ya know......originally, i only put up a sarcastic answer....so here's a rather long read....but it'll give ya'll some insight into me. not that ya really want it, but i'm puttin it up here anyway.
who am i?
i am the product of a single parent home. born in 1962, to my mother catherine, and father george. my brother was born in 1964, but by this time, my father had gotten himself kicked out. he had done some pretty horrible things to my mother, and my grandfather removed him from the household, with the warning to never show his face again, with the risk of serious bodily harm. my uncle was there to back him up. my uncle is also how i know why dad's gone, but mom doesn't know that i know.
mom worked 2 jobs as long as i can remember, and being a single mom with 2 rugrats, she moved back in with her parents(they are the reason i am the man i am today), who helped. grandpop worked massive hours for PRR, but always made time for my brother and i. my grandmom worked a part time job, and kept the house immaculate.....which considering my brother and i, was a full time hob in itself.
i got crappy grades up till about sixth grade, then when i started seventh grade, it seemed as if something clicked....went from straight d's and f's to straight a's and b's. grandmom always helped with homework, and/or reports when mom was working. she also made dam sure that the both of us did our work before we could watch tv, or go outside.(yea i know, some of you are gonna thing she was a slave driver).
in school, seeing is i've always been skinny, and had the tendency to be blatantly honest, and say what i thought, when i thought it, i tended to get picked on a lot.(you young guys call em bullys today). i just took it, and often times when they didn't get a reaction, they'd go bother someone else. i think it was tenth grade when they got the hint and left me alone, as one guy kicked my hand as i went to grab a book out from under my seat. in hindsight, i think he didn't intend to do anything other than to knock the books on the floor. either way, doesn't matter. i stood up, picked up the desk, and threw it at him. i missed. thankfully. when i came back from my suspension, his buddy was waiting for me.....big dude, and i was so friggin scared, that i couldn't move. this little italian kid stepped in, and tried to back the guy off.....and it worked, when his friends showed up. that was the last that anyone ever bothered me that way.
when i graduated, to be honest, i had no clue what i wanted to do, and had already been working in restaurants for a couple of years, so i stuck with that. the place i was washing dishes at closed, so i put feet to sidewalk, and had another job in less than a week.
an old greek guy hired me..again, washing dishes. this is the place that taught me a lot of responsibility. greeks are VERY hard to work for, but once they see that you're willing to give it your all, they treat you like a son. i went from washing dishes, to short order cook, to prep cook, to running the kitchen in short order. then they sold the place, and i couldn't get along with the new owners.
that's when i got my first job in automotive repair. my best friend got me in with the shop he worked at. another hard guy to work for, but very fair.
i spent a LOT of time doing the crap work...oil changes, tire rotations, cleaning up after the other guys, keeping the tow trucks clean, etc.
because i worked hard at doing the crap work, one day, the boss comes out, hands me the keys to a car, tells me to get a couple of the tow truck drivers to push it in the far bay, and figure out why it doesn't start. i opened my mouth to tell him i didn't know how, and he told me i could go sweep the floor if i wanted. we pushed the car in. to this day(it's been nearly 30 years now) THAT is the only car that ever beat me.
that's how i learned about 90% of what i know....hands on. it is truly the best way to learn to be honest. i was with that shop for around 10 years, and went from the pissboy to the main diagnostic tech. had nearly all of my ASE's by the time i left there.
during my time working here, at one point, technically speaking, i held down four jobs. i was wrenching for him in the daytime, taking a tow truck home 2 nights a week, delivering pizzas 3 nights a week, and delivering a local newspaper in the wee hours of the morning seven days a week. i had bills to pay off, so i did what i had to do. just like my grandparents, and mom. i never asked for anything to be just handed to me.
when i left there(it was really friggin stupid) i went to a limo dealer, and basically learned that i don't like flat rate, nor do i like the dealer type environment. it's ashame, as i liked a couple of the mechanics i worked with there. went back to the first shop for a couple years.
ended up leaving again, to go work for the guy that taught me a lot about running shops. when he hired me, at first, it was grunt work, till he got a feel for what i know, and could do. then the honeymoon ended, and i started getting to do eeeeverything. it only took a couple of years, and i was running that shop for him. i worked there till 2006, when one of his kids(teens) nearly drove me to a point in violence that i had to leave. wanna guess where i ended up? back at place of employment number one. only thing was that this time that guy came looking for me. that was a massive ego boost.
now we fast forward to the present, when i now own the 3 bay shop that i worked for years at. i don't own the building or property....that's a bad deal in new jersey, with the dep and laws.....too big of a risk. you buy the property, you buy the problems it has too. so i rent the building.
it's been a little over three years now, and i work more hours than when i worked for other people. the mechanics that he had hired when i left had driven the place into the ground. it's being a long tough battle, but i am slowly building it back up. i think that withint the next year or two i will have at least one full time mechanic.
a lot of the past, is why i actually enjoy giving advice here on this bbs, and on another one too......whenever i needed or asked for help, it was there, sometimes from unexpected sources. it's also why sometimes i seem overly sarcastic, or overly harsh on some of my opinions.
now, that i own my own business, the job has become fun to the point that it often doesn't feel like a job anymore.
out of my graduating class, i only know of one other that owns a business, and she's been in business for nearly 15 years....with her own construction company. i feel lucky to have had the guidance of my grand parents, and mother, as my brother and i are also among the very few from our graduating class to not have drug or drinking problems. i think over the years, we've lost nearly a dozen classmates to drug related deaths...and that's AFTER graduation.
so....that's who i am. hard working nearly normal schmuck.
oh yea, almost forgot.......i often come here to the bbs, and stir up the ford/chevy argument, 'cause it's fun.
