People that have no clue.

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Back on topic! EXAMPLE:I admit that I don't know anything about Computer Repair. When my Computer dies I have to call the repair person out or take it in to be fixed.

When the repair person tells me that it's not working because XYZ part is bad I don't tell them that I don't want XYZ part replaced I just want the computer to work.

I don't know what XYX part does but I can see that the computer is not going to work right if XYZ part is bad.
 
Originally Posted By: buickman50401
Jump back a couple of weeks prior to the gas leak. We were doing some salvage work in an old school scheduled for demolition. The building had no utilities. It was in the low 20s. She suggested that I run a generator to power the 220v electric heater INSIDE THE BUILDING since we hadn't gotten around to purchasing a 220v extension cord. When I told her the exhaust would kill us she said, "Well can't you just open a window?"

Unfortunately, it's usually those types of people who make it into management. What's that old saying? If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull...

However, being very political and having outstanding social skills IS a form of intelligence, despite not knowing that running an internal combustion engine in a closed space might not be a wise idea.
 
Originally Posted By: Brenden
Lol that person must have been stupid... let them go to the next shop and be told the same thing, some people have no knowledge...

Today I was riding to walmart with some guys on my floor in the dorm, they instantly get in the car and crank the heat, and we were 3 miles from walmart, well we hit a train, it lasted 10 minutes, and near the end of the train, the driver says, "piece of junk car." The heater hasn't even kicked in yet... Needless to say he was totally baffled when I tried to explain the thermostat and engine temp and coolant circulation into a heater core, he didn't know what "that gauge" was on the right of the cluster (the temp gauge) or that it had any correlation to the heat... I face palmed...

You can't make this stuff up... the morons are running rampant here too..


Until recently,my wife was the same way. I can't tell you how many times I've told her over the 20 years we've been together,that she can have the heat on the highest setting and she still won't get heat from a cold engine.

I'm not sure when the lightbulb went off in her head,but I think she finally understands what I've been trying to tell her all these years.
 
People have to turn to their auto mechanics to get things done often because their greatest abilities are somewhere else.

Do you want to perform surgery or yourself or have a friend perform the surgery, because the surgeon takes his car to the dealer, and just takes the dealer's word for whatever it needs?
 
Originally Posted By: artificialist
People have to turn to their auto mechanics to get things done often because their greatest abilities are somewhere else.

Do you want to perform surgery or yourself or have a friend perform the surgery, because the surgeon takes his car to the dealer, and just takes the dealer's word for whatever it needs?


That is not what he is saying at all. These people wanted something fixed and when he told them what it would take they didnt believe it had anything to do with what they wanted fixed.
 
Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
That is not what he is saying at all. These people wanted something fixed and when he told them what it would take they didnt believe it had anything to do with what they wanted fixed.

I'm going to take a different approach here based on some training and schooling I took many years ago.

In a slightly twisted sense, it was Chris that failed in this situation. The customers were clueless morons (we all agree here.). Chris is a trained professional and part of his responsibility is to have the skill to communicate to the customer in a way that results in a positive outcome for both parties (the oft quoted "win-win").

Having said this, at some point it's appropriate to toss these principles out the door and it probably was in Chris's best interest to let these people go elsewhere. I.E. - choose your battles wisely. I can only imagine the nightmare..."you insisted on a new radiator and now our heads are warped....it's your (Chris's) fault".
 
In my twilight years I'm working @ Lowes and sad to say common sense and civility are a rare commodity today. But I have to say it's just not young people. We get more than our fair share of older knuckle heads. Some of the things thay want to do is frightening. I look in the local paper to see if any houses burned down due to electrical or gas "problems". They probably were the ones asking how to take shortcuts that were dangerous and illegal.
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Whimsey
 
what I find most funny about this thread is that people automatically start pulling the "people today are so stupid" and "this generation" nonsense. People have been making this argument since the time of Plato. Guess what? There were stupid people ages ago, probably at the same % (or higher) that we have now. My dad always used to say that when people start talking about how much smarter people were "back in the day" and started harping on "people today", it was a sure sign that they were getting old. Even up to his death, he never got old by that standard.

I also think that some people generally go into repair shops with the attitude that the shop's entire reason for existing is to rip them off (and I'm sure in *some* instances they're right). So it makes it difficult for an honest guy trying to actually fix things, particularly when the parts don't *seem* related. I ran into this in decades ago in my bike shop days, explaining to customers that their broken chain with 20K miles on it couldn't just be replaced, but that the rest of the drivetrain components would have to be replaced as well. We'd explain why, but one of every 10 knuckleheads would say "just replace the chain". I'm guessing that "suspicion" rather than "stupidity" was the main reason.

So, they may have listened to your explanation and understood it, but just not believed it. And if that's the case, you have the dishonest mechanics out there to blame as much as stupid customers.
 
A some point in time a farrier was complaining that people these days couldn't understand a properly fit horseshoe the damage it does to a hoof and a wheelwright complained that people these days are too stupid to reapply tallow to their wagon wheel axles.
 
Regarding cars and heaters:

Chris, does your shop have one of those cutaway pictures of a car that shows the different systems in different colors? I can remember seeing them either on the counter or the wall of more than one Firestone or Goodyear type place.

That could be a good visual aid to point to when you get the slackjawed look or irrational arguments from a customer.
 
Originally Posted By: mike7139
Wouldn't the car overheat if there was no coolant? Someone please answer this!!!


Has no bearing on the convo, the simple fact is they wanted their heater fixed and he made up some ludacris story that a leaking radiator would prevent their heater from working, obviously trying to rip them off....
 
I have removed some post from this thread due to the fact that a member attempted to hijack the thread to make a political statement.
 
Talking with a co-worker about this thread. He stated that they had had a customer come in to get her muffler repaired. Shortly afterward, she backed into on-coming traffic while leaving a bar. Of course, it was our fault. Before her muffler was fixed, people could hear her backing out and got out of her way. Some people!
 
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