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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.
Jeff Compton [00:00:01]:
Disneyland.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:04]:
This is my daily life.
Jeff Compton [00:00:07]:
I need to hang out with him more because I could really have some fun with him.
David Roman [00:00:11]:
I don't know what that means. It's creeping me out right there. Okay. Jeff Compton. How you doing, good, buddy.
Jeff Compton [00:00:20]:
You?
David Roman [00:00:22]:
Peachy.
Jeff Compton [00:00:23]:
Peachy.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:24]:
All right. Last night, you and I had a conversation about training in Canada, and we're at ASDE 2023. And you pointed out there's not a lot of training in Canada, not to.
Jeff Compton [00:00:37]:
This level, not of something that I'm aware of that is this kind of destination event that has and this is not even the largest destination event.
David Roman [00:00:45]:
Right.
Jeff Compton [00:00:45]:
When people were talking about the numbers at some of the other shows, I was like, they get bigger than this. Because even look how much bigger this is now compared to last year. Absolutely.
David Roman [00:00:55]:
It's blowing up.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:56]:
Yep.
Jeff Compton [00:00:57]:
I don't know of anything that's in Canada that rivals this.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:00]:
So what we did is we messaged Murray Voth last night. We went to dinner. I took my whole team out to dinner. You went with us, david went with and so we're talking about this. And I messaged Murray and I said, hey, I've got a lot of folks interested in a Canada event, say Toronto. Any interest from folks in your area? And he said, what type of event? I said something similar to ASTE. And he said, this will take a long answer. I would have to ask around.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:26]:
We do have events here in Canada. They're usually smaller and more regional, and in some cases poorly attended. We are a huge country geographically. Travel is about double what it is in the US. And our whole population is less than California. I think it would be great, but you would have to bring out a big marketing machine to make it fill up and even break even. There's also a cultural thing. Progressive Canadian shops love coming down to hang out with their cool American cousins.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:54]:
The folks at home are just plain boring. You have to think, why do we have Canada Night at Apex? Best automotive networking event ever, sponsored by AIA. That's our autocare association. Vegas is more central than anywhere in Canada and very cheap to get to. And so when you hear that, he says, we have about 16,000 shops in Canada. There's over 200,000 in the US.
David Roman [00:02:19]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:02:20]:
When you hear that, what do you think?
Jeff Compton [00:02:23]:
Well, I think that okay, that's great that they do a Canada Night at Apex. First of all, we're talking about ASTE, right? And then second of all, it's like, yeah, he makes a lot of good points about the size of geographically. But when we say about Toronto, toronto, like, know, talked about with you guys for a while, is the hotbed of the country. It's for all intents and purposes, it's like California and New York plumped in the middle. And so, unfortunately, I think if you had any success of it, of making it financially feasible. You'd have to do it near Toronto because you could get enough attendance there without people having to jump on a plane and fly. Right. You're going to get a lot.
Jeff Compton [00:03:08]:
There's probably enough shops in Toronto that would attend somebody on the west coast.
David Roman [00:03:12]:
That's like 2000 miles of driving to.
Jeff Compton [00:03:14]:
Get to they'd fly. They'd have to fly.
David Roman [00:03:16]:
Yeah, I had to fly to here.
Jeff Compton [00:03:18]:
I didn't drive down, I didn't walk. They're going to have to fly. And that's the thing. People are going to have to make that commitment. But point is that if you were to hold it in like Vancouver, if you were to hold it, for instance, if you hold it in Quebec, well, that's never going to of and Murray knows about why that wouldn't work. It's just a different demographic in terms of the whole business within doesn't what we talk about the trade certification around the rest of the country, it just skips over Quebec. They don't follow it. So if it has a chance to work, it would have to be done in Toronto.
David Roman [00:03:52]:
Okay.
Jeff Compton [00:03:52]:
Right. Or Ottawa.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:54]:
Is there enough engagement in Canada to get so let's back up and cover why we're talking about this, right? Because we're talking about the fact there are some people in Canada who can't come across the border. Right.
Jeff Compton [00:04:11]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:12]:
And so that seems OD to me, but I get it makes sense. But they're unable to attend this training.
David Roman [00:04:21]:
Yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:21]:
And it seems like there's very little training there now. He sent me some information. He sent me an email and I've forwarded this to you. So you have it.
Jeff Compton [00:04:31]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:32]:
But he sent me an email about an upcoming event. Let's go over here. And so it's the Aaro symposium and Trade show.
Jeff Compton [00:04:45]:
Yes.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:46]:
Right. And so do you know about that? Have you ever heard of that?
Jeff Compton [00:04:48]:
I'm familiar with it. But then what I think it had more to do with what I remember is that it seemed to be more collision repair based than traditional. What you and I would think of when we think about a shop that needs to attend an event like this, we don't immediately think of a body shop.
David Roman [00:05:03]:
Right.
Jeff Compton [00:05:03]:
We think about like a shop that you run or a shop that you run or a shop that I work in. So I'll admit I have not done my due diligence to follow what Aaro has been doing in America because I've been so immersed in what's been going on within the industry from this pocket that we're in.
David Roman [00:05:21]:
Right.
Jeff Compton [00:05:22]:
Your America. So that's been lax on me and trying to understand. So it's maybe not fair when I say that we don't have events in Canada. No, we don't have events the size of this. And this is even like small compared to how many people are in NC. We were talking about that last night. Absolutely don't even bother to attend this.
David Roman [00:05:43]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:05:43]:
That is just crazy. You can drive to this and they don't bother to show up now. And that's why I say in you, because you're going to get a large population of shops that would drive, say, from Ottawa, that's a four hour drive. You might get some that make the trip from Ottawa or Montreal. Excuse me, it's about a six hour drive. Toronto, right? Do I think a whole lot of people on the West Coast are going to fly in? Probably not. A lot of people from the East Coast fly in. Probably not.
Jeff Compton [00:06:09]:
But you would get a very good representation of the shops if it was held in Toronto. If you held it out, say, in Alberta, that's a different business model out in Alberta, too. You're talking oil sands country. You're talking it's a very different way of doing how they set up their business versus how most shops in Canada that we know it their businesses are set up. So I think, unfortunately, if we're going to do it, we have to do it in Toronto. Toronto is expensive.
Lucas Underwood [00:06:39]:
Why is there such low demand for training?
David Roman [00:06:46]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:06:46]:
Because there's a ton of shops in North Carolina. There's shops right down the street and we know some of them we were talking about Val last night, couldn't be here. Talking about a lot of people that I know that work for shops and are like, no, we're not interested. There's members of this association who aren't even coming to this event.
Jeff Compton [00:07:05]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:06]:
To me that sounds insane. Right? Why would they not come?
David Roman [00:07:13]:
It happens with vision too. You go to shop to shop. Most of the shops in the Kansas City area view Vision as an expo. So they think, I'm just going to look at some tools and they don't know the training aspect of it.
Jeff Compton [00:07:27]:
Right.
David Roman [00:07:28]:
If they even know about it. Right. And the tool guys will go out and will hand out, quote unquote, free tickets to the expo.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:37]:
So they never realize there's training.
David Roman [00:07:39]:
Yeah. They don't realize that this is a training and networking event that happens to also have an expo. It's not an expo that has some other ancillary stuff attached to it.
Jeff Compton [00:07:51]:
And I bet you that the event in Toronto that Murray's speaking of is probably much more, like you said, just kind of an expo.
David Roman [00:07:58]:
Right.
Jeff Compton [00:07:58]:
You walk around, you look at the and from my standpoint of how I think and it's not I don't want to go and walk around a trade show for a day and look at the newest scanner that I might have already seen a video on on YouTube a month before just to see it in person.
David Roman [00:08:12]:
Right.
Jeff Compton [00:08:12]:
I'm not interested in that. If I'm going to make a destination event and leave my shop, I want to come home with knowledge about how to run that shop better. If they really want to sell me the tool that bad, they'll come into the shop and try to sell me the tool.
David Roman [00:08:24]:
At the same time, though, there's value to the Expos. If you go and talk to the individual vendors, you get their pitch. You'll see some smaller vendors that don't have the budget to go shop to shop, or don't have the budget to put content out on YouTube and Facebook and all that. Don't they don't do that. It's much smaller. It's niche. And they do show up to events like this. There's a guy I don't think it was here.
David Roman [00:08:56]:
I think it's a vision. There's a guy that shows up to Vision. He does like, circuit board repair equipment.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:02]:
That's cool.
David Roman [00:09:03]:
Yeah. And he's got a tiny little booth. It's in the corner. That is as niche as you're going to get. He does like the magnifying thing and then the small little doodads. I don't know. That guy shows up. He's been there the last three or four years.
David Roman [00:09:22]:
He's not on YouTube. You don't see his Facebook. He shows up to that show, and I guarantee you the people that want to see what he's putting out are going to go see him at Vision.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:34]:
Right.
David Roman [00:09:35]:
And kudos to him for thinking of the automotive industry and thinking because it's.
Jeff Compton [00:09:40]:
Circuit board repair, sure, you could apply.
David Roman [00:09:42]:
It to more cell phones or whatever else. But he's showing up to the automotive industry because there's a huge market and there is a demand there. There's just not enough people doing it for there to be this huge ask. So you're going to see vendors like that at Expos that you're not going to see. Otherwise, you're just not going to meet them. So there's going to be a lot.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:03]:
Of may not even know that product.
David Roman [00:10:04]:
Yeah. So there's a lot of solutions. There are a lot of solutions out there that are already developed and tested and they know they work. And all you have to do is actually go and attend.
Jeff Compton [00:10:17]:
But see, going back to the Expo versus the thing, when I was here last year, I probably walked the whole trade side of AST in about 45 minutes. It wasn't something I spent a lot smaller.
David Roman [00:10:28]:
You're not doing Apex in 45 minutes. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:31]:
You walk the floor in 45 minutes.
David Roman [00:10:33]:
You're going to spend four to 8 hours walking the floor. You're not going to have a meaningful conversation for absolutely everybody. So it's almost like you got to get a vendor list. I'm not talking about SEMA. I'm talking about Apex. SEMA is a whole different world. Right. You're going to spend three days between Apex and SEMA just walking the floor, just looking at equipment.
Lucas Underwood [00:10:53]:
And the chance of you seeing every booth that's there, just walking past every booth that's there.
David Roman [00:10:59]:
And there's so many smaller vendors with small pieces of equipment that you were like, man, that is a great solution to this problem. I know we have had I've said.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:10]:
It before, the booth with the plastic push pin clips, right? And the fact that you walk up and they have a massive selection of them and things that you wouldn't think they're the company that makes them for the manufacturers. And so they're like, hey, we've got these. And these are like the 90% of everything in the American cars. Everything that's here. You can get 90% with this box right here, right. And so that's not available anywhere else. You can go to any part store. You can look up any website, and they're all, like, divided out.
Lucas Underwood [00:11:42]:
Well, they've made that based on the cars that are here in the US. Well, I mean, that's huge because it saves you a ton of time and a ton of aggravation in the shop, and it makes you more efficient. Well, it's things like that that you're not going to. And here's the other thing, talking about SEMA and Apex. When you go to SEMA and Apex, you come to this trade show, and there's a lot of people here who are in the know or connected with homebase. Well, but when you go to SEMA and Apex, you're talking to the decision makers for that company. And so especially as a business owner, it's a whole different discussion now, right? Because now we're really talking about, hey, I've had this issue with this product, or, hey, a product like this could solve my problem. And you're going to buy equipment.
David Roman [00:12:32]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [00:12:33]:
And I've told you about when we started setting up the shop, and I'm looking for equipment when we were doing all that I'm going through, and I'm like, oh, I was getting ready to buy this. But now that I look at that.
Jeff Compton [00:12:44]:
Look at this list, you make a.
Lucas Underwood [00:12:45]:
Different choice that may hold up. I understand.
David Roman [00:12:48]:
The thing, too, is you get to introduce yourself, especially. And the show in Canada, there in Toronto, may not be the size and scope of Apex or SEMA, but you do introduce yourself to vendors that you didn't know existed, especially in my neck of the woods, everybody sells the same, like, three wheel bearings, and then that's it. You may not like those three brands. They're not good. Right? And so what do you do then? Well, you go back to OE. Well, somebody's making it for the OE well there at Apex or SEMA, you end up finding out, like, hey, those really great Honda wheel bearings that never fail, we make them. And we also have an aftermarket line that isn't badged Honda or whatever. And you're like, oh, that's fantastic.
David Roman [00:13:35]:
Why didn't I know about this? Now, you can search them out online, or you can tell your local part supplier, why aren't you carrying this? This is crazy.
Lucas Underwood [00:13:45]:
100%.
David Roman [00:13:45]:
So that is a spin to the whole trade show thing. It doesn't have to be necessarily just training. And I think you get enough demand for training at the event. Hey, while we're here, I'd like to bring the text, but that's a whole discussion in and of itself is shutting down the shop, bringing all the text to a shop. That's a huge commitment. Huge commitment. And I think most shops shy away from something like that. I've done it.
David Roman [00:14:22]:
You're doing it right now, which makes sense. This is like your home base here. I think your approach of taking one person to a show, I think that's a smarter thing because it does allow them an opportunity to see different shows, to go to different training events. And every training event has its own flavor of training. It's one thing for a Brandon Sekler to go to six different shows and put the same class at six different shows, that's fine. You take six different people, you could attend all six shows, and everybody can attend that class. Yeah. Or they're putting on different classes, different you maybe take one or two of your people and they, hey, this is a new class that Jim Morton's putting on.
David Roman [00:15:17]:
Nobody's seen this class before. It's new and it's going to debut at this show. Let's make sure we go you don't have to shut the shop down necessarily.
Lucas Underwood [00:15:25]:
For that, because that's a chunk of revenue.
David Roman [00:15:29]:
It's terrible. Yeah. It's grotesque the amount of money you give up. But that's the other thing, too, is if you budget for it at the beginning of the year, and you say, this is my estimated cost, because it's lost revenue plus expenses. It's not just expenses. So it's lost revenue plus expenses, that becomes the expense line, and then that pushes up your top line revenue to a different number. To a higher number. Now you can know, okay, we need to average this per week, every week, in order to make this viable for next year.
David Roman [00:16:05]:
So there are ways around it. Don't dismiss the trade shows necessarily and then talk to the people who put the show together and say, hey, I think we would benefit from having because.
Jeff Compton [00:16:18]:
The trade show idea in Canada is if you were to hold one tomorrow in Toronto, for instance, what you would see immediately is it would become I feel there's a risk of become very tire heavy because tire we've talked about how the tire thing drives the market in. Like when I was waiting to drive it here, too.
David Roman [00:16:35]:
I think your biggest shops in this.
Jeff Compton [00:16:37]:
Country are but ours is from a seasonal thing. Eric Merchant and I were waiting to get on the plane yesterday to fly from Charlote into Raleigh, and he was asking me, and I'm just talking about how the new shop know we're starting to see it already start to ramp up. And you can see my boss starting to tense up because it's chaos. Right? If we were to hold a trade show, we would have to almost like, yes, it'd be vendors, but you're going to see a whole lot of vendors of, like, Chinese tires and then different unknown tire machines, tire equipment, right? All this kind of stuff. What I want to bring if I'm going to get involved in getting an event happening in Canada, though, I can be behind. I want to see a Cecil come to it. I want to see you guys come to it.
David Roman [00:17:23]:
That's what we're saying. What I'm saying is leverage what you've already got to put together an event from scratch. From scratch is a monumental task. And it's not even the logistics. The logistics are one component of it. It's a ton of little nuanced things that you can't even imagine. The other aspect of it is I still got to get people there. How am I marketing? What's my budget? I don't have a budget, so I've got to float this.
David Roman [00:17:54]:
The association has money coming in, at least from memberships, that they can go, okay, I've got this much money. I know that this will generate this much revenue, but even then you have to go out and you're driving from shop to shop to shop and hitting them three or four times before you'll get them to commit. And then it's got to be reasonable enough that they can say, okay, I can spend the money or I can shut the shop down for a day, or whatever. Leverage what you already have. That's where you go to the what is it? AARC. Or AAR. Whatever. Aaro.
Jeff Compton [00:18:27]:
Aaro?
David Roman [00:18:28]:
Yeah. You go to Aaro and say, hey, I think I can get a classroom full of technicians here if you have Brandon Steckler show up. Right. Or if you get a Cecil here, I can get 30 shop owners here for a day, for an eight hour class. Start there. You start there and they start to see demand.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:51]:
They will make the shift.
David Roman [00:18:53]:
Right? They will make the shift, yeah. And it might not be because they want people there, but if you approach it and say, hey, I can add an additional component to this because it works in the States, why wouldn't it work here? Apex was expo heavy and then shifted towards, we want to start introducing training, and they're bringing in people and they're attracting trainers into the so it's been done. It's being done. Leverage what you got. I mean, don't start from scratch. Like I said, don't buy the shop. Don't start the shop. Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:19:29]:
You just need a red barn.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:31]:
That's right, exactly.
David Roman [00:19:32]:
No, I'm saying that unless you have a red barn, don't try out on your own. It's a nightmare.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:37]:
Is it really?
David Roman [00:19:39]:
Yes, it's a nightmare. You scratch and claw and then you know what you end up with? Tax debt.
Jeff Compton [00:19:46]:
Tax debt.
Lucas Underwood [00:19:47]:
If you would pay it when it's due.
David Roman [00:19:51]:
Also, if I don't have the money, one and two, even if I did have the money, I have a philosophical predisposition to avoiding it and not worrying about it until the fifth or 6th letter. As they start to get more pointed in their language, that's when you go.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:11]:
Can you tell me what more pointed is?
Jeff Compton [00:20:14]:
He actually starts to feel special, like they're actually calling him by name, saying you need to confirm and toe the line taxation is theft. Right, David?
David Roman [00:20:24]:
Is that what taxation is, theft? There you go. It is.
Jeff Compton [00:20:27]:
I saw that on somebody's T shirt yesterday.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:29]:
I saw that, too.
David Roman [00:20:30]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:31]:
And I'm like, oh, man. I told him, I said, hey, libertarian mantra.
David Roman [00:20:35]:
You guys don't know that that's a libertarian mantra. Taxation is theft.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:38]:
I'm just surprised that's also what you take a shirt?
Jeff Compton [00:20:41]:
Exactly, yeah.
David Roman [00:20:42]:
No, that would just be theft. Just straight theft of the shirt.
Jeff Compton [00:20:46]:
But you'd be making a statement. What if you stole the gentleman's shirt that said taxation is theft and then wore it? You'd be making a statement.
David Roman [00:20:54]:
I'd steal his shirt.
Jeff Compton [00:20:55]:
Yeah, because it says taxation is theft.
David Roman [00:20:58]:
That violates libertarian principles. You do no harm. It's a non aggressive principle.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:05]:
Nap little guys are always all about non aggression.
Jeff Compton [00:21:09]:
Why is that?
Lucas Underwood [00:21:10]:
I don't know.
Jeff Compton [00:21:11]:
Yeah, I'm not meaning you're little. I'm not little.
David Roman [00:21:16]:
I'm average size.
Jeff Compton [00:21:17]:
That's right.
David Roman [00:21:18]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:21:18]:
US Sasquatch is over here on this side of the table.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:23]:
We recorded the other day. He said, I'm going to tell you right now that five and a half is average. And everybody in the room turned around.
Jeff Compton [00:21:32]:
And looked at it.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:34]:
They said height.
David Roman [00:21:36]:
Me?
Jeff Compton [00:21:37]:
No, you had to put the specification.
David Roman [00:21:39]:
In five foot seven is average height. Yeah. Okay, so everybody's short to no, no, this can be the full thing.
Jeff Compton [00:21:52]:
And going forward with this. So I need to reach out to Aaro and start to actually talk to people.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:58]:
You need to reach out to Murray.
Jeff Compton [00:21:59]:
Both okay.
David Roman [00:22:00]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:00]:
Because Murray is the person who in your neighborhood, is going to have the connections with the people who can make the yeah, he's the person who's going to be able to connect you in a meaningful way and say, hey, let's work together to make something happen here. I think that's how that happens.
David Roman [00:22:23]:
I am glad you came up with a good solution. Speaking of solutions, I'd like your reaction to this comment.
Jeff Compton [00:22:31]:
Okay.
David Roman [00:22:33]:
On the boob tube, the YouTube.
Jeff Compton [00:22:36]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:22:38]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:40]:
You made me super nervous pouring liquids around thousands and thousands of dollars of equipment.
David Roman [00:22:46]:
I got this, bro.
Lucas Underwood [00:22:47]:
I've seen how clumsy you are.
David Roman [00:22:48]:
I am clumsy, but not so. The comment was what I was going to mention. Okay. There is a freedom loving alternative to YouTube that is based out of Canada.
Jeff Compton [00:23:04]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:23:05]:
It's called rumble.
Jeff Compton [00:23:06]:
Oh, okay. Yeah.
David Roman [00:23:07]:
Okay.
Jeff Compton [00:23:07]:
So I've seen.
David Roman [00:23:09]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:23:09]:
Yeah.
David Roman [00:23:10]:
Into Rumble.
Jeff Compton [00:23:11]:
Not really.
David Roman [00:23:12]:
They're trying to cancel Rumble and see well, are you not freedom loving? Do you like censorship, dude?
Jeff Compton [00:23:18]:
Have you not been paying attention to what I've been posting the last three years? There's not too many people that have been so turned around sideways, upside down about what is happening. We just talked about Bill I want to say it's c 18. What that means is, like, if I try to pull up Canadian news as a Canadian citizen on my phone, I can't see it. There's a post made NASA. Why is that, bill C 18?
David Roman [00:23:42]:
You can't see it because Meta and.
Jeff Compton [00:23:47]:
My government said that there's some kind of royalties that weren't being paid for the news, so they stopped showing it on Meta in Canada. That's the official statement.
David Roman [00:24:01]:
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Isn't the news mostly government funded?
Jeff Compton [00:24:10]:
Well, sure it is. Yeah, definitely, 100%. But at the same time, still, when we see a snafu like, we're talking about just the other day before we turn today, before we turn the mic on right. With the whole thing that happened in the House of Commons the other day.
Lucas Underwood [00:24:22]:
You'Re not talk about it.
Jeff Compton [00:24:25]:
I don't want to make because I didn't do enough research to know exactly what happened. But, see, that's not showing up on my newsfeed. A month ago, it would have it would have been all over my newsfeed from every major news supplier that would.
David Roman [00:24:40]:
Is it because it's critical to the government? It was like it didn't cast the best light on them. And so it doesn't show up, or it just doesn't show up at all.
Jeff Compton [00:24:49]:
They change legislation. It doesn't show up at all.
David Roman [00:24:52]:
I don't know. I'd have to look into it.
Jeff Compton [00:24:55]:
If I want to see something that happened from CBC television program up here, news, I have to find it on TikTok to then be able to share it to Facebook.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:06]:
That's pretty crazy, right?
Jeff Compton [00:25:08]:
Because otherwise, Meta and something to do with Bill C 18.
David Roman [00:25:12]:
I'd be sketched out if anything popped up on TikTok that wasn't popping up on everything else. This is to drive a specific narrative.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:21]:
Could you please put that lid on that before I have a panic attack?
David Roman [00:25:24]:
I'm trying to get it the fuzzy to go down.
Jeff Compton [00:25:28]:
The fuzzy. Trying to get the fuzzy to go down before we go to bed. Can you help me with my fuzzy? But wait a minute. He calls you fuzzy? I call you fluffy. He calls me fuzzy.
Lucas Underwood [00:25:48]:
He calls you fuzzy.
Jeff Compton [00:25:49]:
Oh, cool.
David Roman [00:25:49]:
All right.
Jeff Compton [00:25:50]:
I'll wear that. I don't mind. I'm not ashamed. It's cool.
David Roman [00:25:54]:
So, you know, here's the thing, Jeff. You're a sweet guy, and you believe his nonsense.
Jeff Compton [00:26:03]:
Oh, I don't believe it. I'm in it full.
David Roman [00:26:06]:
I know.
Jeff Compton [00:26:06]:
To completely commit it.
David Roman [00:26:08]:
That's the problem.
Jeff Compton [00:26:09]:
I follow that train to hell, I'll tell you.
David Roman [00:26:11]:
That's the problem. I'm just telling you. Just don't listen to anything he has to say. It's nonsense.
Jeff Compton [00:26:19]:
So the comment then, you were speaking of, is that just about sorry, no.
David Roman [00:26:24]:
We got off on a tangent about.
Jeff Compton [00:26:26]:
Canadian politics and censorship and stuff, whether I endorsed it and you had to even ask the question.
David Roman [00:26:33]:
Okay. Want to do my best here.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:36]:
You want me to read it?
David Roman [00:26:37]:
Yeah. No, you put too much like you swing too much in your voice. I need something more monotone and depressing.
Jeff Compton [00:26:45]:
That would be you.
Lucas Underwood [00:26:49]:
You do nail that one.
David Roman [00:26:55]:
He means natural, not monotone. Natural. No radio voice.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:01]:
You're definitely all natural.
David Roman [00:27:05]:
It you gonna read this.
Jeff Compton [00:27:20]:
And the wheel.
David Roman [00:27:22]:
I had so many comments I wanted to say. I'm like, this is wildly inappropriate, the comments that are popping in my head. And I'm like, no, let's go ahead and not say that. Let's go ahead and not say that.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:33]:
This is every episode.
David Roman [00:27:36]:
That was a little bit of self censorship there. I made know here's the thing not to say what I was thinking.
Lucas Underwood [00:27:43]:
We get a lot of flak because people want us to be on topic and talking about one thing. But you know the reality that was.
David Roman [00:27:50]:
One guy, the one guy who know, you know who you blame? Paul Danner. Because Paul Danner, anytime Paul Danner mentions our podcast, that's the other thing, too. We need to make sure we say, hey, Paul, thank you for growing our audience. Because every single time he mentions us yeah, for sure.
Jeff Compton [00:28:07]:
Look what he blow up. Look what he's done for me in the last three weeks. It is amazing what Paul's done for my it's crazy.
David Roman [00:28:14]:
It's been more than once, dear. It's been like three or four times.
Jeff Compton [00:28:17]:
But David, I said in the last three or four weeks.
David Roman [00:28:20]:
He takes the credit for it, but it's all Paul Danner. Well, you do a good job. He's the platform like he built the no, no, dear. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Not it's not us at all. No, it's not dingus over here. Definitely not him. He literally does nothing.
David Roman [00:28:37]:
It is entirely Paul Danner. He mentions the podcast, right? He's getting butthurt, right? I'll move on. But I'm saying you mentioned paul Danner mentions the podcast. We get a ton of new people watching the YouTube content or listening to the podcast. Anyway. Some rando listens to the podcast. He's like, oh, you guys are all over the place. And my reply to him was like, that's the podcast, dear.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:09]:
Well, but I mean, what they have to understand is the podcast is also about us having a good time. And we do this because we enjoy sitting around and BSing.
David Roman [00:29:20]:
It is a lot with us.
Lucas Underwood [00:29:22]:
This is the conversation.
David Roman [00:29:23]:
That's how we started the flip. Episode number two, dear. Episode number two was us laying out why we were doing the podcast. And it was COVID related, but we wanted to sit down and record our stupid conversations. And I was joking around and laughing and having a good time and yeah, we get into stuff and we have topics that's true of every conversation ever. You get into stuff, right? Yeah. And we just wanted to record that. That's the podcast.
David Roman [00:29:49]:
And I tried to say that without sounding too snarky, but that's just listen to all of that's. That's what they are. And it's not for everybody. It's not some people, like very like, some people, like interview style. Like, your stuff is very interview style. I'll tell us your story. Me personally, I cannot listen to that. When Joe Rogan will sit down and tell me your story, I skip over that whole section.
Lucas Underwood [00:30:18]:
Really?
David Roman [00:30:19]:
I don't care. I skip over the whole section where they're telling the story and I try to get to now they're going back and forth and they're jumping on topics because I want to hear that person's opinion on X, Y and Z. That person is sometimes a subject matter expert, and I want to hear what they think about whatever's going on that they're on the podcast for. I don't care about, like, well, I went to school and then I went to Dude, I don't care.
Jeff Compton [00:30:43]:
So you want the bullet points?
David Roman [00:30:45]:
No, I don't want the bullet points, but I want the conversation. But see, I want the conversation.
Jeff Compton [00:30:49]:
I want the I want the background story because I feel like I just was talking to George this morning. I said to George, the way I look at it is like, if somebody gives me their story, then I lay it all out in front of me as if, like, open that person up and I look at this and I go, okay, this person had this, and this person went through that. And I start to contrive in my head how I expect them to be. Do they fall into a certain category? And this is what we were just talking about before getting the thing. I'm starting to learn there's a lot of people that don't fall into that category, but it's still the way my brain works is I want to know their backstory.
David Roman [00:31:21]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [00:31:21]:
Right.
David Roman [00:31:22]:
How the sauce was made. You want to hear about the sauce being made? I don't care.
Jeff Compton [00:31:26]:
I don't want to hear that somebody says the sauce is better because they use this type of tomato and this type of pepper. I could give a crap. Right. You can put in a different can, slap a catelli label on it, and I'm going to not probably notice the difference.
David Roman [00:31:37]:
Is that a good sauce?
Jeff Compton [00:31:38]:
No, it's not.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:40]:
I think what David does is I think he's conditioned himself to believe this way because he's learned how the sauce is made so many different times and he's seen what's gone into know, we've had a lot of discussions about that. We've talked to a lot of successful shop owners, and David's been like, well, if that's what it takes to be successful, I don't think I want to be successful.
David Roman [00:32:03]:
No, you come up with your own math. It's not that everybody has a unique story. Everybody's got interesting stories in their background. Everybody does. Everybody. But it's literally everybody, right? So I don't care. I don't care. I don't want to hear it.
David Roman [00:32:17]:
It's not that it's not interesting and your audience, they listen to the Jaded Mechanic podcast. They like to hear those backstories.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:25]:
They love it.
David Roman [00:32:26]:
Yeah, absolutely. You get a ton of lovely comments from people talking about how much they like that. That is just something I me personally, me just an individual could not listen to the backstory portion of it. Now you get into the conversation part and then here's my opinion on this.
Lucas Underwood [00:32:44]:
Even if we try to record that, he will fall asleep if I let it go too far. Interview at all, dude will be over here passed out.
Jeff Compton [00:32:51]:
I've said to you sometimes where he goes, like I said to you one time, it's 32 minutes. David never said. I said to Lucas, was David still in the room when that was recorded?
David Roman [00:33:00]:
Oh, yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:33:01]:
He was just looking at his phone or something.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:03]:
He'll be still over there. And.
David Roman [00:33:06]:
I'll fidget toy. I find it disrespectful. So pull out their phones and start looking at their phones while they're trying to record a podcast.
Jeff Compton [00:33:15]:
The story side of it is fascinating to me.
David Roman [00:33:17]:
Anything about you, you've never done that. You don't do that.
Jeff Compton [00:33:20]:
The story side is fascinating because I believe in the idea that people are conditioned to do the things they do in the way they do it because of conditioning. We're an effect of our environment or a product of our environment. That's why the backstory to me is so important.
David Roman [00:33:33]:
Why you I can see that. I just don't believe that to be true. I find that to be a fallacy.
Jeff Compton [00:33:37]:
We were talking about that last night, and that's all fine.
David Roman [00:33:43]:
It doesn't make any sense why you would have the son of an alcoholic father. Two kids come out of the same household, same father, same parents. They got beaten as children. Father was an alcoholic, ran around on their mom, the mom was abused, whatever. You have this horrible situation. One falls into drugs and life is just shambles and destroyed. The other one becomes wildly successful, gets everything together.
Lucas Underwood [00:34:15]:
Sure.
David Roman [00:34:15]:
Okay, same background. You hear this. Oh, that sounds horrible. One is a story of perseverance, the other one's understandable and you're like, okay, you had a terrible background. That's why on me trying to understand them by their story, it doesn't make any sense because it's not what happened to you that's in the past. It does shape you, but it's what you do with that. Does that make sense? Oh, for sure. Because now I'm in this situation.
David Roman [00:34:47]:
I've found myself in this terrible situation. I've had to then overcome that and it becomes the story of perseverance. And you can overcome it. And this, that and the other. It's just what did you do in the past? I don't care. I don't care what you did in the past. It's what you're doing now. Does that make sense?
Jeff Compton [00:35:06]:
That's why where it's like seek first to understand. I have to seek first for why that person is the way they are before I understand why they are the way they are.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:14]:
I have seen so many people into the mic there. I have seen so many people who have been through exactly what you just described alcoholic father, beaten as a child. I have seen some that succeeded, and I have seen some that came out of it, and I have seen consistency in the things that some of those people, in other words, like a brother and a sister overcome the ODS and they succeed, and their challenge was great. I see some people in worse situations where one succeeds and one fails right. And goes down that path.
Jeff Compton [00:35:56]:
And then we can say that's about choice.
Lucas Underwood [00:35:58]:
Well, we can.
David Roman [00:36:00]:
It's always choice there.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:02]:
What I've learned about it, though, is that there is often something in the story, there is a point in the story that was monumental. Someone experienced something somebody else didn't experience, and that made them react and respond differently and take actions the other person did not take when we were in.
David Roman [00:36:25]:
But the only thing I would say to that real quick is it still comes down to the choice. You experience that one thing, the other person doesn't experience it. But at that moment, it's that split second decision where, okay, this is it. You see what I'm saying? This is the split.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:48]:
I don't think that it's always like a decided split.
David Roman [00:36:53]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:53]:
I think sometimes I'm going to go down this pathway and then I'm going to turn, and I might end up in a big retro. Around and around.
David Roman [00:37:02]:
You read enough of those stories in retrospect. A lot of them will tell you in retrospect, they think back and go, well, how did you overcome that? They'll go back to a moment, they go, that was it. Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:37:15]:
Rock bottom.
David Roman [00:37:16]:
And maybe rock bottom or at least a decision was made. That decision catapulted their trajectory in a different direction versus where a sibling may have gone in a different path that didn't end up as know.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:31]:
I think it's interesting because we were just in Denver and I could have stood there and watched them take that crane down for four days straight and not done anything else. Right. Like, I'm intrigued by how things work. You're intrigued by the results of the things that work.
David Roman [00:37:46]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:37:47]:
And I think that's why I was.
David Roman [00:37:49]:
Talking about his podcast there. He wants to break down the individual. He wants to see where they came from. He wants to hear all yeah. Because you want to see how I want to see the mechanism behind the clock ticking.
Jeff Compton [00:38:02]:
I want to shine the light on the commonalities that are between so many of us to why we are the way we are.
Lucas Underwood [00:38:09]:
It's kind of like soft white underbelly, right? Like that whole show is based on.
Jeff Compton [00:38:14]:
I need to do more research on that because I haven't watched it.
David Roman [00:38:17]:
That's the thing. I don't want to know why you are the way you are. I just want you to stop being the way you are. So when I ask why are you this way, it's not that I don't really want to know. I just want you to stop being that.
Jeff Compton [00:38:33]:
Through. I wish that I could understand better you what you went through, why you're the way you are, because that's only going to help me be able to work with you better in the future. You and I have had, David, you and I have had these conversations where I've tried to pick and prod at you to give me some insight as to what you went through.
David Roman [00:38:51]:
Here's the thing. You just don't believe the things I tell you. Like, for example, I tell you, don't take anything I say seriously. And I think last night last night he was like he looked at me with crazy ass like I was being serious. Like I wasn't being serious about anything I said last night. Most of the.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:08]:
It what was it that you said last night? I came home and I called Alex and I was trying to tell her what it was you said.
David Roman [00:39:16]:
I think he asked me, like, how's the shop going? I was just going on and on about how great it was I was talking about and he's like, oh, you're being sarcastic right now? Yeah. I hate it. I hate every second of it's. The worst thing ever. I hate moaning. A shop you fix.
Lucas Underwood [00:39:31]:
No, he's not being sarcastic about that.
David Roman [00:39:33]:
I'm not being sarcastic about that right now. I know. I was telling him Tuesday night. Tuesday night. Tuesday night I'm about to leave out of town. I want to just spend time with my family. What did I get wrapped up in? Some BS about a car that we had just fixed breaking down. And the lady and I feel for these customers.
David Roman [00:39:51]:
Like, I don't want the customer to have a bad experience. And they just paid me money for sure. And I for me to sleep at night have to feel that I over delivered on what they paid me. They paid me x amount. I need to feel the value I provided to them is more. If I don't feel that way, I feel bad about the transaction. And I cannot sleep at night. Right? I just can't.
David Roman [00:40:12]:
I can still, to this day think of $125 transaction I had with this gentleman. Then we screwed him. We screwed him because we didn't deliver. What we were supposed to was $125. Trust me, we didn't charge enough for that job. And I still did it. To this day, dude's probably dead. He was an old man.
David Roman [00:40:31]:
To this day, it still eats me up. Still eats me up. And this has been ten years ago.
Lucas Underwood [00:40:36]:
Same thing. Same thing.
David Roman [00:40:37]:
I need to feel that we've over delivered. And when we screw something up and we didn't necessarily screw something up. We screwed it up in the sense that we didn't follow specific process.
Jeff Compton [00:40:47]:
Well, that's what I was and that's why I ask is because I want to know how it's going to know. If you had a breakdown, why did it break down? And I don't mean a breakdown in the car, I mean a breakdown in process. Why did the process break down?
David Roman [00:41:02]:
I don't talk about that stuff.
Jeff Compton [00:41:05]:
But when you're dealing with text, that's how our brains are wired. We are analyzing all the time. Right?
David Roman [00:41:12]:
Have you listened to the podcast?
Jeff Compton [00:41:13]:
Your podcast?
David Roman [00:41:14]:
Yeah, I've listened to employees are awful. The worst thing in the world. You know what I'm looking have you heard mine?
Jeff Compton [00:41:19]:
Most shop owners are dicks.
David Roman [00:41:22]:
You know what it is?
Lucas Underwood [00:41:23]:
What he eats.
David Roman [00:41:24]:
That was inappropriate. That was wildly inappropriate. Wildly. Wow. This is the direction this podcast is going.
Jeff Compton [00:41:31]:
Great.
David Roman [00:41:34]:
Anyway, I'm waiting for the robots. What do you think the robots text that listen to this podcast. But I'm waiting for the robots.
Jeff Compton [00:41:43]:
Do you remember the post I put up? It was probably almost a year ago and I showed that tire changing machine.
David Roman [00:41:48]:
Oh yeah, that's going to be awesome.
Jeff Compton [00:41:49]:
That did that like it was four robots on the side of the Grand Cherokee and the guys bought two of them, put them in a shop and everything else.
David Roman [00:41:53]:
And then they can also do brakes and then also steering suspension and also hose installation, I would say like use 80%.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:02]:
Does it sting when you think about that clamp?
David Roman [00:42:05]:
Yeah, it does. That's why I'm mentioning it. That's why I'm all salty about it. It does sting. That's exactly why we're talking about it. Dingus. Anyway, the 80% of the operations can be eliminated by the robots. And then all the to have actual humans do the work is like, but.
Jeff Compton [00:42:22]:
Didn'T we just have that thing that was done about chat GP where somebody was trying to get chat GP to diagnose a car and they failed to do it and the human was brought in and it was, what, a loose connection or something like that?
David Roman [00:42:35]:
So the human would come in just to do diag, but the Chat GP.
Jeff Compton [00:42:39]:
Or whatever failed to be even to get to the it would have had, I don't know, six or seven I remember seeing the thread six or seven parts changed and it ended up being.
David Roman [00:42:47]:
Like you're not listening, dear. It's like the diag would be done by the human. The actual installation would be done by robots like they do in the factories that make these stupid.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:57]:
Yeah, but I mean, they're disassembled when the robot's putting it together. There's things a robot is not going to be able to get to.
David Roman [00:43:05]:
You are underappreciating the brilliance of some of these.
Jeff Compton [00:43:12]:
You've got a lot of faith in Skynet, Mr. And I'll tell you that I haven't seen a robot program yet. That it's like if I have to pound a ten mil on where I'm supposed to be pounding a twelve on because it's so rotten. In order to get it off, you can't tell me that they can write a program or teach a robot to be able to do that.
David Roman [00:43:31]:
It'll be like the Mason Dixon line. Anything south of there entirely viable. Anything north of there probably need to go back to horse and buggy.
Jeff Compton [00:43:40]:
Well, then look at Canada. Canada is going to have an influx of a whole bunch of talent because.
David Roman [00:43:46]:
You'Re going to have a whole mess of parts changers. And they're like, hey, our job got taken over by robots, and I don't want to learn how to do diag.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:55]:
You look at Fukushima, right? They had robots. They had robots. And that did not work out so well.
David Roman [00:44:02]:
Yeah, one disaster out of how many hundreds of nuclear plants are out there?
Lucas Underwood [00:44:06]:
No, I'm not listen, do you think I'm that basic? Do you think that that's what I'm talking about?
David Roman [00:44:13]:
Listen, I've seen it's not what I'm talking about. And drink and stuff. You're not basic. I'm sorry. I can't even tie it to anything you've done.
Jeff Compton [00:44:22]:
You're like the guy that thinks Skynet is perfect right up until just before it goes over. Takes over.
David Roman [00:44:27]:
No, then it does take over, and it destroys everything.
Jeff Compton [00:44:30]:
That's right.
David Roman [00:44:30]:
So you were all end it.
Jeff Compton [00:44:31]:
You're cool with Skynet filled right up.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:33]:
Till the we I'm cool with it.
David Roman [00:44:35]:
All the way through. Even through the terminator. We talked about for great movies.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:39]:
We talked about augmented reality. And so the situation with Fukushima was during the cleanup, that there were things.
David Roman [00:44:48]:
And it wasn't like the pump failures.
Lucas Underwood [00:44:50]:
Well, no. So you look at Chernobyl, right? And you look at what they tried to do with Chernobyl. Well, the technology was not there to put something like that into that deep of a radiation or that high of a radiation.
David Roman [00:45:02]:
Did you watch the movie? It wasn't even they were ignoring the warnings, and nobody wanted to get blamed for anything.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:12]:
I'm talking about the aftermath, right? Because now we have to clean it up. It doesn't matter what causes so initially, these robots were not capable of being in there because they would fail because of the radiation.
David Roman [00:45:25]:
Okay?
Lucas Underwood [00:45:25]:
So they fixed that with the Fukushima robots. But the problem was there was a massive challenge for these robot operators because it's dark, there's no light, things are broken, things are falling apart, and they could not navigate the robots to where they need to go, but they need to be able to climb stairs. They need to be able to go underwater. They need to be able to route their cord behind them because it's so far away that radio control doesn't work. And so they began end to stack up all of the things that are against them.
David Roman [00:45:52]:
Now.
Lucas Underwood [00:45:52]:
They're the only things that can do this. You send a human in there, they're dead, right? But it has to be done. So they're working on developing these tools that are able to do that. And eventually the conversation was had, was like, this may not be possible, we may not be able to do this. Like, they're working through it. But the reality is still to this day, there's some things about this that we're not going to be able to overcome. There's no way around it. It's not going to be able to get here and do this and do this and do that.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:22]:
And so now, all of a sudden, you're looking at 50 tools to accomplish one job. And I get it in a case like that, because you don't want to kill people, right? But in a case like a car, it's going to take 20 robots to be able to accomplish one job on a car.
David Roman [00:46:39]:
Yeah. And that wouldn't be viable until the robot technology gets cheap enough. And it's cheaper just to put the 20 robots in there than it is to hire the human.
Jeff Compton [00:46:49]:
We're all going to be in our 15 minutes cities, not driving around. By that point, derek David's going to.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:54]:
Be in there with that little bottle of three and one oil, pouring it down the smokestack on the little battery powered toy. You had one of those, right?
David Roman [00:47:03]:
No.
Lucas Underwood [00:47:04]:
So they had these, like, construction equipment, remote control vehicles when I was a kid, and they would smoke out the exhaust pipe. But for them to smoke out the exhaust pipe, you had to take a bottle of three and one oil and you had to drop oil down in the exhaust pipe. You didn't want to inhale that stuff. It made your nose burn.
David Roman [00:47:20]:
I think it was supposed to be mineral oil.
Jeff Compton [00:47:24]:
I'm not scared of the whole ANI robotic thing at all, because it's like, I keep going back to that video with those robots on, changing tires on that there's no way that as soon as they've got a pound on over a swollen lug nut, they're going to be able to do it. I don't think that we're going to see it. By the time they can figure out to adjust for that, that it's going to be any kind of threat to what I do as a career long gone. I think there's just too many variables that come in every day that we don't even think about. We just adjust and get through to the problem. That's what we do. Right? It used to be a ten mil, now it's a nine. I just pound that socket on, I take that sucker off, I go over there and I get the torch.
Jeff Compton [00:48:06]:
That robot standing on his corner of that jeep. If all of a sudden that lug nut is just the stud is spinning, it's come free from the splines of the hub, and it's just sitting there spinning.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:17]:
What's he going to do?
Jeff Compton [00:48:19]:
Is he going to know to stop? He's just going to continue to spin. And then what happens the other?
David Roman [00:48:23]:
Well, then it'll figure out a way how they'll get around it, I don't know.
Jeff Compton [00:48:28]:
Yeah, because you still have to have.
David Roman [00:48:30]:
Engineer like it'll know that it takes eleven spins and if it gets a twelveTH spin, there's a problem, it'll throw up an error. And then the operator, because you only have one operator remaining 17 of these machines.
Jeff Compton [00:48:41]:
This is sounding a lot like a self checkout line.
David Roman [00:48:43]:
Have you ever seen that's exactly what it'll turn into.
Lucas Underwood [00:48:45]:
Have you ever seen a crash in a CNC machine? So they're insanely violent, right? It's crazy to watch them. They're dangerous. I was talking to somebody and he was talking about the fact that just one number being off, what would be nothing for us, one number being off, just a touch, can cause that crash and can do a million dollars worth of damage to a machine or can cause a fire. And so now I just think about trying to because it still comes back to the same thing. We're inputting data and telling it what to do. And so it could know that car, it could know every measurement of that car. It could know everything about that car, yet still not be able to access and move and maneuver without data input. Because even if I, it's not that.
David Roman [00:49:41]:
Binary anymore, though it used to be that binary, it's not that binary anymore. Now it can learn on the fly.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:46]:
It can. But let's say I pick a car up on a lift, right? Well, think about CNC. How do they determine where their workpiece is? Well, they have to measure out where the workpiece is. So they put in a lathe. Then he spins it and it's got a feeler on it. And it goes down and it says, okay, here's where this is at. Here's where this is at. Here's where this is at.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:04]:
Think of the equipment required. So I pull a car in, I put it on the lift, I pick that car up, think about how much it has to know exactly where that's at. And then let's say it's got a bad motor mount that the machine does not know about. And it moved the motor over three quarters of an inch. Now all of a sudden it's saying, this doesn't work. I go up here and I do.
Jeff Compton [00:50:23]:
This, but I'm trying to take the water pump off. I ended up drilling a hole through the front of the cylinder head. Because the engine is not you guys.
David Roman [00:50:30]:
Are just not expanding your minds on the possibilities. The difference before and now is that these things learn on the fly and know that, hey, this is now off, therefore and they can figure something else out because it's a learning. Now, the solution may not be a good solution, but it probably can come up with a solution or it may not be the solution. That a human would come up with it's going to come up with a solution. I'm just saying, hey, we should get to this comment. Otherwise, we're going to get off track here. Did we get off track?
Jeff Compton [00:51:07]:
No, the wheels are still on.
David Roman [00:51:10]:
I like his optimism. All right, do you want to read this? No.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:15]:
I don't want to put too much emphasis anywhere.
David Roman [00:51:20]:
Is that how all this started? We got the AI, the Viability of Robots off of Lucas, Munich. It's a stupid comment about Lucas's radio voice.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:29]:
All right, what was it you said last night? God is not a respecter of persons.
David Roman [00:51:33]:
God is no respecter of persons. That's true. Look it up in the Bible. It's mentioned over a dozen times, I think. I got to read my no respective persons. Okay. I have been all about this podcast for the last year or so, but it's slowly starting to fade just in the sense that it's a repeat combo. Most weeks now, I am personally insulted and I feel attacked by just that one sentence.
Jeff Compton [00:52:00]:
I would, too.
David Roman [00:52:01]:
I would get so bored talking about the same thing over and over and over again.
Jeff Compton [00:52:06]:
You are definitely not talking about the.
David Roman [00:52:07]:
Same thing over and I would get very bored and uninterested. And so if anybody wants to know, when we talked about the same thing over and over again, listen for the podcast where I said nothing, it's because I had no interest in talking about whatever the hell it is that we were talking about. Anyway. That's not true.
Lucas Underwood [00:52:27]:
I realized now why he wanted me to read it.
David Roman [00:52:33]:
You said, Bro, you earned a lot of money. What is a lot? I don't know. What is a lot? You can't argue that these techs are bad at money management. That's on you or this, and that when your guys are the exception to the rule. I think that's absolutely not true. I think that there are a lot of technicians I don't pay my tax. What? Some of these shops are having to pay their techs because they're evil. And so I try not to be evil.
David Roman [00:53:04]:
And therefore my technicians get a lot of perks that they don't get at some other shops, and they like the environment more than they like the extra ten grand a year. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I don't think we're the exception to the rule. I just think we take a different approach. But anyway, I digress. I know many guys that pay for their own uniforms. Okay, don't work at that shop and have no benefits.
David Roman [00:53:30]:
Okay.
Lucas Underwood [00:53:30]:
Don't work at that shop.
David Roman [00:53:31]:
Okay. But the benefits thing is, like I hate when they're like, what are the benefits? Let me give you some advice to every technician out there. We don't have a lot of techs listen to this, but they're going to listen because you've been on the podcast, so they're going to listen. If the only thing you can think of in the conversation with a prospective employer is, what are your benefits? You are no different than the customer calling the shop saying, hey, how much to put that water pump in? You're not asking, hey, are your technicians trained? How much training do they have? What's your warranty? How do you do your part selection? What does the repair process look like? Do you do a system repair or are you just swapping in an individual part? Yeah, those are all great questions that will make you a very good and well informed consumer to then make a good choice on the shop that you're going to. Asking a shop, hey, would you what's the benefits? I don't know. What do you need? Don't ask me what my benefits are. I don't have a benefit package. And if they rattle off like, well, we have dental, 401K, vision, it's a crappy shop.
Jeff Compton [00:54:39]:
Why so?
David Roman [00:54:40]:
Because they have to offer that. They have to this is such a shit place to work at that if I don't have this long list of shit to offer you, you're not going to want to work here, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:54:51]:
Yeah, okay, but I mean, I offer all those things, but I did it because they were things.
David Roman [00:54:55]:
My point stands. All I'm saying is don't come at I'm just kidding, it's a joke. All I'm saying is don't come at the employer like that. You dictate the terms. Do you need health insurance? Because a good shop owner what are they going to do, Lucas, if I come to you and you really want me to come work for you and I say, hey, listen, I've got a kid who's got a medical condition. I don't want to go bankrupt with this medical condition because it's chronic. What are you going to do?
Lucas Underwood [00:55:31]:
How can I help? What do I need to do?
David Roman [00:55:33]:
I need to have health insurance. Is it a done and done? It's a done and done, right? Because that's what you need and that employee wants you to come work for them. It's a done and done. Am I going to offer everybody health insurance just so I can say that we have health insurance here and not mention that it's a shit health program that doesn't cover anything and cost $8,000 a month? I'm not going to mention that. I'm just going to have to put health benefits, dental benefits, vision plan, 401 company match, two weeks vacation. It's not like that. Look, a good employer is going to be flexible enough. Now, I'm not talking about the MSOs.
David Roman [00:56:18]:
I'm not talking about the MSOs. Once you get to a certain size, that's why you have to be very cognizant of what it is you're going to go walk into. An MSO is going to squish everything down to something that can be scalable and repeatable. It's got to be the same at every single shop. If I can't offer Lucas health benefits because he needs. It. He's got a sick kid. But I can't offer you health benefits because at this point, you don't give two craps.
David Roman [00:56:45]:
I'm going to be paying $2,000 a month to give you health insurance that you're never going to use because you never go to the doctor. Okay, so it's stupid, but for an MSO, an MSO is going to want to do that because they want to leverage and say, I want to be able to offer health benefits, offer to all my employees, and I need to make this as cheap as possible. So for me so I need to go out and find the best provider that can give the most benefits the least amount of money. It becomes scalable at that point systemized. Okay. That's an MSO. If that's what you want, then that's what you walk into. Just recognize that that's what you're getting.
David Roman [00:57:18]:
But to say benefits, just benefits. Benefits. He sounds like he's from the East Coast. Okay, let's say it's an east coast thing. I don't think you understand. It's an east coast thing. Like, especially in the Northeast. We don't have any listeners in Massachusetts, I'm just telling you right now.
David Roman [00:57:35]:
But in Massachusetts, a good job was, oh, man, great benefits. That's all they would say. It's like, hey, how's the work? Is it fulfilling? Is it engaging? Is it interesting? Do you get good pay? Are you afforded a lot of luxuries, a lot of free time? No, great benefits. Oh, yeah, great benefits. Hate that word. Anyway, let's say you make $35 an hour flat rate and work in a dump shop, which probably most in America are. Okay, so I own a dump shop. It's okay.
Jeff Compton [00:58:13]:
I don't think you own a dump shop. But carry on, carry on.
David Roman [00:58:15]:
It's a dump. You've been there, haven't you? You've seen the shop. It's not a dump. It's a stew. A dump. What are you talking about?
Lucas Underwood [00:58:21]:
I don't think it's a dump.
David Roman [00:58:23]:
Compared to what?
Lucas Underwood [00:58:25]:
My old shop.
Jeff Compton [00:58:26]:
Compared to that red barn?
Lucas Underwood [00:58:27]:
Yeah, compared to the first red barn.
David Roman [00:58:29]:
The first red barn was a dump?
Lucas Underwood [00:58:31]:
Yeah, in a lot of ways.
David Roman [00:58:32]:
Yeah. That wood paneling, it looked nice. It looked homey.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:35]:
It looked nice in the waiting area, but the rest of the shop was in rough shape.
David Roman [00:58:40]:
But it still worked in it. It did.
Jeff Compton [00:58:42]:
Yes, it did.
David Roman [00:58:42]:
Well, a dump. You know what's a dump?
Jeff Compton [00:58:46]:
Listen, I could show you dumps. Honestly, I really wish bro, I thought we were going somewhere else. In hindsight. No, that's Miss Nasty. People that put that on the Internet should be shot. I'm sorry. Look, and it goes all the way around, but I should have in some of the and this is not me throwing shade at people I've worked for. But I really in some of the shops that I've been to or worked in, I should have maybe documented a little bit more of it for people to see.
Lucas Underwood [00:59:19]:
I wish I had spent more time documenting some of that myself. Not just like because I didn't work in any other shops, but I've been around a lot of shops and we've toured a lot of shops. And the problem is then you share that and you share with somebody like, hey, the experience that somebody else has. That person you're sharing that about knows you're talking about this. Maybe we need to have more of those conversations. Because if they're treating people that way or if they're putting people in that environment, not trying to hurt your feelings, but you should probably be a little self conscious about that. Because if you don't hear that it's wrong, you don't change. If you don't get called out right.
David Roman [00:59:54]:
If it doesn't bother them, then they don't think it's wrong. They're going to keep doing it. If it does bother them and it's making them a lot of money, they don't care that it bothers them and they'll sleep on their giant pile of money feeling bad about themselves.
Jeff Compton [01:00:08]:
But see, for instance, if you've got to put a car back together to push it outside to wait for parts to come in because you're short of hoists, because the hoist is being tied up with a project car that's got so sitting on that hoist that it's now got another car parked underneath it. There's a tarp over top of that second car so the oil doesn't drip on it. And that car and that car are waiting for whatever.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:29]:
The most recent ones I've been in didn't have tarps over the car underneath.
Jeff Compton [01:00:32]:
Well, there might be still hope for them. Maybe they're not permanent. Permanent. So somebody that mentored me a long time ago and I share this because he might never hear this, so he moved off and went and started his own business, started his own shop. And I walked in and he's in the back of a plaza. There's a shop literally across the parking lot from him that his former employer has. And there's a shop right next to him down here. It's just a plaza.
Jeff Compton [01:01:01]:
When I walk in, there's four hoists, one in front of the other, into one door. Now that's a cluster screw of how do you set it up? I worked in that for three years. That is the dumbest system you can ever put into a shop is to put one in front of the other unless there's a door that that front one can drive out of instead of having to it completely screws your logistics for the day. So you walk in, one side of the doorway, little, tiny, there's no waiting area. It's like walking into a gas station, old time gas station kiosk, that's where you went in to pay the person behind the counter. The other side of that two hoists set up the same way. You know how many hoists he actually could use?
David Roman [01:01:37]:
One.
Jeff Compton [01:01:39]:
So that's a person. And I'm asking him what's that there's a 72 Plymouth CUDA on the hoist.
David Roman [01:01:47]:
But that's not a business owner, that's a hobbyist. No, he was I understand he owns a business, but I'm just telling you that's somebody that cannot understand or hasn't considered breaking things down into how much time do I have, how much money is each choice making?
Lucas Underwood [01:02:04]:
You go back to that class I taught at Ratchet and Ranch last week. What did dude say? Well, there's no way I can push that car out because that car is going to be in there a month. I'm doing an engine job. I can't push that out on every engine job just because I'm waiting on parts. Well, how much revenue did you just consume by stacking the shop full of things that aren't doing anything?
David Roman [01:02:26]:
And it's all wrong. Why aren't the parts there? Why did you start on it without the parts? If you have to take it apart because you're doing tear down or whatever, then you don't have enough diagnostic knowledge to be able to there is tear down. Yeah, to save the tear down in 80% of cases. I'm sorry, there's no way anybody's going to argue that 80% of cases you can find the problem with a scope. But what are you doing tear down for?
Jeff Compton [01:02:52]:
Well, because they've got an extended warranty that the warranty company is making them tear the head off of it to look at in there before they accept.
David Roman [01:02:58]:
That there's a hole in the top of the pit down.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:01]:
Even if you tear it down, you.
David Roman [01:03:03]:
Can still pull the mucker out.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:05]:
No, hang on, hang on. Yes, you can still pull it out, but even if you tear it down, should you not? Because we're professionals.
David Roman [01:03:12]:
Right.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:13]:
So let's say that you need a knee replacement. Is that doctor going to go into your knee and say, well, I might not need all of this. Maybe I only take one stitch. Because what if I don't have to cut it that far open, right? What if I only use this part? I'll order another one if I need it. No, what does he have?
David Roman [01:03:33]:
Right?
Lucas Underwood [01:03:33]:
And so the same thing when you're talking about going into an engine, if you're going to tear it down, which I absolutely do not think is a viable or smart idea, and you know that. And I've jumped all over you over and over again because you paid for it time and time again.
David Roman [01:03:46]:
Yeah. Don't rebuild that terrible idea.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:48]:
And so if I'm going to go into that, I'm going to have every seal I need, I'm going to have every gasket I need, I'm going to touching the part.
David Roman [01:03:55]:
The part is getting replaced.
Lucas Underwood [01:03:56]:
Exactly. I'm going to have rockers, I'm going to have lifters, I'm going to have the whole gasket kit, I'm going to have a water pump, thermostat hoses, everything.
David Roman [01:04:04]:
Everything ready to go. And we're not putting any of those parts on. They're all going on brand new. I got hosed on don't rebuild engines, but we did a cylinder head job on a Toyota 24, okay. And he didn't come back in for the first oil change and he skipped the second oil change. The guy shows up in my shop like six months later with the engine just it had a bad cat. So we thought maybe we had a we. It sounded like a bad cat, you know, when it's ratling.
David Roman [01:04:35]:
All we did was cylinder heads on this thing, okay. And we'd put new chains on it, but all we did was cylinder head on this pile. Turns out the bearings in the balance shaft assembly telling me about this, the bearings and the balance shaft assembly, I would have seen this. No. And I should have known. No. This is a one off failure. Probably too many oil went a little too long on too many oil changes over the 200,000 miles this car was on the road.
David Roman [01:05:06]:
And did I end up eating yeah, I ended up eating it. But that's the kind of thing where you have to be aware that anything and everything could fail. And so everything gets touched, gets replaced. And that balance shaft assembly would have gone brand new bearings.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:27]:
And my message to you is if you're in that spot, what you're saying right now is, oh, that would be too expensive. You could just get a remand engine.
David Roman [01:05:36]:
Just put an old remand engine in that thing.
Jeff Compton [01:05:38]:
But then we don't touch it. We see. The conversations have happened lately and who are you buying remain engines from? Because that same name, right, that sounds like Casper. Nobody wants to use them anymore. Everybody's got a nightmare story about that. Somebody posted about another brand.
Lucas Underwood [01:05:56]:
Even OE parts I'm nervous about.
David Roman [01:05:58]:
Yeah. Everything fails at the same rate if everything else look, if we use Jasper engines when we can, we try to use them almost always. I try not to use anybody else. The biggest reason being that I like the design choices they make in their engines. But at the end of the day, it's just a factory. They're just doing factory work. There's going to be a failure rate to it.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:25]:
For me, the reason that I use Jasper is not necessarily the choices they make, but the reason that I use Jasper is because of the warranty. And I can absolve myself of part of that liability. It still sucks for the client if I have to do something, if we.
David Roman [01:06:39]:
Have to go back in there. Still sucks.
Lucas Underwood [01:06:40]:
It doesn't cost us as much. We can still pay our loyalty.
David Roman [01:06:43]:
That's what I'm saying is if there's some loyalty to your choice, I buy all my engines from Jasper. The guy comes in, we have a great relationship, we're nice to each other. This, that and the other. And again, I like the design choices they make. Hey, we built a heavier the pistons on five, seven hemis explode in the 6462, whatever the hell, they explode. I've had them explode. Okay. You buy Jasper engine, they've made the bottom of that piston heavier specifically for that reason.
David Roman [01:07:18]:
Just things like that. They fix the oil consumption issues or they have made a design choice. Who knows if it's actually fixed. But the two five and the two four ecotech junk engines, they have oil consumption issues on certain years. Well, they use a different piston ring specifically to deal with the oil consumption issues, things like that. Right. But if you keep buying your engines from Jasper, when you do get hosed on something, especially if you are confident in your installation process and you're cranking the engine over or at least using a pressurized oiler we have a pressurized oiler. That's what we use, right?
Jeff Compton [01:07:52]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:07:52]:
Jam it in there, pumped an 80 PSI and jam that oil in there. Trust me, you're not going to have a startup cold startup issue on the first initial crank. When you're using a pressurized oil and system, it's like $200, done and done. Right? Okay. So we have an installation process that I'm confident enough in that I'm not going to have an issue unless there was a flaw in the manufacturing process in which place, like you said, you've absolved yourself of some of that liability that, yeah, I'm going to get paid a little bit. I buy the extra protection plan that's rolled into the price. The only thing I don't buy is a rental on the toe. I buy everything else.
David Roman [01:08:39]:
I buy the installation kit. If I don't like the parts in their installation kit, I end up buying the part themselves and I tell them don't use because they were throwing motor ad.
Lucas Underwood [01:08:50]:
Yeah, I remember that.
David Roman [01:08:53]:
And so things like that. And so the loyalty then affords you a little leeway on the warranty that they'll take care of you. And I think that gets discounted immensely. I think too many because they're like, all right, this one time I unsold this Jasper engine and cranked it with a starter. And then that one time you never bought again. All you do is shit. Talk on them online. You think they're going to take care of you? Hell no, they're not going to take care of you.
David Roman [01:09:21]:
They could give two crafts. Okay, let's finish this real quick because this is taking forever. You guys talk too much. All right, let's say you're making $35 an hour flat rate and work in a dump shop, which probably most in America are. That's not anywhere near as good as a guy making even 25 and getting a full benefits package. Okay, I agree. Shit. The dealer job.
David Roman [01:09:45]:
I just got offered once 900 a month to cover my family for just medical insurance. I just talked to a local kid at church about going into this field. I told him truthfully, look, I know guys who spend $150 a week for 25 plus years on the tool trucks. You don't have to do this, but the convenience of them and the warranty will be tempting. Just go be an electrician and work for the local union. You will make more money not have any tool debt or any serious amount of tools beyond maybe $500. And you will get paid for every hour you're there. Hell, maybe even a pension.
David Roman [01:10:22]:
And you won't get the benefits of the union at any automotive job. That's a union guy. What happens when that pension fund that's.
Lucas Underwood [01:10:32]:
What happened to Dutch.
Jeff Compton [01:10:33]:
I was just going to mention everybody Dutch.
David Roman [01:10:36]:
Dutch got hosed on his pension. What happened with the UAW? The reason why they had to restructure so many of those contracts, what, 20 years ago or whatever, was because they had fully funded pensions that were going to break the car companies. They couldn't say, hey, in 20 years there will be no money. All of our revenue will be going towards funding these pensions. We can't keep doing this. They had to stop doing it. Fully funded pensions. Dumb anyway.
David Roman [01:11:04]:
Sorry. How many techs actually make $100,000 a year? And I know this pisses David off so badly, but seriously, make $100,000 and have to foot the bill for your own benefits is like a guy making 75 and getting a good, maybe even basic benefit package. That's absolutely right. Which is why you need to negotiate this up front. What do you need to take home that cannot be absorbed within the business? That's why working at a small independent repair shop is a good choice for somebody that needs some of that flexibility. If you need something very cookie cutter, you go to an MSO. It'll give you a little bit of security going into an MSO. Just from the revenue standpoint anyway.
David Roman [01:11:48]:
Nobody ever talks about the stuff. It seems that's not true. We talk about it in every episode.
Lucas Underwood [01:11:54]:
Do we talk about we've talked about it at least five or six times.
David Roman [01:11:56]:
In the last I've listened to every single podcast and I do still enjoy them. But you guys seem to really stick up for the shop owners over the text. I hope most aftermarket shops in America tank.
Jeff Compton [01:12:10]:
Wow, he's a big J today.
David Roman [01:12:12]:
Yeah, well, what you don't know he's Canadian. He could give a crap about America. He's like, f those guys in America. Go Canada. He did. I hope that I hope these cars get so hard to work on, most people just give up. So then maybe the majority of techs left can finally be taken care of. I also hear the whole we have a shortage of techs now.
David Roman [01:12:33]:
You have a shortage of people tired of taking it up the high end to have a mediocre job. They've realized it's a waste of time and fled the most to more prosperous ground. I think most of my 63 starting tech classes in 2013, there are only three or four of us left. Of the 63 that started in this tech class, there's only three or four left. This was a Make Compton's podcast appeal so much. He said, I'm going to mention shout out to you. The dude's been hosed like most of.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:03]:
Us his whole, you know a couple things that I want to point out is I've watched you and Brian both over the last couple of years, and Brian has literally called me and said, hey, I think I was wrong about shop owners. I think I've got this wrong. And I'm not saying do we take up for shop owners?
David Roman [01:13:29]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:29]:
Because we are shop owners. Sure. And I think us trying to convey to technicians or people in our field.
David Roman [01:13:36]:
I don't think I stick up for any shop owners.
Jeff Compton [01:13:38]:
No, I was just talking trash on.
David Roman [01:13:40]:
You just, like, 30 minutes ago.
Jeff Compton [01:13:42]:
He definitely doesn't.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:43]:
You do.
David Roman [01:13:44]:
You're the advocate for I am a realist I am sticking up for the realism of shop ownership, that it is a grind, grueling, stressful. And I don't care how much a.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:59]:
Technician business ownership, not just shop ownership.
David Roman [01:14:02]:
Yeah, business ownership. I don't care how much the technician thinks they're going through. I guarantee you stack shop ownership and the stress of having to pay payroll and taxes and all that BS and that you take home every single one of those cars with you at night. You take them home. And the shop owners that don't are now disconnected from their businesses. They manage off a spreadsheet and they're speaking at Ratchet and Wrench.
Jeff Compton [01:14:30]:
Whoa. Not all absentee shop owners are speaking.
David Roman [01:14:34]:
At Ratchet and suddenly they invite some say who's to show up and speak. No business being there.
Jeff Compton [01:14:44]:
So I can honestly say that my perception that George and I were just talking about this, and I was talking about it last night in the unofficial meeting that went till 02:00 a.m. In the morning. Thank you, Mario and Martin and Paul Danner, for bringing in the six packs of beer and sitting in the room till 02:00 a.m.. My perception of shop owners has changed.
David Roman [01:15:04]:
Right.
Jeff Compton [01:15:05]:
You have known me for a long time, and what did I say? For the most part is they're a bunch of greedy, shady Sobs. Can't fix nothing. Right? Put the money in their pocket, got an ex wife because they had an affair. So they're paying separation and alimony for all shit because they just didn't have enough activities at work that they had to go and screw it up and they were slime bags. Yeah, there are and I'm not saying that I'm not excusing them, but the reality that what I've come to know as I've come to meet you, your people more is that they exist, but they are not the majority. The majority are just like when I start to think about the people that I know, they just are scared to start to charge what they need to charge to bring this industry to where it needs to go. And what I'm scared of is because being scared is not an excusable thing. Right? When we keep having these conversations, you can only say, I'm scared to do it for so long before we're still where we are.
Jeff Compton [01:16:09]:
We're still in the middle of the technician.
Lucas Underwood [01:16:11]:
George, how many times have you seen a badge cam video where they said, well, I was afraid of you, as they've slapped the handcuffs on them? It doesn't matter. Fear and ignorance is not an excuse.
David Roman [01:16:23]:
Most of them don't recognize that they're afraid. There was a gentleman that posted in the Facebook group, and he was asking about texting customers. Did you see that post? And he's like, I don't know about texting customers. You guys really text a customer. Where's that coming from? It's fear. He's afraid of what it'll look like, and he's afraid of making his customers he's afraid of losing his customers. And it's like, dude, but we can't.
Jeff Compton [01:16:51]:
Keep using fear as the excuse for why we're not taking my point is.
David Roman [01:16:56]:
He didn't recognize that it was fear, right? That, Dude, you're just afraid of nothing. This is all in your head. And most shop owners are like that. They're afraid of what you're saying. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, for me, recognize that they have that fear.
Jeff Compton [01:17:10]:
I'm trying to be. And I'm much better now about approaching when I see an example of something. And I don't immediately blame the tech for being lazy and I don't immediately blame the shop owner for being greedy, but I'm still putting my focus on, okay, there's a whole lot of people out there saying, having a whole lot of conversations. The conversation have been had now. They're not new. It's time to stop being using fear as the reason that you're not making the change, and it's time to now make the friggin change. Well, you all just snuck up on me.