Questions so dumb you wonder how they get through the day.

[Automan Empire]

I can understand people being unfamiliar with the inner workings of their cars or the procedures at the shop; ignorance in and of itself is not sucky, though ignorant people are usually hitched to a few boxcars of get-mad-at-the-employee-when-you-get-confused, and some tank cars of infantile regression, and you have the usual trainwreck out of what should be an ordinary transaction. Anyway, today we had a new customer waiting for an oil change, but our shop specializes in quality work on one make, not quickie oil changes to all comers. I consider it akin to a spouse versus a hooker, but that's another thread.

So on a busy booked up morning we have our first time waiter LOF (Lube, Oil, Filter) customer milling around, smoking cigs in the parking lot, then smelling up office like a cheap Vegas motel room. Keeps interrupting work with How long till they start? and Why is he driving my car? kind of questions.

After the inspection (almost 2 hours), manager is trying to go over recommendations right at start of lunch, with phone ringing over and over, parts arriving, customers arriving, all that. Lady keeps asking process-stopping questions like Your front engine seals seep some oil but don't worry about that unless the drips on your driveway bother you. "Ooooooooooohhhhhhh. Is it baaaaaad? Do I NEEEEED themmmmm? That's expennnnnnsivvvvvvve!"

Meanwhile, the phone keeps ringing, people are going in and out of the office, techs are clocking out for lunch. A regular malestrom of activity all around her. Finally she gets to the nitty-gritty body and cosmetic part of the recommendation list, which usually consists of obvious cosmetic things like trim and accessories that customers usually say OH I KNOW about. I'd already determined, accurately, that the lady wasn't going to do DICK beyond the basic oil change, so I had instructed the tech to go on the final road test so he could leave for lunch.

Manager tells her, the wiper switch is broken. She says, what do you meeeeeeeeaaaaannnnnnnnn my wiper switch is brokennnnnnnnn? So I RUN from the office, all the way across the lot to the driveway and catch the tech before he backed into the lane. In one second, I saw that the wiper switch, normally bilaterally asymmetric with the turn signal switch, was broken off to a little nubbin. Not even freshly broken; the metal stub shaft inside had a good patina of RUST it had been broken for so long. Now tech has missed a break in traffic in that 1 second and must wait for another big wave of cars to pass; I run back across the lot and tell the lady, "The wiper switch is broken off to a little nub!" She says, "Oh, I knew that."

Me: Okay.

Office door: SLAM!

[Buglady]

Argh.... that made MY brain hurt!

BTW, this: "ignorant people are usually hitched to a few boxcars of get-mad-at-the-employee-when-you-get-confused, and some tank cars of infantile regression, and you have the usual trainwreck out of what should be an ordinary transaction" - is awesome. May I have it for my sig?

[Automan Empire]

BTW, this: "ignorant people are usually hitched to a few boxcars of get-mad-at-the-employee-when-you-get-confused, and some tank cars of infantile regression, and you have the usual trainwreck out of what should be an ordinary transaction" - is awesome. May I have it for my sig?

Help yourself.


Sometimes, you can palpably FEEL that the person is just gaming you. Some people feel that, because they are paying a lot of money for repairs, that they are "entitled" to a certain amount of my doting attention. My entire work philosophy is, I am here to pay attention TO THE CARS! That's what the customers ought to want, too. Few do.