http://www.searchautoparts.com/motorage/news-service-repair/aaia-and-ase-recogni-
ze-world-class-technicians?cid=95883
This article came out this
week announcing the names of these techs who have been recognized for passing
twenty-two ASE certification exams. It touched off a bit of a debate in the iATN
about just how relevant the ASE and even the iATN are inside our trade and it
parallels what you can see inside this very thread. Gimmestdtranny probably felt
like I was roughing him up a bit for trying to solve that diagnostic on that
Silverado, and it probably did come off that way when that really wasn't the
intent. Roadburner has made a couple posts that I took as degrading to techs and
when I questioned what his background was I felt that he thought that he was
beyond such scrutiny. There is a double standard at play here, and it mirrors
what it is like to be a professional technician. Gimmestdtranny clearly noticed
it as he pointed out that he felt he had to defend me and I thank him for that,
but it really shouldn't be that way.
I find people question my
capabilities as a technician on a daily basis, I'm just supposed to accept and
deal with it. It's always been that way and that of course isn't something that
I personally deal with as good as I should. The funny thing is, the lack of
being good at that kind of situation is the very thing that drives me to study
all of the time, with the expectation that I should eventually rise above having
to deal with that. You can call that one of those situations where my greatest
weakness is also my greatest strength.
So where do I stand, next to
those 1863 individuals through the years who have sat down to prove their
knowledge. I have ten, all of the automotive A-1 through A-8 to be recognized as
an ASE Master Tech. I have had those and stayed current with them since 1982.
Plus I have the A9 Automotive Diesel, and the L1 advanced diagnostics. What they
have that I don't is the Heavy Duty truck series of tests, and its not a matter
of if I can pass them or not, I have no interest in trying to prove that I might
be able to pass a test on work that I don't do. Does that make me less of a
technician in regards to the work that I do? It shouldn't. But yet when we had
the debates about the correct way to address even the dreaded evaporative system
leak, suddenly it was like all of the experience and study and training that I
have had no value when pitted against an opinion. I actually expect to see
debates like that try and play the price angle and of course that happened here
as if that really has anything to do with whether a leak is a frozen vent valve,
or a loose gas cap. But seriously, it's like that everyday anyway and even when
we are right, someone else is sure we are wrong and they don't even have to
prove that they can change a flat tire prior to them proclaiming their
competence.
There will be a price to be paid someday for the biases
against the trade. We haven't been able to attract the people that you need us
to have in order to replace our aging work force for a long time. Even if we
could fix that part today, it would still be some twenty years for anyone who
comes in now to really be competent to the level that the consumer demands.
For anyone that reads this, that last statement is meant to be a blast of
reality.
If you believe you would make a competent technician and have
faith and trust on your present capabilities, but have not and especially are
not presently working as a technician. Then you really are about twenty years
short of the hard work and study that it takes to be a master technician that
the consumer demands. It's not about any successes that you may have under your
belt, in this trade you are only judged by your latest failure, even if you then
managed to overcome it. You can only be good at limiting the failures, with
genuine shop experience over a long period of time.
I was talking to a
salesperson from one of the parts chains. She was telling me her sales to shops
are really down since last year and she had taken some time to try and find out
why. Two guys had passed away, and of course their shops were now gone. Four
more simply went out of business, and she had two others who were struggling to
pay their bills and on the verge of failing even though they have cars all over
their lots. This is a story that is being repeated in a lot of places. In a lot
of the cases the biggest problem is the shop owners need to get some management
training, and that would result in them getting their techs more training and
they would then get more of those cars and their businesses moving. The problem
is I think these guys are all just simply burning out and are quitting fighting.
That's something that consumers should actually be worried about. There is no
one to replace these people and even the ones who are struggling are a lot
better than you probably think they are. JMHO
No comments:
Post a Comment