I love it when The Management here takes exception to my thoroughness by saying, "I don't think many bike shops bother to do it that well."
Other people's standards aren't my business. I get paid to straighten out other people's crap, not add to it.
We can argue for hours about the relative economic merits of doing a good job as opposed to shoving it through any old way we can. But I repeat: other people's low standards should not set ours. But I'm not in charge, there's only one of me, and limited time to work. I can't fix them all.
Good luck!
Friday, August 19, 2005
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Saddle pain
If your bike seat hurts you, the best thing to put on it so you feel no pain is someone else's ass. The next best thing to put on it is more hours of riding to get your own posterior used to the normal wear and tear. Make sure the bike is set up properly first.
The Customer is Always Right?
Give me a break. If the customer was always right, they wouldn't need me, they'd only need a vending machine. So why do so many people ask me so many questions?
We're here to banish misconception.
We're here to banish misconception.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Heavy Work Load
The work load in the repair shop has been unbelievable for at least eight weeks.
"But that's what you want, right?" someone asked me.
"No," I said. "I'd much rather have it spread out more evenly throughout the year. But it is what it is."
We always try to do good work as quickly as possible. Good and quick don't always go together when working on complex mechanical devices. People think bikes are stupid simple, because they have no motor. But parts still have to go together. The newer, more complex bikes, still using the same engine as the old bikes, demand a lot of precision, and parts that are closely matched to each other.
After many weeks of this, going in early, maybe staying late as well, we're all wearing down. Tempers fray, stress mounts, because not only does the shop demand a lot of energy, life still goes on outside of work. That other life suffers more and more from the loss of an hour or two here and there, day after day.
You just start to feel shorter of breath and one day closer to death. One morning you wake up, the workload has eased, but summer's over. Days are short. The house needs to be buttoned up for winter. Dammit, you missed another one. Maybe next year.
In a good year we can stamp out a little personal time. We make less money, but we gain in peace of mind. But when the customers want the good stuff, I want to deliver it, if I can. Why work if you can't take pride in it? So the time isn't totally lost.
Of course when I get the feeling it's a waste, because no one really cares how well it's done, I can't stop myself from doing good work, because I can't stand to do it any other way, but I certainly feel desolate, sad and sick, trudging through another day just pissing people off with my goddamned high standards.
"But that's what you want, right?" someone asked me.
"No," I said. "I'd much rather have it spread out more evenly throughout the year. But it is what it is."
We always try to do good work as quickly as possible. Good and quick don't always go together when working on complex mechanical devices. People think bikes are stupid simple, because they have no motor. But parts still have to go together. The newer, more complex bikes, still using the same engine as the old bikes, demand a lot of precision, and parts that are closely matched to each other.
After many weeks of this, going in early, maybe staying late as well, we're all wearing down. Tempers fray, stress mounts, because not only does the shop demand a lot of energy, life still goes on outside of work. That other life suffers more and more from the loss of an hour or two here and there, day after day.
You just start to feel shorter of breath and one day closer to death. One morning you wake up, the workload has eased, but summer's over. Days are short. The house needs to be buttoned up for winter. Dammit, you missed another one. Maybe next year.
In a good year we can stamp out a little personal time. We make less money, but we gain in peace of mind. But when the customers want the good stuff, I want to deliver it, if I can. Why work if you can't take pride in it? So the time isn't totally lost.
Of course when I get the feeling it's a waste, because no one really cares how well it's done, I can't stop myself from doing good work, because I can't stand to do it any other way, but I certainly feel desolate, sad and sick, trudging through another day just pissing people off with my goddamned high standards.
Customer Relations
There are two basic models for customer relations: adversarial and cooperative.
In the adversarial model, the customer is a bag of money. The business wants to get as much money as possible with the least effort. The customer, knowing this, wants to avoid paying. It becomes a contest between gouging business and chiseling customer.
In the gouging model, work quality only serves to keep the customer calm, quiet, reassured. The reassurance may be false. Who cares? Get the dough. Get the mark out the door. Take five minutes, spray the bike with aromatic lubricant, knock the worst of the dirt off, call it a tuneup and charge $50.
If you don't really like people and have really fallen into that "us versus them" mentality, conning customers seems perfectly legitimate. They're not clients. They're prey.
Some customers are easy to hate. But not every poor-mouthing chronic chiseler deserves to be screwed. Some of them can be educated to understand the value they're receiving for the higher price. Others are simply playing the business game, trying to drive a hard bargain because they enjoy the haggling. Feel free to laugh in their face. Don't play the numbers game with them. The chiseler always wins that one.
In the cooperative model, even chiselers can be accommodated. Perhaps you have to do it by showing some of them the exit, but don't waste time being hostile. Just be courteously unavailable.
The cooperative model seems like more work at first, because you actually have to perform the services you say you offer. But I've noticed over the years that trying to get out of work ends up being more work than actually working. Once you accept that the work needs to be done, you can get down to doing it as quickly as a good job allows. Then it's done, usually just once, correctly, and it's out of your hair.
The guy who fixes my car was talking to me on the telephone earlier this summer. We both had heavy repair loads.
"Well, work too hard," said Rich, as we got ready to hang up.
As so often happens when I talk to Rich, I took it to heart. Do good work. You don't always get to choose when it comes to you. If you've created a trusting customer base, you really do owe them the expertise you've trained them to accept. Do less than that and you have to start all over again.
In the adversarial model, the customer is a bag of money. The business wants to get as much money as possible with the least effort. The customer, knowing this, wants to avoid paying. It becomes a contest between gouging business and chiseling customer.
In the gouging model, work quality only serves to keep the customer calm, quiet, reassured. The reassurance may be false. Who cares? Get the dough. Get the mark out the door. Take five minutes, spray the bike with aromatic lubricant, knock the worst of the dirt off, call it a tuneup and charge $50.
If you don't really like people and have really fallen into that "us versus them" mentality, conning customers seems perfectly legitimate. They're not clients. They're prey.
Some customers are easy to hate. But not every poor-mouthing chronic chiseler deserves to be screwed. Some of them can be educated to understand the value they're receiving for the higher price. Others are simply playing the business game, trying to drive a hard bargain because they enjoy the haggling. Feel free to laugh in their face. Don't play the numbers game with them. The chiseler always wins that one.
In the cooperative model, even chiselers can be accommodated. Perhaps you have to do it by showing some of them the exit, but don't waste time being hostile. Just be courteously unavailable.
The cooperative model seems like more work at first, because you actually have to perform the services you say you offer. But I've noticed over the years that trying to get out of work ends up being more work than actually working. Once you accept that the work needs to be done, you can get down to doing it as quickly as a good job allows. Then it's done, usually just once, correctly, and it's out of your hair.
The guy who fixes my car was talking to me on the telephone earlier this summer. We both had heavy repair loads.
"Well, work too hard," said Rich, as we got ready to hang up.
As so often happens when I talk to Rich, I took it to heart. Do good work. You don't always get to choose when it comes to you. If you've created a trusting customer base, you really do owe them the expertise you've trained them to accept. Do less than that and you have to start all over again.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Does This Sound Good?
It doesn't matter if your bike is actually fixed, as long as the shop can make you believe it is fixed and get it out the door. I'm told by someone who worked in the medical field that it's done that way in hospitals. Basically, if no one can pin a lawsuit on you you've done a fine job.
People who fear punishment more than they fear doing wrong only worry about getting caught, not about doing things right because they prefer to do things right. If someone like that performs a mechanical or medical service for you, you're both just waiting for your luck to run out.
While it's true that most customers won't know the difference, you can never be sure which ones they are. And a chronic careless approach eventually gets someone hurt. If you don't care if other people get hurt, just remember that to everyone else YOU are other people.
Maybe most people do shabby work and only look out for themselves. But why go out of your way to deserve to be treated that way?
People who fear punishment more than they fear doing wrong only worry about getting caught, not about doing things right because they prefer to do things right. If someone like that performs a mechanical or medical service for you, you're both just waiting for your luck to run out.
While it's true that most customers won't know the difference, you can never be sure which ones they are. And a chronic careless approach eventually gets someone hurt. If you don't care if other people get hurt, just remember that to everyone else YOU are other people.
Maybe most people do shabby work and only look out for themselves. But why go out of your way to deserve to be treated that way?
Unforeseen Hazard
Last week on the morning ride to town, I saw a strip of dark pavement ahead of me. We hadn't had rain, but the road was wet. The wet strip was perhaps a foot and a half or two feet wide, from just to the left of the fog line, extending toward the middle of the lane.
It smelled like sewage. It wasn't just reminiscent of sewage. It was sewage. Had a septic tank truck spring a leak? Had someone forgotten to shut a valve all the way, or left a hose undrained after pumping out a tank?
I had to keep an eye on it so I wouldn't wander into it by accident, but I didn't want to scrutinize it closely enough to see corn, or tomato seeds, grayish-brown lumps or streamers of wet tissue. I hugged the guard rail and hoped that no one would drive by and splash it up.
Occasionally the wet strip would end, only to resume in just a few yards. Yellow foam was piled up down the middle of it. I could only imagine the mist of germs that hung in the air. I tried to breathe shallowly.
Eventually it ended for good. I wondered if someone had signalled the driver. It didn't really matter. At least the road was dry for the rest of the way.
It smelled like sewage. It wasn't just reminiscent of sewage. It was sewage. Had a septic tank truck spring a leak? Had someone forgotten to shut a valve all the way, or left a hose undrained after pumping out a tank?
I had to keep an eye on it so I wouldn't wander into it by accident, but I didn't want to scrutinize it closely enough to see corn, or tomato seeds, grayish-brown lumps or streamers of wet tissue. I hugged the guard rail and hoped that no one would drive by and splash it up.
Occasionally the wet strip would end, only to resume in just a few yards. Yellow foam was piled up down the middle of it. I could only imagine the mist of germs that hung in the air. I tried to breathe shallowly.
Eventually it ended for good. I wondered if someone had signalled the driver. It didn't really matter. At least the road was dry for the rest of the way.
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