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The Water Cooler, Scuttlebutt, Chit Chat Thread

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The Water Cooler, Scuttlebutt, Chit Chat Thread

Old 05-07-22, 09:19 PM
  #6901  
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Originally Posted by Enthalpic
I entered a bike race... the first time in a long while.

I love how Alex Stieda hosts a race and races it as a cat 5. A former tour yellow jersey wearer in your cat 5 event is cool for them I'm sure. Dude gives back at the grassroots level.

https://zone4.ca/report/1b449454-cc0...3-0a7c5a9f7803
It's not his kid or something?

I just looked at results. DNF. https://zone4.ca/race/2022-05-07/b8ae91b0/results/

Either way, I think it's great. I'd be so stoked to see the first ever North American Yellow Jersey wearer. I wore out the video tape I had this on. Skinsuit in a road race in the 80s. 30 years ahead of the times.

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Old 05-07-22, 10:22 PM
  #6902  
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Work is pretty negative. Did I say this here, I don't remember. But the Missus asked me to quit my job. She's never said that before.

I feel betrayed at almost all levels at work. Corporate above, the techs in the back, and teammates up front.

Had a heart to heart with the manager, who also is absolutely at his limit, as are many, many of my teammates across two stores (the location where I worked most, plus this location where I've worked maybe 1/4 of my career in this company). Everyone is at the splintering point if not slightly beyond. It's all each of us can do to hold ourselves together, consistently.

In the other store there are holes in the walls (calendars and posters covering them now), broken door frames, smashed tablets, they've gone through multiple chairs (at least 4 that I know of) in the break room (pun not intended). In the store I now work in it's not as bad but we are not untouched.

Corporate has an online appointment system that doesn't look at the store workload, staffing, or scheduling, so anyone can make any appointment 3 hours in the future (that's the only limitation, appointments have to be 3 hours in the future). However, we're booking, at best, 3-5 days out, and sometimes 5-7 days out. So people make an appointment for same day, show up, and there's no techs or bays available. Customer is mad, understandably so.

We cannot save an appointment request - it either has to be deleted (only by manager, so not always an option) or "approved"/confirmed. Quickest (after a failed call to the customer) is to confirm is for a past date (I use the prior day by default). Otherwise we have no info on the request, so when the person comes in we have no record of their request. My method generates an email that clearly has the wrong date, and it allows us to retrieve the request/quote in our system so we have some idea of what they asked for etc. However, that's against standard operating procedure. I'm supposed to approve it for the requested time and then call the customer to reschedule. You can imagine how that works out since most of the time we can't get in touch with the customer anyway.

If we don't approve or delete it, the online alert stays on the screen. The alert doesn't change or count appointments, so if another online appointment gets put in, the alert doesn't change. it's like having a fire alarm going off all the time - you have no idea if there's a new fire or not. So you have to do something with the request otherwise you have no idea if a new one comes in. Sometimes I leave one up then check and see there are five (or whatever).

Not only that, but now they're building on the extremely flawed online appointment system.
When we log into the point of sale system, it forces us to check the online appointment requests before it will proceed. This delays opening the POS.
When we run end of day, it forces us to check the online appointment requests before it will proceed. This delays running EOD.

They want to track VIN numbers because then they can sell them to companies like CarFax. however, they updated the software a few versions ago and now the software asks for a VIN number whether it's in or not. And if it's already in and you cancel, it asks you again. 3 versions later, the same thing happens. We have to manually override the VIN number request for various different things, which involves selecting your name from a list, putting in a password, I think twice. You know when your service advisor is clicking like mad to bring up your workorder? Yeah, it's much worse where I work.

I feel like there's some fresh, new , "never been in a store" MBA somewhere in corporate saying "making sure we have a VIN is a great idea" but they have no idea how to implement their thoughts and it's destroying the stores' morale, work flow, etc. This has been going on for 2 years.

When pandemic started, corporate downgraded our internet connection to 4G wireless, the same as your phone. For an entire store. Some stores could barely function - for example, any store with emissions testing struggled, because emissions testing requires decent bandwidth (they upload videos and pictures for every test), In the old store we stopped using the flawed tablets because nothing worked if we turned on the tablets due to lack of bandwidth (and the store was busier so had more phones, computers, and tablets). Two years later they decided to bring us back up to some reasonable speed. They must be using the lowest bidder for the phone / IT work because their work is inexcusably horrible. It's been 3 weeks? since the "upgrade". I was the one there for my store location upgrade, and there was literally no plan in place, no checklist. They started by disconnecting our phones, but the new switch wasn't in place. So they reconnected a couple so we could work. Phones had old firmware (they were updated a few days later, but until then sound quality was dismal at best, incomprehensible most of the time). Switches weren't configured. Nothing was planned or set up for the hard wired alarms. Incredible lack of planning. Even the caller ID was wrong - it said we were calling from a store halfway across the country.

Now, a few weeks later, things are not much better. Phones drop calls all the time. Voice quality is sometimes horrible. And best of all, our alarm system has not been able to connect to the alarm company so the store is disconnected from the alarm company. Basically none of the upgraded stores have an alarm system that communicates with anything, the alarm just blares but can't call out. Fantastic.

In terms of IT, corporate also has not made an effort to take into account the degradation of Internet Explorer. For many months (a year?) we couldn't Google things because Google isn't supported on our IE, and our workstations were locked down so we couldn't use Edge etc. So no Googling (and I'm not using my personal phone to Google work stuff). We are on corporate provided sites (like customer satisfaction survey stuff) that clearly indicate that IE support has ended, but there is nothing to move us to Edge or any other browser. And get this - the various reports the store lives and dies on, that site is not available in the store because the browser is not supported now. So they email PDFs of certain reports, but otherwise you can't see all the reports. A couple months ago I went to check our discounting %, available as a report. Not available.

It clearly indicates that the IT department, or whoever is in charge of the IT subcontractors, has failed their job miserably. In my old IT job, we were painfully aware of any future degradation, and we would be testing stuff many months in advance, so that when the change happened we were able to deliver a seamless end user experience. I now work for a company that 100% did not do this. It only reacts to sites shutting off IE access. It's ridiculous.

For such a large company this is inexcusable. It's being run like a (not internet savvy) mom and pop shop, not a multi billion dollar international publicly traded corporation.

The kicker? We cannot see our own website on our computers. it's a bit ridiculous. "I don't know the coupons you're looking at because I can't see our own site on our computers".

Teammate stuff is people, and that's a whole different story. But for example we sometimes have to hold money to pay bills. It basically shows as a refund in the system, so when I close and hold back $2k, the daily sales journal says I did $2k less in sales. But the idea is that the next day, when the money is returned to the drawer, the person puts it in the closer's name, so that now my $2k less is now $2k more, evening out the total (to zero). But certain people are not doing it, so yesterday I had negative sales, and today I had low sales (because no $2k put back into the drawer in my name). So not only am I losing $2k in sales, someone else is picking up that $2k for free. And then the guy (who opened, and put the $2k in his name) pointed out to another coworker "hey, look at this, I did $4k in service" and I was like "yeah, minus the $2k AR transfer you put in your name". "Uh, oh, uh, yeah, I forgot about that." Right. Anyone looking at my performance will glance at the sales journal, and it will appear that I do very, very little in the shop. "Refunding" tens of thousands of dollars monthly will do that, and someone else is picking up those "sales".

For a while I was thinking this can be fixed from within. But now I realize it's only getting worse. Corporate is pushing very hard on the online system without fixing any of its critical flaws. There failed to migrate to a supported browser in the last 6-9 months, so many things simply do not work. They are not creating a better work flow; instead we now have two parallel work flows we have to follow for each car we work on (tablet, POS). We cannot see the tablet from the POS (used to be able to), requiring us to have even more tablets and use more bandwidth.

The lack of planning at this company is astounding. And it is time to leave. I just need to find something else.
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Old 05-08-22, 02:08 PM
  #6903  
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Ugh sorry cdr. That sounds miserable.
Sounds like corporate will only start paying attention when they start losing sales and customers.

Not sure you can rally shareholders or anything or file an anonymous internal complaint?
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Old 05-08-22, 02:13 PM
  #6904  
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Sounds like a crappy situation. I don't suppose you have a direct competitor that you can walk over to and say, "hire me and I'll tell you all the ways you can eat _____'s lunch" is there?
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Old 05-08-22, 05:17 PM
  #6905  
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
The lack of planning at this company is astounding. And it is time to leave. I just need to find something else.
We went through a bit of that lunacy at the dealer where I was and I think part of the problem was an IT contractor who was inept. Eventually different people were brought in and most of the IT stuff was sorted out.
I was there for 21 years before I retired and there were some bumps along the way but it's a family run store which I think is better than a corporate entity. At least there is a much smaller chain of command and you can actually speak to the owner or family members, although it doesn't always do any good.
The worst part of it for me was when they brought in an idiot manager who lasted 2 years. I tried to tell them what a moron he was and how he was destroying the service dep't. but they hired him and they know they are smarter than I am so....

Anyway good luck and I hope you find someplace where they understand your value and treat you with respect.
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Old 05-09-22, 09:03 AM
  #6906  
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Is this forum basically dead?

Wasnt there a new forum started a long while back after El Diablo got banned?
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Old 05-09-22, 09:33 AM
  #6907  
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its been slower than usual for the last couple of years, but we still have some regular activity going
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Old 05-09-22, 07:00 PM
  #6908  
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Originally Posted by johnybutts
Is this forum basically dead?

Wasnt there a new forum started a long while back after El Diablo got banned?
​​​​​​
What forum was that. I remember butting heads with him a few times but I'm sure he's a good dude
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Old 05-09-22, 09:26 PM
  #6909  
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Originally Posted by ridethecliche
Not sure you can rally shareholders or anything or file an anonymous internal complaint?
I'm a believer in trying to fix things from within first, and I've tried, for many years. I would log tickets in the system to report broken things (via the help desk), which is the standard operating procedure. But it can take months, or, in the case of a few things, it's been 2 years with no resolution.

So, for example, the website for the location where I worked said we closed at 8 (all our sister stores closed at 7). We really closed at 7. They updated a few of their websites but they missed one. We consistently got people calling us at 6:50PM saying they had a flat and can we please fix it before we close at 8. I opened a few help desk tickets, but the response was the same - the website is run by someone else. One woman broke down on the phone, crying, etc. It was horrible, but I had no techs, and so I couldn't help her out.

That night, after we closed, I sat in the office and dialed every internal and external help number I could find, on the store's four lines. While I was on hold I submitted the "contact webmaster" forms repeatedly because I know they generate a trouble ticket for each one. I probably submitted 100 forms before I got a hold of anyone on the phone (it was something like 9 PM by then - I was getting voicemail things so trying to get someone live so just hitting buttons and seeing if the system would accidentally connect me to someone).

Eventually I got through to someone - in a sister company's credit card department (because, you know, it's important to have people be able to use their credit cards). I told them I was trying to find a contact for the website. And the helpful soul she was, she escalated to her supervisor, etc, and I got a hold of someone. They promised to escalate to the right people tomorrow when corporate opened. That was all I could do.

I went home.

The next day, as soon as I came in, the store manager asked me if I'd called someone last night about the website. I told him briefly what happened. He told me to check the store email.

There was this HUGE email chain where a lot of corporate types were emailing each other about the gazillion help desk tickets opened the prior night. Somewhere in there, in all caps, someone wrote "HE'S ONE OF US!!!!!".

Once they figured out I was an employee, they figured out who I was (easy.- I was calling for one store and there were only six or seven of us that worked up front). Then they absolutely hammered the area manager (who is in charge of 10 stores so maybe close to 200 people). "You have to keep your people in line." blah blah blah

So he came to me and told me that he had gotten a lot of heat and that next time, just text/call him.

I pointed out that the website hours, which were wrong for 9 months, for at least 3 calls to the help desk, was corrected by the time I got into the store that morning.

He admitted that that was the case - apparently the credit card company supervisor person only had the top level people in corporate, so they escalated to someone that never got their hands dirty with this kind of stuff, and everyone got really mad at corporate, as evidenced by the email chain.

Fast forward a few years. The area manager knows I'm not afraid to use the system. I escalate things to him, he generally takes care of them.

We have plastic face sleeves that hold the work orders, keys, small parts, stuff the customer wanted us to save, etc. They get pretty beat up but they last a year or so. The new batches we got lasted maybe 2 weeks top, some would sort of explode after one or two uses. The clear plastic part was super thin, super fragile, so if you put anything other than paper in the sleeve (like a car key) the clear plastic fragmented. Like you get a new sleeve, put the work order in, put in a sort of big wad of keys, and the plastic just split and the keys dropped to the floor. It was horrible.

So like a good boy I contacted the area manager. Asked him a bit sarcastically if corporate is making more money off the stores since they're selling them new sleeves every 2 weeks instead of every 12 months. He told me he'd look into it.

Maybe a week goes by. "Aki, call for you."
"Hi this is Aki"
"Hi, I'm Whoever, director of sales at Dow Corning (or wherever, it was something like that). We produce the work sleeves. I was told there was a problem with them?"

hahahaha Apparently he was in charge of the account for 2200 stores, so if someone complained to him, he had to handle it. So I sent him pictures (I saved the last few weeks worth, maybe 20 or 30 work sleeves, usually enough to last a solid year). That was maybe a year ago now? Maybe 9 months? Haven't heard back.

Anyway, I told the area manager that there are so many things broken in the company, so many broken steps in the point of sale system, that someone at the ground level has to be involved. You pinpoint problems, fix them, and move to the next problem. Ideally such a position would be successful enough to eliminate itself.

So I asked him if there was some kind of position like a "problem assassin" who would focus on the small but significant issues. If we have 2200 stores, 30-60 work orders per day per store, and you make maybe 1 or 2 changes on half the tickets, and each change requires 6 or 8 unnecessary overrides (like VIN number)... that's a LOT of wasted time. Or the online scheduler that can't figure out if a store if available or not. Can't put higher weight rated tires on a car (so if a car needs tires rated 98 for weight, and we have a tire that is 99 rated, the system won't allow you to put them on the car without doing some unofficial work arounds).

He laughed. "Aki, if there was someone like that, he'd basically be telling everyone that they're failing at one part of their job. No one at corporate would ever approve of a job like that, because that person will highlight every person's failures".

So, yeah. No.
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Old 05-09-22, 09:55 PM
  #6910  
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Originally Posted by himespau
Sounds like a crappy situation. I don't suppose you have a direct competitor that you can walk over to and say, "hire me and I'll tell you all the ways you can eat _____'s lunch" is there?
No one really. Our (similar type chain) competitors are worse. Hard to believe. I suppose maybe a different flavor company, like a privately owned company, but the more I think about it, the more I think I'm done with this type of automotive service (where people are highly suspicious of anything you do, or don't understand, and don't want to understand, our side of the story.)

Just today:
"Hi, I need an oil change."
"Well, I can't do it right now because we're pretty swamped and I have no free techs and I have no free bays." (typically we're booking 5-8 days out)
"But it only takes 5 minutes!"
"Actually, it takes about 30 minutes, and that's 30 minutes I don't have right now."
"Oh, come on, you can always work in a small job."
"But that means the other job takes an extra 30 minutes or whatever. What am I going to tell that customer when their car isn't ready on time because I kept having the tech 'work in' some small jobs?"

That's when I disengage now.

On the other hand, if I feel like it, if the person isn't pushy or rude or disrespectful or whatever, I'll do everything I can to help them. There was this one couple that came in when we were super busy, asked me to check their tires because one looked dangerous. For some reason I told them yes, and went out to the car to look at the tires. The one they were worried about was cut through the cords on the sidewall, and was worn down to the cords on the inner edge. There were two nails in another tire. And a third tire was very low in tread (3/32"?). One tire looked pretty new. Ends up they were on a trip to visit with friends, one of their friends actually died, they went to the funeral, and now they were driving back to Baltimore (we're in CT!). Now This was a rental, and rental companies are notorious for taking forever to approve work (I had one flat tire come in on a Friday - Enterprise didn't approve the repair until Wednesday!!!! and I had to hear this customer complain to us, threatened to report us to corporate to get us fired, etc, and it's not something we have control over). This couple was the opposite. They were polite, quiet, and although obviously a bit stressed, instead of taking it out on me, they started talking between them about looking for a place to stay, etc. They didn't push me, didn't whine, nothing.

So I told them it may not happen but I'll give it a really good try.

I called the rental company (fleet company), put the call on speaker (because I was on hold), and worked around the call on hold. I was on hold for a long time, maybe an hour, maybe more, and finally connected. The couple could hear it. Then after a minute or so the call dropped. I was stunned, and told the couple what just happened. So I called back. Hold forever. Call dropped. It was horrible. Happened a couple times.

The couple told me to put the tires on and they'd pay for it and try and get reimbursed. The reimbursement bit seemed doubtful to me, and I told them that, but I think they knew themselves and they knew they needed to get going. So I had the guys put on 3 tires (cheap ones because a rental company won't spring for good tires), the couple paid for them, and they were on their way after maybe 5 or 6 hours.

They were very, very grateful. They were kind. They were respectful. And they waited super patiently. I empathized with them and I appreciated their demeanor under duress. So I helped them as best as I could.

That was in April. I got this letter today:



I don't know what kind of job I want to do but I know what I want to do in that job - it's to help people without worrying about extracting profit from them. It's to help people that want reasonable help, like they know they need help, it's not just so they don't have to do something. I like working one on one with people. I like fixing problems. I just need to figure out what kind of job allows me to do this.
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Old 05-10-22, 05:46 AM
  #6911  
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I know how to fit myself to go fast on a TT bike. For road stuff I'm more clueless about general handling and geometry.

I put up the 3T Exploro against a Boone in size I want and Crockett in size I have, despite that being a lot newer Crockett than mine. People were saying the 3T would handle like a pig. The geometry chart doesn't seem like that to me. The BB drop is only 2mm different from a Boone/Crockett. Only the TCX seems to have a lot higher BB relative to those. And Boones win a lot. Other thing was this thing had a slightly shorter chainstay. The headtube was within 1 degree. Something so small they even sell 1 degree headsets these days you can adjust to suit your ride desires. The fork setup might be a hair slower. But I'm a bit ignorant to the numbers in that chart that would actually make the 3T handle like a pig.

Anyone here can look at this and say "that geometry item there.......is a lot whatever...."?

I enjoy cross, but don't desire to become some Cat 1/2 racer in it. I am happy doing my 4/5 3/4, and in two years masters races in it for some off-season fun. And the 3T would enable some more fun training or gravel race chances. In other words, ride a bike happy 95% of the time instead of only the times I race cross on it. Of course it's on their site, so it's propoganda..........but people do do it.....

This doesn't scream "handles like pig" to me:
https://99spokes.com/en-EU/compare?b...tt-5-disc-2017

https://blog.3t.bike/2022/01/18576/c...-bike-why-not/
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Old 05-10-22, 11:06 AM
  #6912  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
Other thing was this thing had a slightly shorter chainstay.
Doesn't that mean snappier handling? When I think of handles like a pig, I think of old school touring bikes with miles of chainstay.
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Old 05-10-22, 11:13 AM
  #6913  
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Originally Posted by himespau
Doesn't that mean snappier handling? When I think of handles like a pig, I think of old school touring bikes with miles of chainstay.
Yeah. I started a topic on Slowtwitch about it and several posters "it's a pig for cross". Then someone actually looked at the geometry I posted and was like "wait, it's not much different at all". Shorter chainstay, headtube angle pretty darn close, only 2mm different BB drop. Easily cured with 170mm crank arms.

I'll try it out, can always just keep the cross bike for literally only cross duty if I need to. Then if the cross course is really dry/fast roll the 3T.
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Old 05-11-22, 07:40 AM
  #6914  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
Yeah. I started a topic on Slowtwitch about it and several posters "it's a pig for cross". Then someone actually looked at the geometry I posted and was like "wait, it's not much different at all". Shorter chainstay, headtube angle pretty darn close, only 2mm different BB drop. Easily cured with 170mm crank arms.

I'll try it out, can always just keep the cross bike for literally only cross duty if I need to. Then if the cross course is really dry/fast roll the 3T.
The 650b wheel size would throw a variable that I haven't really experienced. However...

There are two aspects to slower handling bikes, at least that I've experienced, plus the BB drop thing.

So chain stay length definitely makes a bike feel different. Shorter stays make the bike more lively when out of the saddle (virtually no difference while in the saddle), and put more weight on the rear wheel in general. The slack seat tube angle adds to that weight distribution effect, means you'll have a lot of weight on the rear wheel. Maybe great for a steep hill with loose conditions (weight on rear tire = traction, but you might lift front wheel on steep hills), maybe not as great for comfort. I have a frame where I had the stays shortened so the front end was the same, parts were the same, just the rear triangle was shorter. Shortening the stays (1.3 cm) made an enormous difference in how it felt out of saddle, super snappy. Made it much easier to keep weight on the rear wheel in corners (prior to the shortening, the rear tire was chattering/skipping/sliding across pavement even in the dry). And the final thing, the turn in really felt no different, because....

The front end was the same. Head tube angle really affects the turn in feel. Trail is related to stability (no hands etc), but HTA really affects turn in. Because I generally ride 50 cm frames, I've ridden road bikes with HTA from 70.5 to 73 deg, and the responsiveness of the 73 deg HTA is amazing compared to, say, a 72. Similar if not identical trail, although I don't have exact differences. And since I tend to move parts from bike to bike, the wheels/tires would have been the same moving from one frame to another. Once I experienced a 73 HTA + 43mm rake I stuck with it, and even based my custom frames around that front end. The shallow head tube angle made it feel like the wheel was tilting more, not turning. For me the most vivid difference was when I was sprinting - I could instantly change lines as needed, whereas the shallower head tube angle felt like I was driving a jet ski, and I had to sort of start the turn and then wait for it to "set" and actually start turning.

More BB drop makes me feel like I'm "in" the bike, versus being "on" the bike. Like the BB is glued to the pavement. The higher BB bikes I've ridden have felt more "topple-y". My most extreme examples were my high BB mtb vs regular BB mtb (Cannondale sold a high BB, short stayed frame for a while, for "northeast logs and single track"). The high BB bike *was* better over logs, but it was so topple-y I toppled over at some point riding around my parent's yard and broke the (non-replaceable) hanger.
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Old 05-11-22, 06:44 PM
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
No one really. Our (similar type chain) competitors are worse. Hard to believe. I suppose maybe a different flavor company, like a privately owned company, but the more I think about it, the more I think I'm done with this type of automotive service (where people are highly suspicious of anything you do, or don't understand, and don't want to understand, our side of the story.)

Just today:
"Hi, I need an oil change."
"Well, I can't do it right now because we're pretty swamped and I have no free techs and I have no free bays." (typically we're booking 5-8 days out)
"But it only takes 5 minutes!"
"Actually, it takes about 30 minutes, and that's 30 minutes I don't have right now."
"Oh, come on, you can always work in a small job."
"But that means the other job takes an extra 30 minutes or whatever. What am I going to tell that customer when their car isn't ready on time because I kept having the tech 'work in' some small jobs?"

That's when I disengage now.

On the other hand, if I feel like it, if the person isn't pushy or rude or disrespectful or whatever, I'll do everything I can to help them. There was this one couple that came in when we were super busy, asked me to check their tires because one looked dangerous. For some reason I told them yes, and went out to the car to look at the tires. The one they were worried about was cut through the cords on the sidewall, and was worn down to the cords on the inner edge. There were two nails in another tire. And a third tire was very low in tread (3/32"?). One tire looked pretty new. Ends up they were on a trip to visit with friends, one of their friends actually died, they went to the funeral, and now they were driving back to Baltimore (we're in CT!). Now This was a rental, and rental companies are notorious for taking forever to approve work (I had one flat tire come in on a Friday - Enterprise didn't approve the repair until Wednesday!!!! and I had to hear this customer complain to us, threatened to report us to corporate to get us fired, etc, and it's not something we have control over). This couple was the opposite. They were polite, quiet, and although obviously a bit stressed, instead of taking it out on me, they started talking between them about looking for a place to stay, etc. They didn't push me, didn't whine, nothing.

So I told them it may not happen but I'll give it a really good try.

I called the rental company (fleet company), put the call on speaker (because I was on hold), and worked around the call on hold. I was on hold for a long time, maybe an hour, maybe more, and finally connected. The couple could hear it. Then after a minute or so the call dropped. I was stunned, and told the couple what just happened. So I called back. Hold forever. Call dropped. It was horrible. Happened a couple times.

The couple told me to put the tires on and they'd pay for it and try and get reimbursed. The reimbursement bit seemed doubtful to me, and I told them that, but I think they knew themselves and they knew they needed to get going. So I had the guys put on 3 tires (cheap ones because a rental company won't spring for good tires), the couple paid for them, and they were on their way after maybe 5 or 6 hours.

They were very, very grateful. They were kind. They were respectful. And they waited super patiently. I empathized with them and I appreciated their demeanor under duress. So I helped them as best as I could.

That was in April. I got this letter today:



I don't know what kind of job I want to do but I know what I want to do in that job - it's to help people without worrying about extracting profit from them. It's to help people that want reasonable help, like they know they need help, it's not just so they don't have to do something. I like working one on one with people. I like fixing problems. I just need to figure out what kind of job allows me to do this.
I don't have a clue who you work for, and I don't know if want to stay in service at all, and I doubt it's the case everywhere, but, after all those caveats, United Tire seems really good, at least the one I go to.

They don't ******** people, they don't nickel and dime you, they do reasonable work for reasonable prices, they'll tell costumers "yes I could rebuild that engine and we're happy to do it, but it's probably not worth it depending on your plans for that car", they do free taillight labor and stuff like that during inspections, etc.

They also all seem to mostly enjoy their jobs.
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Old 05-11-22, 08:53 PM
  #6916  
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Originally Posted by Flatballer
I don't have a clue who you work for, and I don't know if want to stay in service at all, and I doubt it's the case everywhere, but, after all those caveats, United Tire seems really good, at least the one I go to.

They don't ******** people, they don't nickel and dime you, they do reasonable work for reasonable prices, they'll tell costumers "yes I could rebuild that engine and we're happy to do it, but it's probably not worth it depending on your plans for that car", they do free taillight labor and stuff like that during inspections, etc.

They also all seem to mostly enjoy their jobs.
We have the same attitude too, I think. I mean, sometimes it's worth it to fix something, but sometimes it's not. And I think as a shop everyone is honest. If we damage a car we're the first ones to say it (which is why it irks me when a customer accuses us of breaking something). I think honestly I'm done with the customer facing side of things.

I appreciate the thought on United Tire. When I Google it seems to be a Pennsylvania company?
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Old 05-13-22, 10:42 AM
  #6917  
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
It's not his kid or something?

I just looked at results. DNF. https://zone4.ca/race/2022-05-07/b8ae91b0/results/

Either way, I think it's great. I'd be so stoked to see the first ever North American Yellow Jersey wearer. I wore out the video tape I had this on. Skinsuit in a road race in the 80s. 30 years ahead of the times.

https://youtu.be/vL9fXymsedI?t=1246
No, it's him, nice older guy.

Pretty sure he got caught behind in the crash on lap one. The cat 5's are crazy fast this year. I suspect all the covid people "working from home" were riding zwift all day. They did the fastest lap of the day by far at 38:17; cat 2 fastest lap was 42:25 (their race was twice as long, however). Alex did a 40:06 lap in cat 5...

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Old 05-13-22, 06:20 PM
  #6918  
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
We have the same attitude too, I think. I mean, sometimes it's worth it to fix something, but sometimes it's not. And I think as a shop everyone is honest. If we damage a car we're the first ones to say it (which is why it irks me when a customer accuses us of breaking something). I think honestly I'm done with the customer facing side of things.

I appreciate the thought on United Tire. When I Google it seems to be a Pennsylvania company?
I didn't realize they were semi local. That probably explains why they seem to suck less.
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Old 05-15-22, 09:26 PM
  #6919  
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Originally Posted by Enthalpic
No, it's him, nice older guy.

Pretty sure he got caught behind in the crash on lap one. The cat 5's are crazy fast this year. I suspect all the covid people "working from home" were riding zwift all day. They did the fastest lap of the day by far at 38:17; cat 2 fastest lap was 42:25 (their race was twice as long, however). Alex did a 40:06 lap in cat 5...
That's awesome. It's great that he still enjoys it.
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Old 05-15-22, 10:08 PM
  #6920  
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Originally Posted by himespau
Doesn't that mean snappier handling? When I think of handles like a pig, I think of old school touring bikes with miles of chainstay.
Chainstay short is more twitchey and pretty much always worse than longer. It is not better handling. For handling can do handling more with the fork - angle, rake, trail.
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Old 05-15-22, 10:17 PM
  #6921  
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Kid was a bit embarrassed about his weekend results. He heard about this "triathalon" that is Bike, Run - Kayak and decided to enter. Looking at the starting line I think he could tell this was not his regular crowd but he spent his time getting his bike together and since his best sport was first, he never really knew how things were going. Anyway he go some "nice" local press and seems like a fun event.

https://830times.com/sports-racers-b...-on-the-creek/

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Old 05-16-22, 06:47 PM
  #6922  
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Originally Posted by Doge
Kid was a bit embarrassed about his weekend results. He heard about this "triathalon" that is Bike, Run - Kayak and decided to enter. Looking at the starting line I think he could tell this was not his regular crowd but he spent his time getting his bike together and since his best sport was first, he never really knew how things were going. Anyway he go some "nice" local press and seems like a fun event.

https://830times.com/sports-racers-b...-on-the-creek/
Wow. He can barely kayak, did an individual instead of a team relay, and absolutely slaughtered them all. That's pretty crazy.
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Old 05-17-22, 05:38 AM
  #6923  
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Spent most of last week in the San Diego area - TMonk and Hermes I would have reached out but it was for a family wedding, so my time was booked with family. Anyway, like all things, as I get older, I have a much harder time bouncing back from big time changes.
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Old 05-17-22, 12:36 PM
  #6924  
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Selling the old ass Crockett and going modern. I enjoy logging gravel miles for z2/tempo and even some threshold stuff when riding "in town". I can just keep a much steadier burn going without all the stop signs, lights, turns, and such.

Given that, I wanted a nice cross bike. Modern electronic, fancy, slicker slightly aero look.

Got a 2020 TCX Pro 0, Quarq on the way. Nicest spd pedals on way. It was ridden once by a guy who bought a few bikes to race cross........as a 4/5 master's category guy......who wound up not liking racing cross. So, good price, next to zero miles on it. Local test ride and purchase. Really nice guy. Worked out for both of us! It's got the fancy modern 40mm deep cross wheels on it also. Hnnnnggg..
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Old 05-17-22, 01:59 PM
  #6925  
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carpediemracing I wonder if a costco near you is looking for a manager for their automotive ish. Could be a good fit. They seem to take care of their workers.
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