You would be right, but with the forced wasted time every day, and the fact that lots of what should get sold doesn't... it's less. Last week was what I'm capable of (probably could have done a bit better), but it's not a typical work load. When the service writer is on vacation and the owners son fills in in the office, that's fairly typical. Everything gets sold and we work the whole time we're there... no waiting around for parts that
should have been ordered and delivered days ago, no waiting for for him to stop checking his personal e-mail... here I go again, wrong forum
Benefits are nothing special and 1 week of "paid" (explained in above post) vacation after one year, 2 weeks at 10 years. I keep getting more and more tired of dealing with this shit every day, I probably won't get to 2 weeks.
Overhead is very low, the building's paid off and the owner probably made at least $500k (yes, profit) on a deal moving from our old place (national chain bought his lot on the corner of two busy streets). There are 10 technicians between 2 shifts, with one open bay... That said, I'd guess people aren't lining up. At least two of the guys I went to college with worked there and quit because they couldn't stand either service writer (although the night time guy isn't that bad, just a little goofy sometimes), so it probably isn't the top pick for most people. I guess I can tolerate a lot more than most people... But anyway, we are one of the most recommended shops in town. I live 15 miles from where I work, and while talking to one of my neighbors one day, I discovered that they used to take their cars to the shop I work at. Coincidentally, they stopped going there when the current service writer was hired. Almost everyone has good things to say about the work we do, but a lot of people have complaints about the customer service... which for some reason they tell
me, not the owner. Sorry, meant to keep this out of the "stress release" forum... I really did. My financial well-being is due mostly to good financial advice from a family member, not from getting paid a lot... I guess I could have said that better.
I, too, would like to see what shop owners do to keep good employees.
I agree, I don't like to see friction there either... but once you completely stop caring, it gets a lot easier... probably not a good thing.