Lube Shop Confidential

By Kit Sullivan

I’ll admit it. When I first got into the quick lube business I was a “lube shop snob.” And I’m sure many of you felt the same when you first joined our industry. And like many of us in this industry now, I didn’t start as a manager trainee, shift leader or anything like that. Nope…I was just a good ol’ basic, entry-level position tech, working for minimum wage. I had no lube shop — or for that matter any type of professional auto shop repair — experience, but I did have a good background in customer service and sales, and I definitely had (and still have) the “car mojo.”

Car mojo to me is what I define as the uncommon interest in cars and other things of an automotive mechanical nature that is way beyond what is required to work in a vehicle maintenance facility. You know what I’m talking about: I’m the kind of guy who once surprised (well, more than once actually) a girlfriend of mine by taking her to the local junkyard with me for the day to look for hidden treasures. We slogged around for hours through tall grass and weeds, swarming anthills, sharp and rusted sheetmetal, broken glass, flat tires, bent rims and all manner of scurrying rodents and bugs, all the while with me pointing out the various remnants of cool and rare cars that made me imagine what they must have looked like in their prime.

Of course, to her all she could see were stacks and stacks of flattened-out junkers that bore no resemblance to something that may ever have been a car at one time in its life.

The fact that I could take a quick glance at one of these giant steel pancakes and discern the exact year, make and model of the thing, and maybe even throw in some trivial history about the model, astounded her.

Now, she wasn’t astounded by my ability to identify these relics. What really astounded her was that anyone would even care to know what these piles of future cat-food cans originally were. She couldn’t imagine that it made any difference to anybody.

After several hours of carefully traipsing around this minefield of automotive memories, I declared a “boneyard bonanza” by finding a couple of decent door strikers, some door lock buttons with good chrome still on them and a turn signal switch also with good chrome still intact, all for my old Mustang — which even though it was my well-used daily driver, was also in a continual state of restoration.

Car-guys like me don’t just repair our old cars, we restore them. At least that’s what we keep telling ourselves. The whole pile of parts cost me around $10 I think.

The truth is I probably could have bought brand new parts for around the same money — but where is the fun in that?

So when I started working at my first lube shop, I thought I was something special among the rest of the employees who, in my opinion, just worked there because they needed a job — any job. Forget the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about working in a quick lube shop. I felt I was better than them, and I felt that I was too good to work in a lowly lube shop. I was a snob, plain and simple.

I did not proudly tell people that I worked in a lube shop if they asked. I just said I was a “mechanic” at some local shop. And then I changed the subject. After a few weeks, I was so miserable that I had to go to work at some shop that was so beneath me that I had a hard time even getting up in the morning to go to work. I hated it.

I came home and complained every night to my wife about the rude customers, the indifferent employees and the inconsistent service we were providing to our customers. I said over and over, “If only I could find a good job.”

Continued
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