The sales staff doesn’t care how busy it is they want a full vehicle inspection (battery, fluids, lights, belts, tire tred depths, brakes, suspension , etc…) done in 15 minutes or less then don’t even attempt to sell anything you write up, they just want to boost the cvi numbers so after you do it they just discount it from $20 to $0. On more than one occasion They have told the customer that the techs don’t know what they’re talking about just to try and act like they know what they’re doing.
Management doesn’t care about the workers they just want the cars in and out as fast as possible regardless of any safety issues. Have gotten told many times to just lift a 2500 HD Diesel trucks/vans that are loaded down with another 1000+lbs in the back of them on the 6000lb single post lift to do oil changes and tire rotations.
When a customer comes in for a flat repair be ready to get told “just fix it” doesn’t matter what’s wrong with the tire (nail in sidewall of the tire, tire more than 10 years old that’s cracking from dry rot, cuts over 1 inch long, no tred left on the tire, inside of the tire has run flat damage) and when you can’t fix you’ll be told “do it again until you fix it right”. When you checking for leaks don’t waste your time trying to explain it to the salesperson because when they check it if it doesn’t start bubbling in .5 seconds “it’s not leaking, back it out”.
Just remember if you work on any national accounts that if the tire tred is at 6/32nd it’s really at 3-4/32nd because why be honest when you can lie and pad your numbers.
When you start to do an alignment don’t worry about checking for any suspension issues or any cords showing on the bald tires because management will just tell you “I don’t care, just alight it and get it out of here”. Then when it comes back you get written up and threatened for not checking it.
Don’t trust anything management tells you when it comes to getting any kind of raise, unless your one of the “good ole boys”. When I got hired I was promised to be put on commission in 6 months, 3 years later still no commission just a $0.10/hr raise but the managers favorite employee went from GS to installer w/commission to C Tech in under a year bypassing everyone else that was in line for a raise/promotion.
Make sure if your car needs any maintenance to have it planned 3 months ahead of time, because even if they put you on the schedule you won’t get to do it. They will just overwhelm you with enough other work orders that you won’t have time to do it that day, then it just never happens. Have had to go over 8,000 miles on a standard oil change before waiting for the manager to decide to “allow” me to pull it in.
Expect to do free off the books work for all the managers friends and family that you won’t get paid for, since he won’t make a work order for it and if he does it will sit on the w.i.p screen for a week until he deletes it.
Be ready to have your job threatened daily and to get talked to like trash every day. Doesn’t matter what you do they won’t fire you and if are you just have to go on loa for a few months then you will be welcomed back like nothing ever happened.