rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk about the five worst things about being
a mechanic, and number one is you might have already guessed, you have to deal with
the public, because if you're fixing cars, you have to deal with the people who own
and drive the cars, now I learned how to do that from my father who was an expert
in it, he ran a corner gas station my grandfather was the chief mechanic, my
father was the business end, and he called it Kilmer's finishing school
now believe it or not, I was a shy kid when I was young, and learning how to
deal with the public at my father's corner gas station actually did me a
whole lot of good and I also learned how to deal with public from my grandfather
the mechanic, I remember one time he worked on the old Doc's car, the doctor came back
the next day and said, huh you didn't fix my
car ride I'm all mad, too which my grandfather replied, doc I fix my
mistakes but you bury yours and guess what doc never complain to my
grandfather again, but he always came back to get his car fixed because my
grandfather was a pretty good mechanic even when he was in his eighties, now the
next worst thing about being mechanic is since they keep changing how they make cars
you have to buy a whole bunch of tools to fix them with, check inside my garage,
I got tools hanging up absolutely everywhere, and if you're gonna be a
professional mechanic you're gonna spend a whole bunch of money on tools, say
you're working at a shop, they don't supply you with the tools, you got to
bring your own tools, so there's a pretty big expense, it's not like you go
somewhere and work with their stuff, you gotta buy your own tools and with the
tons of electronics in cars you have to keep up with the training,
you got to train yourself, not only to use the new tools you have,
but what new tools you might have to buy and what knowledge you're gonna have to
put in your head to learn how to use those tools to analyze the electronic
problems in new cars I remember my grandfather mechanic telling
me ages ago to fix these modern cars you're gonna
have to be a plumber now and this was in the 1970s he's referring to all the
vacuum lines and anti-pollution equipment that cars are starting to put
on that they didn't used to have, I can imagine what he would think of modern
cars, he'd say you'd have to be a computer electronics wizard to work on
cars, now yes you can get a lot of training on the Internet these days,
that's one advantage, in his day you had to go to a course somewhere and actually
sit there physically, or you have to buy a book and of course books get outdated
as soon as new stuff comes out, but with the internet at least the training
aspect of it, it's a lot easier than used to be, now the next worst thing about
being a mechanic is, the physical abuse that your body can take fixing cars, I
have to admit I'm half-deaf from all the noise of fixing cars, but at least look
at my hands they're still in pretty good shape and that's for one main reason,
years ago my wife got me these rubber gloves, they're fantastic they keep the
grease off, they keep cuts, I even had one time that I was using a spring retainer
it slipped and it actually split the skin off my entire finger and almost
pulled it off, yet I didn't get an infection because the glove didn't get
cut even though my skin underneath did, these things are handy and yeah I
got all the other aches and pains from being mechanic for 51 years,
sometimes my back gets really sore and years ago I had carpal tunnel syndrome
bad, if I just picked up a gallon jug of milk I'd have to drop it down cuz my
wrists hurt so much, but at least the wrist that went away decades ago, one of
my customers who was a masseuse massaging people, he said I had that a
long time ago too but I take this glucosamine with chondroitin pills, they
claim it's a cure for arthritis But I never have that I had carpal
tunnel syndrome voila I've been taking that stuff for
two decades now and I don't have any pain anymore like
that, so you really need to take care of yourself if you're gonna be a mechanic,
now the fifth and the last worst thing about being a mechanic is, being a
mechanic pretty much turns you into a perfectionist,
especially if you're dealing with engine work where you didn't want thousands of
an inch clearances, you have to do everything perfectly, so you get kind of
a strange mindset which is why many really good mechanics are rather odd
people like me, a good mechanic who's trained to be a perfectionist, sees
imperfections in everything, you could show me the most beautiful woman in the
world, I might say her nose is a little crooked or a spanking brand-new car
I'll say, ah the paint's running a little over there,
that piece doesn't match up more it's got more gap on one side, being a
perfectionist does have many downsides now my wife is always getting me books
like this, overcoming perfectionism but in my case, it might be a hopeless cause,
because I'm about 3/4 German my mother was a perfectionist, now my father wasn't
perfectionist at all, but my mother certainly was she's still is, now in my
attempt to overcome perfectionism, look at my garage, it's a gigantic mess I
deliberately leave it that way because if I started putting all the way in neat
little places, that'd be kind of weird I'm gonna just have a giant mess and I know
that, ok the wheel tools are in this pile over here and the electrical
analysis stuff is in the pile over there cuz really you can never let
perfectionism take over your life entirely, but when you're fixing cars
your customers want you to be perfect, so you really have to work at it, so if you
never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that
Bell!