they like it or not and that realization tempers their behavior somewhat. People legitimately lost in our world generally want our help, realize they need our help, seem to appreciate anything and everything we do for them and aren't likely to get lost again if they can help it. Lost is just a place they'd rather not be.
It's the ones who leave the processional on purpose - pushing and shoving, testing and challenging, frustrating and generally terrorizing those of us responsible for their care and custody while in our world – that I have my share of difficulties with. Worse yet, they return ... time after time, until someone finally stands up in despair or disgust and says "Enough!"
Well, I just stood up and said, "Enough!" to one such individual. He is a 'customer,' though I'm not sure exactly what kind. Is he a 'regular' customer? He's been in more than once, perhaps too often in fact. But, is he regular? If you ask me, he's anything but. Is he a 'Lifetime and Loyal' customer? Not according to the file folder in his glove box filled with invoices from a host of other shops. Is he profitable then? Well, I suppose if you look at the ledger, you'll find a series of dollar amounts that seem respectable enough on the surface. But, if you balance the totals against time spent in explanation, defense or response, you could probably do better with a $9.95 oil change!
You never see him unless there is a problem ... and then, when you do see him, whatever went wrong wasn't his fault. This time it was a rear brake pedal pulsation that began immediately after visiting a local 'brake specialist.' The more the vehicle was driven, the tighter the rear brakes got; the tighter they got, the harder he tried to return to the specialist who did the original work until the brakes locked up completely. After the other service provider 'fixed' the brakes a second time, we got the vehicle for a pulsation traced to the rear brakes. We measured each of the drums and found that both were well below minimum refinishing thickness and more than .010-inch out of round. The customer finally decided to replace the drums which resulted in a condition we call 'RB2: Runs Better But...' There was still a pulsation, and it was still coming from the rear, but it was nowhere near as severe as before.
You're probably thinking this column has something to do with the repair itself. Not so. My concern is with our society and the growing resistance to responsibility we see every day. It's bad enough most people want absolution from responsibility when seeking service. Now, it seems they want to force that responsibility onto someone else.
Maybe I'm just jealous because we're never able to get away with anything like that. But, I don't think that's it at all. I'm not sure you're supposed to 'get away' with anything. As far as I can tell, somewhere along the way you have to learn to "Start The Sentence With 'I,'" as in, "I did," "I'm responsible," or, "I will take care of it," instead of "Not me!" And, certainly not by looking around to see who might be gullible, naive or foolish enough to accept that responsibility for you. Color me crazy, but I can still remember a time when that was the rule and not the exception.
In any case, I found myself sharing the results of our continued inspection and testing with a customer who didn't seem all that interested, something that seemed more than a little odd to me because somehow, he had managed to bend both rear axles. Not a lot, but certainly enough to account for the symptoms we were chasing. Axles on that vehicle are not cheap; neither was the time it took to isolate the problem. So, indifference was not what we expected after quoting the repair.
I was really beginning to envy his control when the reason for his relaxed attitude became clear. He wasn't paying for anything! It was someone else's fault, someone else's problem ... someone else's responsibility.
The logic is seductive. It almost makes sense. "I didn't break it. It broke. Consequently, someone else should be responsible. Someone else should have to pay - anyone else, but me."
I really don't have a problem with the logic until it gets to the "someone else" part. That's when things fall apart for me. If there is no "I" in the other person's equation, there must be a "you." And unless "I" know who that "you" is, I begin to worry because I don't want that
"you" to be me. And, that started me thinking about our industry and the epidemic of indifference we confront every day.
I was trained from the moment I first entered this industry, the minute I began working on cars, to take responsibility for everything that occurred while the vehicle was under my control. The first time I went to my father with a broken bolt in my hand, the first bolt I had ever broken myself, I said, "It broke." He made his point exquisitely clear when he turned to me and quietly asked, "While you were watching it?"
Currently, there appear to be two standards of behavior in our culture. There seem to be two groups of people as well - one small, one large: Those who are responsible, and those who are not. Those who accept responsibility for themselves, their actions and their current reality, and those who will not. This represents a crisis of character, an epidemic of anemic values that cuts across our society like a knife. Truth be told, there are as many garage owners infected as there are civilians like the one I just finished dealing with.
Their mantra is: "It's broken ... You fix it!" And, while everyone is looking around for someone else to be responsible - to do the responsible thing, to take the responsible action - everything around them is slowly but surely coming apart. And, that's where I get lost.
Some of us have been going to school non-stop for more than 30 years. We've moved from being mechanics to technicians without ever realizing the importance of that transition. And, we've done it all without ever asking for the rewards that should accompany that kind of perseverance, dedication, commitment and ability.
We seem able to fix everything, but the one thing we really need to stop and fix isn't the cars or trucks we see every day. They come in broken, and we fix them. We do it quietly, efficiently, effectively and without fanfare for the most part. It's what we do for everyone, on everything that comes down the driveway: everyone, but us. We are helpless, perhaps even hopeless, when it comes to fixing the most important thing there is for us to fix - our own industry. And, that's what I never really understood until I found myself facing this one particular customer across the counter as he made it perfectly clear that no matter what happened, no matter who paid, it wasn't going to be him.
Like him, there are those among us who just keep waiting and looking ... Waiting for someone else to do it, looking for someone else to pay the freight. They won't affiliate. They won't join a state or national association. They won't get involved. And it is this "Not me!" attitude that just may destroy us. And, that's what I don't understand. We are the single greatest force in this industry ... if we affiliate, work together and take responsibility. We control not only what gets purchased, we control where it gets purchased. Nothing happens in this industry until you and I decide what needs to be done, and then it doesn't happen until we accept the job, order the part and then hang it on the vehicle. And, yet, we keep looking around for someone else to fix it for us.
This individual found someone else to take care of his problem - in this case, an insurance company. You and I aren't as fortunate. Our customer's insurance company didn't seem too concerned. Why should they be? They're not going to absorb that loss. They're looking around for someone else too - in this case, their policyholders.
I'm not sure you and I are that lucky. Our industry is not 'insured' for this kind of liability or loss. I'm not sure there is someone else to take care of the things we really should be taking care of ourselves. We don't have that luxury. We gave it up when we entered a service business.
While the majority of us have learned to accept responsibility for our clients and their cars and trucks, it's time we learned to take responsibility for something equally as critical to our survival: the future of our own industry.
The message here is simple. We can't afford to say, "Not me!" any longer. This isn't someone else's parade. It's ours! We either choose the route ourselves, or we march where someone else leads us - someone who may not know as much, someone who may not care as much, someone who won't have a problem saying "Not me!" when it comes to working for your future or mine.
