I hate going to parts stores

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thinger2

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Businesses used to have training programs, so even if you were a new, uninformed parts person, before long you were trained and competent. Then businesses figured out they could eliminate training programs and save a buck. They didn't realize they were relying on a core of well-educated personnel. Once those people retired, the un-trained employees got the job right 80% of the time, but businesses never figured out they were losing more on that 20% of failure than the training program originally cost them. Now they're whining they can't find good employees and they still haven't figured out you don't "find" good employees, you grow them.
Yes that is exactly what went down.
When I started in the precision business I worked for a prototype shop.
We built some pretty cool ****.
Tank armor, aircraft cockpits, MX Missile launchers,..
Really involved old school manufacturing.
I didnt know anything about any of it.
But I did know how to convert a paper tape reader CNC and make it run off of a Fanuc controller and how to write HPGL.
Which is the only time in the history of the world that that odd knowledge ever paid off for anyone .
Right place, right time.
And the guys I learned from were true craftsmen.
Absolute Masters of their trade.
I started by programming and operating CNC punch presses.
Strippits and Di-Acros.
I learned the hand work from a guy who started in the business when he was 13 years old.
His parents sent him off to somewhere in northern England when London was being bombed and thats where he learned the trade.
Everyone of those guys were amazing
We built incredible things all by hand.
And the company was sold to a pack of little no nothing investors who thought it was just some people standing in front of machines and putting metal in.
Chased them all out, replaced them with temp service people.
And took one of the most highly regarded aerospace prototype shops in the nation from 20 million a year to bankrupt two years later.
They came out of bankruptcy.
Now they make wall brackets for toilets and urinals.
 

0xDEADBEEF

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Businesses used to have training programs, so even if you were a new, uninformed parts person, before long you were trained and competent. Then businesses figured out they could eliminate training programs and save a buck. They didn't realize they were relying on a core of well-educated personnel. Once those people retired, the un-trained employees got the job right 80% of the time, but businesses never figured out they were losing more on that 20% of failure than the training program originally cost them. Now they're whining they can't find good employees and they still haven't figured out you don't "find" good employees, you grow them.

Training, documentation, and software are very hard to keep coordinated. It's expensive and nobody wants to pay for what it really costs. A lot of that stuff is offshored nowadays.

At my work, I would guess I've written around 1/3 of the code of our user facing app, but I don't even know all the ins and outs of our software. I don't even remember all the things I have personally written anymore. No one person really knows in their brain all the features and how they work. Definitely not the people tasked with being the trainers.
 

HotWheelsBurban

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Yep. Most part stores try to run the place like its 7-11 and all you guys need to do is follow the software.
Which sucks.
And people like you who want to know more are just outside of that little corporate box.
Stay calm my freind. Learn that part of the business.
Learn everything you can
And bail out.
Having a **** job with **** co-workers always sucks.
Let it roll off your back like water off a duck bud.
Think of it as a free education.
Not only about the business, but also about people and their motivations.
Not only the employeess.
That is fairly easy.
The upper level management people are much more desperate and conniving and weak.
And much less trustworthy.
It all ties into this ancient corporate philosophy.
If we dangle the carrot.
Those who want to escape will try to take a nip at the carrot.
Give them a nip and then make them in charge of who gets that little nibble.
You only get more of the carrot if you take charge of making sure that everyone else gets less of the carrot.
And then you are well and truley ******.
Because you bought a house and have kids and all all all that comes with it.
I think that these days their are only two possible choices.
Get into a solid union job that has a future.
I would recommend any of the maritime trades. But you will never be at home.
In construction the future is in surveying and technollogy.
If you can get into the virtual reallity end of construction their is no limit at all.
VR and tech is a real game changer in this industry.
It is friggen amazing.
The only other route is to go into business for yourself.
Thats what I did when I figured out that I could **** it all up on my own and didnt need somebody to **** it up for me.
It hasnt been easy.
But its all mine. The good, the bad, and the taxes.
And the insomnia. You gotta figure that out.
I would have probably gone down this path anyway.
Maybe.
Finding a partner in life and a woman who is bold and unafraid of whatever loopy thing I do really set me free.
Go do you my freind.
And anyone who claims that Phil Collins is a better drummer that John Bonham needs to have their temperature checked
And maybe look at some ink blots
Funny you should mention"running them like a 7-11" as that's exactly what Southland Corporation did with a chain they had in the 80s: Chief Auto Parts.
A little background: in 1978 my parents bought the independent parts store my dad had been working in since the late 60s. We were in the original location in SW Houston, with many garage and service station customers. Good business, running 3 delivery trucks....then as the economy got worse in the north, the parts warehouses up there came south and started undercutting the stores like us, selling parts to garages cheaper than we could buy them. In 1983 we moved the business closer to where we were living then, out in the SW suburbs. Kept it going through 1987, not near as many shops and lots more DIYers. The last 18 months we were open, Chief and Auto Shack came in the vicinity. More than once, I had customers come in to get things the chain stores didn't, that they needed right away. Like small block Chevy valve cover gaskets...70s and 80s,you did not run out of Chevy parts!
Auto Shack became Auto Zone, Chief became other things as they closed stores and became defunct ( at least in this area.). Hi-Lo became O'Reilly's when they got bought out, and NAPA has come in and out and in again, in various parts of town.
I used to know a guy at the Stafford NAPA who had retired from GM Janesville, and he told me stories about the bosses getting to drive trucks home on the weekends. So he may have been the first one to drive our Denali!
 

someotherguy

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Looks like I'll be going to local parts store for spark plugs. ACDelco 41-993 are like $28 for a box of 8 on Amazon and eBay. Seems too good to be true. I’ve seen some YouTube videos that state there are plenty of counterfeits out there, so I guess I’ll need to see them in person to confirm their authenticity, and at the same time, eat the cost for the sake of certainty.
They may not send you a box of 8 - more than likely, you'll receive 8 individual plugs in their own boxes, without the outer box holding them all in. They'll be thrown loose into a thin bubble mailer. If you're lucky, all 8 will be in there, and they'll all 8 be genuine AC Delco plugs, and undamaged, despite the low-effort packing. If you're not lucky, you'll pay for 8 and receive 7 (happened to me) and then have to order the 8th one then get it a day later than the promised same-day delivery, only to find it smashed in the envelope so that the box popped open, leaving you praying the plug isn't damaged, so that you can finish your tune-up that should have taken 30 minutes but ended up being 2 days.

They buy the stuff in bulk. The AC Delco plug wires, for example, came loose, in the clear plastic sack in the picture. Note the 7 plugs, not 8. I was delighted.

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Richard
 

Erik the Awful

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I went to Harbor Freight and two parts stores today, looking for a 2-jaw puller.

Nobody has a 2-jaw puller. Plenty of 3-jaw pullers and plenty of 2-bolt pullers, but no 2-jaws. I need one to get the steering wheel off my son's Crown Vic. O'Reilly's did have a "steering wheel" puller, but for $20 I expect a tool that looks stronger than what I can weld together in my garage. I now have a puller in my Amazon shopping cart.

Also, each time I pulled into a parking lot there was one or more brain surgeons parked across two spots, right in front of the store. O'Reillys had two trucks spread across three spaces. At Panda Express there was a guy in a new lifted Dodge diesel with no handicapped tag parked across two handicapped spaces, who sent his kid in to order while he idled outside.

What is it with car and truck fanatics that we care so much about our vehicles, but then we drive like idiots?
 

someotherguy

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Also, each time I pulled into a parking lot there was one or more brain surgeons parked across two spots, right in front of the store. O'Reillys had two trucks spread across three spaces. At Panda Express there was a guy in a new lifted Dodge diesel with no handicapped tag parked across two handicapped spaces, who sent his kid in to order while he idled outside.

What is it with car and truck fanatics that we care so much about our vehicles, but then we drive like idiots?
If ya can't beat 'em, tow 'em

especially the handicap space dicksters =)

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Richard
 

Schurkey

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I had to look that up.

My local O'Reilly's is actually pretty good. Surprisingly good!
Mine, too. One of the countermen there used to work at NAPA; I sold him a Toronado frame with engine, transaxle, and CV shafts. He put it into a Corvair body. Engine where the rear seat used to be. It's LS-converted now, used to be Olds 455.

I'm quitting and getting something better because my mental health is not worth the ****** pay.

To anyone that wants to apply to any auto parts store, I recommend you stay far, far away, your mental health with thank you.
I worked in a GM parts department for awhile. **** pay, but otherwise kinda fun. This was years before eBay; if there'd been an eBay then, I'd be rich. There was more GM discontinued treasures in the attic than you can shake a stick at. I bought some of the smaller stuff, like a dozen bottles of GM Turbo-Rocket Fluid.
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If you're lucky, all 8 will be in there, and they'll all 8 be genuine AC Delco plugs, and undamaged, despite the low-effort packing. If you're not lucky, you'll pay for 8 and receive 7 (happened to me)
A dirtbag in Forney, Texas was selling "AC-Delco" spark plugs on Amazon. I ordered six, got a box of eight.

'Course, they were counterfeit plugs.

Insisted I talk to him by telephone--where I have no written copy for evidence--instead of dealing via e-mail. The Amazon rep looked at the little bit of back-and-forth we did have on the Amazon "Contact" system...Amazon refunded my money, not the seller.
 
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