The Air-Ratchet

This last spring I was thrust into the world of job-search due to a company acquisition/merger. One of several departments dismissed in the no-harm/no-foul integration, my department & I concluded that anytime you hear the word “synergy”, someone is fixin’ to lose a job.

As with all such transitional eras in a career, you tend to ask yourself “what just happened?”, followed closely by “why did that happen?” & “what do I do now?” As mentioned last time, I ended up working with an old business acquaintance running a second production shift on a temp basis. It has been gratifying; not just keeping busy and bringing some income back into the household, but training inexperienced guys in the crafts, keeping them busy & keeping their work top quality.

As I am managing temp-agency personnel, there are daily, errrr, umm hourly issues trying to locate tools, parts and fasteners. In one of these searches I noted that although we had two company air-ratchets, one sat unused. Hooking it up it became apparent why, it was slipping and not producing any torque. I tore into it for a rebuild.

I’ve always had an innate understanding of equipment so the problem ratchet wasn’t much of a problem. Now it screams like a dentist’s drill on amphetamines. Through the process of repairing it I remembered how gratifying it was to take something broken and make it work. I reflected on my career and how this ability has served me. Like many I didn’t purpose to end up doing what I do, the work evolved as my experience did.

It has been good to self-evaluate. I believe everyone should come up for air once in a while, though I would recommend initiating the process yourself rather than have your employer initiate it for you. On my own road to self-discovery, I realized that it was this love and understanding of equipment that shaped my experience and skills as my career advanced. All that has happened since has been a direct outgrowth of this simple interest.

So I guess the dime-store epiphany I would like to share is; do yourself a favor and always remember why you are where you are. View it like a plumb-line. If you true-up to it regularly you won’t be able to veer that far off course.

Tiny-trucks making a return?

I was recently given the opportunity to staff and manage a production shift for a long time vendor who was backlogged on orders and losing ground. I accepted conditionally, pending placement in into a gig more in my wheelhouse.

The work is ship-through light duty upfitting for class 2 trucks. We are producing trucks for a large fleet customer, the kind of operation that buys trucks 300-500 at a time. My crew is doing simple installs; tool-boxes, tonneau covers, power inverters and the like. What is noteworthy isn’t the equipment we are installing but the equipment it is being mounted on.

These are trick trucks, not the optionless beaters that were so prevalent in fleet at one time. Crew-cab, OE backup cameras, power-seats, power mirrors and locks – your proverbial Sunday-go-to-Meet’n truck.

The irony enters stage-left with the domestic car manufacturers announcing that they are considering reintroducing the compact pickup in the domestic market. Yes, this is the same industry that has been telling us for decades that we needed tricker, bigger, better, more deluxe equipment. And they have done a remarkable job of that sales job based on what we see on the road today. As I said above, even fleet customers are leaning this direction. Fleet managers are pragmatic, if they believe a vehicle will resell for more at end of life with more do-dads, they buy more do-dads.

So, what drives this interest in re-penetrating a market that was abandoned years ago? Mom and pop America seems very content in their trucks that came with individual zip-codes, oil prices are falling as domestic production increases, and now we have a taste for trucks that drive more like Cadillacs and Lincolns than work vehicles. I would hypothesize that it is federal fuel mileage standards that are pushing the buttons right now.

You see, there is no free ride. It takes fuel to accelerate a 6400 pound living-room on wheels. And like it or not, Detroit knows that they are against the wall on trying to eek any better mileage out of their passenger car offerings to make their averages go up.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is a place for a tiny-truck as I had very successfully used one myself during my contractor years (a second-hand Rabbit pickup, remember those?). But after years and years of brainwashing us into believing we needed bigger/better/tricker trucks, the ad campaign to get this market shift off the ground is going to be fun to watch!