Losing the fundamentals

[lowbucktruck]

I'd say this thread really serves to confirm that there will always be a changing of the guard in terms of generations of people who work for a living. I can all but guarantee that back in the 50's, 60's, 70's etc there were groups of men that would gather for coffee on Saturday morning and discuss how the upcoming class of workers was "lazy", "coddled" and relied too heavily on the latest "gadgets".

Can you imagine what that group of guys from the 50's would say about this phenomonon of social media? "Can you see these jokers sitting around staring at that box of plastic. They call this a conversation? They don't even talk face to face anymore".
.

Heck, I say that now! (about social media/Facebook)
I like my conversations with my friends face-to-face, when we are all in the same zip code. Now long-distance, that's a different story.

 

[snorky18]

Yeah, and the old school autocad people know all the keyboard shortcuts because that's all you had back in DOS days, while the new people have to go click click click through a million menus...

When I learned CAD on LT 98 in the late 90s, my wise teacher told me to learn the keyboard commands, b/c those never change between versions, or at someone else's computer.

Fifteen years later, all the young(er) whippersnappers at work are amazed when I bang through basic cad dwgs with a few keystrokes rather than 800 menus and mouse clicks.

 

[Brownsfan]

When I pull a customer car into my shop to work on it the VERY first thing I do is plug in a scanner and pull all codes on the car. I even take photographs of the codes and the VIN# pulled by the scanner. At the end of the job when I am writing up the paperwork on the computer I upload the photographs into the customer folder.

Why?
Because it lets me know if the computer see's any errors or has seen any so it points me in the right direction. Also, by doing this I know what codes were stored in the computer so if the customer comes back with a CEL when I read the codes I am able to say "This code was being thrown before I touched it" and have documented proof of such. Code readers can help CYA, Keep you from chasing problems you didn't cause after work preformed, and point you in the right direction to find problems.

Personal opinion?
Not using a code reader on modern cars as first line of trouble shooting is foolish, it tells you EXACTLY what problems the car has been seeing any other way is just an educated guess. But it is up to the tech to use his knowlege and experiance to understand what could be causing the code, because sometimes just because a code is thrown for a sensor doesn't mean the sensor is bad something else can cause it to throw a code.

Oh and of course we all know no codes doesn't mean no problems

I do the same. I do not know how many times I have been blamed for problems that are not my fault. Dealer techs LOVE to blame the remote start guy. They see $$$$ pays more than warranty. Just my opinion and some personal expieriance. I got blamed for a bad hatch release switch on a Nissan why? Because the above. Did not do proper electrical trouble shooting. The problem was not found until I FOUND IT FOR HIM. Dealers answer was well it must have been some thing you did. They finally replaced it under warranty because I told them there is no way you can prove I caused the issue when you could not even find the issue to begin with.

 

[bad_idea]

I work in ship repair. I am 27 years old. I am typically the youngest guy on the job, the guys I work with are my father's age. When we do have younger people on the job they are lazy and/or stupid. A lot of what we work on is simple sh!t but they FUBAR things, bad. Skilled tradesmen are being replaced by drooling idiots playing Angry Birds on their Iphone.

 

[londonsteve]

What annoys me about the code reader is that the mechanic may see what the problem is straight away but will still use the reader because it is billable same as doctors running tests that are not necessary.

 

[meburdick]

What annoys me about the code reader is that the mechanic may see what the problem is straight away but will still use the reader because it is billable same as doctors running tests that are not necessary.

Sometimes the code readers will divulge additional information and/or be required to reset the CEL. You won't know if there's additional information available unless you check, though.

 

[K13]

What annoys me about the code reader is that the mechanic may see what the problem is straight away but will still use the reader because it is billable same as doctors running tests that are not necessary.

So say he fixes the obvious but there is something underlying that has caused that to go and he doesn't run the scan and a week later you are back at the shop with the same problem because he didn't scan the car are you now going to be pissed because he didn't repair it right the first time?

 

[Baada]

Let me start with saying I get what the OP is implying in his message. However, I think he may be more bothered with the fact that his nephew is doing things differently than he would. I would venture to say that an Ipad is to his nephew as pencil and paper were to the OP at that age. It's all what you know.

It really comes down to selecting the best tool, or method, that gets the job done that needs to be done, the way you want it done. There lots and lots of tools, and methods, to take a nut off a bolt. That being said, over the years different tools and methods have become more widely accepted. Does that make the other methods wrong?

 

[d_rock]

Everything is going that way. With technology advances were slowly weeding out the "human error" when it comes to diagnostics. I'm an old school tech, and I use primarly old school techniques. The tech next to me, fresh out of tech school, has one of those fancy 8k dollar snap on scan tools. First thing he takes out for everything. Can't even do a simple power balance test to find a missing cylinder, he hooks up his scan tool and it tells him. Its 2 different ways of going about the same thing, and usually ends up with the same end result. Although relying on his scanner, he has misdiagnosed. I test parts so I know. Pretty sure he has never even seen the inside of an alternator or starter...lol. And I'm not that old. But my dad owned a shop so I grew up learning from him.

 

[Baada]

About 1970 the stone was cast that started the system of,or "leaning" twds(and a mighty few years later this became a full-on push)....That somehow if you work with your hands,choosing a trade vs college,will result in you being "left behind".

Here is a link to Mike Rowe from Discovery's Dirty Jobs talking about the result of this push. You have to listen to the latter part to hear his opinion that goes hand in hand with what you are saying.

I have an engineering degree and I learned just as much, if not more, useable information from the "blue collar" folks that I worked alongside with than I did in school.

 

[JKady]

I work in ship repair. I am 27 years old. I am typically the youngest guy on the job, the guys I work with are my father's age. When we do have younger people on the job they are lazy and/or stupid. A lot of what we work on is simple sh!t but they FUBAR things, bad. Skilled tradesmen are being replaced by drooling idiots playing Angry Birds on their Iphone.

You know, this one really brought to mind how I feel at work after a recent hire. Granted, the oldest guy in the shop is 54 but I work with a group of fairly talented individuals when it comes to working on cars. Our new hire is the youngest guy in the shop at 19, and granted yeah, he's green and has very little experience, but there just doesn't really seem to be any work ethic there. It wasn't till he got caught and reamed for it that he wasn't walking out to his car every 10 minutes to play with his phone or grab something or just plain waste time.

Other than working at Jiffy Lube he doesn't have any practical experience, but he expects to be moved right into being an R&R tech like me while having no tools and not having acquired any knowledge. No interest in gaining that knowledge either, as he won't even take the time to go to the FREE classes we all get offered after work. I spent a couple hours at a GM drivability clinic last night, gained a TON of new info on top of the free dinner, all it cost me was a couple bucks in gas and time I wouldn't have used to get anything done otherwise.