After just dropping off the car for an oil change and tire rotation at a new (to us) garage, I'm thinking about gender and auto repair.
The place I dropped it off at has gotten good reviews on the local electronic chatterboxes. It's your conventional, old-school garage. A wood-walled waiting area sparsely decorated with tires and tire stuff, one guy in a standard garage work uniform, smell of galvanized rubber, etc. 馃У
We've been a little nomadic since the place a block and a half from us sold to a local chain, and the cheerful but snarky old guys behind the counter got replaced with polo-clad twenty-somethings.
Well, the polos and the young workers aren't the reason we quit going. It was the omnipresent up-selling of unnecessary repairs.
Despite this, the new chain gets rave reviews from some people. Particularly women, it seems.
The place we switched to initially is an outstanding but small garage with such a great reputation that they take no reservations, but do first-come, first serve. Their days are usually full up, any week of the year, by 7:20 AM. (They open at 7.) So getting a repair there is a race job. They're outstanding鈥攖hey read as young white working class but with small but unmistakeable progressive political messaging around the front desk, and are fast and affordable. But the morning race is tiring.
The new place I went was comfortable to me. As my photo probably shows, despite being an oddball in a lot of ways, I read as very straight middle-class white man on first impression. The man (who read at quick read as light skinned but likely from a non-white background, but I'm not sure) at the new place was a little gruff but not unfriendly. The exchange at dropoff was pleasant and involved a little bit of light banter.
But again, I'm the "right" sort for dropoff, right?
The typical story you hear from women at car repair places is very different from my experience, of course. Condescension, patronizing tone, dismissiveness, mocking of concerns. I'm sure some garages I've found perfectly nice in the past are that way to women, and others aren't, and there's no way for me by myself to know which ones are which, right?
So back to the "bad" (in my view) up-selling chain that took over our old favorite. Polo shirts, dedicated desk/sales staff, a desk and waiting area that looks like a rental car agency, and chipper greetings as soon as you walk in the door. Higher prices and nearly incessant upselling of marginal repairs.
But, I'm sure, those polo-clad staff are trained on how to talk to all customers, particularly women.
Admittedly taking a VERY, VERY broad brush here with regards to gender (I definitely know women who are comfortable in a "typical" garage and effectively demand respect by being hyper-knowledgable about their cars and proving it if they have to), a "good" garage to me is "honest" in that they don't stretch for repairs and don't perform some corporate ish. But a "good" garage to some women is "don't worry about it, we'll take care of everything, glad to have you here."
