A 26 Year Old Tech Trapped in an Old School Shop with Zach Fogle

Zach Fogle (0:08)

Maybe they're thinking of something that I'm not seeing. It seems more hassle and more burden on their shoulders doing it this way than trying to let go a little bit, which is probably all it is, is they just like to have control.

So, that's the hard part, is trying to let that go and seeing, then they lose control of what they do day to day, and then they're like, what do I do now? Which is hard, because you've been doing it for so long, it's your legacy, of course you want it to be how you want it to see it to be.

Jeff Compton (0:51)

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of The Jaded Mechanic Podcast. It's a cooler Sunday night here in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. When I say cooler, we're dropping down into the 50s, which is cool here, 50 Fahrenheit. I know that, you know, not the metric. You guys don't like the metric, but whatever.

And somebody that's obviously sitting in a much warmer place than me, which I'm kind of jealous of that fact. Tonight's guest, Zach Fogle, is in Idlewide, California. So Zach, how are you, bro?

Zach Fogle (1:25)

Good. Not too bad. It's definitely warmer here. Definitely getting into like the 80s, but the nights are finally dipping down like the mid 60s. So yeah.

Jeff Compton (1:35)

Yeah.

I've never been to California. It's on the bucket list for sure. Places I want to see and explore and everything. I just, I feel like to give that state, it's due, I'd probably need about a month to see all of the stuff that I'd want to see. Like it's pretty incredible. I don't want any part of the traffic. You say it's like a mountain town where you are, so you probably don't have freeway traffic and all that nonsense, right?

Zach Fogle (2:03)

So yeah, it takes about to get down to where like normal shopping stores are is about 30 minutes to 45 minutes. You get pretty used to going up and down the hill, but when you have to go further than that, you have to get on freeways and they're pretty bad.

Jeff Compton (2:17)

Can you ski where you are?

Zach Fogle (2:19)

So we don't get enough to ski.

There's been a couple of storms when I was younger where we got maybe four to five feet on the snow. So we have some pretty steep hills around where you could get a little bit of a run going in, but the walk back up was a pain.

Jeff Compton (2:38)

Yeah, that's the truth. You guys are not accustomed to breaking through snow banks to carry your toboggan back up the hill. Yeah, you just...

Zach Fogle (2:48)

No.

Jeff Compton (2:49)

Young Canadian kid, you just get used to doing that. So, but tell us a bit about yourself. You kind of reached out to me and just had some questions and wanted to talk about, you know, the industry. What... kind of give us your background, your age and, you know, how long you've been doing this and why and all that jazz.

Zach Fogle (3:09)

So, I'm 26 and I did for one summer after I graduated, one of my dad's friends was a all-around kind of like a contractor.

Jeff Compton (3:21)

Okay.

Zach Fogle (3:22)

So, I worked with him for a summer and he did a lot of like finished work inside houses and stuff. And I just, I tried them like, oh, this isn't too much fun.

Jeff Compton (3:30)

Yeah.

Zach Fogle (3:30)

So, there was a shop up here that I was wanting to work at. But at the time, they're like, oh, with how our insurance is, you need to be a certain age. And then probably six months later, my dad went in there to get something done on his car. And he's like, hey, is your son still wanting to work here? And he's like, yeah, but I thought that he had to be a certain age to do. He's like, well, our insurance changed.

I just lost a guy, he quit. Is he able to start working? So, I pretty much slid into that and had a little experience doing oil changes and breaks, but that's pretty much where I started.

Jeff Compton (4:10)

Nice. So, this was a shop that your dad used for his repairs.

So, you could say that there was a bit of like you were familiar with them and they were familiar with the family.

Zach Fogle (4:22)

Yeah. So, they're third generation up here, and my boss currently is getting on the older side. So, hopefully, in the next little bit, he'll step down his son-in-law and daughter will take it over as my hope.