I’ve never been asked to give a commencement address to students graduating from a technical college for mechanics, but if I were, here are some tips I’d share with them:
- Buy more tools than you can afford during the first five years of your career. They’ll never get cheaper.
- If you have to borrow a tool more than three times from a fellow mechanic, buy one of your own.
- Marry someone who understands the hours you must keep, then do your darndest for them to make up to them for all the hours you must keep.
- Buy plenty of tools and avoid borrowing
- Never stroll across the shop or a job site. Languid strolling annoys bosses and offends customers.
- Make friends with parts people. They can make your life as a mechanic easy or miserable.
- Always carry a tool or sheet of paper when walking around the dealership or a jobsite. Empty hands annoy bosses and offend customers.
- Be a friend to your boss or supervisor. Not a buddy, but someone who is pleasant, polite and respectful. Be someone he can count on.
- Never lie for your boss. If he knows you’ll lie for him, he’ll worry that you’ll lie to him.
- Decide if being a mechanic is your job, your career or your life. There are good and bad consequences associated with each approach to turning wrenches.
- Learn how to say, “I was wrong,” but do your job and live your life to minimize the necessity.
- Never be the bottom-man working on a piece of equipment with someone who chews tobacco.
