Tools for Success - Overhauled S1E9 is now on your favorite podcast app!

Want to be a guest on Overhauled? - https://www.shopdiesellaptops.com/pages/podcast-guests

In this podcast your host Melissa Petersmann (The Diesel Queen) discusses diesel technicians, trucks, the diesel economy at large, and many more interesting topics in a style that only she can bring - raw and unfiltered. 

Melissa is joined today by Troy Nevergall, Branch Manager, Bobcat of the Rockies Golden, Co. Troy discusses his journey from tinkering on a car at 14 to being shop technician, to where he is now. Troy and Melissa talk about what tools are needed, physically and emotionally, to succeed in the industry.

As always, thank you for watching and listening!

Connect with Guest:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-nevergall-472319150/

Transcript for Tools for Success - Overhauled S1E9

Speaker 1:

So we have a special promotion going on here in February. This is our Diesel Tablet. This was just launched last year. This is our mid-range diagnostic tool. It will do thousands of the most common diagnostic commands. So if you're working on your EGR system, you're trying to change engine parameters, you're trying to work on your SER system, this will do the resets, the calibrations, the installs. All the things. You can one tap to repair information, to get instant repair information for all your fault codes. It's a great, great tool to put inside your shop and it's priced very, very aggressively for the price point.

And in February, we have a special promotion going on. So if you buy this tool in February, and there's a limited amount, you will get five free online training courses. So these online training courses are not about the tool. These courses are about how to do electrical, how to troubleshoot after treatment systems, how to do all this advanced stuff that you need to know for today's commercial truck. So it's a $500 value, comes absolutely free with the product for the month of February. Check it out. 30 day money back guarantee. We know you're going to love it. We sold a ton of these things already.

Melissa:

So I want you to explain who you are, where you come from, how you got started in the industry, where you're at now. The career path you took, how you got into the industry and go from there.

Troy Nevergall:

I'm Troy Nevergall. I've been in the diesel industry for 30 years. Served roles as entry level technician or mechanic in those days. Just that's what I was, a mechanic in the shop environment, working on heavy equipment. I spent 18 years in a field service truck, eight years as a regional service manager. I guess a year as foreman. Eight years as a regional service manager. And now, I've spent the last year and a half as a branch manager for a different distributor of heavy equipment.

So I've got a long time in the industry. And got into it because I wasn't going to go to college. That wasn't my path. And got started in it as a kid taking my bicycle apart, a radio apart or whatever it happened to be. Started working on cars when I was about 13 and just needed repairs around the... We had a '67 Chevy Impala and I think that was my first job. Water pump on a small block Chevy. Pretty straightforward and easy job, but for a 13 year old, it was-

Melissa:

Oh my God, what the fuck is this?

Troy Nevergall:

... Yeah. What am I doing? So that's how I got started into it. And started working right out of high school for a landscaper with about 300 pieces of equipment. There were six technicians in that shop and we did snow plowing in the wintertime. So I worked from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, six days a week and then we were on snow call. So just spent a lot of time in the shop.

Melissa:

And you did not go to trade school, correct?

Troy Nevergall:

After that landscaping job, I did try to get into the car industry and went to a Ford Asset Program, is what they called it at the time. And you were hired through a dealership and then they would send you to school on a... It was a six week, I believe, rotation. Six weeks in the dealership, six weeks at school. And it was probably a really good program. But after being in the industry for a while working on heavy equipment and when it was pickup trucks and trailers and landscaping equipment, I decided that I can just go do this on my own without finishing up school. So I dropped out of that too. So no, not officially, but I did for a minute, go to a program.

Melissa:

But it wasn't necessarily a requirement.

Troy Nevergall:

It was not a requirement.

Melissa:

It didn't make or break your career.`

Troy Nevergall:

No, it did not. As a service manager, I always liked to have people with trade school background because you're an example of that. Paid attention to school and understood the fundamentals. And I think that's the best you can out of a trade school, is understand those pieces and apply yourself. Because I think there's a lot of good trade schools out there and I think there's a lot of good instructors within those schools. I do have an idea or opinion about some schools that push students through that they're not ready to enter the workforce. They're not ready to be hired up because they occupy the seat and they needed to vacate that seat for the next class coming in and they got pushed through. I'd like to see a lot more requirements, a lot more expectation out of the student in a trade school. And I think the product would be a lot better coming in the industry.

Melissa:

And that would be doing a favor to the kid too. Right?

Troy Nevergall:

They could be in jail for the money they take from these kids, from the families. If there's a student that is paying for it on his own, God bless him for getting through, but I think that he was robbed. For families that are helping their child into that secondary education and paying all that money, they're being robbed on in some instances.

Melissa:

Well then the kid enters the industry and he is like what the fuck? Because all the shit they let slide in tech school isn't sliding in the industry. It doesn't slide.

Troy Nevergall:

We're paying you, in these days, really good money to come into the industry and expecting a lot for that. And when the newly graduated student doesn't have the basis, it just is really disappointing. But I think that's where everybody's at. Businesses that have employee technicians, they're creating their own training program because you can't get away with not having the ability to train somebody up that's pretty green.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Troy Nevergall:

Whether they have background in industry, say from the car industry coming into the diesel side or they were doing a lot of maintenance stuff. There's a lot of good people in our military that do a lot of maintenance stuff. They come out and they weren't blessed with the opportunity to learn all the detail of it. And I think that you have to have that training program. The manufacturers have to provide it to the dealers to help them along the way. As new technology comes out, they need to continue that. So trade school's a great way to go and I like to see it as a service manager in somebody's background. It's not a necessity. Not at all. If somebody can apply themselves, it's what I like about giving aptitude tests as well during the hiring process. Just see where they're at.

We had technicians that took the aptitude test that completely bombed it, but it allowed you to understand where if they had strengths or if they had severe weaknesses, you understood where they lied. As well as you understood what type of a person they were when challenged with a test, because ultimately all the technicians today have to be certified. They have to get product specific knowledge given by the manufacturer and tested by the manufacturer to see if you really understand it so that they can minimize their warranty payouts. And I think that portion of what is needed and required of a technician today is not understood. I mean, you don't just go to school and then start the job and never learn anything more than what you picked up in trade school. You learn every day and every day there's new technology that comes out that you have to be trained in, certified in, to understand it. So we have to have lifelong learners in the industry.

Melissa:

Oh yeah, we've all known those technicians that think they know everything and don't think they need to learn anything more. And they are usually not the top of the... They think they are, but they're usually not the top performers. I worked with a kid, I call him a kid, he was probably 38, 35ish, I don't know. And we were sitting at a break table and we're all talking. And I made some kind of comment about any mechanic that tells you they never fuck up is either lying or not trying hard enough. And this mother fucker looks at me dead in the fucking face and he is like, I don't know what you're talking about. I never fuck anything up. And he's dead serious.

And the foreign exchange dude. I call him the foreign exchange dude because he was straight green card from fucking Ukraine. And he is looking at me like, Melissa do it. Because he knows, me and this mother fucker butted heads all the... One of the very few people I butted heads on all the time. But this is exactly the reason why, because he's always over there like, I never fuck shit up. I never fuck anything up. I'm the best mechanic in this shop. And I'm like, bro, I just watched you replace three wiring harnesses, two controllers and every fucking sensor on a backhoe because you do the kind of diagnostics. Okay. You're telling me? Yeah. Of course you didn't fuck it up because you replaced the entire electrical system. Of course you were right. It is really frustrating.

Troy Nevergall:

That goes into parts changes versus mechanics or technicians.

Melissa:

Yeah. Dude, we all fuck up, it's fine. Just admit it. It's okay.

Troy Nevergall:

A lot of people can hang parts, but it's what everybody desires and wants to have employed with them is those guys can diagnose.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Troy Nevergall:

And they really come down to the smoking gun of, this is my failure right here. I know this is what is worn out or this is what's failed or this is what shorts out or overheats and then stops working. This is what it is. And not just wholesale replace everything. Say, well, we fixed it. Yeah, but what was wrong with it? Nobody knows.

Melissa:

Oh, he had some fucking giant long 30 minute explanation as to why every single thing he replaced was wrong or was fucked up. This is also the same guy that I have watched him help another mechanic try to diagnose a problem. What was it? I don't remember what machine it was, but long story short, they replaced a controller because a fuse was bad. And this is the same kid, the kid that he was helping, this was a horrible team. Because the kid that this guy was helping is the kid that tries for five minutes and if he can't figure it out, he goes around and asks everybody in the shop what they think. And he will ask until he finds an answer he likes and then does that. Right? The easy answer. That's what he wants.

And he stopped asking me for help because I wouldn't just give him the answer. I would give him a direction towards the answer, not the answer. And he would get mad because he was lazy and didn't want to fucking figure it out. So he'd go around and ask until he found somebody that was willing to either give him the answer or give him an answer he thought was easiest. So not only is this the kid he's helping, but it's also this guy that's helping him. So yeah, he's over there, he's like it's a controller. And I think it was an excavator if I remember correctly. I think it was a Hitachi excavator if I remember correctly and mid-size. He's like, oh, it's a controller. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, bro, I know the capstones aren't a God send. And I know they don't just magically give you the knowledge to [inaudible 00:12:47] diagnose that machine.

But I had a guy in a capstone, an instructor and he was an engineer for John Deere at a point in time. He said that 99% of the controllers that we as mechanics send them are good. I'm telling you, you've got to look into this. Does it have power? Is the controller even getting power? He's like, no, it's the controller. This other technician helped me and we agree that it's the controller. I'm like, okay, long story short, they replaced the controller. Didn't fix it. Guess what it was. It's a fuse for the power to the controller.

And I'm not saying everybody fucks up. Everybody fucks up. I love telling this story. Do you remember the coupler incident on the breaker on the excavator? I did put a breaker on with the manual coupler. Yeah. That I ripped a thousand dollars worth of hoses off. And yeah, that was fun. I tell that story to people because I try to show people, people think I'm this stuck up person. They see my videos and they're like, oh, she's stuck up, I bet. And I'm like, no, actually I'll sit here and tell you all my fuck ups. Here's one of them. I ripped a thousand dollars worth of brand new hoses off of excavator because I forgot to lock the coupler in front of a salesman. And it sprayed oil everywhere. There was a fucking customer and a salesman on the fucking line right there, right when I did that.

Troy Nevergall:

So I like the other one where I think you pulled a front axle out of a loader maybe.

Melissa:

Oh no. I know where this is going. It was a 644.

Troy Nevergall:

And I think we all told you to put a cap in the line. Cap that hose up.

Melissa:

A metal cap.

Troy Nevergall:

It'll drain. Yeah. It'll drain the hydraulic tank on you if you're not careful. And so you better put a cap on. Yeah. And then you think you might have put a plastic cap or something in there.

Melissa:

A little red one.

Troy Nevergall:

I think it might have been a Sunday. I came into the shop and in front of the bay door is about an inch and a half of oil. It's probably 40 feet long and 20 feet wide. I go in the shop and there is no oil left in the machine. It is all in the bay and has ran out the bay door almost to the street. I think I used about 10-

Melissa:

It's sick you remember that.

Troy Nevergall:

... 10 bags of floor dry to put a moat around that oil slick.

Melissa:

Yeah. I already remember coming into work Monday and I walked into the shop and I looked and on top of my toolbox, which was my little green and black one at the time, there's 18 bags of fucking floor dry. Empty floor bags. And I'm like, what the fuck

Troy Nevergall:

I think I put all the floor dry bags on your tool box.

Melissa:

You did. You stacked them, there was a pile this high on my fucking toolbox. I'm like, what the fuck? And then obviously goober's behind me and he walks in and he's like, oh shit. And he's over there laughing his ass off. And I've got a lake of oil.

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah. Because I made you clean it up. I only stopped it from running out to the ditch in the front of the shop there. And so I just moated it off basically.

Melissa:

Yeah. I pulled an axle out to do brakes in that loader, the front axle. And I had one of the little red caps in there. And I had this little teeny tiny pan underneath it because it was just barely dripping. And I'm like, oh, it'll be fine. And it sat there and just barely dripped all week. And then I come back Monday and there's 18 bags of floor dry on my toolbox and all of the oil is on my floor. I'm like, this is fucking great. And Jason is over there helping me clean it up because he's getting amazing entertainment out of the fact that I just fucked this up. Yeah, that was great.

I actually had the whole front shop helping me with that, thank God. But they were all also laughing. They wanted to stay laughing with me, laughing at me. So yeah, that was fun. I got my payback though when, I think it was Jason, he had that hose built for that loader he did a cylinder on. And I think the parts guys put a radiator hose instead of an actual... Or something because it fucking exploded when he went to start that thing up and it sprayed all over Joe's backhoe and all over the fucking floor.

Troy Nevergall:

All the mishaps. All the misfortune mishaps that nobody knows about if they've not been working in a shop.

Melissa:

People don't believe me. I'm like, dude, I fucked up so much shit. I had so many learning curves, so many.

Troy Nevergall:

Well, I don't know if it's appropriate if we tell everybody your nickname.

Melissa:

Oh, go for it. I've told people. My Nader nickname?

Troy Nevergall:

No, you War Paint.

Melissa:

That's what Rick called me. Oh, War Paint.

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Troy Nevergall:

We nicknamed your war paint because five minutes... We started at six or seven depending if we're working overtime or not. And five minutes into the day you had a smudge under your eye and where you pushed your hair back on your forehead and grease hanging out of your hair. And so you had war paint on your face first thing in the morning. And that's just the way you operated. You didn't get worried about getting dirty or how you looked or how big of a job it was or how nasty the machine was that you worked on. You just got after it. And that was actually a badge of honor and pride that we called you War Paint because it didn't matter. You got into it.

Melissa:

Yep. War Paint. And then later on in my days, Rick started calling me Nader because my bay looked like a tornado. Yeah, that's the one. That's a bad thing that came with how I worked is my bay reflected what my face looked like.

Troy Nevergall:

I will tell you, and this is a fact, that our expenditure of floor dry went down when you moved North. It was like, what happened? We got all this floor dry. Our bill is way less than it normally is. And we're like, I don't know, what's going on? Are we reusing that much of it? It's like, no, Melissa's not here any longer.

Melissa:

Yeah. About that, floor dry's my friend. That's the moral of my story in every shop I've ever worked in. I did start using, in the big construction Four River shop I worked at, they had a zamboni. I zambonied my floor quite often, which was really awesome. But, the floor dry's-

Troy Nevergall:

I didn't get one for the old shop until after you'd left. Otherwise you'd have worn it out, I think.

Melissa:

... Probably.

Troy Nevergall:

Today, I hate floor dry. I cannot stand using floor dry anywhere.

Melissa:

I don't like it either. I'd much rather use the pig mats. But Jason used to yell at me at the new shop for using too many pig mats.

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah. We're going to have a new shop here and hopefully we can move in in a couple weeks and I want to use floor dry only as last resort. We've got to set our drain in it. It all goes out to the grease trap. So yeah, we're going to be doing a lot of otherwise, other cleaning in the shop and trying to keep it floor dry free.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Troy Nevergall:

I don't know if you could operate in a shop without floor dry in it.

Melissa:

Well, I mean you can try to mop up some of that shit, but have fun with that. And you're going to need to buy a new mop by the time you're done with that. Or do the whole shovel method because if it's a big enough mess that I'm more than aware of and familiar with, you can shovel it into a bucket and then mop it. Yeah, been there.

Troy Nevergall:

So do you miss the industry now?

Melissa:

Oh my god, yes.

Troy Nevergall:

Well, you've only got $90,000 worth of tools.

Melissa:

I got more than that. Dude, I've got four fucking toolboxes sitting out there. I've got four toolboxes. I have a big red triple bay now. A giant triple bay that I bought used off a Matco truck. And that's full. Nope. It's all paid off. Yep. I paid off... So my black and green toolbox I had that one with all the tools in it, I had a loan through Snap On with that. When my brother died, I used all that money to pay it off. Or some of the money that we got from his death to pay it off.

But then I bought my triple bay toolbox and they only wanted like $3,800 for it. So I traded my black and green box and $1,600 in cash and that's how I got that toolbox. And then I have a black double bay, which is actually funny because it's the exact same toolbox as my other one just without a trim kit, that I bought for my home shop because I wanted to have tools at home and now I have all my tools at home. So I have that toolbox. And then I have two tool carts. I have my little green one that I bought and then I have a gray Matco one that I bought used. I buy all my shit used.

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. Tools are so damn expensive that you've got to find the bargains.

Melissa:

I've got all my shit paid off though. Especially before I left the industry, I made sure all my was paid off. So everything I have I own, which is good.

Troy Nevergall:

That is good. That's the other piece of getting into the industry as a young guy, as a young technician without many tools, being faced with going out and buying all that. And wanting to good quality stuff that's going to last and work and function. Sure you can go to Harbor Freight and get that crap and come to work with it.

Melissa:

It's fucking maddening to try and use that now.

Troy Nevergall:

[inaudible 00:23:43] Yeah. It's not the best tooling. You're going to get hurt. Things are going to break and wear out very fast. It'll get you by and a lot of guys use it, there's nothing wrong with that, but you need good, quality stuff. And you're faced with the cost of trade school. Faced with getting tooled up because so many other industries, so many other jobs...

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:24:04]

Troy Nevergall:

... being tooled up because so many other industries, so many other jobs, even within our industry, if you're a parts counter person, or if you're an admin, sales admin, or whatever, you're in the industry, but you're not faced with owning... These days, you need to come in as a starter technician at $15,000, $20,000 worth of equipment to get going, to be somewhat self-sufficient. Everybody borrowed stuff in the beginning, and everybody was faced with that. But you wanted to get your own gear as quickly as you could, and that's the reality of today, of getting good, quality stuff. And getting just the essentials, just the basics, you're going to spend $10,000, $15,000 plus to get going.

And then every week you're adding to it. Every week your bill gets higher, and the wages have to keep up with it because that's what our expectation is as employers. We expect these technicians to come in with tools. There's very few shops that are providing that. And so, you have to pay commensurate with what we're expecting them to have.

And then it's stuck at work. And then, when you have a hobby, you're trying to duplicate your set so you're not carrying stuff back and forth every day. So, I understand it completely. All my stuff from the field truck from 10 years ago now is sitting in plastic totes. Because `I didn't have a box to put it in, and now it's still sitting in plastic totes.

Melissa:

What happened to your Snap-On box collection?

Troy Nevergall:

I know. I should have done better at that. That's what I should have done.

Melissa:

I remember bringing you that fucking old... Remember that old torque wrench I had that I brought? I still have that. I still use it. That saved me from buying another torque wrench for a long time because that one went down far enough that I could use it for a lot of things. Now I'm spoiled, and I have a nice digital green half-inch drive one that I absolutely fucking love.

But my little dumb-ass fucking self can't use that thing on anything bigger than a 6068 head bolt. Them 6090s and the 13-5s, I still have to use the three-quarter-inch breaker bar, and I have this little tiny magnetic... This is what I used for years before I got that digital torque wrench. It's like $60, and this is a little magnetic angle thing that you stick... You can put it on a wrench, you can put it on a ratchet, whatever, and that's how I torqued them for years. And that's how I still have to torque the big stuff because my ass is too fucking small to be over there, heaving on a ratchet that... Well, I mean, it's long for normal people, but for me, it's not long enough.

Troy Nevergall:

That's right. Just get longer-

Melissa:

I remember one time that I-

Troy Nevergall:

... longer extension or extension to your cheater pipe, really. Yeah. Just keep getting longer one, you'll be able to get it to turn free.

Melissa:

Oh, yeah. I remember one time I made the mistake of asking Rick for help to break. It was on... You know those hydraulic caps on dozers, the hydraulic tank cap? It's like a square drive, and they're fucking... Hulk himself has put them on there. I was over there with my three-quarter-inch bar heaving on that motherfucker, and I could not get that thing to come off. And I asked Rick for help, and he went over there and he put his fucking ass into it, and he broke my extension and he ate shit. I distinctly remember that. That was funny. I don't know why that just popped in my head when I thought about breaker bars. I was like, I distinctly remember that situation.

Troy Nevergall:

All those tricks that as older... As me, as a guy who's been around the industry for a while, we need to share with the young guys, too, all those stupid little tricks.

Speaker 2:

The hammer.

Troy Nevergall:

Smack it with a hammer.

Speaker 2:

Smacking with a hammer. That-

Melissa:

I did learn, though, that you got to be careful on how you do that, or you will fuck it up to where you can't get a socket on it or fuck it up to where I ended up getting... Here's a great use for Harbor Freight tools. Their extensions or their adapters are great fucking... You put that thing in there and use that to fucking smack it, because then it's not fucking up the drive hole or the fucking anything else.

Troy Nevergall:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

But-

Troy Nevergall:

See, you've got all kinds of tricks.

Melissa:

Well, that's why I tell people I try and tell people all the time is, being a mechanic, people think a good mechanic is... And to an extent I guess it kind of is, knowing exactly how to do something right. I've done so many motherfucking backhoe transmissions now that I can do those in my fucking sleep. Where brakes and then axles and shit like that... There's certain jobs that I've done so many of that I can do them in my sleep.

But that, I don't feel like is what makes a good mechanic, because anybody can repeat something a million times and get good at it. It's knowing how to figure out stuff that you don't know how to do. It's having the tools and the mental tools to figure things out, and understanding the systems, and being able to read a theory of operation and actually understand what you're reading, and comprehend what you're reading. And there's a lot of guys that are good, decent mechanics that can swing parts in and out all day, but you give them a theory of operation and they're like, "I don't get it."

Troy Nevergall:

Yep. Every aspect of machinery, electronics or hydraulics, or even powertrain for that matter, fuel systems, there's a theory and there's lots of piece parts of it and components of it that all have to tie in together. And so, understanding that theory of why do we use that sensor to tell the controller that the temperature is this. Or the hydraulic temperature is this, so why does the engine controller need to know that? And it was like, well, we can start to cut the pumps back. Or I should say, the hydraulic controller, why does it need to know what the engine temperature is? It's like, well, we cut the pumps back and reduce the load on the engine and continue to operate, instead of just overheating the engine into oblivion. And so, understanding why those interact with one another and understanding why that theory of it is so important.

But I think, you talk about it being a good mechanic or being a good technician these days is, I'm afraid we're losing that with... The way of the manufacturer today is, especially when it comes to warranty, they want you to be able to replace the part and don't tear into it. They don't even sell seal kits for some things because they want to go back to their supplier if it's a failure under warranty and get reimbursed from them.

And so, they don't want the dealer tearing into some of that stuff. And I think we're losing the ability to understand the internal workings of those components, and basically turning our technicians into parts changers. They don't get a chance to find the failure, get a chance to tear down and see what came loose, or what was maybe a design issue in the pump, when the oil is really cold and won't flow, how long does that survive without oil flowing, with lubrication flowing to it? And how many startups on a cold morning, -10 degrees, is that going to run?

And when you tear into the component, you can identify that and find out it's starved for oil. But you never ran low on oil, but it was starved for oil, and we just don't even worry about that stuff these days. We just put a new part on it and go on.

Melissa:

Yeah, I completely agree with that.

Troy Nevergall:

He ended up tearing it down and figuring out that they need to design it differently, or run a lower winter-weight oil, or whatever the case is. And I think we take that away. Whereas before, when you were a technician, you brought in a machine, and you went through the entire thing. And no big, hard parts are replaced. Lots of seals, lots of packing kits, and maybe some rotating groups and whatnot. But you were rebuilding these components instead of wholesale replacing them, and the industry leans towards that replacement today.

Melissa:

Oh, yeah. Because I've been through, I mean, I don't know. I can't even count how many John Deere classes I've been through.

Troy Nevergall:

You have nails?

Melissa:

Yeah. That's the incredible thing, is when I'm not working on shit every day, my nails aren't receding back into my finger. It's a cool... They're still dirty, but it's me, so. But, with classes and stuff like that, it's an interesting thing. Because I've been through countless John Deere classes. And this is not even including the capstone classes.

And what I realized is, the little videos that they show you of components and pumps and how they work and the internals of it, you know the little schematic things that... How do I explain this? They're the little picture movable picture things of the control valves on top of the pumps, and the pumps, and stuff like that, and it's a 2D, I guess, animation of it. It kind of works, but it's not... I've never actually gotten that much out of it. It has helped me so much to be able to... I think the first time I saw a big axial piston pump torn down was when Jason did that cleanout on that grater, and he tore apart that.

And just being able to physically... Even though I've seen schematics, and I've seen the little animation videos, and I've seen all that a million times, seeing that pump torn down, and actually getting my hands on... This is the rotating group. This is what the little pistons look like. This is what the feet look like. Makes so much more sense. And especially when you go into the original problem with the machine, is that it had metal in the system that was brass. At first you're like, well, brass slipper feet in a pump. What the fuck does that mean? You know that's what it is, but what the does that mean? And then you tear it apart and you see it, and you're like, "That makes a lot of sense."

And I feel like I agree with you that we're missing that. And even with engines, no one does engine rebuilds anymore. I think I've done two in the seven years that I was a mechanic. I did a couple single-cylinder things under warranty, but for the most part, it was short blocks and long blocks and complete engines. It's sad. Well, even without warranty. Or I guess what you're saying is the parts warranty. The parts warranty on those are two years versus the labor warranty of 90 days. Of course a customer is going to opt for that.

Troy Nevergall:

Well, and it's just better for the shop environment. It's better business practice that you offer that to a customer. Once again, that relationship building. "You're going to have a two-year warranty on it. It's going to be a faster repair. We don't want you to have issues with it." And it's a vicious circle in that respect, because we're not offering those experiences to younger technicians. They're getting less and less of that exposure to that because we don't want a young technician that doesn't have a lot of experience, that doesn't have the attention to detail developed yet, and those kind of things, to create a rework scenario. And so, the easiest thing is to get it from outside from a rebuild center that that's what they do, that's what they focus on, and you put that in. And then when there's a problem, it's their problem.

Melissa:

Yeah, you send it back. Yeah. What the fuck, John Deere.

Troy Nevergall:

It's vicious because we want to be able to do it. We can't do it because it doesn't make business sense. We don't expose a technician to do it. Pretty soon they're in the industry 6, 7, 10 years, and they've never rebuilt an engine before. They'd always replaced them. They'd done a lot of R&Rs, and hanging components on them, but they did not do any of the internal repair or rebuild of that. So, that is tough.

Melissa:

And the rebuild that I did was for the ag dealership I worked at in Cheyenne. And the whole reason I actually did a rebuild on that was because it was a 6090 that had the piston ring warranty pip on it. And that wasn't actually the original complaint, the original complaint was, I did an oil change on it and it looked like a milkshake. Or sorry, it didn't. That one, different machine. That one actually had the whole cooling system where the coolant in the oil pan in the bottom when you drain the oil out, it was just all water, and then the oil came out. Long story short, it had a head gasket failure, which caused that. But when I took the head off, because I was just going to do a head gasket at the time, when I took the head off, you can see the little streaks going down the cylinder walls.

I'm like, "This has got broken rings in it." Which, honestly, almost all 6090s I tore apart have at least one starting, little groove going. But this one had big... It was bad. And I'm like, "Guys, this needs a rebuild or something, because there's like three cylinders in here that are fucked up." And so we took it out, and I got to do a full rebuild on it. And I'm talking down to camshaft bushings I replaced, and I did all of that. We had the head machined and went through the machine shop. I actually took the valves out of that head, and then... I don't know why I did. They had me take the valves out, and then we sent all of that to the machine shop.

They did all the valve seats and everything, cleaned it up, brought it back, and we bought an actual rebuild kit for it. And I did a full rebuild on that engine. And the only reason I was allowed to do that was because that was actually our fleet tractor. So, not only did they have part of it covered because of that pip, but they were at... The end cost of that was my hourly wage, not the hourly rate. So, they allowed me to do that. But, that is one of the very few instances that I've done what I consider a rebuild. I don't consider a short block that already comes with a rotating assembly in it a rebuild. I don't consider a long block a rebuild. That is, you are swapping parts over. That is not a rebuild.

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah, exactly. You're just hanging parts on it.

Melissa:

Yeah. Which, I mean, you still got to set timing on some of that. If you get a short block, you still got to sometimes, depending. Usually the timing's already set, but I know on some of the smaller engines where they have that timing plate that doesn't come on the engine, you got to take all that shit out, and then put the plate back on it, and then retime it. Which is stupid, but whatever.

But I feel like a lot of these people are missing that. Because I knew what the inside of engines looked like from my own projects. I've rebuilt my own engines, I've done a lot of shit in my own personal time. There's a lot of technicians that don't have that, or don't have that option, or don't do that, don't have the facilities to do that, don't care to do that on their own stuff.

So, the fact that they're not getting to do that at work, like you said, it's kind of handicapping them because they don't actually know. And I'm a very hands-on learner, and a very visual person, and seeing actual components helps a lot. And I feel like a lot of mechanics are like that anyways, but I don't know.

Troy Nevergall:

Touch and feel and see how that component fits into the next, and so forth. It's pretty important for the learning process. I want to go back to something. We were talking about education, trade school, paying attention in class, understanding fundamentals, understanding theory of operation, all those things. And I have to give you kudos for... We had an opportunity to get you into a class. You didn't have all the prerequisites met yet. And I think you needed the, I don't know what it was, Electronics 2, or Electrical 2 or something. And there was a bypass testing.

Melissa:

I remember that.

Troy Nevergall:

And I laid out my plan, tried to get you in the class, and they said, "Oh, don't even bother. Nobody's ever been able to pass the bypass. You got to go to the in-person class to do that because it's too tough to do just the bypass." I go, "No, I believe in her. I think she can do it. If anybody can do it, I think that she can do it." And you did really well on it, passed the bypass no problem, and got into the-

Melissa:

Barely passed it, but I did pass it. That test, though. I tell you what, that test was fucking hard. That is probably the hardest test I have ever taken because it was not just... Thank God you guys had a book that I could use to study, and which is the same book you guys gave everybody, I guess, who've tried. And I was fresh out of tech school. But it wasn't just like how does this work, and how does that work, and what is a solenoid, and what is... It wasn't that. It was, "Here's a bunch of fucking mathematical equations that we're going to throw in your face, and here's 30 questions on it. Figure it out." And it was... Yeah. And there was a time limit on it, too.

Troy Nevergall:

And I think you're the only one that's ever, through that organization, had ever passed it. Because other people had tried, and had to end up going to the in-person class. And it was something that I had confidence you could do it, and you did it. So yeah, kudos to you. And I just want to put that out there because yeah. What I said earlier, you're the real deal, and-

Melissa:

Tried. I had some struggles here and there, but.

Troy Nevergall:

Have the mistakes, and the embarrassment comes along with cleaning up oil, and-

Melissa:

A lot. That happened so many times. So many times. I had to change my clothes like once a week. I had an incident where I had to change all my clothes. Forever there. And it was always... I never got away with it, ever. Every fucking time I'm just about to have a bad moment, or have a bad moment, here comes you, or here comes Rick. Just doing their rounds and I'm like, motherfucker. I can't get away. I can't even have the sad moment of drenching myself in oil, and go upstairs and get changed, and not have anybody see. And then, obviously, I got Jason over there who's...

Or, Brian for a while. Brian's such a fucking character. There's this weird misconception with mechanics that start in this industry. And I see this a lot. I did not necessarily have this, and I don't know why I didn't have this, but there's a lot of misconception with mechanics starting in the industry. They get out of trade school and they're like, "I'm going to be rebuilding engines right away." And then they're mad that they're not doing that.

And I've never understood this. And a lot of these mechanics get pissed off, or they end up quitting or whatever, because they come out of trade school and they're not doing engine rebuilds. And it's like, "Well, yeah."

Troy Nevergall:

Trade schools promote a lot of the engine, the power plant aspect of being a diesel tech or being a diesel mechanic. Cause that's where it originates and comes from is the, yeah, let's get into the biggest piece of the piece of equipment or truck or whatever. It all comes down to the power plant. But that's not the reality. The reality is that there's lots of hoses and air lines and brake jobs and clutches.

And the reality of wrenching on a truck or the reality of equipment is hydraulics and electronics these days. And after treatments. It's not so much the core engine, it's always the after treatment, which is hard to diagnose, hard to keep up with the technology basis of that.

So no, it's not all the glory of I've got an engine on the bench, or I've got one on a stand and I'm tearing it down to the block, and we're getting the machine work done, and we're doing all that. Because that's not the reality because people don't want to spend $70,000 on an engine rebuild if they can do something else. So, yeah. I think the technician that's new to the industry does get disappointed and defeated on what they're actually going to be doing on a day-to-day basis. But like when you came into the industry, I mean you were working at a truck shop before getting into equipment. So, what was your day-to-day like? I mean I think it was-

Melissa:

It's similar. I mean, for the most part, I was just the other mechanics' bitch, pretty much. I just helped them with shit. And I was more than happy doing that. I did some oil changes, I did services, I did DOT inspections. Actually, really similar to what I did with you guys starting out, when I started on cranes where I was doing services and DOTs. Or not DOTs, but inspections and shit like that. That's what I started...

And I didn't have a problem with that. I didn't see an issue with that. I helped with some single-cylinder engine rebuilds, and I helped with... But I can't actually claim that, "Oh, I was doing that." I was helping another mechanic. And I think you remember this. The reason I actually left that shop is because we didn't have work. I was getting 40-hour paychecks, which meant I was only getting 20 hours a week, and I had just bought a house.

So, it was just not going to work. So, I didn't actually spend that much time doing my own work at that shop. A lot of it was helping other mechanics, which I was more than happy to. I've always been fine with helping people. And I was young. I didn't know what I was doing. But I never entered the industry thinking, "I'm going to be doing engine rebuilds my first..." I never thought that. So, where's that disconnect coming from, and is it the trade school's not doing a good enough job of being like, "Hey, this is the expectations of entering the industry," or what is it? Because I never had that. I knew I was going to be doing shit jobs.

Troy Nevergall:

Well, I remember when you came in, and that was the thing. I do remember that well, that you were at work in the morning. By 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning, you were getting sent home.

Melissa:

Yep.

Troy Nevergall:

And instead of going home, you went out in the neighborhood and hit up the other shops around.

Melissa:

Yep.

Troy Nevergall:

And you asked that question, "What will I be doing? Will I be helping-"

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:48:04]

Troy Nevergall:

... you ask that question, what will I be doing? Will I be helping another technician or will I be in... It's like we don't have the time to and we have too much of a workload to... We'll have you shadow somebody, but you're going to get your own jobs, you're going to be able to diagnose it and do it and we gave you the aptitude test. Which you did really well on by the way, and knew that we had somebody that was really dedicated to the industry and dedicated to the actual technology side of it. The fundamentals of electrical and hydraulics, electrical systems, hydraulic systems and powertrain and those kind of things. And that aptitude test weeded out a lot of people and we knew that we were dealing with somebody that was serious about it because frankly you were pretty young, didn't have a lot of experience.

Melissa:

Yeah, I was 19.

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah, yeah, you were. Wow. Makes me feel old.

Melissa:

I feel old.

Troy Nevergall:

And when you came in it's like "Let's give her a chance." You killed the, it was a 20 question test, most people would get, average is probably like 11 or 12, correct. I don't know that you missed more than one maybe.

Melissa:

Really? I didn't know I did that good.

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah, you did very well on it. And that gave us that idea that you studied hard, you paid attention in class and understood the fundamentals. But also we didn't cut any slack either. And I remember if you couldn't break a bolt loose or if you're rebuilding a cylinder and couldn't get the rod nut off, it's like well get a longer cheater pipe and hang on the end of it.

Melissa:

Crane the crane, fucking impact something.

Troy Nevergall:

Figure it out, because we didn't catch any slack either because you're female in the industry. It's like we have this expectation of technicians, what they're expected to do and what we can assign jobs to and we don't want to limit anybody.

Melissa:

Well I always tell people, and I've told this story like a thousand times probably, of how I even got into heavy equipment, because that was not my original path. Like you said, I actually worked at a truck shop and I actually applied to a bunch of truck shops before I even looked at you guys. And no one would hire me unless it was a night shift. And I finally, I saw your guys' sign, I'm like, "You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to walk in there." And I don't know if people really value either, in the aspect of trying to get a job, is I didn't apply online to any of these places. I walked in and asked for an application and asked to talk to somebody. I think you guys were busy that day. So I took the application in and I think Beats told you guys about me.

And then I came in for an interview later and I just specifically remember you telling me like, "Well, we're actually only hiring a level two mechanic and obviously you're not a level two, but let me see what I can do." And that's when I took the aptitude test. And I also remember you telling me that you already had a female mechanic working in the shop. And I'm like "Hmm." And Hatley, she was working in the shop, she was in the crane department. And I tell people this all the time, that starting in your shop was a blessing because I was treated exactly like the men. I wasn't given any special treatment and I wasn't receiving the other end of the deal where I was getting shit treatment because I was a girl. I was literally treated like all the guys there. And it set a standard for the rest of the shops I worked in.

And I've tried to tell people this and I've tried to tell young people this, that the first shop you work in is very important, because that kind of sets your standard for the rest of the industry and it sets your standard for the rest of the shops you work in, whether you relocate or whatever the case may be. And I ran into, in shops past, that I was getting special treatment because I was a girl, actually the shop I worked in directly after you guys, they were sending me to shows, they were sending me to this that, putting me in commercials, stuff like that. And that's the thing that Mark [inaudible 00:52:44] actually shielded me from and you guys shielded me from, was things like that.

And I didn't realize how important that was until I went to a shop that tried to put my face all over everything and I finally had to fucking tell these people that, "Hey, I'm not going to any more of these shows unless you send a guy with me. I'm not doing it." Because these guys are getting mad because I'm going to these, the farm shows, going to high schools, whatever, they're getting mad because I'm getting time off work to go do this shit and they're not. So you're going to make it fair and you're going to make the guys go with me or send the guys instead of me to some of these, because I don't want that animosity in the shop. And it's sad that I actually had to go to that level to tell them that. It's sad.

Troy Nevergall:

It's sad it's not understood already that you were getting preferential treatment, because of who you were. And really a guy can represent that industry. I mean, clearly you represent it very well, but it's kind of being exploited I guess to go out to the shows and do those things. But that's a piece of what you dealt with beyond the normalcy of being a technician and the struggles of making a diagnosis, the condition of the machine when it arrives in, all those things that's already makes the job difficult, that you have to be thinking, you're always on point of thinking, "How is this going to affect everybody else's perception of me?" That's a tough aspect of it.

Melissa:

Well, your reputation in the industry is very important. And I remember my first few years, you guys kind of molded who I was going to be as a mechanic. I remember that first engine job I did that was a long block in that generator unit that I didn't zip tie all the shit up and I didn't put all the bolts back into the clamps. I distinctly remember getting my ass chewed for that. But guess what, after that I made sure that, "Hey, if I didn't have a bolt for one of these clamps, we're going to find a new bolt for it and put it back. So at least make it look like it's supposed to be there and make look good, because you can't have shit half-assed stuff going out of the shop.

Troy Nevergall:

Whether that customer ultimately understands or knows who worked on that piece of equipment or that truck, it's your reputation out there. And you would like to be proud of what you did so that if a customer asks, "Hey, who was it that worked on my truck?" Or loader, it would be that you'd be proud to say, "Hey, I did that. That was me." And hopefully they're asking because they're wanting to give credit to where it's due on who worked on it. You do have to take pride in what you do on a day-to-day basis. And if it takes a little longer, it takes a little longer, but making sure that you put a good product out is the utmost importance. And building those relationships with customers is, I mean different than the car industry where you're kind of just working on a car and you don't understand the customer, the service writer had that relationship with customer and the technician really does not get that and doesn't seek it, doesn't have the time to develop it.

Equipment industry, truck industry, those guys are always looking for somebody they can count on, somebody they can lean on to be partnered in their business with them and they're happy to pay, they're happy to pay the labor rates that we're asking for these days in the industry if they know that they can count on, because they're basing that machine operating or that truck rolling down the road, because really it's a tool for them, it's a tool in the industry to make money. With that tool, they employ other people, they've got other crews that are working around that piece of equipment or they've got team drivers that are in that truck and there's more people relying upon that tool being operational and running and that's something they can count on.

Melissa:

Oh yeah, well it's production, right?

Troy Nevergall:

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And so I think that that relationship building within our industry particularly, is more important. And taking that pride is more important and making sure that it's been tested well and you're notifying them of other needed repairs at the same time you're making that repair for what was asked for. I mean it just goes hand in hand to developing that.

Melissa:

But I was doing a control valve on, I think it was a 250D, I want to say, an older excavator at the other construction shop I was working at. And I started toting up some of my wrenches up there and I'm like, "Fuck this." And I took my whole green little tool cart and hooked it to the crane and then I put it up there and put it up on the fucking top and everybody was laughing at me like, "Why the fuck is your toolbox on the top of the excavator?" I was like, "'Cause I'm fucking lazy and I really don't want to be walking up and down this motherfucker. You know how much time I'm going to save right now?"

Troy Nevergall:

Exactly. And that's the whole thing. That's genius to put it up there, because when you're running your efficiencies and how fast you can get that repair done, I mean all you're doing is helping yourself. You're just more efficient in what you're doing and what you're working on. I mean, that was the outside the box thinking that is great and that you should be applauded for.

Melissa:

I get asked this question all the time and you might laugh at it because obviously you've seen me work, I get asked this question all the time and they're like, "How does such a small girl work on such big equipment? I don't understand. It's all so heavy." And my answer to this every single time is like, "Well, the button on the crane works fucking awesome. I don't know, it is kind of hard on my thumbs sitting there pressing buttons all day. I don't know how I do it either. I'm just a fucking badass I guess."

Troy Nevergall:

I guess people lose vision on what... Yes, it's hard heavy work and the tooling, you get into one inch drive stuff, it gets heavy, but physically it takes a toll on you, but you can get it done, work smarter, not harder.

Melissa:

Yeah, ratchet straps go a long way too.

Troy Nevergall:

Use the tooling that's in the shop, use the tooling that's in the shop. We've got long breaker bars for a reason. We've got lifting straps and spreader bars and all of the rigging to make the pick on something that's not necessarily built to be picked out like a hydrostat pump section, pump assembly out of a skid where the cab is right over the top of it. But get creative and get a T-bar and get a little assistance and work smarter, not harder. That's what it has to be.

Melissa:

I started in this industry, when I started at your guys' shop, I weighed 115 pounds. I was tiny, people think I'm small now, they should have seen me when I started in your shop. I look back at some of the pictures and I'm like, "Oh my fucking God. I was so small." And obviously that was way before I started lifting weights and stuff, so I was really fucking tiny. And it's like I found a way, figured it out, I was fine. And I've also seen people laugh at me because they're like, they think I'm too small for it. I have watched a man use a crane for a 15 pound water pump in the front of a tractor. So that's definitely something that's like "Bro, if I can sit there and do that, I'm pretty sure you can." And he wasted a fucking 30 minutes, getting the fucking crane all the way over there and hooking it up and then I'm like, "Bro, that would've taken five minutes if you would've just lifted it up there and put it in there."

But I can say that because I'm 115 pounds, if I can do it, you're 200 pound ass can do it, I promise. But people say that a lazy mechanic's a good mechanic, and that's kind of true to an extent, because we're going to find the fastest and the ways that make the most sense that are faster and more efficient. But there's also a line to the lazy scale, where if you're sitting on your computer all the time or you have to use a crane for a 15 pound water pump on the front of a tractor.

It took me a long time. I used to get so mad at people, especially after coming out of your shop. I used to be so mad, get so fucking irritated when I'd see people sitting on their computers, sitting on their phones and sitting, bullshitting. I used to be that fucking bitch that got really irritated about that because the way I was taught that was unacceptable. And I think what shops also need to kind of understand is you start letting people get away with that and it starts becoming a habit too. And I would be the first one to admit that kind of became a habit of me too. I had to catch myself and I had to work on myself with that. And the phone's so fucking annoying.

What is so important on your phone? I mean, I get it because I've been there. I've had those days where I'm like, "I don't fucking want to be here at all." But I think shops need to work on the standards their setting because when their people that are working and are trying and we take breaks, we're on our phones on our break time and maybe if we get a phone call, it's important or a text message, we'll answer it real fast or whatever. For the most part, we're not really on our phones. So the people are actually out there trying and working hard, it's really disheartening to see other people get away with shit like that. To see other technicians getting away with not doing their fucking job and being lazy. And I was just talking to this guy yesterday about that and about the shop atmospheres and how that can be important and how one shitty mechanic can bring down, especially if they're in a lead position where they're a higher mechanic or whatever, one mechanic or one leader or one person with a shit attitude can bring the entire shop down. And it's hard.

Troy Nevergall:

I think it kind of lends itself to what's the leadership like in the shop, what is the service manager like, is there a foreman... How does he manage and assign jobs and all those things. And it does come down to leadership within the shop, because you set a standard, everybody has to meet the same standard. I mean you start setting different standards for different people because of whether they've been with the company a long time or they're new or maybe they're very experienced or they came from someplace else. The same standard has to apply to everybody regardless of how long they've been there, how much they know, whether they're male or female. The same standard has to apply, because ultimately the same work needs to get done. I mean, I think that as an industry we're missing out a lot of great female technicians that as an industry, was never welcomed into it. But ultimately that person, that female that's getting in an industry has to fulfill the same expectation.

Melissa:

Yeah, I agree with that completely.

Troy Nevergall:

So it goes back to how you came in, and what we asked you to do, and what we expected of you to do was something that we worked hard at not exploiting for one second, but also not cutting any slack for what we would be asking any other technician in the shop to do. And maintaining that standard is what I think a lot of people miss, a lot of shops miss. And then you have that animosity building because "So-and-so's getting away with it and I just got my ass reamed for doing the same thing." And for whatever reason, and I think ultimately, be consistent.

Melissa:

Oh yeah, I agree. And there's the other side of the scale where this is few and far between, but there's spoken to certain individuals that are female that are in this industry and their mindset is not correct. And I'm not saying there's a right and a wrong way of thinking, but this industry is a rough-cut industry. This is not for the fucking faint of hearted. You got to be in it for the right reasons. Your drive and your goals and how you perceive things has to be correct. Obviously, if some guy is being a sexist asshole, I get that. But you can't blame all your problems and all your failures on the men. I get asked this question all the time of like, "Oh my God, how it must be so hard working with all these men. Oh my God." And I'm like, "How is that relevant?" Because I can tell what's his face to go fuck off, "I'm working, leave me alone, fuck off." And we're fine.

Try that in a fucking office. Men are not this evil entity that is trying to destroy your career. And obviously, that's not the case for all men. I know there's shit people out there, but there's shit people on both sides. But yeah, it's not, as a whole, the industry is pretty welcoming to anybody that wants to be in the industry. So you can't enter the industry with this mindset of like, "Oh my God, these men are going to be horrible and I need to be scared and I need to work extra hard to prove myself." Work extra hard to prove yourself, but don't do it because you're fucking a girl. Do it because you want to be good at what you're doing and you want to prove that you're good at what you're doing.

Troy Nevergall:

And at the same time, don't expect that you're going to get softer treatment because you are female.

Melissa:

Exactly.

Troy Nevergall:

'Cause you're wanting to enter this industry. You need to understand it. Understand it's been male dominated for a long time, is continues to be. But what we're missing as an industry and as leaders of that, leaders of shops and service management and foreman and whatnot, they need to understand that they're missing out on 50% of society that could be great technicians.

Melissa:

Well, and I think a lot of that stems way back into not even, that's kind of like our end result of our crisis, that service managers aren't even getting the opportunity to hire a woman. So if you track back into that, where is this fucking issue starting? A lot of it is, if the high schools even offer electives, most women are going to see these automotive and welding electives, they're going to be like, "Fuck that. I don't want to get my hands dirty. That doesn't seem appealing to me at all."

Troy Nevergall:

I think it starts even before the high school age. I think we're in a throwaway society, nobody repairs anything anymore. I mean, I'm old, so it's a different landscape than what it was when I was growing up. But I mean you would repair radios. There was two TVs and two radios that I remember the tester, you'd take, at Kmart you'd take your tubes down and you would test them if they would work or not. And if they didn't work, then you bought a new tube and you went back and you fixed your TV or you fixed your radio. And I think it was just part of society back then that you repaired a lot of the things. It wasn't that far removed from farming society where you were independently dependent on yourself and you had to be able to repair things. You had to be able to work on stuff and keep things running.

And today we throw things away. It's not intended to be disassembled, it's not intended to be modified or repaired. You couldn't find your repair parts if you did get it apart and find out what was going on with it. And we just throw it away, we buy new. And that's just the way it is. And nobody understands that you can and have to fix things and want to get your hands dirty and figure out how to tinker with stuff and "I want to know why that sound comes out of those speakers. I want to know why the gearing on my bicycle functions the way it does and what makes the chain move." And I mean, if you look at things from a different set of lenses, you, I think get intrigued by that. And we're taking that away from our youth. 'Cause I think it begins before high school.

I think it begins, and I think Caterpillar does a great job with this, and I would love to know the motivation behind the toys. Not just providing a toy to a child, but I truly believe 20 years ago they were trying to develop technicians in the society because the haul truck that was provided, came with a little wrench set, plastic, but you could remove the tires from and the bed dump function worked and it articulated and all those things. And I think we need more of that in our adolescent timeframe that we can just know the things come apart and go back together and you can modify it. I mean I think the closest thing we have to that is Legos these days, but they're more toy like, they're not-

Melissa:

There's RC cars and stuff like that, but those are expensive.

Troy Nevergall:

And I think if we had more of those kind of things, we would develop more people that want to learn a trade and learn a-

Melissa:

Well and not teaching them that trade is this horrible low-life job either. I owned a house before I was 21 thanks to a trade, so I am making more money than my mother who has six college degrees.

Troy Nevergall:

Yes, and that's the other, we push our youth into college and "You have to go to school, you have to continue your education. You have to get a well paying job where you're in a cushy office environment and-"

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:12:04]

Troy Nevergall:

... cushy office environment and you work on a computer and you're going to do all these great things. The trades are so important and learning those trades are so important, and we've missed that mark on who qualifies for trades. For those students not getting high grades in English, Math and Science are automatically relegated to a junior college or hitting the industry in the trades when there's a lot of intelligent people in the trades. There's a lot of people that could've easily breezed through a four-year degree program [inaudible 01:12:40].

Melissa:

Or did already.

Troy Nevergall:

Or have already.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Troy Nevergall:

And they want to do something physical. They want to do something you can see your results. You have a broken machine truck come in and you put one out the door that's fixed and repaired and ready to put another 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 hours on it, or a million miles. And so I think there's results that you see and you get from working in trades in this industry, and I think we've lost that. There's something cool about, for outside of the diesel mechanics industry, there's something cool about framing a house, pouring a foundation, seeing those results, wiring up a house or plumbing it or whatever, and I think we're missing all that. I think it is being replaced by a lot of people coming in and taking over those trades, and unfortunately we have less people entering them. So how do we develop that? I don't know. I don't know. I think we're struggling now in 2022. I don't want to see what it looks like in 2024 or 2044.

Melissa:

Yeah. Well, I've always been a big advocate of the high school that I went to, granted my background of my father. You've met my father. You know where I grew up, and it's pretty obvious as to why I picked the industry. It's a pretty straightforward like, "This fucking makes sense," right? But when I went to high school in Laramie, they had automotive and welding and ag mechanics and agriculture and woodworking. And a lot of these electives were not just electives, they were required for graduation. You had to take at least one semester of automotive and you had to take at least one semester of either welding or woodworking. You had to pick between the two. It had to be one of those, though. You had to, to graduate.

So I've told this story a million times where you'll see girls and guys and the preppy kids, the weird emo-goth kids. You've got all the kids in a fucking welding class running beads on an arc welder. Do you think that they would've ever picked that if they had the choice? No. And maybe it's forcing it down their throats, maybe it's not, but at least it gives them the chance of like deciding, "Yes, I like this. This is fun. This is something I think I could do." Or like when I first started in middle school, it was late middle school in Walden is when I started welding and I took a welding class there. And I thought, I told my dad after the first day that we started welding, once we graduated from doing torch stuff to actually welding. I'm like, "Dad, I want to be a welder. I want to be a welder. I'm going to be a welder."

But even growing up around it, just having those resources and having that ability to try it and see if it works for you, I think that would help a lot. And having that on top of having what I'm trying to do with my social media and with this podcast is getting out there like this is a great trade to be in. This is a career. This is not just a shit job, this is a career. And I have used my following a lot to try to push like show videos of like maybe it's me and Cummins Cowgirl had this conversation about how it's kind of romanticized. Because women are starting to, they see it's trendy, right? It's trendy to work on your car. It's trendy to work on your truck. There's girls like me and Cummins Cowgirl that started doing this long before it was fucking cool, and we were posting it long before it was cool. We were posting it when we would get, the entire comment section is full of keyboard warriors that hate us, right, and we are still doing this.

Now it's like the coins have flipped, and I do think it's romanticizing the industry a little bit more than it should be on some of these. But you got the girl that's in a bikini being like, "When I show up to weld," I'm like, "That's not a realistic expectation, but okay." I mean, it gets views and likes and followers, so I get it. But guys, you're not wearing a bikini at work. I fucking promise. I wear guy's clothes, I'm wearing guy's shirts, I'm wearing the guy's jeans, come on. But it's hard because I'm trying to get it to where people understand that and see that this industry is a great option.

Troy Nevergall:

It is. It is a great option, and I understand what you're saying about being romanticized and it's trendy at this point to get into it. Because I think as I've been in the business and working in dealerships, I think we got to open our arms to any and all comers and give them a chance to get into it that truly want to get into it. But you got to get in into for the right reasons. You need to understand.

Melissa:

Yeah, you don't need to be into it because you want to take pictures at work, right? That's the misconception that people have with me a lot is like, "Oh, you're just doing it so you can take pictures and post it." I'm like, "No, I was doing this for five years before I started actually doing this in social media." But I get it, because there are people that do that.

Troy Nevergall:

Well, you're too invested in it. One, you invested in the training and the knowledge, because it takes years to gain that, but you also invested in your tooling. You can't just play in this, you can't dabble in it. You need to do it for the career, and it's a great career. It'll take you all kinds of places. You'll meet all kinds of great people in the industry, and it is a career and people need to understand that. It's tough, it's hard on your body. It's a long learning curve to get really exposed to all the different aspects of it, and there's a lot of investment. We talked about the tools earlier. It's a commitment, and they need to get into it for the right reasons, and there is great opportunity there for gals to get into it, guys alike, because we need any and all that want to get into it right now. The entire industry needs it.

[Inaudible 01:19:22] are competitive people in the world. And as nations compete for industry and compete for manufacturing superiority and all those things, we need to have these people in the United States and build their careers, and otherwise other people around the world will take over that manufacturing dominant.

Melissa:

Oh, yeah. Well, you're proof of it that you can start from nothing. And just because you start as a mechanic does not mean you have to be a silverback and be a mechanic until you're like 80. You don't have to. I hope he sees this. Oh, my goodness. But anyways, you don't have to do that. Obviously, there's some respect in that and that's the path that I kind of saw for myself like maybe not that part to an extent. But I wanted to be a mechanic for 20 years and then work up into being service manager and stuff like that, little that I know I'd be thrown to the wolves and running a shop for three months at year six. But there's a lot of room to grow. You don't have to stay in a shop until you can't walk anymore. You can put in 10, 15 years, 20 years or whatever, and then get into a leadership position and there's room to grow there.

Troy Nevergall:

Right now there's more opportunity than ever before because there's such a need in the industry, because it does, it filters out. Not everybody's going to want to step into a management role or take on that responsibility and the requirement of it. But there's fleet management opportunities and then there's opportunities within the manufacturers and there's so many different avenues that this takes you. But getting the fundamentals and spending your time and earning your chops to get there is so important, and it does. It opens up. When has a field truck for all these years, I met the greatest people and developed relationships as a provider in a customer and then developed more into friendships of great people, great dirt movers in the industry and big commercial builder successes, and it does. It opens up a lot of opportunity, a lot of fun stuff.

This being on the dirt side of it, every building that goes up, every water line, every storm drain, every canal system and sewer, you got to open up the ground to do that. Every over lot job, every housing development, it all started with the raw ground and then it was developed from there. And so you see in whole cities get built up around as you travel around and see this. It just opened your eyes, so many other things.

Melissa:

Oh, yeah. It is and it's an industry that obviously I can kind of be a hypocrite because I left the industry. But, yeah, still I miss it.

Troy Nevergall:

This is one of those avenues that opened up to you.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Troy Nevergall:

Because you did. You were in a shop working and toiling away, figuring out how to get jobs done and working smarter, not harder and getting dirty and then it opened up other opportunities for you.

Melissa:

Well, it's hard because the position I was in, like I wanted where I'm at right now. The construction dealership pretty much told me to go fuck myself because the lady had a comment from one of the guys when I interviewed there saying like the foreman wanted to hire me. He was all down for it like, "Fuck you. You've got fucking seven years of experience. Yes, we need you. Let's get you hired on yesterday."

And then the owner lady got wind of I had a following on social media and she looked up my social media and apparently the owners of this company are very, very old school, very, very modest, very I-don't-know-how-else-to-put-it people. And she said that she did not like my content that I post and that she had seen some of the videos I've taken in a shop and she does not want her company even remotely associated with anything I've posted. So if I were to be hired on there, I couldn't even take a picture. And I'm like, "Okay, I get it. It's your company. Is there a way I can work with you on this right?"

"Let me just explain something," is what I told her. "All these videos were taken after hours. Or if they weren't after hours, I had a camera recording and I was working. I wasn't sitting there constantly touching it and fucking with it and posting while I was at work. I did everything and I had permission from my bosses. This was not done behind their back. They all knew what I was doing. They all knew it. I had keys and shit to come in on Saturdays and do shit. And so is there a way I can work with you on making sure I don't show my uniform, make sure there's no decal in the pictures. Can I even just take pictures of equipment and not have me in it? Because this is something I love and I love to share it and I love what I do and I have a passion for it and I like to share it." And she said, "Absolutely, not."

Long story short, I did not work for that company. So the only other options I had were ag dealerships. And because someone like that, if they're not willing to work with you on something like that, they're not going to be willing to work with you on anything else that comes up in the future at all. So I'm like, "You know what? This is probably not the company for me." And so the company, all the other companies around in this area were agriculture dealers. Well, all the agriculture dealers are open on Saturdays and a lot of these people are so drowned in work that you are not just working half a day on Saturday, you are working full fucking days on Saturdays. Or if you are working half day on Saturday, you're working every fucking Saturday. And I didn't really have a choice so I hired on with the one company that said I could work every third Saturday, which never happened.

And then that was the best deal I could find. There were half days and they claimed that I could work every third Saturday when we were not in harvest season or planting season, which I thought was fair. Never turned out that way. I never had every third Saturday. I always worked almost every other Saturday. But this is a problem I discussed with the gentleman I talked to on the last episode was that the industry needs to work a little bit on the, there's got to be a balance, a home-life balance for your employees to be happy. And if you want good production out of your employees, they got to be happy. And one of the things being happy is having a decent home life. I would be more than happy to work 12-hour days for five days a week. More than happy to do that. Give me my fucking weekend.

Yeah. So when I got a call from Tyler and he is like, "Hey, well, this is what I got to offer you." At the time, it was like, "I'm so sick and tired of working six-day weeks and it is like fucking 95 degrees and with the humidity here, it's like 110." The shop doesn't have any overhead cranes and the overhead cranes it has are shit. None of these shops are... All these ag dealerships were really, really, really fucking small. I'm shocked they're a dealership. It's my fault because I was spoiled from the construction side that has overhead cranes and really nice overhead cranes, really big overhead cranes. And we did a lot of work with the service truck in the shop, the last shop I worked in, which was fine, honestly. It really wasn't horrible.

But it was kind of an easy decision for me to leave the industry, even though I sit here every day and I'm like, "I want to go to work," I want to go to work and I want to work on shit and I want to fix equipment and I want to work at Deer dealership. I don't want to fucking give away six of my seven days a week to do so, and it's just getting worse. It's getting worse and worse and worse.

Troy Nevergall:

It's compounded by not having the techs. I mean, the work is there. The whole COVID thing is what it is and it just created a bubble of people staying at home and remodeling their kitchen and doing whatever, and then they expanded the outside and landscapers are just hammered. So all the small equipment side of it, those guys are still going like gangbusters and we don't have enough techs to work on the equipment and so the ones we have are overworked. Even on the ag side, the whole industry, as guys retire and get out of the industry, you can't replace them. It just puts that much more of a burden on the ones that are in it and so then it requires you to work every Saturday, I mean, because the work is there and you're trying to get it out the door. So it is, it's just compounded by the lack of technicians right now.

And I don't know that labor statistics from a couple years ago, I do know that they're looking at a shortage of 20,000 technicians within a year or two of that timeframe, and maybe this goes back four years ago. I don't know what it is today. I don't know what the data tells you, but it's certainly. We're tens of thousands of technicians short today right now.

Melissa:

Well, every single shop is hiring. Every shop is hiring a technician of any level usually. Yeah, I would love to see that change because I would love to see people that are in my situation not leave the industry or not have that temptation or that I have a fucking life now. Back when I was working, even when I worked a lot of hours during the week, at least I had my fucking weekend to do shit, or Saturdays were optional.

Troy Nevergall:

That's a great aspect of the industry in general. Outside of the truck, you get into the equipment, it's a Monday through Friday gig. Because most dealerships are not open on Saturdays. Ag side is different, but on the construction side and, of course, truck shops are going to be different, but they're 24/7. But on the construction side industry, I mean, pretty much guarantee you're going to have your weekends. That's just not going to work. That's Monday through Friday gig. So it is, it's great aspect. It's a great career path to take, I think. And it's also great, the starting wages have bumped up so much.

Melissa:

Oh, even from when I started.

Troy Nevergall:

Inexperienced guys are commanding mid-20s to start or higher.

Melissa:

Yeah, which is insane. Because I started at 17 and I thought I was rolling in the dough when I started at 17.

Troy Nevergall:

At that time, we thought we were paying low wage too much for everybody and start at that time without the experience for that given time period and add $10 to that now. I mean, that's the reality.

Melissa:

Yep. Oh, yeah, it's in. The $30 an hour range is no longer just the field tech dream that can easily become a shop tech wage, and obviously that's dependent on the area. I'm not talking California guys because it's like $50 an hour. It's like a shit wage in California, so. Everywhere that's not California, that's normal the 30 to $40 an hour range. Yeah, I had a guy offer me. They're like, "Oh, we'll start you at $40 an hour if you'll get out here." I'm like, "Yeah. And what is my two-bedroom house I buy? Fucking half a million dollars? No, thank you. Or million dollars? No, I'm good."

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:32:11]