12/27/2024
PSA:
If you’re dating or married to a self employed mechanic and they tell you they are mentally exhausted when they come home, before you brush it off as whining or an excuse, just understand the amount of moving parts they deal with on a daily basis. Not only do our backs, hands and feet hurt, but so do our minds. We exert our minds on diagnosing the most complex of issues that no one else can and some jobs can become such a pain that it ruins our spirit and morale for a whole day or week. Then we use our experience and common sense to quote the job without being unfair to the customer or ourselves. We put together a parts list, price the parts, and check availability only to find 1 or 2 parts are backordered and now the job goes on the back burner and that time and money is lost for that week. We deal with warranty companies and customers letting us know that we aren’t doing our jobs right and are charging too much, as if we don’t have families to feed just like them. We handle just as much paperwork as we do wrenches and if anything gets out of organization, it feels like the whole world is backing up behind us and getting back ahead is an impossible feat. People will tell you to never take work home with you. They’ll tell you to “leave it at the door when you leave”. All of this is not possible for a self employed mechanic. The job requires us to retain an inhuman amount of knowledge, experience, training, expertise, and work ethic that most will never experience in their lifetime and that is not something that can just be turned off when we flip the closed sign, which is why you’ll notice most any mechanic you meet can not relax and sit still for very long outside of work. There’s always work to be done whether it be at home or on a side job. The stress and workload follow us everywhere we go but it’s something most of us have learned to live with and that’s what makes us such a rare and dying breed. If it was easy, everyone would do it! Thank a mechanic next time you see them.
