I feel sure the tech has learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully he will be able to move forward without a lot of crap from the other posters on TT. Mr. Brodozer on the other hand has learned he can get someone fired when his feelongs get hurt.
I feel sure the tech has learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully he will be able to move forward without a lot of crap from the other posters on TT. Mr. Brodozer on the other hand has learned he can get someone fired when his feelongs get hurt.
One more point...
A photo of a giant dongle in an unidentifiable setting is significantly less of a privacy threat than the thousands of digital photos the average soccer mom uploads regularly of their kids (and their friend's kids) .
The metadata attached to a photo can identify the time and place it was shot, plus soccer mom's obsession with tagging photos on FaceBook and Instagram is a recipe for disaster. This can easily lead to enormous breaches of privacy and safety, most of which can not be stopped (even the rare soccer mom who wipes metadata from their pics before posting can't stop 100 of their friends from doing it, and tagging them).
So, I find this conversation humorous at best. We are spending enormous amounts of energy worrying about the "right" and "wrong" of "privacy" issues, but we are tilting at windmills. The truth is, we regularly and consistently ignore the real and present danger of the privacy elephant the the room.
An automotive tech or a construction laborer is simply NOT the keeper of any private information that matters.
spitfirebill wrote: I feel sure the tech has learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully he will be able to move forward without a lot of crap from the other posters on TT. Mr. Brodozer on the other hand has learned he can get someone fired when his feelongs get hurt.
Unfortunately, I don't think he has learned a valuable lesson.
The lesson he learned was "Don't talk about stupid stuff, especially on the internet". That will unfortunately mean that he will not speak up next time he sees someone about to roasted in a fireball.
The lesson he SHOULD have learned was how to deal with this appropriately. His GM should have supported him, and trained him in better ways to communicate and disseminate the info. Perhaps even have someone at the dealership do it regularly, as a PSA, so they can clean up the posts for privacy concerns. Then, the GM should have assisted the tech in communicating the problem to the other exhaust shop. It was THEIR tech who probably should have been fired.
This tech knew better, and was capable of making the world a better place, even if he wasn't the best communicator.
He has been silenced.
Privacy isn't really the issue. The issue is the context in which the guy made the post. Whether he meant to or not that subreddit is for calling out people that do stupid things with their cars, so basically he is calling out the customer as stupid in a way that readily identified the customer.
Maybe the customer is stupid, but if you want to keep your job you usually don't overtly call them that and that is essentially what happened here. You can't sit here and say, "Well, it's just the Internet, no one looks at that!"
I consider my friends to be the ones that call me out when I do something stupid.
Those that don't- not my friends.
If the GM gave a flip about people, he would see the value of warning as many people as possible about the safety risk that was created.
And then train his employee better in how to communicate appropriately.
I say it is the GM's fault, not the tech's.
SVreX wrote: I consider my friends to be the ones that call me out when I do something stupid. Those that don't- not my friends. If the GM gave a flip about people, he would see the value of warning as many people as possible about the safety risk that was created. And then train his employee better in how to communicate appropriately. I say it is the GM's fault, not the tech's.
You're not really making much sense here. So, you're good with a complete stranger, that you are paying to help you, publicly calling you out as stupid on the Internet in front of thousands of people?
I've worked in customer service a lot and I've never met anyone that wants to be called stupid, even if they are stupid. I'm pretty sure you're coming at this from the smart person perspective.
I've been called stupid. I have gotten butthurt from it. I didn't burn down the asshat's house.
In reply to Appleseed:
I think its a tundra specific problem......even the Nissan fanbois rag on them at this point. 
Harvey wrote:SVreX wrote: I consider my friends to be the ones that call me out when I do something stupid. Those that don't- not my friends. If the GM gave a flip about people, he would see the value of warning as many people as possible about the safety risk that was created. And then train his employee better in how to communicate appropriately. I say it is the GM's fault, not the tech's.You're not really making much sense here. So, you're good with a complete stranger, that you are paying to help you, publicly calling you out as stupid on the Internet in front of thousands of people? I've worked in customer service a lot and I've never met anyone that wants to be called stupid, even if they are stupid. I'm pretty sure you're coming at this from the smart person perspective.
You'd be right, if I had actually said that.
But there was that little part where I said "communicate appropriately"...
I think we can both agree that a "complete stranger publicly calling you out as stupid on the Internet" hardly qualifies as "communicating appropriately".
I'm pretty sure that YOU are coming at this from the "smart person perspective", meaning "Everyone should be perfect at all times and never make a mistake, and since this guy wasn't so good at communicating, he got what he deserved". I don't buy that.
I believe in great leadership. The role of a leader is to train and guide those that are following, and not expect them to be perfect at everything at all times.
This tech had all the credentials to likely make him a good tech. Unfortunately, he had a lousy leader who couldn't train him in some of the other skllls he might need to succeed at his job, like handling a customer, and communicating well.
His boss was a coward. He threw him under the bus to appease a sorry piece of E36 M3 customer, instead of handling the problem appropriately.
Hopefully, the guy gets a better leader, wherever he is going.
SVreX wrote: His boss was a coward. He threw him under the bus to appease a sorry piece of E36 M3 customer, instead of handling the problem appropriately. Hopefully, the guy gets a better leader, wherever he is going.
This. The customer has shown he's a whiner. Now he knows he can whine whenever he wants to this GM and get whatever he wants whenever he wants it. I've seen it a thousand times and it never gets any better.
Bobzilla wrote:SVreX wrote: His boss was a coward. He threw him under the bus to appease a sorry piece of E36 M3 customer, instead of handling the problem appropriately. Hopefully, the guy gets a better leader, wherever he is going.This. The customer has shown he's a whiner. Now he knows he can whine whenever he wants to this GM and get whatever he wants whenever he wants it. I've seen it a thousand times and it never gets any better.
And he has taught whiners all over the world (thanks to the magic of the internet) that they too can win by intimidating laborers and workers.
There may have been thousands of techs who have read that and would now think twice about voicing an opinion on a legitimate safety concern.
I wish the pain stopped at that one sorry piece of crap GM. Unfortunately, he is training GM's all over the world how to be cowards.
I find myself getting increasingly tired of "Look at how stupid those people are and how smart in am in comparison" messages. As I move through life and continue learning, I realizes just how much I don't know about any number of topics. I am guessing many others here have had the same experience. It means we are ignorant, but not necessarily stupid.
The one thing I have learned, is calling people stupid, even where it seems deserved, rarely does any good. Posting "I fixed something hazardous today that you may want to know about" is an entirely different message than,"This is stupid and all involved are deserving of ridicule."
When your message is laced with statements that sound like an ego gratifying need to be show superiority, you alienate people. You should not be surprised if it blows up in face.
In reply to Type Q:
Orrr..... people can learn to not get butthurt over E36 M3 that they did that was stupid. You know.... own it.
The customer did not learn anything he did not already know, and did not teach anybody predisposed to such courses of action anything that they didn't already know. Nor is the GM teaching other GM's anything that they too did not already know. The only one who may have learned any type of lesson (good, bad, or indifferent) from this unfortunate situation was the tech.
In reply to Driven5:
And other techs (or other types of employees) reading about it online.
... but the GM COULD have taken the opportunity to teach everyone (owner, other GM's, techs, etc.) something new and positive.
By acting with cowardice, he failed to do so, and perpetuated all of the problems. The tech is still just as bad at communicating, the owner is still just as big a whiner, Tundra forum posters have been given no good example, and employees everywhere have been sent the message, "Watch out! Say something uncomfortable, and The Man will kick you out." He saved his job by throwing someone else under the bus.
I would guess that this tech has read or heard something somewhere about other service industry professionals that have been fired for posting unprofessional work/customer related content online, and that never stopped him from doing it. As such, I doubt many (any?) of the other techs reading about it online will significantly alter their own behavioral patterns from reading about what happened to some other tech somewhere else in the world either.
I also still don't follow how this would make any decent tech think twice about reporting (and hopefully correcting) an unsafe condition in whatever appropriate manner they should have been trained to do, as there is still a major liability issue there if they don't.
There were opportunities for ALL parties involved to handle the their part in this better, which could have taught a positive and valuable lesson to others about how such situations can be better resolved. But if it actually happened that way, then we surely never would have heard about it...As that type of thing isn't 'newsworthy'.
SVreX wrote: ... but the GM COULD have taken the opportunity to teach everyone (owner, other GM's, techs, etc.) something new and positive. By acting with cowardice, he failed to do so, and perpetuated all of the problems. The tech is still just as bad at communicating, the owner is still just as big a whiner, Tundra forum posters have been given no good example, and employees everywhere have been sent the message, "Watch out! Say something uncomfortable, and The Man will kick you out." He saved his job by throwing someone else under the bus.
That's the takeaway from this incident? That "the man" is keeping people down for exercising their right to say something uncomfortable? I'm not sure how anyone gets that from this incident. Fact is the takeaway from this should be, don't call out a customer publicly on the Internet for being stupid and then be surprised when they find out about it and get pissed.
As for the tech, he seems to have learned his lesson about posting public commentary about his job on the Internet based on his followup post.
http://web.archive.org/web/20150409193439/http://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/31x3ot/a_slap_in_the_face/
I guess I'm writing this to just remind all the technicians out there, be careful what you post up. Even though I kept all identifying information out, people still get angry and bad things can still happen.
Although I think he is being pretty naive if he thinks he kept all identifying information out of the post. I mean, just by virtue of the fact that the guy found the post he should realize he didn't keep identifying information out of his post.
Driven5 wrote: I would guess that this tech has read or heard something somewhere about other service industry professionals that have been fired for posting unprofessional work/customer related content online, and that never stopped him from doing it. As such, I doubt many (any?) of the other techs reading about it online will significantly alter their own behavioral patterns from reading about what happened to some other tech somewhere else in the world either. I also still don't follow how this would make any decent tech think twice about reporting (and hopefully correcting) an unsafe condition in whatever appropriate manner they should have been trained to do, as there is still a major liability issue there if they don't. There were opportunities for ALL parties involved to handle the their part in this better, which could have taught a positive and valuable lesson to others about how such situations can be better resolved. But if it actually happened that way, then we surely never would have heard about it...As that type of thing isn't 'newsworthy'.
It won't make anyone think twice about actually doing their job properly, because an appropriate way to address this would have been to show it to the service writer and whatever head tech is there and then have them talk to the customer and then make a repair.
Posting the whole thing on the Internet serves no purpose whatsoever as the problem is so stupidly obvious. No one needs to be told not to route the exhaust into wiring, because if you actually are dumb enough to do that you probably don't know how to use the Internet.
Bobzilla wrote: In reply to Type Q: Orr..... people can learn to not get butthurt over E36 M3 that they did that was stupid. You know.... own it.
I agree. I would just change "Or" to "And".
If you call people stupid, don't be surprised if they get angry/unpleasent. AND if someone calls you stupid when you do something stupid, get over it and own your mistake.
When my kids whine incessantly (often, they are kids), I whip out my "Wendall Whiner" impression and whine about paying bills and fixing broken stuff and making food and whatever I feel like until they roll their eyes at me.
I wish Tundra dude's Dad did that for him.
Harvey wrote: No one needs to be told not to route the exhaust into wiring, because if you actually are dumb enough to do that you probably don't know how to use the Internet.
You must have missed the part where that exhaust had been installed by a "professional" muffler shop.
Even if the techs who do that kind of work are not reading, it wouldn't have hurt for the owner to post himself to the Tundra forum, "Hey guys- make sure you watch your mechanics. This guy screwed up my car, and I am fortunate that my local Toyota shop tech saw it and fixed it before I became a fireball". Tundra owners could learn too.
Instead, he sold it to an unsuspecting innocent without telling them.
It's irresponsible. On both the part of the owner and the GM. The tech will move on.
Even if he felt the need to fire the tech, the GM still should not have allowed that truck to leave his shop without being repaired.
Cotton wrote:Bobzilla wrote: I've not seen this type of behavior on the fullsize GM forums I still randomly lurk. I think this is an Import truck thing. Makes sense though... you can't be too bright to buy an overpriced toyota, then spend more to make it look silly.yeah, I spend some time on the duramax and powerstroke forums and it is not like that. Plus, more importantly, guys talking about rolling coal etc are flamed.Real men drive trucks with pushrods.
I have a Duramax and was surprised by the same thing when I went to fullsizegm, duramaxdiesels, etc forums for tech advice. It's generally a great community, willing to help out, and with intelligible posts. I'm not a truck enthusiast, but if I were, seems like a decent bunch of folks.
As others have said -- getting your feels hurt is not a reason to get someone canned. Just about every owner of every car on justrolledin could be offended. People need to be able to laugh at themselves at little.
He actually paid someone to cut his exhaust off and install a crimpy turn-down. I can't imagine how much that truck cost, paying someone to do all that.
The only truck-related forum I spend any time at is Ford Truck Enthusiasts, and they seem to be pretty well-behaved, too. At worst, you'll see some light-hearted ribbing of the other truck brands, but even then someone is usually quick to jump in and point out how capable all new trucks are these days.
SVreX wrote:Harvey wrote: No one needs to be told not to route the exhaust into wiring, because if you actually are dumb enough to do that you probably don't know how to use the Internet.You must have missed the part where that exhaust had been installed by a "professional" muffler shop. Even if the techs who do that kind of work are not reading, it wouldn't have hurt for the owner to post himself to the Tundra forum, "Hey guys- make sure you watch your mechanics. This guy screwed up my car, and I am fortunate that my local Toyota shop tech saw it and fixed it before I became a fireball". Tundra owners could learn too. Instead, he sold it to an unsuspecting innocent without telling them. It's irresponsible. On both the part of the owner and the GM. The tech will move on. Even if he felt the need to fire the tech, the GM still should not have allowed that truck to leave his shop without being repaired.
I'm not sure what the original source of this work was and I'm not even sure what the result ended up being as I didn't delve too far into the stuff beyond here and Reddit.
If the owner sold it off to some guy then the buyer needed to get a PPI if he wasn't up to snuff on inspecting a truck himself. If I bought any vehicle with major modifications I would be extremely wary of what had been done to it.
Let me be clear, from every source it sounds like the person that owned the truck is a giant douche, that doesn't seem to be in dispute and I'm not disputing that, but at the same time the tech should have covered his ass and not posted the picture of the truck along with the issue on the forum as that would have probably been enough to ensure no one recognized what he was working on.
Lots of places do shoddy work, you have to cover your ass at all times. This is not news. Most places are run by people looking to make a buck doing the fastest work with the cheapest parts.
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