I am currently startled by the lack of drive I am finding today. Call it a rant or generic complaint but what we are seeing today is starting to get ridiculous to a level that, even me, a hopeless optimist and sunshiny person, I am starting to become jaded. We have tried all the places one might think to go for a technician, Facebook, indeed (Bahahaha), Craigslist, and by far the worst employment agencies. The gross misinformation that the employment agents pump into the heads of these kids, which could potentially have a successful future is sad. We have had people with less then a year experience come in telling us that the agencies have told them $20-30 an hr. with no experience, no tools, and no hope of getting a job at that price. We have even gone as far as offer trainees, $18 an hour plus full benefits to be laughed at. Guys with a year or so experience offered $30 an hour, to be told they deserve $45. I don’t know how to combat this growing problem with the entitled pricing of the people walking through our doors. Technical schools telling students that they will make $45 an hr, but not explaining that’s flat rate. To get that you are going to have to work 65-75 hrs a week, and average out what you turn in labor, to find that when you average it out, what would be $45 an hr at 40 hrs a week, is $25 when you break it down to the hrs you worked. There needs to be a push across all blue-collar industries to bring back apprenticeships. A young person that does not have the interest to sit through the boring lectures at a university that will not apply to the real world can have hope of a comfortable future. Give them the understanding that working at the lower rate to earn the wages of the experienced is the tuition to their future. I am grateful to this day that I was given that opportunity by Mr. Dalton. I didn’t come offering anything but a youthful eagerness to learn. I was a pain in his butt a lot of times, but he gave me a shot. Youth willing to work for a future is as depleted as any natural resource we are using up. This is one we can correct so easily by keeping score at little league and not letting everyone on the team. Sometimes you just are not the one for the job. That does not mean you don’t have a place it just means you aren’t guaranteed a place because you think you should be. We have an amazing staff; you can ask any of them if they feel they are taken care of, and I will happily say they all will tell you yes. We offer training, M-F 8-5 schedule, vacation, retirement with matching, full benefits (medical, vision, dental, short-term disability). That is great that you have a dream of working in a shop like ours one day! I appreciate your dream, but if you want to make it in a shop like this, you must put your time in and be realistic with your demands. This industry is constantly changing. You must be able to adapt and overcome, be willing to learn constantly, understand you do not know everything, and realize that you need to be able to rely on the people around you to continue to grow with you. To be successful you must be the best combination of so many other fields to learn to identify and correct issues. You need to be a little bit of a chemist, engineer, electrician, plumber, and sometimes a therapist. Why am I going on about this on a blog for an Automotive shop? Simple, this is an industry wide problem right now, do not be surprised by huge delays not only caused by parts delays, but also by the fact that busier shops are struggling to find help. We want to maintain a level of integrity that we are willing to pay for. We groom everyone here to a standard beyond what you will find anywhere. Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you or someone you know is looking to further their automotive career give us a call. 770-427-0996.