09/11/2017
Just found this. Its old bit still rings true. Mechanic's Lament
I’m an overworked and underpaid technician in an automotive shop,
I’m supposed to know the answers from the bottom to the top,
I should diagnose the problem with just a single look,
And if I fail to fix it, the customer thinks I’m a crook.
But technology in motor vehicles is advancing every year,
And for all the systems I must know, I simply have no peer.
I must be more electrician than the man who wires the home,
For wiring systems in the car outstrips the Astrodome.
Electronics now have made the scene and more are coming yet,
Some models now will far exceed the circuits in your television set.
A hundred different fuel systems I must adjust and meter,
Each far more complicated than the furnace or water heater.
There are models, makes and systems, some several hundred strong,
And new ones coming up each year to help the scheme along.
Now compare me to the doctor, whose prices make mine meagre,
Yet folks revere his expertise even more impressed and eager.
The human body hasn’t changed in twenty thousand years,
And every model works the same, from the ankles to the ears.
There are lots of books he has to read, his procedures to define,
But for every page in his field, there are twenty-five in mine.
There are no comebacks and no warranty; you pay for what you get,
And then come back and pay again if he hasn’t fixed it yet.
Everybody has one body, and no-one has more,
But when it comes to motor cars your flat out keeping score.
