The Jaded Mechanic Podcast

Jeff Compton [00:00:08]:
For the check engine light on. And when I left, it was $1300. I got new brakes while I was there. But a check engine light was still $1300. No, it wasn't.

Chuck Mitchell [00:00:16]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [00:00:17]:
It was really 150 bucks because in their mind, what I took it in for cost me $1300.

Chuck Mitchell [00:00:23]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:00:27]:
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the jada mechanic pod. Sitting here at Siemen Apex with. Introduce yourself.

Chuck Mitchell [00:00:36]:
I'm Chuck Mitchell. Charles, but everybody calls me Chuck. Different from check engine Chuck because we're totally different. I started out mid-90s as a lube tech, Kind of went into the diesel fleet field for years. Worked on school buses. You know, played a little bit in Napa and ran a couple Napa stores. And then a couple years ago, as I was getting older, decided I need to do something with my life and actually grow up. And ended up buying a small dealership and a shop.

Chuck Mitchell [00:01:10]:
We got three service bays. And now it's figuring out how to make this a lot better than what we see today and kind of help through all the struggles that we see now.

Jeff Compton [00:01:21]:
The age thing, what was this like, how old are you to make this decision?

Chuck Mitchell [00:01:26]:
So I'm 46 now. I'll be 47 in a few months. So getting up there. Yeah. I started in high school at a quick lube, and then I went to college and dropped out of college. I went to UTI for a couple of years and never finished the program because I was bored.

Jeff Compton [00:01:45]:
Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:01:46]:
And wanted to actually just get to work. And friend of mine got me into school buses, worked at a fleet shop, and that's where I did a lot of my learning, you know, not only on the mechanic side how to. How to fix stuff, how to diagnose stuff, but a lot of the leadership stuff too. Right. I ended up kind of growing up in that and becoming a shop manager. And at the end of my school bus career, which was almost 15 years long, I managed a fleet of 200 buses. Had nine mechanics under myself. And, you know, a lot of the technology kind of shied me away.

Chuck Mitchell [00:02:24]:
I was getting sick of the struggles and. And the pinch that.

Jeff Compton [00:02:28]:
Because there's a lot more going on in those buses than I think when we realize. Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:02:32]:
Sure, sure. Yeah. So we were def. Had just kind of come out when I got out of it. And. And that was the big headache is a lot of the emission stuff was kind of being shoved onto diesels. And, you know, when you're. When you're in a fleet contract like that, you got Contracts you've got.

Chuck Mitchell [00:02:49]:
You got budgets you gotta meet and stuff like that. And then they put new technology on you that isn't quite where it needs to be. That puts a lot of stress in the middle.

Jeff Compton [00:02:59]:
You know, a lot of the learning blocks were like. A lot of that stuff was still very OE level. Proprietary.

Chuck Mitchell [00:03:06]:
Oh, yeah, right.

Jeff Compton [00:03:06]:
Like you couldn't get. I know. I did a tenure at a bus shop and on the heavy truck side as well. And like, if you're not buying the OE software, you're not getting a lot of the time that. That Regen done.

Chuck Mitchell [00:03:17]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:03:18]:
And that's even like, we're just. I just need a Regen. Right. So I can go down the road.

Chuck Mitchell [00:03:21]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:03:22]:
You know, they're Chuck that there's. There's issues. There was to why it all of a sudden needs a ton of regens. Why is that happening?

Chuck Mitchell [00:03:28]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [00:03:28]:
And then I can't get it to regen. And now I'm derated. And what happens? Yeah, like, we. If we didn't have the OE stuff or had a friend that could tell us what to do or what, like, we were screwed.

Chuck Mitchell [00:03:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, being in a large bus company, you had some of the information. We had the ability to do our own warranty work. Okay. Because we bought so many buses, but it was. You didn't have the information. And that was the big thing was, you know, we had software that could do some of the work.

Chuck Mitchell [00:03:56]:
But, you know, you bought 30 or 40 buses all exactly the same, all the same mileage, all at the same time. They all had the same problems all at the same time. And you had no information as to what was going on. At least up at the dealership, they would see that stuff at multiple levels and be able to figure it out.

Jeff Compton [00:04:13]:
Now, are these Bluebirds?

Chuck Mitchell [00:04:15]:
No. So we. We ran internationals quite a bit towards the end when I was getting out, they went to the Thomas with the 6. 7. Yep. Because we were having so many problems with the Max 4.7S.

Jeff Compton [00:04:27]:
Yes.

Chuck Mitchell [00:04:28]:
So, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:04:29]:
Which. The Max 4 is a lot like. Was it the Ford 6?

Chuck Mitchell [00:04:34]:
Ford 6.4.

Jeff Compton [00:04:35]:
Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [00:04:35]:
Yep. Yeah. We had tons of 365s and VT365s, which we were able to get through with the EGRS, the EGR coolers and all that stuff. And that we learned through. It was a struggle, but we made it through. But when the max 4.7or the 6.4 liter in our vans came out, it was a whole different ballgame. Totally different design. Totally, you know, totally different processes.

Chuck Mitchell [00:05:01]:
And then, you know, when the 6, 7, Cummins came through with the def. And then it was trying to learn DEF while we were also struggling with the 6, 4.

Jeff Compton [00:05:10]:
Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [00:05:10]:
You know, max force. So. So, yeah, I decided I had enough fun. And that's when I got into working at Napa Auto Parts and running a store and tried that for a few years.

Jeff Compton [00:05:23]:
And what was that like?

Chuck Mitchell [00:05:27]:
You know, being from the tech side, it had huge advantages. We deal with Napa a lot partially because of, you know, a little bit of loyalty there. But they definitely have a culture of trying to take care of the customer. So being from the mechanic world, I could come in and deal with the shops that we dealt with and understand them a little bit better than some other people coming in.

Jeff Compton [00:05:52]:
And they probably would have respected you too, because you'd actually put some time in.

Chuck Mitchell [00:05:56]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:05:56]:
With a wrench in your hand versus just somebody who, as a salesman maybe would have been coming from a different industry or an enthusiast level of a tool in their hand. Not like the whole thing. You'd been there, had a fleet, you know, nine mechanics underneath you. They could probably relate to you pretty well.

Chuck Mitchell [00:06:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. It didn't take long before they realized that I did know what I was talking about, had been there before. And, yeah, that made it a lot easier. I just realized I wasn't. I didn't understand the retail part of it. You know, that was. That was difficult for me because even though it's like, well, it's auto parts, everything's good, the job is different.

Chuck Mitchell [00:06:33]:
You know, understanding retail and retail budgets and inventory management and stuff is totally different.

Jeff Compton [00:06:39]:
Yeah. I have a good friend that just left Z way up in a dealer group back home. So he was buying like, he was responsible for when they would take over a dealer. He was responsible for their parts inventory and what they would do with it and what it was. He was essentially walk in and give a value to it and then turn around that parts department as well. He said the same thing to come from where he had been, which is just like a solar operator at a dealer to then having to oversee all these acquisitions. He struggled with it at first, you know, and then it was like, now he's the kind of guy that, like, is just. He's good at whatever he does.

Jeff Compton [00:07:16]:
So it's like it translate. But now he's just recently left it and he's. He's gonna go run his brother's tire store.

Chuck Mitchell [00:07:22]:
Okay.

Jeff Compton [00:07:22]:
Mana Key Tires. What used to be mine, it came out first now, you know, because he Just says, I just want to, you know, I want to go back and do what I want to do. Sure. So.

Chuck Mitchell [00:07:32]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:07:32]:
Yeah. I, the retail thing is I gave him some warning. I'm like, here's, you know, you've been kind of away from. You've never really run a shop before. Now. He's been around enough service departments to know he's going to be okay. But I said it's a little bit different in the aftermarket when you go out there, right?

Chuck Mitchell [00:07:47]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:07:48]:
That customer is different than what your dealer customer that you used to.

Chuck Mitchell [00:07:51]:
It is.

Jeff Compton [00:07:51]:
You're talking about their money now, not the OE's money.

Chuck Mitchell [00:07:54]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:07:54]:
What, so you did the Napa thing.

Chuck Mitchell [00:07:58]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:07:59]:
And. And did you miss wrenching?

Chuck Mitchell [00:08:03]:
I did. I missed, I missed the shop portion of it. I missed, you know, kind of the, the different challenges you have and trying to figure cars out. I. I missed, I missed the day to day, you know, getting older. It's a lot harder to do the day to day if I want to be on the floor. But. But yeah, I feel you.

Chuck Mitchell [00:08:25]:
I missed, I missed the day to.

Jeff Compton [00:08:27]:
Day.

Chuck Mitchell [00:08:29]:
You know, and I just, I felt more comfortable in the shop world than I did the retail world. Yeah, it's totally different when you can surround yourself with people that understand vehicles, understand what goes on in them. When you go to the retail world and you're selling parts to like, DIYers, you never know what level's coming in the door. And it seems like a lot of times we had DIYers that were jumping in well over their heads and trying to help them through that from the parts counter was very, very difficult.

Jeff Compton [00:09:04]:
And see, that's something for me because, like, I see it all the time. Right? And it's like, you've probably seen it in some of the groups in the conversation where they're like, well, I just wish the parts stores wouldn't sell to the diy.

Chuck Mitchell [00:09:13]:
Er, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:09:14]:
Right. And we know that that's like, that ain't ever going to be a reality.

Chuck Mitchell [00:09:18]:
No.

Jeff Compton [00:09:18]:
Right. You're already trying to compete with them against Rock Auto and an online source, whatever, and some of the garbage that they sell. Right. Like, you're, at least you're giving them a good product. But like, did you ever have them come in and go, they want to buy some obscure thing for a car in a check engine, you know, resolve. You're like, that's never gonna work. You know that it's never gonna work.

Chuck Mitchell [00:09:40]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and learning to, learning to navigate that with people was it Was a struggle. Yeah. Because you didn't know how it was gonna come across on the other end. You know, when they came in and they're like, hey, I just had my code right up the road, you know, and. And it says that I need an EGR valve. And I was like, well, are you sure? Well, that's what it says. And then to kindly explain to them, well, an EGR flow code is not an EGR valve.

Chuck Mitchell [00:10:06]:
There's so many things that go into that code that just tells you that it doesn't sense that there's enough going through there. You know, there's so many things in that system that can affect that. And then you're kind of talking yourself out of a sale.

Jeff Compton [00:10:22]:
Yeah, so. Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:10:23]:
Yeah, yeah, do that. No, you're not supposed to.

Jeff Compton [00:10:26]:
No.

Chuck Mitchell [00:10:26]:
Right, but. And that's one thing that I did struggle with in that industry is just trying to make sure people were doing it right, which sometimes meant that I wasn't going to make as much money in an industry that wants to sell the parts to make the money. Yeah. So, yeah, that was. That was tough.

Jeff Compton [00:10:43]:
So you give that up and you go back. So.

Chuck Mitchell [00:10:46]:
So I had. I had gotten transferred. I worked for a larger private Napa holder. They held quite a Napa stores. And I got transferred, and I was dry. I went from driving two minutes to work because we're in the same town, to driving 45 minutes to work. And it's. It's something that they were common on doing is just kind of moving store managers and kind of, you know, seeing where strengths and weaknesses are and stuff like that.

Chuck Mitchell [00:11:10]:
But I just. I didn't want to do that anymore. So one of my customers called me up. He has small car dealership, has three service bays. And he's like, hey, he's like, I heard you got transferred. Is that good or bad? And I said, well, I don't like driving that far. And he's like, so it wasn't a promotion? I said, no. He said, so, are you looking? And I said, I don't know.

Chuck Mitchell [00:11:31]:
Are you looking? He said, I kind of need someone to help me on the service end. He came from the world of. He just liked buying cars and didn't like how it was to buy cars. He didn't like dealing with dealerships to buy used cars, so he started a dealership. So he needed someone to help him run the service end because he had to learn that on the fly. And he had been in business for 10 years, I think, at the time, and was like, yeah, I Want someone to run it and help me run the shop. And I said, yeah, I can do that. So I left Napa, went to work for him.

Chuck Mitchell [00:12:05]:
About a year in, he starts nudging me, and he's like, you need to buy this place. And we laughed about it and joked about it, and I'm like, you know, he had this old Jeep, old 01 Wrangler, just rotten, you know, beat up. It was kind of a loaner vehicle. We'd use it to run for parts and stuff. And I was like, only if. If I get that sweet Jeep across the street with it. And we joked, you know, but it kind of became a thing of. I think we're getting close to year two.

Chuck Mitchell [00:12:32]:
And he's like, listen, I'm serious. You need to buy this place. And I said, well, give me a number. And he gave me a number, and I said, well, let me. Let me see what I can do. Let me. Because from the start, I mean, the reason I got into being a mechanic is because I wanted to run my own shop. I wanted to help people when their cars are broken.

Chuck Mitchell [00:12:51]:
I wanted to help them, you know, get to where they need to go. That I think that's what every mechanic kind of has in them is that's truly what they want to do. Yeah. You know, there's all different layers to it that come out as to why, but I think that's really what they just. That's their way of helping people because they're good at figuring things out, you know?

Jeff Compton [00:13:10]:
Yeah, we. Like, for me, I told the story. For me, where I grew up, like, having a car meant a lot of freedom, because where I live, the bus didn't run out there, you know, so if you had friends that were like, you know, 10 miles away, you didn't see them unless you rode your bike. Like, the transit system didn't run out there. So to get a car at 16, 17, 18 meant you could really open up your social circle a lot more. We're talking way back, kids, 1990s. Right. Like, I'm 50, so it meant a big deal to have a car.

Jeff Compton [00:13:43]:
And then it just became a situation where I understood what a car's purse is. The person's freedom. Being able to move about freely is key for people. You talk to seniors, and it's like the driver's license they hold is so dear because as soon as that's gone, their independence is a lot of it is gone.

Chuck Mitchell [00:14:04]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:14:04]:
Right. So I didn't really always appreciate what it meant to somebody, what their car truly Represented. We see it sometimes like this thing's a piece of it.

Chuck Mitchell [00:14:12]:
Oh yeah, yeah, right.

Jeff Compton [00:14:14]:
But it's their whole means of being self reliant or being able to do things that they wouldn't otherwise see their people take their husband to, you know, chemotherapy, treatment, all that kind of stuff.

Chuck Mitchell [00:14:26]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:14:26]:
We don't forget, we, we don't appreciate that sometimes. And I think it's, it's big. So. Yeah, I'm, I'm getting better at wanting to help people.

Chuck Mitchell [00:14:33]:
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:14:35]:
I see it as just a job anymore.

Chuck Mitchell [00:14:36]:
Yeah, it becomes a little bit more than that. You know, we see customers. We had a lady who, you know, has some difficulty getting around. She works at one of our local gas stations. Wonderful lady. But you know, that's, that's her means, you know, she gets a little bit of fixed income and then she does that to make, to make ends meet. And she brought in her old trailblazer, which was rough. It was, you know, and you have a hard time.

Chuck Mitchell [00:15:05]:
And I think this is where a lot of guys say that, you know, when I'm running my business, I have a hard time because I feel bad for people. Because when I look at his car and say, well, it's Gonna cost you $4,000 for me to make this thing go down the road safely, let alone it's a Trailblazer, the thing knocks when it starts up. It doesn't shift right. Like we're not even talking engine, transmission yet. We're just talking suspension to get it out on the road safely, you know. And we started looking for another vehicle and I just happened across a roughly used Grand Caravan that we were able to get her for a little bit less than what, what her car needed, but it was in way better shape mechanically, you know. And it's things like that, you know, like you're talking the independents. She needs that to get to work, just to make a living, you know, and things like that.

Chuck Mitchell [00:15:58]:
Being able to help people that way definitely made everyone in our dealership feel a lot better, you know.

Jeff Compton [00:16:04]:
So you, you purchased the, the, the dealership from your friend?

Chuck Mitchell [00:16:07]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [00:16:08]:
Some kind of. You get the Jeep? I assume so.

Chuck Mitchell [00:16:10]:
Yeah, we got the Jeep. That was the joke when I, when we, when we signed over, you know. And the other thing is when we were negotiating prices, I said, I'm, you know, they gave me a price and I said, I'm not going to pay it the price minus a dollar. I'm like, I'm not going to pay more than that. So when we, when we signed I got a dollar and change and I got the keys to the Jeep. And that was the most expensive 01 Wrangler that's ever been sold, you know? Yeah, so. So, yeah, so we bought it just about two and a half years ago. Man.

Chuck Mitchell [00:16:44]:
The story of buying the place. We had a tech leave right before we bought the place, before we got an okay from the bank. He said that he had the opportunity to go to a bigger dealership with insurance and all the other benefits, and we didn't want to shy him away from that. But we weren't telling anyone about the sale yet because we weren't sure that it was gonna happen.

Jeff Compton [00:17:05]:
Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:17:06]:
You know, so we basically said, you know, I'm gonna work in the bay, while after he leaves, we'll get through to the end of the sale, and then once I buy it, I'll figure out what I'm gonna fill the bay with, you know, So I already knew that was gonna be a challenge, but we definitely wanted it bad enough that we were willing to keep going through even with. With one tech down in a. In a three bay shop, you know, so we made the deal. We got the okay from the bank after he left. I worked in that shop, we bought the shop, and within one month, the lube tire guy throws his back out for, I don't know, third or fourth time. He's hurt his back a few times, and they're like, well, you just can't do this anymore, you know, so now I'm. Now I'm two. Older.

Chuck Mitchell [00:17:54]:
Older guy. No, he's. He's probably about my age, probably about our age, but he had an accident of quite a few years back, has had back surgery, you know, plus, not that this job is easy when you're slinging tires and. And everything like that, so. So, yeah, my son, who at the time was 15, almost 16, it was summer, and it's like, hey, bud, you know, you can do some oil changes and tires. How you want to come work full time? And we just kind of threw him into it. Crash course. He got us through until we could make the mistake that everybody says about hiring two apprentices at the same time.

Jeff Compton [00:18:33]:
Yes, it's tough, isn't it?

Chuck Mitchell [00:18:35]:
It is. It is. Luckily, luckily, blessed, however you want to put it. We got two fantastic kids. One of them, who is now 19, he's been fantastic. He's a friend of my son' you know, jump right into it. The other one, she's a farm girl, and she came in. She's in her early 20s, and she's like, I do stuff on my trucks.

Chuck Mitchell [00:19:02]:
I just, I want to learn and I want to work in a shop. And they're both, they're both good, solid people. So they came in, they both work hard, you know, and that's, that's the.

Jeff Compton [00:19:12]:
Big like, you know, we talk about the shortage of young people, right. And everybody, you know, they either. I want them to be able to do these three things. Like all these colleges have got to be able to teach them to do this. I need to do this minimum. It's not always about as simple as that. You know what I mean? I see so many and it's like they have the ability but they lack sometimes the confidence, you know, which slows them down. They're like super focused on.

Jeff Compton [00:19:39]:
I didn't make a mistake. I tightened this. You can see the gears are turning their head. They're building the process. It's fascinating to watch. And then other people, they're too friggin slow. Oh my God. Like they're, they're doing almost a perfect job.

Jeff Compton [00:19:52]:
Yeah. You want it done in, you know, no. 3. It shouldn't take three hours to do an oil change. But I mean like I look at some of them and it's what they want done for a DBI and an oil change now and an inspection, an hour is completely reasonable for a young person.

Chuck Mitchell [00:20:05]:
Oh yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:20:05]:
Completely reasonable.

Chuck Mitchell [00:20:06]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:20:07]:
And yet it's like I need, I need them to do 10 in the morning. Well, that's, that's the wrong way to bring these young people in. Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:20:14]:
Like, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:20:15]:
I, I always likened it to like everybody thought if you got two techs then they cost X amount of dollars. Or you go and get two apprentices and it costs half as much and I get two of them, I get more work. It doesn't work like that because you almost need, there's too much more, twice as much guidance having to go out.

Chuck Mitchell [00:20:34]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:20:34]:
Like you're stopping a lot more to like, I don't want to say babysit because that's a negative connotation. But like the, the, the mentorship.

Chuck Mitchell [00:20:41]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:20:41]:
Spreads you really thin on two months. I know what it was like.

Chuck Mitchell [00:20:45]:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We, you know, having a three bays, we got the one senior tech and we just keep him going. We definitely had to change the way our shop work and what kind of stuff it took on. You know, my, my senior tech, he's been there for a long time. He's been there since the late 80s.

Jeff Compton [00:21:01]:
Wow.

Chuck Mitchell [00:21:03]:
He's definitely a solid. You know, give him A timing belt, give him suspension, give him whatever. He will definitely do it way under what book time is. Yeah. But he does not like electronics. He doesn't like the new stuff. You know, I did a lot of that stuff. So did the tech that left before we bought the place.

Chuck Mitchell [00:21:20]:
So we definitely had to change our focus on what we were able to accomplish at our shop and what kind of work we brought in and start those two from basics to make it manageable. But really at that time it was almost a point of survival. Like, what do you do? You got, you got no one out there that we can find. We don't know. You know, we just stepped into this thing. How the heck are we going to do this?

Jeff Compton [00:21:43]:
And you know, losing the technician, that's I want to say is up to date sometimes on the technology right now. That's, that's the tough hole to fill. You know, it always has been. Like, I mean we can, it's getting harder now to find anybody that we can to be able to. The average technician age right now, it's a stat that keeps floating around here. 43 years old. 43. So you think about like how many 43 year old techs are looking.

Jeff Compton [00:22:11]:
None.

Chuck Mitchell [00:22:11]:
None.

Jeff Compton [00:22:12]:
None. They're already, if they're already somewhere, they're established and they're being taken care of and treated well and for the most part they're not going to want to move. So we have to bring these young people in, but when we bring them in, like you have to completely rethink how we were brought up because like they don't want to be ribbed and joked with the way we did. Like they're, I don't say they're soft, but they, they take it different.

Chuck Mitchell [00:22:40]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:22:40]:
And then like, I don't even want to say constructive criticism but like you have to show them guidance. And they ask a. Why? They ask why a lot.

Chuck Mitchell [00:22:48]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:22:49]:
Like it's like having a child. Why, why, why, why, why? It's good. That's what I always want to be feeding them is like when they stop asking why, I think that's when it's done. They're done learning.

Chuck Mitchell [00:22:58]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:22:58]:
But when they have a question about why do you do something that way? Like, yeah, it's a slow process, but slow down and show them because I think that's what instinctively. Then they ask why less because they start to understand why you would do it that way. And then they think for themselves how it would probably be done. Sometimes the step B is not correct, but at least you're Developing that confidence and that focus on, if I did this, this will probably come after the fact, and so on and so forth. Yeah, that's how I think we get the young people going up to task as fast as possible.

Chuck Mitchell [00:23:33]:
It totally is. It is different now with. With the younger generation than it was with ours. You know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, my. My service manager at the bus company, old Vietnam vet, had some. Had some foot problems. So he was grumpy. You know, we had people at our shop that he would fire.

Chuck Mitchell [00:23:53]:
Every day, he'd fire him. And then when you went to pack your stuff up, he's like, what are you doing? Get back to work. You know, he just. It was. It was rough. It was. You got slammed hard, but we stuck with it. You know, now they're not.

Chuck Mitchell [00:24:10]:
They don't take that anymore. You know, they're like, well, then I'll just go somewhere else. I'll just. I'll go do something else.

Jeff Compton [00:24:15]:
This is.

Chuck Mitchell [00:24:16]:
This isn't worth it. You know, And I kind of liked it, likened it. I posted something on Facebook. Someone had asked a question about the new generation. I kind of likened it to old cars. You know, back in the days when you had a flathead or a Y block or, you know, old Chevy 350, especially a 300 straight six, you could run those things without oil. You could abuse them. And they just took it and they took it and they grunted and they kept working just like the old technicians did.

Chuck Mitchell [00:24:42]:
Yeah, the new technicians won't take that. If you don't change your oil, if you don't maintain a new car, that thing's going to die fast. But when you look at horsepower ratings and you look at efficiencies and you look at everything, the new technicians are kind of that same way. Once. Once you're able to unlock that in them. You know, my apprentice, she. She started early and she was very, you know, like you said, didn't have confidence, didn't know she could do stuff. And I walk her through it, and I'm like, hey, I got four things going on right now.

Chuck Mitchell [00:25:13]:
Go bring the car in. You know how to get Pro Demand up. Identifix. Bring it up. Start looking through it. I want you to familiarize yourself with how they say to do it. I'll be out there to help you in a minute. Yeah, right, of course.

Chuck Mitchell [00:25:24]:
Half hour goes by, and I'm still not out there. By the time I walk out there, she looks at me, goes, I don't need you. Go away. Yeah, you Know, she figured it out. You know, I think it took her. It took her first oil cooler on a. On a Pentastar 36. You know, she stumbled through it, and I was supposed to be out helping her.

Chuck Mitchell [00:25:43]:
And she's one I can definitely trust that she's gonna torque everything. She's gonna walk step by step through it. I think her second one, she did about 10% on her book time, and now she's the fastest one in the shop at doing those. You know, she just. It's crazy how good she is and how fast when you just, you know, walk them through, empower them. Yep. Give them the confidence, give them the pat on the back when it comes that time. Just let them, let them struggle a little bit on their own.

Chuck Mitchell [00:26:15]:
You know, you don't need to push them, nothing like that. So we definitely. We have to handle them a lot differently than we were handled when we were growing up.

Jeff Compton [00:26:24]:
I just did one of those jobs on right before I left to come here. So, like Friday morning, I'm wrapping it up. It was a 2018 Ram of the 3 6. Right. And I'm going back to remember, like, these stupid little locks on the connectors. Right. And all that kind of stuff. Like, if you gave that to somebody brand new green, and it never said, hey, I.

Jeff Compton [00:26:45]:
These are, you know, you're gonna have to manipulate this to be able to unplug that because you got to get your harness out of the way.

Chuck Mitchell [00:26:50]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:26:50]:
If we didn't before you come back, they're really struggling with something. Right. So it's just those little tips of saying, looking at a job and going, okay, I can kind of think this is going to be a snag for you. So let me go ahead and tell you to watch for this. And then other times they come out and it's just they instinctively went, I wonder if I click on this and we didn't have to tell them. That's the wrinkle for me is always like, I haven't figured out what I have to tell each one because what I think they all would struggle with, one just goes, snap, snap, done. You know, no problems. Like, yeah, they're fascinating, especially the young women that come in because, like, I see it, some of them are so detail oriented.

Chuck Mitchell [00:27:31]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:27:32]:
Like, it's. It's not surprising that some of the best auto body techs I've seen lately in the industry are female because they're so detail oriented. Like their, their eye is refined. Everything is meticulous. They're. They're. Sometimes they Work cleaner.

Chuck Mitchell [00:27:50]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:27:50]:
She's probably the cleanest.

Chuck Mitchell [00:27:51]:
Oh, yeah. She's organized. If you, if you borrow her bait. So in our shop, you know, we put them through the Napa apprentice program. So she's learning. Learning on that. Yeah, she's about halfway through the program now. And so she's got her tool kit and it's her tools.

Chuck Mitchell [00:28:08]:
As long as she finishes the program, she gets to keep them. Yeah. But she's in her bay, so if anyone does work in her bay, they'll. They'll use her toolbox. Yeah. If you don't put her tools back, she will flip out on you. It's, it's, it's. It's crazy how, how clean and organized she is just instinctively, you know, compared to some of the other, the other techs that I've worked with.

Chuck Mitchell [00:28:33]:
And she does have that eye. She's definitely very detail oriented. When she puts, puts stuff together, the harnesses go back where they're supposed to. You know, it's definitely not a concern with her that everything's going to be done right. And, and it's amazing how, like you said, instinctively they do that. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:28:51]:
You know, I don't know where it comes from. I don't know, like. And again, I don't think it's necessarily a gender thing or a, you know, young, young men play with this type of toy. And younger. I don't think it's got zero to do with that. I just think it's like sometimes the ego of, oh, look how fast I got that done. You know what I mean? What seems to be the male ideal in this industry, whereas the women seem to be like, look at how well I did that job.

Chuck Mitchell [00:29:18]:
Yeah, I think you're right.

Jeff Compton [00:29:19]:
And I think we have to shift that back to that. But, like, I wish more, more young women were getting into this trade every day. I just think it's like, I think there's so many opportunities. I think they would bring such a fresh breath to how we have to do this kind of stuff. And like, look at this stuff. It's. Yeah, the vehicles are not small, but we're getting more and more equipment that's helping them overcome some of the physical stand, you know, And I argue this, like, Listen, I'm 50 years old. I don't want to be lifting tires on the trucks all day long.

Jeff Compton [00:29:49]:
I'm 50.

Chuck Mitchell [00:29:50]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:29:51]:
I. And, you know, at 22, could I do it? Yes. So we have to look at now maybe what is the new standard that we put up in there and the equipment that we put in the shop so that, like, none of us, male or female, 18 or 52, need to be lifting really heavy stuff if we can find another way to do it right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:30:09]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:30:09]:
We want our people to last longer and not be walking around on sore feet with, like, you know, firing people all day long. The aches and pains thing is, yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [00:30:19]:
Like, I think, you know, we talk about our industry and how we want to improve it. We talk a lot of people focus on the technicians coming up. What are we gonna. What are we gonna do? Because, you know, whatever excuse they want to use, whether, oh, they don't work hard enough, they don't work fast enough, whatever it is. I think we need to look at our industry more. I mean, you and I are close to the same age and both of us have the same physical pains that you look at my lube tech, who he still works with us part time, but he's now part time, he has other income, and we keep him around just to kind of help him, give him some spending money. He's kind of our shop guy. He helps keep things clean.

Chuck Mitchell [00:31:02]:
I fully believe he'd still be a lube tech if he didn't have the physical injuries that he has from, you know, from the work he did. So, you know, our generation looks at it like, hey, if you need something to lift a tire, you're just. You're just a wuss. Yeah, I think we need to get away from that mentality and understand that this is just a very physical job. And if we continue the way we're going to, mechanics aren't going to make it long enough to replace themselves with the new mechanics coming up.

Jeff Compton [00:31:28]:
And that's the thing. There's the whole. There's the. The aptitude factor, but then there's a whole other thing where it's like, we have a generation of kids that maybe never took gym, you know what I mean? Like, they never took physical education classes. So for them, the exertion of lifting of something like that is like, what, are you kidding? You know, I'm like, oh. Or swinging a hammer onto something. My brother is a great example. My brother, you know, weightlifting, like powerlifting, mma, you name it.

Jeff Compton [00:31:59]:
Athletic, stuff like that, he totally gets it. And he would see nothing wrong with picking up a weight 100 times and dropping on the ground if the result was that it was going to make him stronger the next day to do it. If I was to go out and say, swing that hammer against that piece of control arm 10 times to get the ball joint, I'D go, is there a better way? But he would take the hammer out and beat on a tire for an exercise, you know what I mean? So their intrinsic value, ideals of is there a more efficient, better way is what we need to be developing.

Chuck Mitchell [00:32:31]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:32:31]:
You know, and they look at us like I'm sitting here. My, I have to keep moving my left arm and I have to keep moving my right arm because, you know, my tendinitis flares up. I don't want to see that for them when they're, you know, 50 years old and still have 10 more years, 15 more years. I want to see them be a little bit more healthier. Me now, I did some stupid things when I was younger and caused the injuries. Right. They're not related to this industry, but like, we should be able to market ourselves as a very safe, you know, rewarding career.

Chuck Mitchell [00:33:06]:
Sure. I think, you know, I know my grandparents, they were on the. You work for a company, they take care of you most of your life, you retire. I think we're to the point now whether you stay with the same company. We need to be thinking about, we need to take care of our body long enough to make it, you know, till retirement. You know, my senior tech, he's getting up there in age. He's in his late 50s. He struggles a lot.

Chuck Mitchell [00:33:34]:
He just had arm surgery, hand surgery last year. He's off for a couple months. He struggles just doing the day to day physically, you know, and his worry is, hey, I still need to make it to retirement, you know, so, yeah, I, I hate the fact that we have to do that at this point. But I think we need to think about the future techs and helping them, you know, create an environment where they can make it to retirement. I think that's going to be a key to making it more of a, more an industry that they look at more.

Jeff Compton [00:34:07]:
And I've always been of the, you know, I believe that the natural progression of a tech should be, hopefully is that they can, you know, develop a lot more of the mental side of the game, you know, where you get into the diagnostic and the programming or the leadership role, you know, instructional type thing where there's a place for you in the shop. But it's not like a lot of lifting and, you know, a lot of tires and stuff like that. But I see sometimes that we just, we fail to execute like that. It's not scalable to a lot of shops where, you know, I have a technician and they're 45, they're 50, and now I want to put them out on the front counter and be a service writer. They don't necessarily are comfortable with that. Right. Or we say, oh, well, everybody says, oh, you should make them a foreman in a shop. Sometimes a shop of a certain size, small, doesn't necessarily need a foreman.

Chuck Mitchell [00:34:57]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:34:57]:
Right. Like that's where you would come out and be almost the acting foreman.

Chuck Mitchell [00:35:00]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:35:01]:
You wear multiple hats in the business all day long, I think, right?

Chuck Mitchell [00:35:04]:
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:35:05]:
So that, what do we do with that 45, 50 year old that's slowing down? Like, how do we Chuck, how do we keep them like. Prof. Like, what's the word I'm thinking of economically? Makes sense and still rewarding to them.

Chuck Mitchell [00:35:19]:
Yeah, I think that's, that's kind of the struggle. Like that's the struggle we have. You know, I think you're right. The natural progression you would hope is that they would start out lugging tires, putting on some suspension stuff, you know, kind of going from there and then get into the point where they can start doing engine work and the more intricate and more, you know, detail oriented things. You need to be a little bit smarter about and, and move up. And then you would hope that, you know, later on they would have the experience to do the diagnostics and, and the things that require less lifting, more brain power. But I don't know that every tech has that in them. I think they kind of hit a skill level where, you know, they're either no longer comfortable or no longer industry interested and they kind of stop at a certain level.

Chuck Mitchell [00:36:07]:
Yeah, so I, I think that's, that's a key to it is, is how do we, you know, how do we take whatever talent it is, wherever they've kind of stalled at, and help them through to the end of their career with it.

Jeff Compton [00:36:22]:
Because like your, your own tech is, wants nothing that left, you guys, you know, wanted nothing to do with the modern electrical drivability. And I can kind of relate because it's like people, we have. The EV conversation keeps coming up.

Chuck Mitchell [00:36:35]:
Oh yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:36:35]:
You know, and Seth Larson says to me, oh, well, this is coming. And I said, seth, I'm gonna be living in the woods hopefully by then with a, like a dog sled and a horse.

Chuck Mitchell [00:36:44]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [00:36:44]:
Because like I just, you know, I have no. And it's not that I don't think the tech is cool, but I think the, the whole what the EV thing is going, I think is just in a, without being political. It's just going in a direction that I don't want to be part of sure. You know, and that's the nice way. But like, these young kids, like Sherwood from Royalty, talked about his grandson, you know, who. Who essentially is taking apart a remote control car and melding it with some Lego tool, Lego toys, to make a one off, you know, remote control. The kids. Eight.

Chuck Mitchell [00:37:20]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:37:21]:
Like, that is just. I wouldn't attempt that.

Chuck Mitchell [00:37:24]:
You know what I mean? Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:37:25]:
And there's a child that's eight going, I wonder how I can make this do this and do that. And I'm totally honest. I was never that type of kid. Like, I would take stuff apart, but I, I knew when I was taking it apart, I wasn't probably putting it back together.

Chuck Mitchell [00:37:37]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:37:38]:
Because I was with a hammer and a screwdriver, whatever tools I found. Right. But this young man is, Is already, young child is already thinking, like, how do I do this in a manner that keeps it functional?

Chuck Mitchell [00:37:48]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:37:49]:
That's. That's the next level. Level, level of skill. And then if they're totally into that ev thing, I think, like, if you got a technician that's interested in it, we have to. This is going to be unpopular for a lot of shops. If you're not touching it, but they're really interested in it, you might need to really think about how do you point them to an employer that can get them that kind of experience and training.

Chuck Mitchell [00:38:13]:
I think you're right. I think, you know, you talk about, in our industry, you talk about the struggle to get technicians and things like that, and everybody's kind of fighting for their own. Their own piece. I think we really need to look at the industry as a whole. And I think you're right. I think when you, when you have technicians that have a certain skill or a certain desire, because that's, you know, that's what it takes. Yeah. You.

Chuck Mitchell [00:38:41]:
You either need to figure out how to. How to modify your business to support them. Yes. Or you need to find them a place where they can work that will support them. And I kind of think we need to get together on things like that. And, you know, I. We come from a. We're in a small city.

Chuck Mitchell [00:39:01]:
We got about 20,000 in our city. There's a couple towns around us that are, you know, 8 to 10,000 people, so fairly small.

Jeff Compton [00:39:08]:
Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [00:39:10]:
We get along with a lot of the other shops in the area. We talk to each other, you know, we worked. If I'm overbooked, I'll definitely send it down the road and be like, hey, this guy's great down here. Go talk to him. Knowing that with the other shops in the area. If I get a. If I get a guy come to me from the single guy tire shop down the road and he's like, hey, you know, they sent me to come get an alignment done. I'm like, all right, yeah, I'll do an alignment.

Chuck Mitchell [00:39:34]:
And they're like, hey, I have these other concerns. I'll be like, you know what? He's your guy. Go back over there. I don't want to take business from him, you know, but when it comes to technician stuff, you know, same thing is if I. If I have a technician that comes my way, that is. Doesn't fit what we're doing at our shop, I kind of need to. And it's easier for us to do in a small town because we know each other. Yeah, that.

Chuck Mitchell [00:39:56]:
That doesn't seem to work when you get into bigger cities, when everybody's kind of fighting for their piece of the pie.

Jeff Compton [00:40:00]:
You talked about how, like, you know, if. If you had a customer bring you something for an alignment, and they're also. Can you check X, Y, and Z while you're here? And you say, well, I could, but you're. You belong to Carl, right? You're Carl's. Like, just have Carl look at it. There's. I've never heard another shop owner that wouldn't be like, oh, yeah, right away. I can do that.

Jeff Compton [00:40:21]:
You know, and then like, yep, here's your. Here's the thing. Yeah, we'll take care of it right now. Yeah, I think that we need to. I've always said this, like, I'm. I. I appreciate competition, but I mean, like, there's the idea that there's certain things that we can't talk about in this industry because it's called collusion to me, is nonsense. Like, if we all sat down in a room and said, listen, okay, you're 130.

Jeff Compton [00:40:46]:
You're 90. Like, you don't have to go to 130, but let's get you above 100 right now. And then let's start to. Everybody kind of come closer together. And like, you've got these OE tools. For instance, maybe you got. You got diagnostic scan tools, OE level for European cars. I'm gonna send you all my European cars.

Jeff Compton [00:41:07]:
I don't want to see a Chevy pickup truck in your laneway, though. Like, send it down to me, and in turn, we help one another, right?

Chuck Mitchell [00:41:13]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:41:13]:
But I always think that this industry, where it's gotten so far off into the. Into the rhubarb is because I don't want to see anyone else succeed. I. I need all the cards for myself. So I. I do everything. And it's. Mike Allen was throwing a saying around.

Jeff Compton [00:41:32]:
Watch me get to scalable mediocre kitty.

Chuck Mitchell [00:41:34]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:41:35]:
And. And it's, it's funny because it's true. Right? It's, it's, it's. I'd rather do it and do it. Okay. Than see somebody else do it. Awesome. Because I then didn't get to do it.

Chuck Mitchell [00:41:47]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:41:48]:
I. I was never that.

Chuck Mitchell [00:41:51]:
It doesn't. That doesn't fit. That doesn't fit us. I know that. No, I. I will do the best at what we can do. I will do the best for our customers at what we can do and what we have skills at. And I know there's other people out there that have skills that I don't have.

Jeff Compton [00:42:08]:
Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:42:09]:
You know, you talk about the EV industry. I think this stuff's interesting. Right? It really is. Nobody in my area will touch it. You know, they won't even touch. Unless you go to the big dealerships. Nobody will even touch hybrids. You know, they come in and they're like, hey, we have, you know, we want a coolant flush on our hybrid.

Chuck Mitchell [00:42:26]:
Nobody will touch it. They're like, go to the dealer. And I'm like, okay, we can do that. We've been through the safety courses. We can do. I'm not going to tear the battery out of it.

Jeff Compton [00:42:34]:
Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:42:34]:
Because we're not at that level yet. We haven't, we haven't made it there. But we'll touch them. You know, and that's stuff that we, we can do. But there's other stuff. We've got a muffler shop in our area who's been a muffler shop for generations. And.

Jeff Compton [00:42:50]:
Right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:42:50]:
They do pipe bending, they do exhaust work. Custom stuff. If you get a flex pipe rusted through on us, I'm gonna send you to him because he's better skilled at that, and he's gonna, he's gonna help that customer at a higher level than we will be able to and at a better price than we will be able to. And I think in our industry, we kind of need to get to that point. We need to remember that that's. That's what we're here for. You know, we're not here to be all become millionaires on our own and step on the guy next to us. We're here to keep everybody moving.

Jeff Compton [00:43:24]:
Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [00:43:24]:
You know, 100.

Jeff Compton [00:43:25]:
There is more cars than we can all get through. That's. Lucas taught me and you know, I start to see it now where it's like there is, there really is too many cars for most of us to be ever able to get through. So the whole thing is, is like, let's make it worth everybody's while to do them and let's put out a good product and let's have some people have faith again in our industry. You know, it's the conversation earlier, we. We need to get back to this idea of being craftsmen and taking real pride in what it is that I actually turned out. You know, and I believe that like with the young people, especially when they get into these high production dealership kind of jobs or chain store things, there is never that there's never mentored into them the idea of being a craftsman. It's just the mentored into them of being a profit generator, a car fixer, a parts installer, whatever you want to call it, a tire guy.

Jeff Compton [00:44:20]:
We don't have them where it's like you took something that was broken and you made it whole again. That's a beautiful endorphic kick that you get from that. And we're not selling that to our young people enough the way we should be. You know, we're saying, oh, it's really cool. You can make some money and you get to play with new tech. No, let's go back to, you can take something that means a lot to somebody and it's broken and you can restore it to where it works for them again. And you can do it with pride and you can do it with, you know, real flair. Real kind of like something you'd be proud to say that not everybody can do that.

Jeff Compton [00:45:00]:
Not everybody can go out there and solve why that car won't start. Example just the same as not everybody else can go out there and bend up a piece of pipe to put in a patch in an exhaust system that they do it in blinding speed. It costs less than putting on a piece of junk pipe that's gonna rot out in two years and the customer's happy. That's what we need to be all doing and shining light on. Like, they're good at that, they're good at this, they're good at that. Let's all work together to, you know, all of us come up better. That's going back to it. We need to slow down and stop looking at that guy down the road as our competition.

Jeff Compton [00:45:39]:
It's the same that the argument for me, you know, dealerships, texts are this and independent techs are that. I hate that. It drives me Crazy. Because when you start talking about how they're treated and where they tend to work, how they tend to be paid, everybody all of a sudden goes, I didn't know that's how it went. That makes a lot more sense why I had to take it back three times when it was for this intermittent problem. Yeah, because they're not getting paid to fix your car. That's the right.

Chuck Mitchell [00:46:07]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:46:08]:
Like you. So all of a sudden, then they go, wow, now I'm a little more understanding. Okay, so now we're a little more understanding when the customer comes into us with a problem about what they claim has been somewhere else. I never took that at face value ever. Like, you know, it doesn't mean anything to me. We're starting over here. Yeah, I'm gonna. Yes, we're gonna ask questions, but I don't want to hear that you took it there for brakes.

Jeff Compton [00:46:32]:
We all heard the thing. Well, I went in there for. For. For the check engine light on, and when I left, it was $1300. I got new brakes while I was there. But a check engine light was still $1300. No, it wasn't.

Chuck Mitchell [00:46:43]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [00:46:43]:
It was really 150 bucks. But all the other thing is, like, because in their mind, what I took it in for cost me $100.

Chuck Mitchell [00:46:52]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:46:53]:
That's where we need to slow down and share some of this.

Chuck Mitchell [00:46:58]:
Yeah. I.

Jeff Compton [00:46:59]:
What's the biggest obstacle you're seeing right now in the industry? Oh, is it technician shortage, lack of information, lack of training? There's three big ones there.

Chuck Mitchell [00:47:13]:
Yeah, those are. Those are huge. You know, like I said, we're a small shop. I think the technician shortage, I see it around our area. I think that definitely affects the industry. It affected us when I couldn't find a good technician right away, and I ended up hiring two. Two apprentices. Yeah, it affected the way that we did business, but we were definitely.

Chuck Mitchell [00:47:42]:
We were able to, you know, to pivot and get done what we needed to get done in our shop. I think, as a whole, that's definitely. You know, you see guys like check engine Chuck, and you see, you know, Royalty Auto, and they're guys that can dissect a car, diagnose it, and fix it correctly the first time. I think as an industry, that's definitely a struggle is having those high performers to help give our industry a better. A better name for itself, because we have a lot of people that are mediocre trying to do that and making a mess of it. And then, of course, the customer sees the. I went in for a check engine light. I paid 1300 bucks.

Chuck Mitchell [00:48:24]:
And now the check engine lights on again. Yeah. You know, so I think, I think that's definitely a struggle. I think here recently, you know, a lot of the vehicles we see are five to 10 years old. We see a little bit more of people that are more conservative with their money, not, not the brand new stuff. So, you know, we're just starting now to see like 21 22s come through for brakes and things like that. And I've run across a couple that even with our snap on scanner, even with all our access to everything and the secure link and everything like that, that there are still vehicles that we're struggling to turn the parking brakes off of. We spent a lot of money for all this stuff to not be able.

Chuck Mitchell [00:49:08]:
And then you're, you know, then you're looking at YouTube trying to find the back door to.

Jeff Compton [00:49:13]:
Know what it is, right? Oh yeah. Like you just unplug it and, and jump power and ground to it. But like that works until it doesn't.

Chuck Mitchell [00:49:20]:
Exactly.

Jeff Compton [00:49:20]:
And it scares me every time I do it. It's a pucker factor. The first time I ever do it on, on like I still have a hard fast rule. I don't do it on a euro car. Right. I will not because like if it's gonna bugger up, it'll be on one of them that you did it that way. And then everyone else is like, I have a shop owner, brilliant guy, friend of mine, he's like, I've never used the scan tool or never used the process on Ford or Chrysler to do it any. I just go back there and unplug them and, and do it.

Jeff Compton [00:49:46]:
And I've never had a problem. Yeah, like, wow, like I'm the new, the new Silverados with that big bulletin about how, you know, you pull the fluid out of the master cylinder right in the sequence. Brian Pollock is like, don't read rtfm. Brick the damn thing. And then you gotta call Brian and get him to.

Chuck Mitchell [00:50:05]:
Yeah, yeah, like.

Jeff Compton [00:50:07]:
And I'm still paranoid now when it's like. And it's a slow brake job for me, Sure, I haven't screwed one up yet. But I talked to all these guys and they're like, yeah, the first one we did, man, we screwed that up. But I'm good. So I'm, I'm always like, listen, I don't care how long it took me. I don't care how long did you. Did, did, did you make it through without causing more damage, doing more harm as we say, yeah, then cool, man. Now, now we learn something that, yeah, that's a perfect example.

Jeff Compton [00:50:37]:
The other thing is like the, the, the what was I trying to navigate? And it was like, oh, a Nissan for memory functions didn't work.

Chuck Mitchell [00:50:46]:
Okay.

Jeff Compton [00:50:46]:
Like a 2022 Murano memory seats, memory mirrors didn't work. So when the memory mirror doesn't work, the power mirror won't work. Okay, well, like I'm looking at this description from post published from Nissan. I'm like, and I worked at the dealer, but I'm like this, I haven't worked on this particular generation of Murano yet. How does this work? Like, okay, yeah, sure, there's all the signals going out, but it's not telling you what each wire is actually doing back and forth. You know that it's data. But what's this supposed to look like? Yeah, don't know. Do I have another one on the logical compare? No.

Jeff Compton [00:51:20]:
So I have to go back to my instincts and go, does it have all the powers and grounds it needs? Yeah. Is there any breaks in the wires between there to there?

Chuck Mitchell [00:51:27]:
Nope. Okay.

Jeff Compton [00:51:30]:
And I put my hand up and go, listen, I don't feel confident enough on this to say I think it's that module. But can we ship it down to the dealer and ask them? Because like they're gonna charge under 50 bucks to do diag, right? And then they're gonna be able to tell. Maybe they're, there's OE system is gonna give them more. It goes down there, they spend, you know, an hour on. It goes, yep, needs memory module. Here's the part number. I'm like, yeah, I got the part number already. I looked it up, you know, so my own lack of confidence meant that we spent another 150 bucks to get collaborated results.

Jeff Compton [00:52:04]:
I'm not, I don't have a problem with that.

Chuck Mitchell [00:52:06]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:52:07]:
You know, people that are in this industry and it's like, I don't have a, I don't have a problem with that. That gives me confidence to know. Yeah, you know what you're talking about, you know what you're doing. You would have been right. But man, what if I'd have been wrong?

Chuck Mitchell [00:52:18]:
Oh yeah. And that's, and the thing is it comes to the point of the customer, if we're wrong on this stuff, we're really wrong. When you do something like that and you take a guess at a module that's not cheap, and then where does that lie? I know in our instance we probably eat more than we should because we want to make sure that the customer has the confidence in us. We're also not, we're not holier now is what I, what I can think of. When it comes to a customer, we're okay with saying, hey, we, we messed up. You know, we were doing this and, and we broke this, we broke that because the stuff is getting so complicated, you know, and it, and, and the information for it isn't always there and you're trying to take care of the customer right away. So yeah, I think, I think the information, the, you know, getting, getting the information to do the job correctly, especially with how fast things are advancing and things are changing. You know, it seems like every, every couple of years they change the way something's wired or the way that some, some system actuates and, and you're relearning over and over and over again.

Jeff Compton [00:53:37]:
I just had a conversation the other day. A guy's trying to fix an ambient air temp sensor code in a Chevy Silverado. Now depending on the trim line that's on the Chevy Silverado, it'll take the ambient air temperature sensor data for the ecm, not for the cluster. But it will take it from, either, get this, the door mirrors or it takes it from the sensor. Just depends on how the car is configured. Where do they put the sensor? Well, we might just put it down in front of the rad like we have forever, but let's stick it in the mirror like so somebody's going, I got a Silverado with an ambient air temp code, right? If you don't know the VIN number, the RPO codes, all that other kind of stuff. And this is my argument is why Pro demand or all data, punch that in and it comes up and it says, yep, this is, oh, and this, this page. Or will be with this.

Jeff Compton [00:54:26]:
Why is it like that? Oh, wait a minute. Whereas if you have the OE stuff, it doesn't give you all those other options. It gives you the exact way it was written on the diagram. I'm not seeing optional connector here, optional wire here. None of that I'm seeing exactly. We need to be demanding in the, in the aftermarket way, better service information that we're paying for to say that's too friggin inaccurate anymore. I'm not paying for that. You know, we get talking about, somebody's asking me about Chrysler's fuel pump bypass, the tip of my passer and he's like, he's sending me, he's like that wiring diagram looks to me like it's written backwards.

Jeff Compton [00:55:07]:
Like that's not really how it works. I'm like, dude, I don't know. I haven't worked on that in so long I can't even remember now. Right. I don't. Like, if you tell me that it's not actually ground side switches, power side switch, I'm gonna believe you. You're a smart guy. You proved it to me.

Jeff Compton [00:55:22]:
But he's. He's asking me. I'm like, I don't know. I don't. My brain can't. Anymore. Can't keep all that stuff straight.

Chuck Mitchell [00:55:28]:
No.

Jeff Compton [00:55:28]:
Remember, I just. I get the. The wiring diagram out, and I look at it, and if I find an irregularity with it, it's probably going to send me down a rabbit hole. And then I'll be, like, so angry that I'll be wanting to call someone and say, hey, you know, this is published. Wrong. And they'll probably go, oh, yeah, we know we got a fix for that coming.

Chuck Mitchell [00:55:45]:
Sure. You get on that. And the. The fuel pump sensor issue that they had a few years ago, we. We had that problem. We had a Pacifica come through, needed a fuel pump sensor. You know, it ran through everything. Yep.

Chuck Mitchell [00:55:58]:
Sensors not reading correctly. It's bad sensor. So we order one, and they send us a sensor, and we're like, hey, the sensor doesn't have the same pigtail. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's updated. Okay, send me the update. So they send us the pigtail, and there's a little instructions on how to connect the sensor. What they didn't tell you was they flipped the wires. Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [00:56:17]:
So, yeah, we put it in. The engine light's still on. We're like, what the heck? We go through all our diagnostics again. We call them up, and they're like, yeah, you'll have to send it up to us for us to look at. So we send it up to the dealer, and the dealer is like, oh, yeah, you got the wires backwards. And we're like, no, we wired it exactly the way it came off. They said, we know when you put the new one in, you're supposed to flip it. It says it in our service manual.

Chuck Mitchell [00:56:39]:
But where is that published? Aftermarket. Absolutely. Nobody knows.

Jeff Compton [00:56:42]:
It's a parts note.

Chuck Mitchell [00:56:44]:
Yep.

Jeff Compton [00:56:44]:
That the parts guy should have. Or person.

Chuck Mitchell [00:56:47]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:56:48]:
Should have told you about. But they don't bother because they're so inundated with like a. I'm looking up this real quick, and, like, they need the inventory and where is it located? And they're forgetting to go, hey, by the way, let Me print this and put it in the box with you. They don't have time to do that.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:00]:
No.

Jeff Compton [00:57:01]:
That's where I love this networking thing. Right. Because you're telling me about it, and I'm going like this. I'm making a symbol.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:07]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:57:08]:
Like, because we've been there, done that, heard about it, talked about it, you know, the whole thing. If somebody wasn't so lucky to be networking the way we are or in the middle of somewhere else, you would tear that whole damn car apart.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:25]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:57:25]:
And think I got a computer's bad. Computer has to be bad.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:29]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:57:29]:
Harness has to be bad. And then, well, to find out that they. When they rebuilt the part to make it better, obviously fix something and never bothered to tell you.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:40]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:57:40]:
That's the kind of stuff that, like, I want to be able to call them up and. And say, here's my bill for your failure. You owe me this.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:49]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:57:49]:
Have a nice day.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:50]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:57:51]:
But the dealer's gonna tell you to f off. The OE's gonna be like, who are you again? Like, you're not even supposed to be working on this.

Chuck Mitchell [00:57:57]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. And you get onto that with. I heard someone talking about it with, you know, our technician shortage thing and everything is, you know, these Texas dealerships are getting paid, you know, half time for warranty, and who's responsible for the reason it's under warranty? Say, just like this, you know, you updated the part, but the information wasn't relayed. Who's responsible for that versus who's gonna have to pay for it?

Jeff Compton [00:58:21]:
You know, and my. My heart breaks for the dealership tax now because I know, like, that's my background. I know how tough it was. Right. And some days it was easy. Oh, it was easy. Some days. Some days it was ridiculous.

Jeff Compton [00:58:32]:
But other days it was really, really hard. It just was like a constant reality check. You get your teeth kicked in after one car, after one car, after one car. We all get that in this industry. But the dealer thing is, like, you're doing it at a level where you're not getting paid. You've already passed the point of, there's no way I'm four hours into this. Nobody's ever paid out more than two hours for this type of problem. So I'm already two hours in the hole.

Chuck Mitchell [00:58:56]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [00:58:57]:
Now I have to. I have to cut bait. I have to make a decision. What do I do? And you pull a pit. You pull the trigger on a module. Right. And they go, oh, well. Because the reality is there's a wiring in the harness somewhere that's touching ground intermittently.

Jeff Compton [00:59:10]:
But you're never gonna find it. No, you know, you're never gonna find it. And so when they people rip on anyone else anymore, I'm just like, I don't, I man, I, I try to remove myself from those kind of conversations because it's like I've been fortunate enough to meet so many smart people and none of them are dumb. None of them are dumb. It's just some of them have different experience like a lot of experiences over and over again that led them to believe that yeah, they were really bad for modules. I put a module in it.

Chuck Mitchell [00:59:40]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [00:59:40]:
That doesn't mean they're dumb. It's just what their, their instincts have developed and honed points them that like you gotta know that, that that module is not the problem. Well, if you're a dealer guy, how did you learn that you took one out of the other Exact car part actually. Same color, plugged it in and it fixed it good. My diag was done. They never learned the proper way. If you didn't have that as an option, what's the next way to diagnose? Something a little more involved.

Chuck Mitchell [01:00:09]:
Oh yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:00:09]:
And they always don't want to pay. Now we got talking this morning and it's like you're gonna see this, this VR and AI thing come along where you're going to technician's gonna put a VR helmet on, talk to an AI generator and you're gonna do tests and it's going to tell you to do the next test and the next test and it's going to come to a conclusion and say install that part or fix that here. Yeah, that's the reality. And it isn't because our people can't do the work. It's because they don't want to pay what our people are going to cost to do that work.

Chuck Mitchell [01:00:41]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [01:00:41]:
And we've failed forever to put in processes that teach them to where we don't have to rely on that technology. But they don't want to revamp their system by now.

Chuck Mitchell [01:00:51]:
Yeah, yeah, I saw that years ago. I had a guy come to work for me at the bus company who, who is a GM tech, worked at GM dealer, you know, and they even did it with, with the OnStar system because they didn't, you know, there's, there's security stuff there. They don't want that information going out. But, but that's what it was is, it was call the tech department. The tech department's going to tell you to take these two color wires. They're going to test here. Test here. Call us back with the results.

Chuck Mitchell [01:01:17]:
So he would call them back up, and they're like, okay, check this one. Check that one. After a few tests, they're like, all right, we're sending you some parts. Put in the parts. And that was it. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:01:26]:
No.

Chuck Mitchell [01:01:26]:
No clue as to how it worked. He just, you know. And. Yeah, you see that where they're starting to go that. That way? Because, you know, it takes. It takes the variables out of the technician on the floor.

Jeff Compton [01:01:39]:
Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [01:01:39]:
You know.

Jeff Compton [01:01:40]:
Yeah. But you're trusting that. Like, I had a. So I had it. A friend of mine. It's got an older tundra. I changed the engine in it. Then he puts the tundra to.

Jeff Compton [01:01:49]:
In the course. Like, what happens? Won't start. He's got coil control codes, all six coils. So he goes through the whole thing, and he's talking to me. He's like, can I just bring this to you? And I'm like, dude, I'm so far in the weeds right now at my shop, Like, I don't have time. And. And then, like, I'm about to go to sema. Like, I don't think I'll have time.

Jeff Compton [01:02:09]:
What. What. What's the problem here? And he's like, well, I took the engine out, and I said, sounds to me like you got a ground that's missing. No, I went and checked. Like, I'm pretty sure. I'm like, so test here and test here. Tell me what he's doing. He's like, and I don't even have 5 volts.

Jeff Compton [01:02:23]:
He says, I have 7 volts on my 5 volt. I'm like, there's a ground missing, man. If it's grow. I. It's a dumb term, but I said, if it's growing. Voltage on the 5 volt. It's missing around. It's back feeding.

Jeff Compton [01:02:33]:
It's looking for it. Well, he. He's like, I just don't want to. I don't want to f. For this anymore. The truck's been laid up for a year. Well, first it went through a transmission, yet it was driving after you put the training in, two months. And then the engine cabbed, and he took the engine out, Took it to a guy.

Jeff Compton [01:02:46]:
A local machine shop. Not just a guy. Rebuilt the engine, is waiting to get money and. And space and time gets the engine back in, of course. How long ago did he take the engine out? Six months ago.

Chuck Mitchell [01:02:58]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:02:58]:
Trying to remember where everything goes. So he calls me Just before I'm getting ready to leave, and he goes, I got to figure it out. Like, oh, yeah, what was it? He's like, it was a ground. So he's not a dumb kid.

Chuck Mitchell [01:03:10]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:03:11]:
You know what I mean? He's not a dumb mechanic. But sometimes there's. It's the old, somebody brought me a box of parts, and you want me to put it back together. It takes a real maybe crazy or a really brave person to say, yeah, I'll tackle that.

Chuck Mitchell [01:03:26]:
I'll try that, you know. Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:03:28]:
And that, that's what's missing, I think, sometimes is that we haven't been able to nurture that you can get through it. We're not going to punish you for getting through it.

Chuck Mitchell [01:03:39]:
Yeah, I think that kind of. I know growing up that got into my head sometimes was, I'm this far into it. I need to figure it out right now. And then you start to forget the simple things. I think nurturing them, nurturing young techs and giving them the ability to, to kind of find their way through it and know when to step back for a second and reset and, and that they can do it. And they're smart enough to. Because they, most of them are. You know, you hear, you hear people rip on the new techs and their working ability and stuff like that.

Chuck Mitchell [01:04:13]:
They're not dumb. They're not dumb. My techs are super intelligent and they need to learn, they need to experience it before they know, you know, how the stuff goes together, the things that can go wrong. They need to understand that we're all human. We were just talking about it at lunch today, and we brought up, we brought up, oh, about one of our techs putting the wrong size or grabbing the wrong size tires. We had, we had a customer that. Luckily it was the same customer. He bought tires for his son's car and for his car at the same time.

Chuck Mitchell [01:04:44]:
We ordered tires ahead. They come into the shop, his son car comes in, they go grab the tires that are labeled for. For the customer, put them on the car. The, the, the dad comes in, we go to put his tires on. Like, hey, these are the wrong size tires. Why do we have the wrong size tire? Where did the tires go? And we're searching all over. And then we figure, oh, you know, someone didn't check the tires when we put it on the son's car. And we put the dad's tires on the son's car and have the son's car tire sitting there.

Chuck Mitchell [01:05:12]:
Luckily, story turns out, great customer. He's. He was Mad for a second. Then when you know what people make mistakes, it's fine. Nothing. Got it. No one got hurt. It's.

Chuck Mitchell [01:05:21]:
And we fixed it. But my tech guy, really. He got really kind of butthurt and he's like, well, I don't, I don't. It was, it was late. I'm like, dude, it's fine, man. I've. I've made mistakes. You know, other.

Jeff Compton [01:05:34]:
We all make mistakes and happens in a shop every day.

Chuck Mitchell [01:05:37]:
Oh, yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:05:38]:
At least a dozen times across the industry.

Chuck Mitchell [01:05:41]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:05:41]:
Say right now in Canada. It's probably happened 10 times today by 9 o'. Clock.

Chuck Mitchell [01:05:47]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:05:47]:
Right. I mean, because it's like, I've done it my own. My mother's tires, when I put them on, they're directional.

Chuck Mitchell [01:05:52]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:05:53]:
I got two of them going the wrong way.

Chuck Mitchell [01:05:55]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:05:56]:
It, like, it's just because you're, you're, you're, you're constantly. I got to get this done. You know, I'm trying to help this out. And this is where we develop processes. And that's the thing. Like, how do we. It's just the little things.

Chuck Mitchell [01:06:07]:
Sure.

Jeff Compton [01:06:07]:
Slow down, you know, slow down to go fast.

Chuck Mitchell [01:06:10]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:06:10]:
Right.

Chuck Mitchell [01:06:10]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:06:11]:
And. And don't punish them. Like me. I've been that technician where it was like, if they trucked out the dealership, trucked out the tires to go put on that truck by that customer's name and they were the wrong size, I would have lost my mind.

Chuck Mitchell [01:06:24]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:06:25]:
Like, you know how much time I'm wasting? Like, let me guess. Now I've already got these broke down and off the rims and, oh, wait, they're not even in stock. So now I got to put these on. Who's paying for that? Yeah, that would have been me. And now I'm like, in a situation sometimes where I still see things like people order the wrong tire size. Supposed to be a 75, and we ordered a 65. You know, shit. What do we do? You just laugh about it.

Chuck Mitchell [01:06:48]:
Yeah, just laugh about it. It's a mistake. It happens. It sucks to be human. You know, I think that's a big thing with the. The upcoming text is we need to be able to let them understand that your whole learning process is making mistakes.

Jeff Compton [01:07:03]:
Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [01:07:03]:
You know, you try something, you do something, you make a mistake. Hopefully it's not expensive and we move on with life and you learn because you won't do it again. At least not. Not often and not for a while, you know? So I think, I think that's definitely. It is. Is letting them Know it's okay to make mistakes.

Jeff Compton [01:07:21]:
Yeah.

Chuck Mitchell [01:07:21]:
You just, you try your best to take your time and not make.

Jeff Compton [01:07:24]:
I've never, I've met some of the sharpest technicians in the industry, had long drawn out conversations with them and they have shared some stuff with me that they fucked up when they were young that would make you laugh.

Chuck Mitchell [01:07:37]:
Oh yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:07:38]:
But I mean, and you just look at them like some of the top and you're like what? And then you laugh about it.

Chuck Mitchell [01:07:43]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:07:44]:
Cuz he's human. I'm human. You're human. So in wrapping up, what's the, you.

Chuck Mitchell [01:07:49]:
Got a two year goal in two years? My wife and I are hoping to have things moving smooth enough, have enough processes in place that we can kind of step back and be owners instead of the day to day.

Jeff Compton [01:08:04]:
Right.

Chuck Mitchell [01:08:06]:
And we're also looking right about two to three years. We'd like to expand, add a few bays to the shop, kind of bring on some new people, you know, and in that stepping back, we'd like to be able to step back and just kind of, kind of mentor some new people and go from there. We definitely are on a path where we'd like to grow. You know, we got into it saying I'm sick of working 60, 70, 80 hours a week for another guy. If we're going to make another step in our lives, let's do it for ourselves. Right Where I think we've kind of renewed that to let's, let's turn this into something better than just us, you know, bigger than us. And I do kind of have a soft spot for bringing up younger techs.

Jeff Compton [01:08:50]:
You know, it's very rewarding, isn't it?

Chuck Mitchell [01:08:52]:
Yeah. I did it in at the bus company. You know, my last few years I brought on some new people because I was getting sick of hiring guys that had, you know, a chip on their shoulder, bad habits and ego because I just didn't have time for that. And I was like, I'll figure out how to teach someone from the oil change. So when we brought the new techs in here, you know, it's rewarding to see them kind of hold on to you and, and grow. And you know, we brought our, our two techs, our apprentices here to SEMA with us. They were, they're ecstatic. They're like, I can't believe we get to do this.

Chuck Mitchell [01:09:22]:
And I'm like, I can't believe I had to pay for this. I should have opened my mouth and said we'd take you with, you know. Yeah. But it's great to see them open up their eyes. It's great to see where they came from and where they're at.

Jeff Compton [01:09:35]:
The return on this investment, Chuck, is going to be incredible. Oh yeah, 100%. Right. Do you go to any other events?

Chuck Mitchell [01:09:42]:
So I personally was down at ASTA in North Carolina. You know, I try to get to some training here and there and, and do that. And it's definitely, we want to make it a regular thing getting our text to. To training and events and stuff like that because as much as people look at it and think, ah, you know, it's just, you know, they're just trying to sell you stuff there. There's a lot of education, a lot of networking and a lot of valuable information that comes out of these.

Jeff Compton [01:10:09]:
The networking we keep saying about it. Right. Like, I mean it just the I'm to point now where it's like, it's hard to keep everybody straight. You know what I mean?

Chuck Mitchell [01:10:18]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:10:18]:
Like, I've met and I met them a year ago at this event and now I'm here again at this event and I'm like, I know I met you and but like help me out with your name here. Right? And then it, you combine that by like. So you see a couple of the really die hards and they're at a lot of the events, they become like very familiar.

Chuck Mitchell [01:10:35]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:10:36]:
But it's, it's these ones where I only see somebody a year at a time that's like trying to remember. Okay, okay, okay. By the three third year and I asked them walking around going, yeah, I.

Chuck Mitchell [01:10:45]:
Remember, I remember, I remember.

Jeff Compton [01:10:47]:
But this event is like so big.

Chuck Mitchell [01:10:49]:
Oh yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:10:49]:
You know, APEX is. I, I've yet when I've been at Apex and I was here last year for the first time, this is only my second year. I've never even been in a classroom yet at Apex because when I'm here, I'm so busy networking and talking to people and recording. I don't even, I couldn't even show you where the classes are or what it's like to sit in one, but I know that they're as good as anything else that's out there right now. And you know, people make it a point to at least get to one of your events and take your people. Your people are going to be like blown away by what they're going to see here at sema.

Chuck Mitchell [01:11:24]:
Oh yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:11:24]:
And what they're going to see at apex. Absolutely blown away. The, the people that make the parts that you guys install are here.

Chuck Mitchell [01:11:30]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:11:31]:
You know, they're from all over the world. This is a global thing. And seema like, have you ever had any kind of love for the industry? A lot of us got into what got us into it. It's all there. I interviewed with Eric the car guy this morning, of all people, like that's the coolest thing in the world that somebody that I've been watching online for almost 20 years is walking around to this event and you can stop them, introduce yourself, say hello and have an absolutely amazing conversation. And, and this is the way this industry is going to improve is just through conversation. That's it. It's not going to be, you know, only what we learn, but it's what we learn in the class for the tech and then it's what we learn on what we can really do.

Chuck Mitchell [01:12:12]:
I think, I think a lot of, you know, learning from each other, a lot of the, A lot of the, the conversations that are gonna, they're gonna spark ideas and bring up new ideas and that's what's gonna help us improve this industry is, you know, what works for you, what works for me, how are things going? And just sharing that and building, you know, if you look at anything racing, you know, anything where you're trying to build a high performance machine or you're trying to improve, the only way is trial and error. And if you can take the error from someone else and learn from that, that's definitely yes. That's how we get there.

Jeff Compton [01:12:45]:
So how do people find you, Chuck?

Chuck Mitchell [01:12:47]:
So our, we actually just brought up a new service site. It's 10pintirepros.com we're out of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. Small car dealership, dude, you know, all sorts of repairs, stuff like that. We're hoping to grow so you can find us there. Our car sales site is tenpinmotors. Com. So yeah, that's. And then we're on, we're on Facebook, we're, we do a lot with changing the industry podcast.

Chuck Mitchell [01:13:14]:
We're on there all the time and, and things like that. And We've got a TikTok account for 10 pin where you can see stuff like my apprentice walk across the alignment rack, which I never, never suggest doing and, and taking a face first into the ground. That seems to be our best, our best video so far.

Jeff Compton [01:13:32]:
I'll look for that.

Chuck Mitchell [01:13:33]:
Yeah.

Jeff Compton [01:13:33]:
Not that I want to see somebody suffer, but I mean he does it.

Chuck Mitchell [01:13:37]:
Gracefully, gets right back up. He's a good sport about it.

Jeff Compton [01:13:40]:
Oh yeah, awesome. Well, thank you very much for being here today. I really enjoyed this.

Chuck Mitchell [01:13:43]:
I appreciate the time. I appreciate the opportunity. This is awesome.

Jeff Compton [01:13:46]:
This is awesome. I appreciate you. We'll talk to everybody soon. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and, like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the Changing the Industry podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for.

Jeff Compton [01:14:19]:
Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter, and we'll see you all again next time.