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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:00]:
If you're hungry, I mean, you might as well.
Sean Tipping [00:00:03]:
They said you'd have snacks.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:04]:
I know you got tic tacs and boogers. Sean tipping.
Sean Tipping [00:00:10]:
What's happening?
Lucas Underwood [00:00:11]:
How are you?
Sean Tipping [00:00:13]:
I cannot complain. Enjoying vision.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:15]:
You made my day a couple weeks ago.
Sean Tipping [00:00:18]:
All right.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:19]:
It was like the most awesome thing ever. You called David out, and he didn't even know it, and he got his feelings hurt. He cried.
David Roman [00:00:27]:
I don't. I don't get my feelings for it very easily. I was annoyed that it was a mischaracterization of what I was trying to.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:40]:
Convey, although I did say it properly, is what he's saying.
David Roman [00:00:45]:
And the. I know. Did you actually listen to the podcast?
Sean Tipping [00:00:49]:
Well, maybe I should start with this.
David Roman [00:00:51]:
Okay. The.
Sean Tipping [00:00:53]:
The one. The thing that spurred me to make the post, and if anybody's not familiar, is I posted on your guys Facebook page. But I was actually listening to one of the, like, at the time, the most recent episode, and it was actually Lucas that mentioned something about it that got me. And I think the reason that I posted is I had heard that, you know, several times. Yeah, I listen to every episode you guys put out because I really.
David Roman [00:01:17]:
Hey, play with the TikTok some more or the tick to tick tocks. The tic tacs more. Why don't you shake him into the microphone? Holy crap. He's trying to talk here. We're having a conversation. Is that okay?
Lucas Underwood [00:01:30]:
Jackass that interrupted.
David Roman [00:01:31]:
Jeez. This is all I can heard.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:40]:
I'm sorry.
David Roman [00:01:41]:
You had heard what? Several times?
Sean Tipping [00:01:44]:
Yeah. So we should probably start with that. Really, to sum it up, basically, it's the concern, or I guess I'm not sure how to phrase it, but how much you care about what your employees do with their money is the easiest way to put it.
David Roman [00:02:04]:
You'd heard that from who, though?
Sean Tipping [00:02:06]:
Both of you guys at different times.
David Roman [00:02:08]:
Okay.
Sean Tipping [00:02:09]:
Yeah, we say it all episodes.
David Roman [00:02:11]:
Yeah, we say it all the time.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:12]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:02:12]:
Yeah.
Sean Tipping [00:02:13]:
So that's. And it just. Yeah, I think I was grouchy. That's that morning. So I love it. I try to stay off Facebook, actually. I don't have my phone, but I'm.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:24]:
Just offended that you're not posting every episode of the automotive diagnostic podcast in the group. It's your group, too. You can post in there.
Sean Tipping [00:02:33]:
Yeah, I. I'm really bad at social media. I actually. I have my admin guy that does most of it for. But, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:41]:
Can you add him to the group and ask him to post it?
Sean Tipping [00:02:43]:
I'll get on that.
David Roman [00:02:46]:
So that. Well, when I say I was annoyed. I was annoyed because it. It almost sounded like. It sounded like. I assume nobody actually listens to the podcast, although I see the numbers, and that's not true. But I just assume nobody actually listens to the podcast. So when I got, like, people coming at me, when I said what I said, they were arguing against mischaracterizations of straw men.
David Roman [00:03:17]:
And so, I mean, I just didn't engage with anybody. I didn't care. It's like, hey, if you care enough about the argument that you think you're attacking me or whatever, you think I'm wrong or whatever, like, go back and listen to the actual argument and then start to pick it apart, and then we can engage. But don't build something up that I can tell you unequivocally is wrong, and then knock it down. I'm not saying that that's what happened with you exactly, but that had already happened, like, a hundred other times.
Sean Tipping [00:03:49]:
Okay?
David Roman [00:03:49]:
And so I just assumed when somebody goes, you don't believe in raises, to the point where I was. I think I titled, well, I was trying to get Mike Allen in trouble, because I had quoted Mike Allen saying, stop giving raises or something like that. That was the thumbnail for the YouTube video, and it was, quote, mike Allen probably caught it. Of course, I just put those things in there to make myself laugh. And of course, he never said that, but that was why, like, I didn't argue with anybody on there. Like, I didn't say anything. Like, it's. Everybody doesn't understand.
David Roman [00:04:36]:
Most people, they hear it and they react viscerally. Like, what do you mean? You're gonna deny me a raise? It's like, no, no, no, no. I'm not denying anybody anything that they do, but the conversation needs to be had. That after. You familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs? So, like, after you get through those two bottom rings of the, like, the hierarchy, like, okay, the upper stuff is not money related. You see what I'm saying?
Sean Tipping [00:05:07]:
Like, it's not a dollar amount. I don't recall what it is. I want to say it's like $80,000, where after that point, your happiness is not directly correlated to.
David Roman [00:05:17]:
There's a rate of diminishing returns.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:19]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:05:20]:
And that was essentially what I was trying to make the point to Matt, and it wasn't even. And that's, as an employer, I've got to produce the customer. I have to then instill value in what we're doing, portray that value to the customer. The customer has to understand it, accept it. Be happy with it. That whole process. There's a lot involved. It is unbelievably difficult.
David Roman [00:05:52]:
I think a lot of people discount that. It is really difficult to find that customer. Never been to you before. Show them that, hey, this is what we do, and get them all built up and then deliver on it and then have them walk away happy. And I have to do that at ever increasing dollar amounts every step of the way. Why? Because you want a pair of Jordans? Make me understand what it is that you need so that I feel good about having to go out there and ask for 20 more percent than I did two years ago, 10% more than I did last year, because Jordans, that's not enough for me.
Sean Tipping [00:06:31]:
Okay?
David Roman [00:06:32]:
That's not enough for me. And so because I feel like I have to get my employee of the Jordans or Jordan money, I've got to do all this. I've got to do this whole dog and pony show. Like, you guys are not. You guys are just assuming there's a money tree. I'm not saying you, but some of these texts are just, you shake the money tree and more will come out. I'm not pulling up in a lambo, dude. Now, are there some shop owners that are pulling up in the lambo and, like, my nice new car? Hey, do the oil change for me.
David Roman [00:07:04]:
I got to take off for this week into my. My vacation home. And. Yeah. And if you want to come after that guy and go, hey, can I get another $5 an hour? That'd be nice. Look at all this learning I did. Yeah, that's a conversation. And justifiably so I can understand.
David Roman [00:07:21]:
But I don't operate my business that way, and I don't think I could ever get to that point. Did you? Are you an ace hog?
Sean Tipping [00:07:31]:
I'm in the Facebook group, yeah.
David Roman [00:07:33]:
Okay. So there's. Somebody had posted on there that they were afraid to friend their employees. And that's not. That. That wasn't the. The cringe. The cringe came in the comment section where the guys, like, this was the.
David Roman [00:07:49]:
Some of the comments. They were like, well, if you're afraid that they might get upset if you show off some of the nice things you have, some of the vacations you go on and they see it, they might be jealous of your lifestyle, and you may not want them to see that. What are you doing? And why? Why?
Sean Tipping [00:08:16]:
Yeah. Now, I should start with this. I am real small scale. I've only been full time business owner for a couple years now, and I only have two employees. So I'm real small scale. But in that small amount of time, I've tried to be transparent with my numbers and what's going on with the business, with the employees that I have now. I realize that could definitely backfire on you in certain situations, and there are certain people where maybe that caused problems. So far, it's been good to say, hey, here's the numbers.
Sean Tipping [00:08:49]:
Here's what we've got to hit. I did like an incentive bonus as far as the plan so that the business does well, you do well sort of situation, but they're, you know, they know what's going on and. Yeah. Am I making more than them? Yeah, but it's. That's a conversation of, okay, well, here's all of the effort and risk that I put into.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:11]:
Yeah, and the liability and the amount of time that you put into it.
David Roman [00:09:14]:
Liability and everything.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:16]:
You know, I think for me, it takes a very different angle on. And so I'm the same way I show them the numbers. We do pay calculations. I pay them at least 30% of their revenue, and every six months we're analyzing it, and I'm showing them what they generated. And so they. It helps them understand effective labor rate. It helps them understand proper billing and the way we're handling these things. And so I'm showing them that data.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:42]:
My concern comes from a couple situations I've had where I was giving an employee more money and was trying to help, right? And. And they were exceeding that percentage of what every single business coach out there says. This is your absolute max, okay? Right? And I'm raising labor rates and I give more money, and it's like, you know, I go and I'm like, how much do you actually need?
David Roman [00:10:10]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:10:10]:
Because this is like, the third time we've had this conversation, and you're telling me you can't pay your bills and you can't get anything done. So let's talk about this, and let's raise your pay. And. And in the same conversations, it's things like, well, where else would I go work that I could earn as much as I earn here? Well, hold on for a minute. Right? Like, let's talk about this for a second. You're telling me you couldn't earn what you earn here, anywhere else, but you're telling me you're not earning enough.
Sean Tipping [00:10:33]:
Let's make an argument for you, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:10:34]:
Like, I'm curious. And so I really, like, we're a very tight knit group, and so people within the group were saying, like, hey, we're really concerned that this is becoming a thing, right? Like, this is. This is mistakes that I have made in my life where the expenses creep and lifestyle gets big and all these things happen. And that's dangerous because unless you understand how to manage your finances, you could go into massive debt and never be able to get back out of it. Right?
Sean Tipping [00:11:05]:
Yeah, for sure.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:06]:
And so my thing was, is I'm presenting these numbers and I'm saying, like, dude, if I give you another raise, and then it happened four times, okay? Right? And each four. Each of the four times we're back after they set their own rate, and we're back and we're saying, I can't pay my bills. I don't know how you expect me to live like this. And I'm like, dude, no, I don't.
Sean Tipping [00:11:29]:
I don't need numbers or anything, but the pay that he's getting, is that on any sort of incentive production, there's.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:35]:
Incentive production based, okay, there's 14 days of paid time off, okay, there's paid vision and dental. There's a insurance stipend to pay for the health insurance. There's paid training. All of their training's paid for returning 20 hours a week. And it's like, at some point, I've got to say, I'm not doing you any favors by doing this.
David Roman [00:12:05]:
And it wasn't that. It would have been different if it was like, hey, you know, I've got two kids and my sister's kids are in bad situation. I got to take on another two kids. Now I have four children I have to feed, and my wife just got laid off for work. And what I was making before is not enough. Okay? Now that's why I was talking about the hierarchy. Yeah. That's going to bump you way down the hierarchy.
David Roman [00:12:32]:
And now your focus is survival. I don't want you on survival mode. So let's have that conversation. Let's figure out. Okay, let's get you here. Let's. Wherever we need to get you, okay? That's a different situation than. You're not in a survival mode.
David Roman [00:12:45]:
You are in a. You know what? My. My 32 inch widescreen gaming monitor is nice, but I really want that Samsung G 949 inch ultra wide. And it's fifteen hundred dollars. And you know what? I can't pay for that out of pocket because I didn't save up enough money. And it's like.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:12]:
But for me, I don't. I don't care what they want.
David Roman [00:13:14]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:13:15]:
Like, I don't. It's none of my business what they want with the money. It's my business to make sure that I'm providing them the tools to be smart with the money that they do have. Right.
David Roman [00:13:25]:
But then they buy the thing, but they buy on credit. Now they have another car, another payment, and then they bought a car, too, on top of that. And then they live in a ridiculously huge house that they can't afford, and they stack and stack and stack and stack and stack. Like, did you need that gaming? Did you really need to take on that $50 a week payment that you're making on that thing? Was that really necessary?
Lucas Underwood [00:13:46]:
We, we had a absolute blow up over a. Over a tool, right. Because y'all know that I'll buy the tools. I don't care to buy the tools, right? Especially scan tools and things like that.
David Roman [00:13:55]:
Uh huh.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:56]:
And, and we had a tech go on to the snap on truck and buy a new scan tool. And I'm like, we've talked about that. We don't know that snap on is the direction that we want to go in the shop anymore. Were not happy with some of the things that they were doing with the tools at the time. And we've talked to the vice president of Diag at Snap on, and they've, they've really worked to make things better. But, you know, we had already talked about that we weren't going to do that. And so I go to a particular tech and I say, hey, man. Like, I'm walking into the shop and I can tell he feels like he's just done something wrong.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:25]:
You know what I mean? And so I'm walking over to talk to him. I'm like, hey, is everything okay? He's like, he won't make eye contact with me, right? And so then he's, like, kind of trying to shoo me out of the bay, and all of a sudden I see the snap on dealer walk back in with a new snap on box route.
Sean Tipping [00:14:44]:
Oh, boy.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:44]:
And so I'm, like, asking him, like, how much did you pay for that? And he's like, oh, it was $3,800. I'm like, dude, why did you do that? He said, it's going to cost me way less money.
David Roman [00:14:55]:
And like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:56]:
You never spend $3,800 and it cost you less money. He's like, no, no, no. It's going to cost me way less because it's lowering my payments so much. And I said, that is not how that works. Like, let's talk about this. And so we go into the office, and I pull all of his numbers up. We're looking. I'm like, okay, so tell me how much you're paying for the tool? And he said, $3,800.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:19]:
He said. I said, why? Why did you choose to do this instead of ask me to buy you a tool? And he said, well, because I have a snap on balance, and I'm trying to get my cash flow back up. So I was trying to get the snap on balance down, and I said, okay, well, how much was your snap on balance? And he said, it was $1,800. And I'm sitting here thinking, dude, I would have just given you $1,800, and we would have paid off the snap on balance. You pay me back or something, right?
Sean Tipping [00:15:40]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:41]:
And so I said, well, how many payments are you going to have? And he's like, well, I don't know. And I said, you don't know? I said, well, what's your interest rate? He said, I don't know. I said, where's the paperwork at? This dude supposed to show you these pages as he signs the paperwork.
Sean Tipping [00:15:57]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:58]:
29.99% interest. And by the time he got done paying for it, it was going to be 17,000 and some dollars for this $3,800 tool.
Sean Tipping [00:16:09]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:10]:
And, like, I get that we want new and nice things, but there's no flashlight on a snap on truck that is worth $2,000. It doesn't work like that.
Sean Tipping [00:16:21]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:21]:
And we just don't think about the money that we're spending. We're not being smart about it now. It's not my business what they do with their money. I don't want anybody to think that, because I don't feel that way.
David Roman [00:16:30]:
Sounds like you're saying that.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:32]:
No, it's not that. It's that if I have people in my organization that I genuinely care about and I want them to have the best life possible, and I'm so effing passionate about it because I've made that stupid mistake, and I'm just now climbing out of those stupid mistakes.
Sean Tipping [00:16:47]:
So that's where I think a lot of this is, is that we either have gone through it ourselves.
Lucas Underwood [00:16:52]:
Yeah.
Sean Tipping [00:16:53]:
And quite often, I would imagine that you guys are talking about younger, especially younger guys in their 20s.
David Roman [00:16:59]:
Not necessarily.
Sean Tipping [00:17:00]:
Okay. And sometimes not. Sometimes it takes people longer. They haven't had that education. Right. But this is something that, at least for me, I can speak for myself, is important to me. Financial well being or stability is important to me for various reasons of growing up and not experiencing that. Right.
Sean Tipping [00:17:19]:
So I put a lot of effort into learning what I can. I'm far from an expert, but I can say I'm stable, at least, and it is important to me. So when you have something like that and there's a lot of other things like that that people take on, whether it be like health or religion or even like politics or something, you're just, you're so like, wow, this is so important. I really want to share this with other people or try to explain, like.
Lucas Underwood [00:17:42]:
This is so good. Look at this thing.
Sean Tipping [00:17:44]:
That's so good. And, yeah, financial health being one of those things, you don't want to see people that you care about make those same mistakes. So you're going to, hey, here's the thing. But that's where it gets tricky because, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but yeah, I can't force them to do anything. And to a point, I don't want to really know what they're doing with their money. You know, like there's, I want there to be a separation there, like I.
David Roman [00:18:08]:
Have had, it's not even that. It's, you're not going to make those mistakes. But then you see somebody could be younger, maybe not, or whatever, you have a conversation and they may not have learned some of those financial tips and like, hey, it's not a good thing to have a huge tax return coming back. That means you've been overpaying the whole year. Yeah, like that's, and you wouldn't believe how often over the last 20 plus years that I've had employees working for me that I've had to have that conversation with people in their fifties, sixties plus, like, what do you mean? Like, you see the money coming out of your paycheck? They don't even look at their stubs half the time. It's just like, hey, I'm not sure, hit my account. That's all they want to know. And that level of disconnect isn't healthy and won't ensure their financial stability well into their older years.
David Roman [00:19:06]:
Because the other factor of it is, what's this going to look like in 20 years? You see what I'm saying? You're 31 now, but when you're 55 and you have busted shoulders, what's that going to look like? And so you've got to set yourself up now at 30 to be in a good place at 55, to then make different choices because you don't want to be the Walmart greeter, because you have to be the Walmart reader. You want to be the Walmart greeter. Because you got nothing else to do.
Sean Tipping [00:19:40]:
What do you guys have for that? As far as a path for a technician, somebody that's working on cars? It's different for what I'm doing right now because it's not extremely physical. Right. We're in vans and punching buttons on computers and stuff. So if someone wanted to continue to do that into their fifties, as long as they wanted to do it, it wouldn't be too much of a physical.
David Roman [00:20:05]:
You slide this thing a little bit closer to you.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:08]:
Yeah, just. Just slide the whole thing.
David Roman [00:20:10]:
The whole thing, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:11]:
So, like, in our shop, we've got a match it 5%.
David Roman [00:20:16]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:16]:
So. So I'm trying to be smart about building in for them long term sustainability. Um, and it's hard in an independent shop to find a position for that person that they can grow into, because you only have so many positions within that facility that they can. They can move to see that.
David Roman [00:20:34]:
But I reject that idea entirely as well. Like, I reject the whole idea of, like, oh, I've got no career progression. It's not career progression. Especially when you're working in a small, like, you're saying the small independent repair shop. Like, how many positions do I have got? Technician, QC guy, service advisor, maybe a shop manager, owner. They can take the ownership shop at any point. They just gotta throw. They just gotta sign a piece of paperwork.
David Roman [00:21:06]:
Done. Amount?
Sean Tipping [00:21:07]:
Well, how many payments?
David Roman [00:21:09]:
No, no, no payments. You just gotta take on the debt anyway. I have a negative balance sheet. Negative balance sheet.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:16]:
Well, so. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that in my facility, right, if something happens to somebody, they get hurt. I want to do my very best to sustain them and create something for them. What I'm doing with my shop is I'm trying to make sure we're providing them enough education and enough supplemental stuff right now, 401k, getting some money put back, being smart about our money, doing those kinds of things, that if they want to do something, like move into education, right?
Sean Tipping [00:21:47]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:48]:
If they want to become a high school or community college instructor where they've got hurt, they can't do what they were doing before they can go work for the school. They provide a needed service to our industry. They know the knowledge, they know the content, the material they need, they know the curriculum, and they're passionate about it. So now they have a pathway. Maybe it's that they move into service advisor. Maybe it's that they move into shop manager. Maybe it's that we create additional facilities and they move into that right. I don't have the perfect laid out plan right now.
Sean Tipping [00:22:20]:
It is, it's like being an athlete in a way, because your physical ability, in a lot of cases with mechanical repair is where you're making your money and that only lasts so long. You know, some people can stretch it out another decade or so, but everybody's gonna slow down, your body's gonna wear out. Maybe you just don't wanna do that swing hammers anymore, dude. Eventually. And so, yeah, it's tough. It's tough thing for a technician, mechanic that's doing repair to transition to something else unless, yeah, they start thinking about it earlier. I think some advantages are we have technology that's building up so incredibly fast in the car world that you have. There's gonna be more avenues that you can take in the future but that you're going to have to start studying up on that stuff now and getting up on that because if you just try to, oh, I'm going to be a mobile diagnostic guy at 50 and you haven't really prepared for that.
Sean Tipping [00:23:11]:
That's going to be really tough.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:12]:
Yeah. And as fast as the technology is changing and staying on top of it just in the amount of time. So there's, there's two sides to that. I've been out of the bays for probably six years now, right? Um, when, and I'm 38. I'm 39. Um, when I came out of the base six years ago, I was getting to the point like if I had to turn a socket up like this and try and hold the socket and like, say I was trying to twist it to get a bolt loose. Couldn't do it. I couldn't hold the socket anymore.
Lucas Underwood [00:23:39]:
My hand just didn't work and my back, I'd move the wrong way and I'd hurt my back and I was not easy on my body and I'm paying for it, right? In a lot of ways and in the same respect, I look into the bays now and I'm like, man, I remember doing those jobs and for the life of me I cannot remember how to do it. I can't remember how ids works. I can't remember where to click that button because if you don't use that knowledge, you lose it, right? Maybe not all of it. I still have the basis and I understand theory and operation, but it would take me forever to pick it back up.
Sean Tipping [00:24:12]:
I had to put a water pump in my fan a couple weeks ago and I've been out of the wrenching side of it since about 1718 and I was like, okay, well, my hands still kind of know what to do, but it definitely took me way longer than it would have, you know, go back six, seven years ago. So, yeah, it's. Yeah, you gotta keep using it if you wanna keep up those skills, for sure.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:32]:
And if, if we don't, if we're not intentional about those pathways and provide opportunity for them to get there, they're not gonna take that path on their own.
David Roman [00:24:43]:
No.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:44]:
Right. We have to make sure we're creating something that gives them that path. It has to be intentionally built into the shop to do it. And I don't know very many shops that have done that, and I don't know very many shops that know how to do that. You look at a Doug grills or a Dwayne Myers, they've done a really good job of like, building systems to get that employee that, that if they have something happen, you know, I was just looking earlier and. And this is something else to think about. We were talking about technicians getting injured outside of work earlier. There was a post in Asa just a few minutes ago that a young tech got hurt and is either going to lose the arm or never be able to use the arm again.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:26]:
And he's like, what do I do? How do I help him? And so as a business owner, the conundrum is, well, I can't afford to pay him his salary if he can't do the job, but I also. And so maybe that's where injury insurance comes in. I mean, what do you think about that?
David Roman [00:25:42]:
Yeah, well, there should be a death and dismemberment policy. I mean, I think there's a dollar amount that comes with an arm. It's not very much, by the way.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:52]:
What is it?
David Roman [00:25:53]:
I don't know. It's like maybe $15,000. They'll cut you a check for 15 grand for losing an arm.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:59]:
So you're not going to buy arm.
David Roman [00:26:03]:
But if you're going to lose it, you want the money.
Sean Tipping [00:26:04]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:26:05]:
It's versus zero. Sure. So you get. You still lose the arm.
Sean Tipping [00:26:08]:
Yeah, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:09]:
I mean, it's tough. And I, you know, we talk about seeing what it is that they do with their money or making decisions. I had a heart to heart with Terry a while back because he said, you know, I always feel like you get mad at me when I ask for time off. It wasn't, it wasn't that I got.
David Roman [00:26:26]:
Do get mad at him. Cause you're a dick again.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:32]:
For somebody that's backed into a corner, you sure are gutsy.
David Roman [00:26:36]:
We just had, like, two podcast episodes. Just talking about how mean he is.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:40]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:26:41]:
The only reason why he's personable, but also very mean. So everybody's like, oh, it's okay, Lucas is dick.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:50]:
I couldn't. I can agree with Terry that I probably came off as a dick about it, and. And it wasn't, like, for me, it wasn't that I was trying to be a dick to Terry about taking time off. It's that I got to figure out how to pay those bills without an employee.
David Roman [00:27:06]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:07]:
For that time, while still paying that employee.
Sean Tipping [00:27:09]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:09]:
It's stressful. It is, right. And so, like, you're trying to figure out how to balance all of these pieces and put all this together, and I think, I don't know that many employees understand how much goes into that to make it work. You know what I mean?
David Roman [00:27:25]:
Yeah.
Sean Tipping [00:27:25]:
Oh, for sure. I 100% do, because I'm experiencing that right now. And again, we're really small, so vacation time is real tricky to work around because one guy's off. That's 50% of what we're doing. And so, okay, how do we manage that? And that's. That's all part of the growth. But, yeah, it would be. It would be helpful if everyone got to experience that role of business owner for even a short period of time to be like, hey, here's what it's like.
Sean Tipping [00:27:52]:
What would you do here?
Lucas Underwood [00:27:54]:
I've always laughed because I've got a family full of truck drivers, and they said that before anybody got their driver's license, they should have to drive a fully loaded big truck, at least for four or 5 miles in traffic, and see what that experience is like, because you will act completely differently.
Sean Tipping [00:28:10]:
Even when I was at tech and just starting out, the first shop I worked at, I had to sell my own tickets, which is a terrible way to do it. Terribly inefficient. You shouldn't have to do that. Takes a lot of time. But once I got into the role where I was just tech and I had a service writer, it was much easier for me to work with them because I know what they had to deal with, talking to the customer, selling the work, getting the parts, all that stuff. So at least I had an understanding of how that process worked and the struggles that they might run into, rather than the guy that's just like, yeah, it needs a PCm, whatever, and not really caring about what they had to deal with with the customer. So, yeah, understanding someone else's role is pretty important, but that's a tough thing to do. Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:53]:
It is.
Sean Tipping [00:28:53]:
I can't just have my tech like, hey, run the business for a couple months, see what it's like.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:58]:
Here's the checkbook. We've got a advisor coach, and that advisor coach meets with our service advisors and our technicians and they talk about problems they encountered and talk about the ways that they go through things. And they even do trainings where you send an advisor and a technician to be able to learn together and grow the business together and make things better. And I'm super blessed because our advisor coach is extremely ethical and like, her husband was a technician, and they have people that work for them that were also technicians. And so I thought it was so funny because my service advisor comes to me and she says, hey, I have a question. And I said, what? She said, I was just in my coaching meeting and she said, I have a scenario to present to you and I want to see if I was wrong or if my service advisor coach was wrong. And she said, so you've got a customer at the front counter, and you're talking to that customer at the front counter. You've got a technician standing behind you waiting on you, and the phone's ringing.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:00]:
Who do you deal with first? And I said, well, the technician. And she said, why? I said, well, because that's the main movement of your progression through the shop and he can't be waiting on you. So you tell the client, hey, give me just a second. I want to help the technician so he can get moving. That way we're efficient with your automobile while it's here, and then you come back and you do it with the client in front of you, and then you answer the phone or you return the call, whatever it is you need to do. And I think that understanding the importance of each of the roles in the shop.
David Roman [00:30:31]:
Mm hmm. By the way, the correct answer is you always answer the phone first. Always answer the phone.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:36]:
I disagree.
David Roman [00:30:37]:
I'm sorry. It's, you always answer the phone first. That's always the order. Phone technician, customer at the counter, that's money. That 13, that phone call cost you dollar 13, and you're not going to answer.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:52]:
With the current Google status, it costs.
David Roman [00:30:54]:
You way more than $13, $39, $39 for that phone call. And you didn't want to answer it because it's like, oh, it's too busy. You didn't answer it? No.
Sean Tipping [00:31:05]:
Is that because the person's already in your shop and that phone call could go elsewhere or what's the, there you go. Okay.
David Roman [00:31:11]:
Yeah. The guy at the counter is there captured, essentially. So. And they see that you're busy and so you, you ask them, like, hold on one moment. Let me get the technician moving. So we're not tying up everybody's cars and. But you answer the phone, even if it's just to put them on hold. But you don't.
David Roman [00:31:29]:
You always listen to what they need first. The, hey, thanks for calling. Hold please. Is not a thing ever. That stuff drives me nuts.
Sean Tipping [00:31:41]:
Anyway, that's why I got somebody answer the phones for me, which has been an absolute lifesaver.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:46]:
So did you, did you hire somebody locally or how did, uh, yeah, he's local.
Sean Tipping [00:31:51]:
He can do all of it from home, although he'll run around and drop, like, sometimes we need to get a laptop from one van to another, so he'll help out with that here and there. But, yeah, he's local and he does all the phone and the administrative work. And it has been, it's been fantastic. It was, it was a big, like, to do it because he's not out there directly making money and it's tougher to quantify. But it's been, it's been awesome. And I mean, he is out there.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:19]:
He is out there directly making money.
Sean Tipping [00:32:21]:
Yep. If you see it in the numbers.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:23]:
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is like, it's really easy to not see that.
Sean Tipping [00:32:27]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:28]:
But then when the, when the stress goes down and the money goes up.
Sean Tipping [00:32:31]:
That'S the thing is, what's the level of stress worth? And so that's gone down as well. So it's been huge for, for sure. So I can focus on what I'm doing.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:40]:
This, to me, is such a cool conversation because it was, what, three years ago, four years ago we were in Minneapolis and like, you're still teaching and you were just barely dipping your toes into the mobile thing like, you were doing it, but it wasn't like this big deal. Right. And now the mobile thing is like a massive part of who you are and what you do. What, what was the catalyst that moved you into that to where it's like, all right, I'm going to expand this and roll with it.
Sean Tipping [00:33:09]:
Well, I had to pick one because I was trying to do both. Yeah, yeah, you just can't. I would, didn't have enough bandwidth to do everything, and everything was suffering because of it. So I was like, I have to pick one. Cause I was like, well, I'll just cut back here. I'll cut back here. And that doesn't work. That's not my personality.
Sean Tipping [00:33:27]:
I want to do everything as good as I can, or I could have stopped doing the podcast, but I like the podcast, so I don't want to. Please don't stop doing that. But anyways, so it was really tough decision. I could have gone either way. Great benefits with teaching, a pension, all that stuff, the health insurance, paying for that yourself sucks. But for sure, it was the time in my life that I was at. It was a great time to kind of roll the dice and take more of a risk. And it was almost just more exciting to me, honestly.
Sean Tipping [00:34:02]:
The teaching was safe. Teaching was, it was challenging, it was a lot of work, but it was secure and it was safe. I could retire in that job. And after I established my courses, after 510 years, you can kind of just tweak stuff and roll with it. This is a totally different animal. You don't know what's going to happen. This could totally tank and fail. The mobile thing is really volatile.
Sean Tipping [00:34:27]:
A big company could come into Minneapolis and push me out. All kinds of things could happen, but I don't know, that actually kind of excited me and for sure go for it, as dumb as that sounds. So that's the, that's the route that I took, but it really could have gone either way.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:42]:
What do you miss the school? Do you miss teaching?
Sean Tipping [00:34:45]:
I miss parts of it. I miss the students. That's the main thing. I miss my immediate coworkers, the other instructors. I don't miss the administrative, I don't miss the culture in the college. I don't, I don't miss a lot of the behind the scenes grading. Oh my God, grading is the worst. Yeah, it's the absolute worst.
Sean Tipping [00:35:03]:
I hated that.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:04]:
Well, and there's, so I've talked to a lot of technicians who are at the end of their mechanical career, right. And they've talked about going into teaching, and the answer is always the same. I can deal with a pay cut. I cannot deal with bureaucracy.
Sean Tipping [00:35:22]:
Yeah, it's, I'll say this, it is way more work than you think it will be. It is twelve months of work in nine months. And you have to be willing to accept that and understand what that is because you're going to be, especially in your first few years, getting your courses established, getting your feet under you. It's your life for those nine months if you want to do it. Right, right. If you want to slack off and just do the bare minimum, I guess you could probably figure that out. But like, if you actually want to be a good instructor for the students coming through and run a good program, like, you have to dedicate so much effort to that, and the pay is not fantastic. Good benefits.
Sean Tipping [00:36:01]:
Again, that kind of help to balance that out a little bit, but you really got to be passionate about it, otherwise you're not going to want to put in that much work.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:11]:
When I was getting the luggage off of the baggage claim when I landed here, a gentleman came up and talked to me, and he is a college instructor in Jacksonville, North Carolina. And he said, I had to put my foot down to come here. And he said, that's because our administration plainly said, you're not going to go to this because we don't see the value in it, and we don't want you going to training. We don't want you being involved in all this other stuff. You need to be here working. And he said, but this is the continuing education. This is the knowledge to be able to teach these kids something new.
Sean Tipping [00:36:50]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:51]:
And not teach them the same old, same old. We want to. We want to give them hope and, and tell them about what the industry is going to look like in five to ten years and help prepare them so they can have an actual career. Yep. We want to go to work for them. And for me to do that, I have to train at a high level, and so I want to go train at this high level. And they threatened, they wrote a letter of reprimand and they threatened to terminate him. All this stuff for going to ast envision, and he's like, I'm paying out of my pocket.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:18]:
And then they take my paid time off, and they use my paid time off for going here. And he's like, no, I'm going to tell you. He's like, for me, it's a good trade off.
David Roman [00:37:26]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:37:26]:
Like, I care about my kids. I want to teach them the best I can, and this is how I'm going to do that. But he said, what is it about a system that makes that okay?
Sean Tipping [00:37:35]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:35]:
That they don't even care any more than that.
Sean Tipping [00:37:38]:
I think it comes down to a lot of times, like shops, it depends on who you're working for. And there's a lot of different schools that look at it different ways. Um, we were lucky that for at least a period of time, our dean had experience in the trades. And then there was a transition around COVID to where we had a dean that had zero actual experience in the trades, but they were looking over all of the trades, and that made it real difficult to try to explain the things of value and why theyre valuable and why we need to do these things or why we cant cut costs because we got to go through our budget. You know, say this is why we're spending x amount of dollars here. And so that did make it kind of tough. And I think if, yeah, if you're working with the administration that doesn't have any experience because the vocational side of things is so different than the academic side. It's expensive to run the programs.
Sean Tipping [00:38:36]:
Like we had a full shop and a parts department and that takes a lot of money because we're not bringing it. We weren't doing like customer paid work, so we're not bringing in any money besides the, you know, the tuition the students are paying. But like that doesn't come directly into our program. So we just have our budget and we have to go through and each, I think it's every six months, like justify why, you know, this cost has gone up or we need to keep this cost or whatever. And yeah, it definitely can be a struggle.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:02]:
I've watched high school programs take off like wildfire, right? And around us, I'm telling you, we have one of the best CTE programs in the high school you've ever seen. Our CTE instructor for automotive just got regional teacher of the year in North Carolina, got county regional and is in the running for state teacher of the year. And that, that's like the first time that's ever happened with somebody from CTE, right. And, and it's because he's passionate and he's excited and he's fired up and he's, he does this because he loves it. And I've told it before, but there's the guy who helped me with the engineering for my new shop. I go into one of the advisory council meetings now. You've been to advisory council meetings?
David Roman [00:39:45]:
Oh, yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:46]:
How many times? You seen over 200 people at one?
Sean Tipping [00:39:48]:
Never.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:48]:
Yeah, this one has 200 plus every single time. That's right. Lined up out the door. And so this guy comes over to me, he says, you know, my daughter's in this automotive class. And I said, really? He said, she says it's the best class she's in and the best class she's ever had the entire time she's been in school. And I said, why do you think that is? And he said, well, she came home and said, dad, mister Mortensen is teaching me about life. Not just about how to fix cars, but he's teaching me life skills and things that I realize are important that I would have never thought are important, right. And a lot of that is because he's passionate.
David Roman [00:40:24]:
What kind of life skills is he teaching in a high school class? What? It's actually how to skin a chicken.
Sean Tipping [00:40:31]:
Don't do drugs.
David Roman [00:40:32]:
Don't do drugs. I don't remember being excited about that, so I don't do them. I thought it was so.
Sean Tipping [00:40:39]:
So wait, what if I already did?
Lucas Underwood [00:40:41]:
It's really interesting because he's, he's taken a lot of liberty with the curriculum. And so when he's teaching these kids, he's going out and he's telling them, hands on the car and work through the problem. And they come to him and they say, but Mister Mortensen, this didn't work. And he says, okay, well, what are you gonna do about it? What is the thought process that's gonna get you from here to a solution and work through that and help them, you know, and he's, he's there for them, right? Like he's. They're coming and they're saying, mister Mortensen, I have this going on in life, this problem, this thing, this. And he's like, well, how would you, how would you want this?
David Roman [00:41:15]:
Sounds very nice.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:16]:
Yeah, he's a fantastic human being. But, you know, it works because they have a whole CTE committee that is wholly focused on making the trades better in our community, right? And then directly on top of that, they've got a CTE director that when Mister Mortensen says, hey, we need this, we need another instructor, we need tools, we need equipment, they say, okay, where do you want it? And then you turn around and you look at the community college system, who's fighting for every single dime they get. And it's a fight constantly. And people aren't going into the program like they should. You know, I mean, I I think that there's. I think there's a lot going on, and I don't. You may have heard me share this statistic, but there's a third of the men going into the skilled trade programs that were before. There's 70% more women going into higher education, be it at community college or be it four year schools, and none of them are going into these skilled trade programs.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:21]:
And so the community college director where I'm at was saying, well, you know, what's the solution to that? And I don't know that there is a solution to that. I think we've got a tech shortage, as in techs are leaving our industry, but also think that we've got a problem where they're not coming into our industry. And I think that's the bigger deficit we're going to have to worry about.
Sean Tipping [00:42:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. Not an easy question to answer for sure, because. Yeah, I think a lot of comes down to just the culture as a whole. And, yeah, it's not as may not.
David Roman [00:42:55]:
Be a thing in like, five years. You don't know. Yeah, we don't know. In five years, those now 25 year olds are gonna be like, hey, I'm gonna go be a tech. So I don't see the. It'll work itself out as well. I agree. Yeah.
David Roman [00:43:14]:
The demand will hit to the point where, like, they'll be compelled to come in because the fact that we don't have enough 17 year olds becoming techs, like, have you met a 17 or 18 year old tech? Most of them are terrible at it, but.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:26]:
But if you look at the community college system, a lot of the people that go through the community college system aren't 17 and 18 year old kids. A lot of dicks. Yeah, there's a fairly.
Sean Tipping [00:43:36]:
Yeah, I thought that was the weirdest thing. My first year teaching, and I had four or five guys that were older than me. I felt so it just. They were the best students by far. But I felt so weird about it that first year, and then I kind of got used to it.
David Roman [00:43:49]:
But in my tech school, it was half and half young kids. I was one of the young ones. And then older guys, the older guys were from factories that had closed down. The factory is now closed. Part of their settlement package, because it's union, is, hey, we'll pay for your education. And they get the idea that I'm going to go work on cars. The problem is, like, they think they're gonna go do oil changes and wrench and stuff like that. And they've got a book in front of them learning about theory, operation theory and operation on, you know, camshaft timing.
David Roman [00:44:24]:
And they're like, well, why do I need to learn this, dude?
Sean Tipping [00:44:27]:
Like, yeah, yeah, the assembly line, it doesn't. Doesn't transfer over to Corland, for sure.
David Roman [00:44:35]:
No, it was bad. And you saw the split, you. They weren't. They were failing. They could mechanically, they were inclined, so they could work on the cars. So that portion they would do okay. But then you sit down, you got to take a test and regurgitate the acronyms and some of the basics. They couldn't do it.
David Roman [00:44:55]:
Yep.
Sean Tipping [00:44:55]:
We had lots of guys like that. You. Awesome in the shop, terrible in the classroom that we had vice versa. Awesome on paper, can't do anything in the shop. And that, that was where it was tough. Is like, how do you grade those two people? Like, you know, who deserves the higher grade in, in that situation? And that was a tough one to work through a lot.
David Roman [00:45:14]:
You gave it to the test takers, right?
Sean Tipping [00:45:16]:
Well, you know, tells me, by the.
David Roman [00:45:18]:
Way, every test just nailed it. Cause I could read the book. It was like, I can't get the seal out.
Sean Tipping [00:45:24]:
Mister. Yeah.
David Roman [00:45:26]:
Did you use the seal puller? What's the seal puller?
Lucas Underwood [00:45:31]:
You know, I think that there's a lot of required ability that as we see a shift in the automotive space and the car becomes more complex and we see new technology, that we have a workforce that's going to struggle to handle that. We already have a workforce that's struggling to handle the demand that we have now.
David Roman [00:45:55]:
Right. I think holding out hope for robots.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:59]:
I think it's coming.
David Roman [00:46:02]:
They shut down that robot program where they were changing the tires.
Sean Tipping [00:46:05]:
Oh, yeah.
David Roman [00:46:06]:
Did you see that? They shut it down. I'm still hope. Holding out hope they'll get robots.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:11]:
Well, I guess my, my thought, though.
David Roman [00:46:13]:
Is that, or the AI will get good enough that it'll predict. It'll predictive model, where it'll say, hey, I'm about to fail, or this component's about to fail.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:24]:
You remember the Mercedes conversation with augmented reality, that they were going to put glasses on their technicians, and they said it was really so a very. I'm not going to use the terms they did because I want to piss a bunch of people off. But they, you know, a very unskilled person could put these glasses on and the person on the other end could walk them through fixing the car. Sure. And show them what wire to look at and what to do and where to find it and how to find it.
Sean Tipping [00:46:51]:
I think it's a lot of things with technology where, you know, we can predict all these things that are going to happen and something big is going to happen. But I have a feeling it's going to be like, we won't expect exactly how it transforms the industry. It should be something. We're like, oh, I didn't see it going that way. But, yeah, stuff is just ramping up at a crazy pace.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:11]:
It is.
Sean Tipping [00:47:12]:
These 22, 23 cars are wild.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:15]:
They really are.
David Roman [00:47:16]:
You can't take. They're going to. The cars will dumb down, but they'll dumb down. But you can't take an unskilled person put some glasses on parts because they still need to know, like, hey, that bolts about to break. You know how that feels. But what you can do is, hey, we're not going to give you any service information. And the scan tool will go to the mothership. So the scan tool hooks up, goes to the mothership.
David Roman [00:47:43]:
You get a phone call, and it's level one tech support. And it's AI. Entirely AI, by the way, because they can't use a human because they're expensive. And so they'll make them go through, and they'll be like, next, next. I already tried all that. Next, next. And then they get to level two. And level two might be the guy from another country.
David Roman [00:48:01]:
And then when they. That doesn't go through, then they get to the level three, an actual engineer. And the actual engineer goes, huh? That shouldn't have done that. I didn't. I didn't design it to do that.
Sean Tipping [00:48:12]:
There's a software patch.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:14]:
It's broken.
David Roman [00:48:14]:
There's a software patch. This will fix this.
Sean Tipping [00:48:16]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:48:17]:
The cars are gonna get dumbed down. There's been a seemingly a wholesale rejection of EV's in the market. I think they over bet on EV's.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:28]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Roman [00:48:30]:
Now they're scaling back. I. You gotta think, for them to roll out the lightning, the billions in R and D work and tooling in the R and D of the tooling. And you see what I'm saying? Just to get to the point where now we're producing this vehicle, this thing has to hit. And so they double and triple. Look at Kia and Hyundai. What do they have, like, 17 ev models out now? They're like, oh, we got an ev for every size. Little Ev, medium big suv.
David Roman [00:49:02]:
Why not? They keep rolling them out there. Meanwhile, Toyota's plugging along with. I think they did finally roll out actual Ev out. Like Ev.
Sean Tipping [00:49:10]:
Okay.
David Roman [00:49:12]:
But they were doubling down on their hybrid technology. Cause they're like, we're not gonna get rid of ice. Cause it's not gonna work out. Nobody listened. GM's out there pushing their, hey, we're gonna go all ev by 2035. That's not gonna work out. Turns out nobody will buy your vehicles if they're all.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:30]:
Evan interviewed me. Maybe it was yesterday morning.
David Roman [00:49:38]:
Did they? Who's they for?
Lucas Underwood [00:49:40]:
A thing for Apex MDG.
David Roman [00:49:42]:
Oh, I was gonna make fun of you. Never mind.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:45]:
Yeah, you can make fun of me if you want. I'm kind of used to it at this point.
David Roman [00:49:48]:
And using Wired magazine. Did you know that? Oh, cool. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:52]:
They didn't put in there what I said, but.
David Roman [00:49:55]:
They didn't put in there what I said, but I was fascinated by the author of the article. They're based out of Seattle.
Sean Tipping [00:50:03]:
Okay?
David Roman [00:50:04]:
Now, if you encapsulated all of Seattle into a single person in 2020, in 2020, very specifically time for Seattle, if you encapsulate all of Seattle into one person in 2020, that's who interviewed Lucas. And she's like, hello, how you doing?
Lucas Underwood [00:50:29]:
That's inside joke. Just like the rest of the Internet doesn't even. Internet doesn't even need.
David Roman [00:50:39]:
I don't do these for anybody else other than Mike. My make myself live. You understand that, right? I just do these just so we're talking about it.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:48]:
And she asked like a series of questions like, what technology are you excited about? I'm like, I'm kind of. I'm a nerd, right? So I'm excited for new technology. I'm excited for Evie. I'm excited for adas. I'm excited for AI in the technology that we use. I like really big, cool center stacks, and I love to understand how they work.
David Roman [00:51:08]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:51:08]:
Like, I'm a nuts and bolts kind of person. I love to see it in my head how that communicates and why it does what it does. And unfortunately, as a shop owner, I've gotten so far away from that part that I was so passionate about and I so loved. But, you know, she. We're talking about. I said, I'm really passionate about that. And I said, and I also love the fact that it's going to take a lot of shops out. And she said, huh? And I said, well, I said, the reality is, is there's a lot of shops who have just barely been hanging on for a long time, and they're not trying to improve, they're not trying to get better.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:42]:
They're not trying to educate their technicians. They're not trying to educate themselves. They're trying to hold on to wait till somebody comes and buys the shop and that technology is going to push them out. When those cars hit their shop, they're going to say, the hell with this. I'm not doing this anymore. And I think that the majority of our technicians who are having a hard time right now and they're saying, I'm not being treated properly. I'm not being paid fairly. I don't have benefits.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:05]:
I don't have. All those things are in shops where the owner's like, dude, I'm just trying to ride this out and wait for somebody to come give me my big nest egg on this.
Sean Tipping [00:52:12]:
When we were getting ready to come here because I brought the whole team, I tried to let all the shops know with email and letting them know, like, hey, we're going to be gone these days, you know, schedule for the next week, whatever. And I told them we're going to training. And I got a lot of funny looks like I had three heads. Like, are you gone for three days for training?
Lucas Underwood [00:52:32]:
Yeah, that's a thing.
Sean Tipping [00:52:33]:
I'm like, yeah, yeah. That's how we, like, can work on all these cars that you guys call us for.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:37]:
Right, exactly. And they.
David Roman [00:52:39]:
Can I go to this training? You could. It's the whole thing. You could fix the car yourself.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:45]:
What they. Man, I'm telling you, they have no desire in that, right?
David Roman [00:52:51]:
What.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:51]:
What do they want to do? They want to. They want to survive. And I think part of that, we say that like it's a bad thing. I go back to the story about the Volkswagen guy in my town that I asked his front counter person, like, why does he act like that? She said, he spent his entire life making everybody else's problem his problem. It's driven him crazy, right? And I connect with that, right? Because the day in and day out, like, you get super frustrated sometimes. You dad voice your clients because they're frustrating for you, right? And you just can't stand to answer that stupid question one more time, even though the same person's asked it three times. Hey, Dave, listen, I've noticed a little bit of an oil drip underneath my car.
David Roman [00:53:36]:
Why?
Lucas Underwood [00:53:37]:
I told you there would be oil drips. I asked him to wash it, but if you need it washed again, just bring it by, you know?
David Roman [00:53:45]:
Do you talk to your children that way? No, but. Okay, then how's that a dad voice? I'm just. Sounds like a psycho. You said dad voice. You didn't say you go nuts on your customers. I don't. Dad, that's not. You know, do you have kids? Right?
Sean Tipping [00:54:02]:
I don't know.
David Roman [00:54:03]:
Well, there's a tone that you get when your kids like, hey, it's time to go get your shoes on. Hey, it's time to go get your shoes on.
Sean Tipping [00:54:11]:
You hit that level and they just know, I gotta do it.
David Roman [00:54:14]:
You don't raise your voice. You just. You set a tone and they're like, oh, he means business. Because the next thing will happen is me getting dragged out by my foot and my shoes shoved onto my feet in a very uncomfortable position. So.
Lucas Underwood [00:54:29]:
But, but look, all I. The only point I'm trying to make is, is that it can be overload. Sometimes it can be heavy. As a shop owner dealing with the B's day in and day out and cars that didn't get fixed. And cars that came back after they did get fixed.
David Roman [00:54:48]:
Titus Martin, that poor guy was trying to talk to you. You wouldn't talk to him, but here's what he would have told you. He absolutely. He loves going to the shop. I was like, corey loves going to the shop. They're both nuts. They're crazy. I don't know how you get to that point where you enjoy fixing the cars.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:15]:
I love fixing the cars. It's the people and the.
David Roman [00:55:19]:
So you can't disconnect the two.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:21]:
You can't. No, you can't.
David Roman [00:55:22]:
You can never. You can. You can have your shop humming. Just everything's going the nines. And all it takes is that. That, like 09:30 p.m. Google review.
Lucas Underwood [00:55:37]:
You don't even have to know if it's a one star or five star.
David Roman [00:55:40]:
No, no, just stop. Just the notification. The notification comes in and you're like, it comes in and then it's one star, no comment. And you know, the customer and you're like, I've been over backwards for that person. Do you know how hard we worked on that thing?
Sean Tipping [00:56:01]:
That's the tab.
David Roman [00:56:04]:
That's a. That's not a bad.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:06]:
You know, I think that it has, at the end of the day, I think it has a impact on the well being and the health of the shop owner and the shop staff. I was talking about my friend don't. Don worked for a manufacturer and in a dealership and was a service manager and parts manager and was dealing with all this stuff. And he said, I was working super late hours and I was trying to make this the best dealership possible. I was trying to make sure everybody had a great experience. I was dealing with all the stress and everything that went along with the shop. And if cars didn't get fixed, as service manager, I was out there fixing them. He said whatever had to be done, I did it.
Lucas Underwood [00:56:49]:
And he said, I was standing in the shop one day and he said it was like a lightning bolt picked me up off the ground. And he said, I woke up in the hospital and had a massive heart attack. Oh, geez. And he said after that, he said, I realized that I had to have a different balance. I had to have a different type of relationship with work, that this wasn't going to work anymore.
Sean Tipping [00:57:11]:
Yeah, we should do an episode on that sometimes. That's a whole other conversation.
David Roman [00:57:15]:
Heart attacks. What?
Sean Tipping [00:57:16]:
Work life balance. And it might lead to something like a heart attack.
David Roman [00:57:21]:
That was working yourself. I mean, was he unhealthy?
Lucas Underwood [00:57:24]:
No.
Sean Tipping [00:57:26]:
Come on.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:28]:
I mean, what, what. What defines unhealthy? Not sleeping as much as you should.
David Roman [00:57:34]:
Okay, there you go. You're not getting your 8 hours, or at least seven. I think it's 7 hours. What's that?
Lucas Underwood [00:57:38]:
Unhealthy diet.
David Roman [00:57:39]:
Unhealthy diet.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:40]:
Right.
David Roman [00:57:41]:
Two strikes against them.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:42]:
Yep. Running extremely high stress.
David Roman [00:57:45]:
High stress.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:45]:
Yep. A lot in the automotive field or smoking cigarettes.
David Roman [00:57:50]:
And the stress internalized stress itself isn't a bad thing, but stress and proper context with proper stress relief or mechanisms to relieve the stress, because you can have a very stressful, high demanding job and not cause heart attacks.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:08]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:58:09]:
But if you're not sleeping, you're not eating properly, you're probably not exercising, probably smoking. You're smoking.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:16]:
Yeah, maybe drinking.
David Roman [00:58:17]:
Probably drinking. And then you're going to blame the job.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:22]:
I don't think that you blame the job. I think that. I don't think that in our line of work, we've put enough stress management in place for that. So it turns into alcohol consumption, it turns into smoking cigarettes, it turns into unhealthy coping mechanisms.
David Roman [00:58:41]:
Do you see, did you see the thing about super. The super size me guy? Are you familiar with super size me?
Sean Tipping [00:58:46]:
I remember the original movie.
David Roman [00:58:47]:
Okay, yeah, so the original movie, the guy.
Sean Tipping [00:58:50]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:58:50]:
Who did the movie, in the movie talked about how eating this diet, or presumably eating this diet, mimicked years of heavy alcohol consumption in the way physiologically it had transformed his body. We shoe shouldn't have this much on your liver. This is destroying your liver. How is this possible? This diet is so bad for you that it's destroying your liver? Turns out that it had nothing to do with his diet. He was an alcoholic, and he was an alcoholic, going into the movie, had been drinking extremely heavily. And what they were discovering was the after effects of years of heavy, heavy drinking, that now he's shooting this movie. Everybody attributed his it was all wrong. Nothing to do with the McDonald's and everything to do with his alcohol.
David Roman [00:59:53]:
The straight McDonald's. No, the guy. The guy just hit the guy that was in the movie eating the big Macs. He ate, I think, two big Macs a day, every day. And it was like 20,000 big Macs into. Because every day he went to McDonald's, got one in the morning, got one in the afternoon, or got one in the afternoon, one in the evening. Every day he was having two big Macs because he loved them so much. And that was his thing.
Sean Tipping [01:00:21]:
Okay.
David Roman [01:00:22]:
And the guy was an older guy. He's still alive today, 20 years later, just hit 40,000 something like that. 40,000 big Macs has the record for most big mats consumed in history or whatever. He's fine. The point is it's. They're just. It's just fat carbs and protein. Improper balance.
Sean Tipping [01:00:43]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:00:44]:
It is what it is. So no. Don't blame the job. Blame everything else. And the jaw was just the cherry just right on top. And you have a terrible heart attack.
Sean Tipping [01:00:59]:
Finding enough time to get away from work I think helps out a lot there as far as regulating the stress and being able to separate yourself from it depending on how much stress it brings you. Maybe it's just an overload of.
David Roman [01:01:12]:
You've got to really love. If you love what you do though. Why would you. I mean really love what you do. Why would you want to get away from it?
Lucas Underwood [01:01:21]:
Well.
Sean Tipping [01:01:21]:
That's my problem. But there are other things to life.
David Roman [01:01:24]:
That's. Yeah.
Sean Tipping [01:01:25]:
That's where if you. Your family and friends are not going to enjoy if you're 100%.
David Roman [01:01:34]:
That's not the same thing. I mean I guess you can call it a balance or whatever. But it's understanding your responsibilities that if you love doing the job that becomes your leisure you don't. It's not that you neglect all other aspects of life. You don't obsess to the point where like, oh man. I haven't showered in a month because I love doing this job so much. You wouldn't do that. Right.
David Roman [01:02:04]:
Well. The same applies to your relationships with your family and friends. Family. Friends are weird. But family at the very least. You don't want to neglect your relationships with your family. You want to make sure you take care of the wife and the kids and the dog. And you want to make sure you keep up the house because those are responsibilities.
David Roman [01:02:26]:
But then the rest of the time like go do what you want to do. Go do what you love. That could be work. It doesn't have to be. Well I can't. I only work 8 hours. That's a. I hate my job.
David Roman [01:02:41]:
So I need to keep it in this little box because if I let this job. I absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:45]:
I disagree with that.
David Roman [01:02:46]:
Spill out.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:47]:
I disagree.
David Roman [01:02:48]:
That's because you hate your job.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:49]:
I don't hate my job.
David Roman [01:02:50]:
I know you say that. But you do hate your job because you wouldn't want to do it for free.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:56]:
Do you hate your job?
David Roman [01:02:57]:
I do it for free.
Lucas Underwood [01:02:59]:
Do you hate your job?
David Roman [01:03:00]:
I do it for free. Lucas. I do it for free. I bet you nobody listened this mother effern podcast can say that. Do you go to work for free every day, Sean.
Sean Tipping [01:03:10]:
No, I don't.
David Roman [01:03:11]:
There you go. I do, I do. That's why I can say I love my job. I do it for freezies. Hope the IR's heard that, too.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:26]:
I love it when you get theatrical just for the IR's, not just for.
David Roman [01:03:30]:
Them, it's for every, I'm not kidding. How long did I did this for? Years. Not extracting a mother effing dime out of the business because I couldn't, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I was just going further and further into debt. Oh, I got to pull this money out of savings. Oh, I got to put this money on the credit card. Oh, I got to do this net and it just to survive. Because one day you just get this idea, this dream.
David Roman [01:03:54]:
It's like out in the ether. You don't really know, but you're like, I'm going to chase it. It's there. It's almost there. I'm going to get to it. Just one more car, one more this, and you just do it because it's just the love of the game and the passion behind it and the idea behind it. You love the idea behind it. The actual fixing of cars.
David Roman [01:04:13]:
You always just hire somebody to do that. I don't want to fix any cars. But you want to be a business owner, so you go chasing after it. Does it ever stop? No, you do it literally all day long. But you don't neglect your responsibilities. There's no balance. No balance for me, that's insane. Balance.
David Roman [01:04:32]:
You gotta work until you die, and if you don't, you just die faster. It's true.
Sean Tipping [01:04:37]:
Yeah, you gotta have a purpose. Yeah, I think that's where it comes in, is it will give you, it gives a lot of people purpose, and hopefully it's something you enjoy doing. And I think people should at least try to seek that out as like, hey, yeah, it's a good way to look at it. Would I do this for free? Right. And there's definitely not all aspects of my job I do for free, but part of it I would like, I'd play around solder modules and stuff if I wasn't getting paid to do it. I find it super interesting, but there is more to life than the work part of it. And that's been my problem because I kind of do get obsessive about it. And I'm like, oh, I'll stay up until 01:00 a.m.
Sean Tipping [01:05:12]:
With this module. Should I have been hanging out with my girlfriend? Yeah, probably instead of that. And that's kind of where I'm like, I need a balance.
David Roman [01:05:19]:
Girlfriends come and go, dear. It's until you marry them that you have to worry about it.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:26]:
I. You know, do you think that technicians have that same aspect? In other words, like, not all of them. It's your business now.
David Roman [01:05:35]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:35]:
And so I worry about that a little bit with some of my guys that, like, I can tell the ones who love coming to work and love doing what we do. The others, I don't think that they see the vision of what it could be or what they could have or who they could.
Sean Tipping [01:05:53]:
Some people, it's just a job. There's no paycheck, and that's fine as long as they're doing their job. But, yeah, I think everybody at some point in their life should kind of seek out or at least ask themselves, like, can I find something that I actually do enjoy doing? Yeah, to a point. Right. It's gonna be stressful, and actually, that's probably a good thing to a point. Like, you should be challenged by something.
David Roman [01:06:13]:
You'Re really not gonna be interested in.
Sean Tipping [01:06:15]:
If it's not at all challenging, you're probably not gonna be into it that much for very long. You're getting bored.
David Roman [01:06:20]:
I don't know. I absolutely reject the idea that I've gotta. I'm gonna go do something for eight to 10 hours a day just so I can then pay for, you know, who got really upset at the whole I don't give out raise thing idea. Right. Even though it was wrong that there was this rando tech who just. Absolutely. Like, I clicked on his profile, and it was just him either fishing or on an ATV, and he had toys. It was the reason he went to work.
David Roman [01:06:54]:
The reason he went to work as a technician so he could buy the toys, because all he wanted to do was fish and ride his ATV. Okay. Like, why are you working on cars? Like, why are you working on cars? Go do something with the ATV's and the fishing. Like, figure something. Mm hmm. Hard. At the very least, I get annoyed. At the very least.
David Roman [01:07:21]:
At the very least. At the very least, like, what did we end up doing? What did you do? And you created a podcast.
Sean Tipping [01:07:30]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:07:31]:
For free.
Sean Tipping [01:07:31]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:07:32]:
It was the labor of love, right?
Sean Tipping [01:07:34]:
Yep. Enjoyed doing it.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:35]:
Yep.
David Roman [01:07:35]:
You just wanted to get on and talk about some of the stuff that was going on. That was it.
Lucas Underwood [01:07:39]:
That was it, yeah.
David Roman [01:07:40]:
Like, talk about ATV's and phishing. Turn it into something. Maybe it turns into something. Maybe it doesn't put it on YouTube. Who knows? Maybe you'll find an audience. Maybe it doesn't even turn into anything like that. Maybe you're just selling accessories. Maybe you go open a shop.
David Roman [01:07:55]:
Maybe you go work for a shop that sells the stupid things all day long. You could just sit there and talk to other people who love ATV's. About ATV's. There's a thousand different directions that guy could go. Why not do that and love the fact that you get to do this ATV thing every single day rather than, oh, man, don't deny me my raise because I got to buy another ATV. Because that's what my passion is. Then why are you working on the cars? That doesn't make any sense to me. That's absurd.
David Roman [01:08:21]:
Why eight to 10 hours a day of your life, every day on something you hate? Why? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:29]:
That would be measurable.
Sean Tipping [01:08:30]:
Yep.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:31]:
That would suck. That would suck for sure with the.
David Roman [01:08:33]:
Idea that one day I'm going to be able to retire. And do what? You know what happens to people to stop working when they retire?
Sean Tipping [01:08:39]:
They die.
David Roman [01:08:39]:
They die. That's what happens to all of them. I've never seen it not happen. Oh, I haven't worked in 45 years. No, no, no. You quit your first job 45 years ago and then got a second and then third and then a fourth. You've been working non stop. Everybody that lives into their eighties and nineties or whatever, they had something, some purpose behind them.
David Roman [01:09:01]:
Even if I was raising their family, I've been raising my grandkids and my great grandkids because I'm around them. Whatever it happens, they had some purpose. The minute you retire and, like, I got all this pile of money, I've been working really hard, but now I'm 65 and I retired, and I'm just gonna enjoy my life. I hate when people tell me it's like, I'm gonna retire next year. Oh, what are you gonna do? I'm just gonna enjoy my time. It's like, okay, well, it's been nice knowing you. Enjoy being dead in a couple of years. They all die, dude.
David Roman [01:09:27]:
They all die, right?
Lucas Underwood [01:09:29]:
They do. You're not wrong.
Sean Tipping [01:09:32]:
Yeah. I think there's a barrier of work that would be there for somebody who wants to get into phishing ATV.
David Roman [01:09:41]:
Right.
Sean Tipping [01:09:41]:
Like, especially if it's something where a lot of people enjoy it or maybe a lot of people are doing something. You'd have to really work to figure out a way, like, how can I make this lucrative or something that I can make a paycheck and some things are going to be easier than others. But I think that's what stops a lot of people is, like, if you.
David Roman [01:09:56]:
Didn'T have your ATV payments, if you didn't have your ATV payments and all you did was, like, ATV stuff all day long, would you not do it for, like, half of what you're making? Now you see what I'm saying? Like, you're making $50 an hour. Like, I do it for $15 an hour. If I could just play with ATV's all day long, it's like, okay, then go do that, then. And you'll love getting up to go to work every single day, even though you're making nothing. The fact that you're complaining that I haven't given you a raise is because you hate your job, because, really what you want to do is go do something stupid. Go enjoy your stupid thing. It's stupid to me. Trust me.
David Roman [01:10:33]:
I've got stupid habits. I was just saying, what stupid thing do you want to do?
Lucas Underwood [01:10:38]:
Oh, you don't even want to know.
David Roman [01:10:42]:
What I like to do is valid and wonderful. So everybody else's hobbies are stupid.
Sean Tipping [01:10:49]:
There's that meme of Homer Simpson. Everyone's stupid but me.
Lucas Underwood [01:10:54]:
Well, sure wasn't David. He has been looking a little yellow this week.
David Roman [01:11:00]:
That's a. That's a great. That's a great episode.
Sean Tipping [01:11:03]:
90 Simpsons are the best.
David Roman [01:11:05]:
The best.
Sean Tipping [01:11:06]:
Yep. Yep. Anyway, yeah. I don't know how much time you guys got. I do want to say, I I listened to every episode, and the reason I posted anything was because, like, normally I don't get into the Facebook groups. I don't get into, like, comments with people. It's largely a waste of time, in my opinion. I mean, there's been great stuff from Facebook groups, but I don't get into it, and I don't.
Sean Tipping [01:11:31]:
The reason I did make that post is because, you know, you guys are doing a really cool thing at the podcast, and you got a lot of ears, and you're leaders in your space, which I think is really cool. And I think that's part of why I'm like, I gotta say something. And I was.
Lucas Underwood [01:11:45]:
Yeah, well, we. We, like, really enjoy going back and forth with you and talking about the things that we always talk about. Right. That's, like, super cool to us because you have the other side of that perspective, and your listeners have the other side of that perspective, and that's important. And that's why I'm always telling you, like, hey, that's your group, too. You post in there.
David Roman [01:12:06]:
You.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:06]:
When you have a new episode, please go in there and drop it so people know that it's coming out because we want. We want our people to know that this awesome content's out there.
David Roman [01:12:15]:
I guarantee you every. Everybody listens our podcast listen.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:18]:
Yeah. And, I mean, we recommend it all the time. We're always talking about it. And so the thing is, every podcast.
David Roman [01:12:25]:
He knows that's a lie, right? He just told us he listens to every single podcast. I think you guys have mentioned me three, maybe four times.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:34]:
But the point I'm trying to make, though, is that those conversations and you saying that and us having a dialogue back and forth is where changing the industry happens. Right.
David Roman [01:12:47]:
Yeah.
Sean Tipping [01:12:48]:
Having two people actually talk with each other instead of just one person complaining.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:51]:
Exactly. And I think that's what we have to start doing, is we have to start changing this narrative that is our industry. Right. We have to open the eyes of those who are listening, because if we want things to move forward and progress, it can't be that. And that's been a frustration for me, because a lot of the technicians are saying, if you knew how much money I had to have in tools and if you knew how much of this and how much of that, and I'm not making enough money. Right. Well, first of all, how much does do you. They're saying they need $200,000 in tools, bro.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:23]:
Me. And, you know, we all know that you really don't need $200,000 worth of tools to do that job, for the most part. Right. I probably had, as the shop owner, shop equipment and everything. I probably had $150,000 worth of tools. And at that time, me doing the work, there was nothing that I could.
David Roman [01:13:43]:
They didn't say is that I need a. Of those. I need $150,000. Most of it, 90%. I'm never gonna use more than once. And it's got us in a $50,000 toolbox. Yep. And it can show it off.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:56]:
And it's Facebook. It's. I bought socks and I bought flashlights, and I bought jerky, beef jerky, and I bought all this super overpriced stuff that, because I get a total from snap on. And snap on says that I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. How much of that was actually needed tooling versus random stuff? You bought, you bought a $200 jacket.
David Roman [01:14:18]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:18]:
And it was easy because you could finance it and you just put it on the account. So I think there's. There's that. That we need to. We need to break down a little bit. I think the other thing that we need to break down a little bit.
David Roman [01:14:29]:
So you could blame Chris and right for all this.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:32]:
You damn right I'm blaming Chris and right that little. Here's the other thing, though, and David and I talked about this last night. I had an experience where a technician came to me and he explained how bad things were for him and that he was very, very talented. He was easily one of the top a technicians in his particular brand, had been all over the country, done really great things. Extraordinarily smart, really top notch guy. And I made some telephone calls because this guy was talking about how he was so poorly paid. And so we found him a position, and six months later, the location he went to work for called and said, hey, just want to let you know we're letting this fellow go. And this situation is, is that we couldn't even do brake jobs and get them right.
Lucas Underwood [01:15:30]:
It was always a problem. And he's very dramatic. He's very up and down and back and forth. He's not a very good technician, and he definitely can't do any diet work. And so I thought, well, maybe this shop in him just didn't jive, but I'm not going to help him find another one, right? And so this guy goes to another shop, makes it two weeks, he's terminated. Goes to another shop, makes it maybe four or five weeks is terminated. Each one of these is a situation where it's their problem, not his, and it's unfair and it's toxic, and it's all of this, right? And now this person's moved to another shop, have a bunch of mutual friends, and those mutual friends are saying, every time I turn around, this person reaches out to me and says, how do I do this super basic thing? You're supposed to be an expert in this field, right? I'm not saying this to be disparaging. I love this person to death.
Lucas Underwood [01:16:27]:
They're fantastic human being. But the point is, is that in their head, they're saying, I'm $150,000 a year tech. I'm an A tech. I'm elite. I'm the best of the best. But nobody else sees that.
David Roman [01:16:41]:
Yeah.
Sean Tipping [01:16:42]:
Everybody could use a little self reflection.
Lucas Underwood [01:16:44]:
Yes.
Sean Tipping [01:16:45]:
All the way around. Shop owners, techs, most people for sure it would do. I think everybody a lot of good. Just like, really sit down and, you know, ask those questions of like, yeah, am I really these things that I think I am? Where could I improve? Where am I wrong? And, like, be honest with yourself. It's tough, though. I get it. Like, it's not an easy thing to do, but I think you get a lot of benefit out of it if you take it seriously.
Lucas Underwood [01:17:10]:
Your willingness to tell yourself the truth is the most powerful thing you'll ever find. Right. Your willingness to say, what about the.
David Roman [01:17:17]:
Whole fake it till you make it? That kind of thing?
Lucas Underwood [01:17:19]:
It doesn't work.
David Roman [01:17:20]:
And the rejection of imposter syndrome.
Lucas Underwood [01:17:24]:
That. So that. That's a tough one, right? That is.
David Roman [01:17:28]:
You're talking about both sides of your mouth.
Lucas Underwood [01:17:29]:
No, that's what I'm saying. That's exceptionally tough, because you could go.
Sean Tipping [01:17:32]:
Too far with it, be too hard on yourself, for sure.
David Roman [01:17:35]:
Yeah, but that.
Sean Tipping [01:17:36]:
It's like, that's the opposite end. Like, you have somebody who's overconfident, like, way. Like, yeah, just super.
David Roman [01:17:42]:
That's not overly confident. I think over being confident is great. Delusional, however.
Sean Tipping [01:17:49]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [01:17:50]:
You look at my mom, right? My mom is one of the best cooks you could ever imagine. And every time when you go to her house for Christmas or Thanksgiving, she said, I just didn't do a good job on this. I just. It's too salty, or it's not saltier enough, or it's this or it's that. She always questions everything she does, and she does it publicly. And, like, to the point that. That my wife points out, she's like, you cannot do that. Like, I.
Lucas Underwood [01:18:14]:
I'm not okay with you doing that. You need to stop. Just, if it's not what you want to be, acknowledge to yourself that it's not, but don't publicly call out that you're not 100% happy with it. And then you see the exact opposite.
David Roman [01:18:26]:
You do that as a cop and mech. I mean, I do that, too. Like, you make something, and you're like, I wasn't quite right, and you're like, yeah, it's a little. Little low on the salt, but it should be okay.
Lucas Underwood [01:18:35]:
Yeah, my mom's not like that. My mom's like, every single thing she made, she's just not happy with it. That imposter syndrome, when the meal is fantastic, right? It's absolutely delicious. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's both sides of that spectrum, and you have to be willing to really, truly ask yourself the hard questions and really, truly analyze yourself. If you're a technician and you're demanding, you're saying, I'm an a technician. I deserve $150,000 a year. I don't think things like calling to ask somebody about how that works or see how that works. But if every car you come to you can't fix, maybe we need to be thinking about, am I $150,000 a year technician if I can't do a damn brake job?
David Roman [01:19:20]:
Maybe you just got a $150,000 network of people you can call. That just makes you worth $150,000 a year. I can never not fix a car because I got somebody I can always call.
Lucas Underwood [01:19:34]:
I know. I call Sean tipping every time.
David Roman [01:19:37]:
Does he really call you?
Sean Tipping [01:19:39]:
I haven't gotten a fixed call from Lucas.
Lucas Underwood [01:19:42]:
Yeah, I'll call him. Say what's up? Inviting him to dinner. Did you know that until we went to dinner, I don't think Sean Tipping had ever had a steak cooked in a restaurant? Isn't that what you told me?
Sean Tipping [01:19:53]:
Didn't you tell me not a restaurant like that?
Lucas Underwood [01:19:55]:
Oh, okay.
Sean Tipping [01:19:56]:
Like an Applebee's. Sure. That was a little up the scale. Yeah, I've actually been back there to that one. I brought my team there for Christmas. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:06]:
Really?
David Roman [01:20:07]:
Holy moly. You live in the hog over here, man. Damn good.
Sean Tipping [01:20:11]:
That was, that was good stuff.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:13]:
Yeah, so thank you.
David Roman [01:20:15]:
What was the name of the restaurant?
Lucas Underwood [01:20:16]:
801.
David Roman [01:20:16]:
Yep, 801. This is a 101 around the corner.
Sean Tipping [01:20:19]:
Is it really?
David Roman [01:20:19]:
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Sean Tipping [01:20:21]:
Excellent.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:22]:
Yep, absolutely. Where did we, we went to Stock Hill last night. That was, that was the real deal.
David Roman [01:20:27]:
Okay. It wasn't that good. I was a little disappointed. I really was.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:31]:
Mine was delicious.
David Roman [01:20:33]:
You had a sour face the whole.
Lucas Underwood [01:20:35]:
Time I was sitting across from this jackass.
David Roman [01:20:39]:
Well, you didn't have that same face at the other restaurants. I saw you, he, at lunch, he ordered fries with like pork pulled pork and barbecue sauce on top. It's from this place towns. It's good food. That kid, when he went all fat kid on this thing, he was like stuff flying everywhere. I saw legs sticking up. At one point he was going to town and he sits back and he's like, oh man, I'm full. That is not the face that you made at Stock Hill.
David Roman [01:21:08]:
That was expensive. It wasn't that. The food. The steak was. The steak was good. Yeah, the steak was on. How was your ribeye? It was good.
Lucas Underwood [01:21:16]:
Fantastic.
David Roman [01:21:16]:
Yeah, had a filet. It was on point. The filet was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned. It was awesome. The mashed potatoes were disappointing.
Lucas Underwood [01:21:26]:
Yeah, the mashed potatoes were a little disappointing. The fries were good.
David Roman [01:21:29]:
My fries though, they were okay.
Sean Tipping [01:21:31]:
We went to Joe's the other night.
Lucas Underwood [01:21:34]:
And I was alright.
Sean Tipping [01:21:36]:
I wasn't blown away by it.
David Roman [01:21:38]:
What did you order?
Sean Tipping [01:21:40]:
I got the two meat plate brisket and pulled pork.
David Roman [01:21:44]:
Okay. Not a rib guy.
Sean Tipping [01:21:46]:
I just didn't get ribs. I like ribs.
Lucas Underwood [01:21:48]:
I think they're. That's what they're known for, is the ribs.
David Roman [01:21:51]:
Right? They have the best ribs in the city. Okay. All right. They have the best ribs in Kansas City, and therefore, the best ribs in the world. Sorry. Just the way it goes.
Lucas Underwood [01:21:59]:
Yeah, but you don't get pulled pork in Kansas City.
David Roman [01:22:01]:
No, hold on. There's nothing wrong with the pulled pork. Was good.
Sean Tipping [01:22:04]:
It was good. Yeah.
David Roman [01:22:05]:
What were.
Lucas Underwood [01:22:06]:
You should probably come to North Carolina to.
David Roman [01:22:09]:
I didn't.
Sean Tipping [01:22:09]:
I didn't know what to expect. I don't think we'd been to that one before. I was. The portion size wasn't the greatest, and I didn't think the brisket was. Well, you didn't knock my socks off.
Lucas Underwood [01:22:23]:
It was good.
Sean Tipping [01:22:24]:
I ate it. I didn't have a problem with it. But when I come here, everybody talks about the barbecue.
Lucas Underwood [01:22:28]:
So I'm like, Texas has got brisket down pat. If you want brisket, you go to Texas. No, John, firm bucking buckaroo bob.
David Roman [01:22:38]:
The brisket here is a little different than Texas brisket. I will say it's cooked a little. Really? Yeah. Never been there. The ribs at Joe's are absolutely.
Lucas Underwood [01:22:54]:
They are really good.
David Roman [01:22:55]:
They are really good. The pulled pork, honestly, I never get the pulled pork or the.
Lucas Underwood [01:23:03]:
It's because Kansas City pulled pork really sucks compared to North Carolina.
David Roman [01:23:07]:
No, no. Ain't nothing good in North Carolina. Get out of here. Um, I don't know. I don't. I don't know what to tell you. You should, um.
Sean Tipping [01:23:17]:
I don't know where we're going tonight.
David Roman [01:23:19]:
You should go back to Joe's. I'm just insulted for Joe's, even though I. What did you have as a side?
Sean Tipping [01:23:26]:
Uh, the. Oh, the dirty rice. That was actually really good.
David Roman [01:23:29]:
The dirty rice is good. Mac and cheese is. Have you had their. You didn't get their Mac and cheese? Nobody got their Mac and cheese on? No, they. They underplay their Mac and cheese. Mac and cheese. Phenomenal.
Sean Tipping [01:23:39]:
Okay.
David Roman [01:23:39]:
It's a phenomenal Mac and cheese. Yeah. The ribs. The ribs would have been what I would have told everybody to get.
Sean Tipping [01:23:46]:
Okay.
David Roman [01:23:47]:
Unless they were like, not rib people. Be some people. Like, I don't like the fat and the crunchy bits of the ribs or whatever. Like, yeah, that's good stuff, right?
Sean Tipping [01:23:55]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:23:56]:
There you go. Okay, well, then, yeah. You would have liked the. You would have liked the ribs. The ribs are just always on point there. And the Mac and cheese and their spicy slaws. Good. They have a whole bunch of good stuff there.
David Roman [01:24:10]:
Anyway.
Lucas Underwood [01:24:10]:
They do.
David Roman [01:24:12]:
Have you had any other barbecue here?
Sean Tipping [01:24:14]:
Not this year. I know I went to Q 39 the last time I was here. I'm trying to think of, I'm sure I've been to another place in the times I've been division, but those are the ones I remember.
David Roman [01:24:25]:
Okay.
Sean Tipping [01:24:26]:
But I remember Q 39 being pretty good.
Lucas Underwood [01:24:29]:
It's decent.
David Roman [01:24:30]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:24:31]:
I think they've got the best pulled pork out here of all of their.
David Roman [01:24:35]:
Remember the pulled pork there? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:24:37]:
I think that's the only pulled pork.
David Roman [01:24:39]:
Pork is like the most basic of barbecue meats.
Lucas Underwood [01:24:43]:
It's good, though. Anyway.