True Life Stories

“100% different from school”

I spent two years at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, studying to be an automotive technician. My instructors were great people, each with 25 to 30 years of industry experience. We spent five hours a day learning about technology and another two hours in the shop. By the time I got my diploma, I felt really knowledgeable about engines.

Then I started to look for a job. Oops. The ton of knowledge I’d acquired at school didn’t seem to be what employers were looking for.

I did manage to find a part-time gig at a local Ford dealership. I worked the night shift, mostly cleaning floors. I was determined to work my way up to a real job as a technician, so I spent almost a year at Ford, hoping something would open up.

Finally, I got a call from a small Audi shop. They offered me a real job as a technician!

I started as an apprentice in this shop, but I expected that. It’s standard industry practice for junior techs to spend at least two years as an apprentice under a more experienced journeyman. The journeyman is essentially a mentor—someone who teaches and watches over less experienced workers. In return, an apprentice is expected to drop everything and do whatever the journeyman asks. That usually meant all the dirty and boring work.

What did surprise me, however, was how little my two years of school had prepared me for a real job. School was mostly about theory—how things worked, how you measure engine performance and troubleshoot problems.

Working at Audi was 100% different from school. Theory wasn’t important: an Audi technician’s job is simply to figure out what’s broken and fix it, usually by installing a new part. That’s harder than it sounds: if you do a job wrong, it reflects badly on the whole shop and can cost a ton of money to fix right.

I learned quickly not to make the same mistake twice.

School also didn’t prepare me for the pressure of working fast. The first engine I rebuilt took me 67 hours to finish. Now that I know what I’m doing, that same job will take just nine hours. Since the shop generally charges a flat rate for each job, technicians who work fast bring in more profits and are better paid. The rule here is, “Get it right, but don’t take forever.”

Something else that caught me by surprise was how closely everyone at Audi worked together. If you get really stuck, you ask someone and they help. We’re like a family. We all talk to each other, and our boss is a guy I can always ask for advice.

At the same time, there’s much more hierarchy than I expected at our shop. In school, I was part of a class of 30 or so people who were pretty much at the same level in terms of knowledge and experience. At Audi, the senior techs have tremendous experience, and there’s a kind of etiquette about how a new apprentice like me would show respect for this experience. It wasn’t an easy transition from school, but I’ve learned a lot about paying and earning respect.

Of course, school did teach a few lessons that were priceless in my real-world job. At SAIT, showing up on time was a big deal. Classroom doors were closed and locked at 8:00 in the morning, and if you were late or absent more than three times, you’d get kicked out school. By the time you earned a diploma, you’d certainly learned something about the work ethic!

Richard Twiddy
Calgary, Alberta