 What's better one takedown here back with another pet peeve video. If you guys didn't know, I used to work automotive parts and service. I worked that for five years. And honestly, working the service counter was the most stressful position I have ever been in. So today I decided I'm going to be sharing some of my pet peeves from back whenever I used to work automotive service. Let's get right into this. So the first one here, when a vehicle would get towed into the shop and the owner of the vehicle was not with them, it did not call and did not let us know what was going on, then the customer would come back in later and expect their vehicle to be finished. So one thing at my location, our service shop, when a vehicle would get towed in, if the customer was not with them, if the tow truck driver didn't know where they were and if they didn't leave the tow truck driver with contact information, we weren't able to do anything to the customer's vehicle. No matter how simple of a job it is or something that is really obvious, like a flat tire, obviously you can check that from being outside of the vehicle. You'd be able to tell if it has a flat tire. But if we never were, if we're not able to talk to the customer, if we can't get a hold of the customer or the customer is not with the vehicle, then we cannot do anything to the vehicle. And then customers used to always come back in later, pissed off that it's not done, especially whenever we would tell them that we didn't do anything to it. It's not our fault. And the reason for that is if we don't have your vehicle, if we don't have your, for example, if we don't have your information, we can't talk to you, we can't go ahead and do anything to your vehicle because you could simply turn around, lie and say that that's not what you wanted done. Then you just got all of that work done on your vehicle for free. So just one thing that we do to avoid that is we don't do anything to your vehicle unless we're able to contact the customer. The next one here is since we were near the highway, when travelers would have a problem with their vehicle and come in to see us, they would think they would be top priority and all other work in the shop would stop, just so we can get their vehicle done. So for me, that is just not the case. If you are a traveler and if you're traveling and your vehicle breaks down, you are not the top priority, especially if you've never come to our location before. If you're not in our system, we don't consider you top priority. Our regular customers that live in the area that come to us quite frequently, they are top priority. So if you come in, if your vehicle broke down or anything like that, we would try to get to you as fast as we could, but we can't stop any work that is in the shop and we can't stop any progress for scheduled appointments or anything like that. In between jobs and in between scheduled appointments, if mechanic has free time, they will go and do a little bit to your vehicle, try to do as fast as they can to get you out of here. Because the last thing we want is you waiting around for hours to get your vehicle back. But sometimes we couldn't avoid that. And a lot of time these travelers, people that their vehicles break down when they're traveling on the highway, they wouldn't understand and they'd get really pissed off and very vocal to us. And it's not our problem. We can't stop our shop progress just to get your vehicle done and push back everything else. So that is the major thing that used to piss me off the most working the service counter and being in charge of service. The next thing is when a customer would drop off their vehicle, but forget to bring us the keys, meaning we can't do anything to the vehicle. This used to happen a lot of time when people would drop off their vehicle and go to work. They would take their keys to work with them. And then we sometimes weren't able to call them, especially if we're not able to reach them when they're at work. Now, most of the time with this, if the customer got to give us the keys, they wouldn't be pissed off. But our mechanics sometimes would be a little bit frustrated and try to take it out on us. And it's like, hey, it's not our faults. They left the vehicle, they took the keys with them. It's not the service person's faults. The next ones here would be when a customer would come in for safety, but they don't pass. They fail the safety. Now them failing the safety isn't what used to piss me off. What used to piss me off whenever a customer would come in and say something like, why can't you guys just pass me? I really need my vehicle or something as small as that. You guys can't pass me for the safety. No, we can't. We have to do a specific way. We have to follow standards. We have the book in front of us of everything that gets checked. Everything has to be checked by the mechanic, the one that is doing the safety. He has to sign off on it and I have to sign off on it. So if there's something that we say is okay, if we fake a safety, if you get stopped by MTO, Ministry of Transportation, that falls back on us because our signatures are on it. So not only would the mechanic that did the safety get in trouble, but I would get in trouble too. And I'm not risking a huge fine just to get your vehicle back on the road, even if it's unsafe. So I'm definitely not going to do that. And that is definitely something that would always piss me off at work. The next one is when a customer would come in for tire repair, but their tire is beyond repair. And they should be replaced, but they just want it repaired. Some of the time customers would be understanding and would just go ahead and replace that one tire or sometimes two if it, depending on the vehicle and what their situation is. But a lot of time the customer would just demand their tire repaired. At that point, we would turn them away. We wouldn't even do anything to the vehicle because if we attempted to repair something that is unreparable, and if they were to go down the road and it blow out, cause an accident, something like that, that could fall back on us as well. I just got that tire replaced. Where did you get it done? Or I just got that tire repaired. Where did you get it done? He tells them that you got it done at our place. We would be in shit and have major fines. So that's one thing we would just never do. The next is when a customer would come in for a big job, get told how much it is to complete the job. But once the job is done, complain on the price. This used to be the most frustrating thing for me. It's because I would be sure, especially if it's a big job. For example, if we're doing a full exhaust system or something like that, a full brake job maybe even. I would break down every single thing that we are going to do, put it on the work order. Every single thing at every small little thing that costs money. I would share the total amount with the customer so they know they're not going to be going over that price point. So if there is some things that we didn't use for the job or some things that turned out we didn't need for the job, I would take it off their bill, but I would always do a max amount for them and tell them this is the max that you'd have to pay. So if they did end up saying complaining on the price, then I'd be able to pull this out and say, this is what I showed you. And if they called over a manager, I'd be able to show the manager and say, this is what they agreed to get done. So it used to happen quite a bit, but it's usually the ones that would try to scam us. They knew that they were doing it, but they just wanted to get something free or at least a little cheaper, and it never worked out for them. Next is when management would yell at us if something in the shop would get done wrong or if something in the shop went wrong. It's not the service employee's fault. And a lot of times it's not even the mechanic's fault. If something goes wrong, it could have just been something else happened on the vehicle or something like that, or if something didn't get done right, there's usually a reason behind it. Management shouldn't really be taking it out on us or the mechanics for the most part, but I used to always hate that about the job because it used to always fall down on us all the time we were the ones to blame, which in my opinion I completely disagree with. Next is when a customer would drop off their vehicle and expect us to drive them home or to work. Now that was just never the case. We never usually did that. Some of the times manager would get involved and manager would force somebody to go and drive them home or that, but my opinion is we're an automotive shop. We're here to fix your vehicle. We are not a taxi service. We can't take you home. Some customers would live really close and within a less than five minute walking distance, but a lot of the time they would still demand to ride home. I understand more for elder customers giving them a ride home so it's safer for them, but some of the other ones, especially if you need to ride to work, you should have planned that. You knew you were bringing your vehicle to us. We can't drop everything and take you to work because then our vehicle, the vehicle you brought in to get repaired, it's going to be there a little bit longer and that might make us have to push back other customers' vehicles and we honestly hate doing that to other customers. It is not something that we enjoy doing. The next is when a customer would get mad because we charge to install batteries. Now the one thing I will say is some batteries are really easy. Some batteries take 10 minutes to change, especially if they're an easy, you disconnect the battery, pull it out, put the new one in and connect it. Some batteries you have to take apart a lot of the engine bay, which sucks. Some batteries are underneath the floor of the seats, preferably SUVs are like that, where you have to disassemble some of the trim or take apart some of the seats to be able to take out the battery, which takes a lot more work. And some vehicles you actually have to take the front right tire off to be able to get to the battery. So you take that front tire off, then you take your wheel well out, and then your battery would be able to come out. So some vehicles take a lot longer to do the battery than others. If you know your vehicle is one of the challenging ones, you know you have to pay. Regardless, you will have to pay, but usually we will tell you what you have to pay before we do it. That saves the headache, and then if the customer doesn't want us to do it, they are going to go do it themselves. They have the right to go and do that. So that's one thing we used to always get as a complaint is, why do you charge to do batteries? Some jobs take a lot longer to do. The next is, when a customer would walk out into our automotive shop and watch the mechanics work on their vehicle. That was the major thing that was a no-no. I used to always kick out customers, and I enjoyed kicking out customers whenever they would attempt to do this, because our automotive shop is employees only, and that is the safety reason, because we're not ensured if a customer is into the shop, if they get injured, we're not ensured, and they can sue us for getting in a lot of trouble and possibly shut down. To avoid this, we kick them out of the shop whenever they go into the shop. They're not allowed in the shop. There's big signs that we ended up having to put up saying employees only, which seemed to never work, so I used to always enjoy kicking them out of our shop. The next is, when a customer would come before the store had opened, and instead of waiting by the customer entrance, they would see the employee door and they would walk through the employee door and go into the store. I used to hate that, but even more, if they're dropping off their vehicle, they used to go in there because they think, because they're in the shop, they can just go through the employees, go into the mechanics area, and be able to give somebody the keys, which never was the case, because we'd always have a store meeting up front, a pretty much morning huddle, and I would always have to miss part of that if customers would come in the door, because I'd have to go and deal with them, and I'd be really pissed off. I used to always be like, well, the store's not open for another couple of minutes. You might have to wait. And I used to always kick people out, and if they're dropping off their vehicle, I'd say, sorry, you're gonna have to wait till the store opens. We have things up front that we have to do. We have our morning meeting in that. It used to be really frustrating for me. And the last one here is, when a customer calls needing something done to their vehicle, we can't get them in right away because we have schedules, and our location's scheduled appointments are number one priority. Walk-ins are secondary because we only had two mechanics, so we couldn't do walk-ins as often, and especially during tire season that, when we're extremely busy. But then the customer that wants to bring their vehicle in would respond saying it only takes 10 minutes. Now that saying right there, that it only takes 10 minutes, I have heard that so many times over the five years that I've worked automotive parts and service, customers would think small things like getting your tires taken off. If you're changing all four tires, that would only take 10 minutes, or something like an oil change, that would only take 10 minutes, where an oil change can be really quick if you go to one of the places that do a quick oil change. At our shop, we have to do an inspection of everything. We inspect the brakes, the suspension. We basically check everything, test your batteries, we inspect everything. We do a full-on inspection. Our oil changes take up to an hour. Tires to usually take up to an hour because we don't do tires all the time. We don't have that many mechanics, so we can't have three people doing it at once and get you out of there in 10 minutes. So it does take a lot longer to do things, and even batteries, people come in saying it only takes 10 minutes. If they have a vehicle that's batteries in a hidden spot, it could take an hour. So most of the time, we would always tell these people we can't get it done until such and such time, or if you bring the vehicle now, you might have to wait a little bit for us to do it, and they'd always be pissed off and say they'll do it themselves or take it somewhere because it only takes 10 minutes. Usually it does not. Usually it takes, like I said, usually an hour. Usually whenever we book anything, it's one hour in the shop, typically, but. These are the things that used to piss me off working automotive parts and service. These are my top pet peeves. Anybody that works automotive parts and service might agree with these. If you do work automotive parts or service, comment down below which one of these you agree with, or if there's any that you disagree with, let me know as well. And if there's any that I missed that are major pet peeves that you believe I should have added to this list, maybe I forgot about them. Let me know down below as well. I'm going to leave this video here. In my opinion, automotive service is a really stressful job because you always have customers yelling at you because one of their biggest investments that anybody can own is a vehicle. So that's one of the reasons why they yell at us a lot more than any other position in the auto, any other position in the retail store. Would be us that would get yelled at. So I am going to leave this video here. I'm going to continue doing pet peeves in the future, but I'll see you guys in the next one. Please take care. Peace.