Automotive Training Events: Are They Worthwhile?

**Matthew** (0:00)
I called Kirk, and I'm like, Kirk, I know you and I talked about this at one of the training events. What'd you do to fix this? And the manager was standing there, and I had it on speakerphone. And he laughed, and he goes, Oh, you don't remember? I'm like, no, dude, it was two in the morning.

**Jeff** (0:23)
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to another exciting thought-provoking episode of The Jaded Mechanic Podcast. My name's Jeff, and I'd like to thank you for joining me on this journey of reflection and insight into the toils and triumphs of a career in automotive repair. After more than 20 years of skin knuckles and tool debt, I want to share my perspectives and hear other people's thoughts about our industry. So pour yourself a strong coffee or grab a cold Canadian beer, and get ready for some great conversation.
One of the buzz topics as of late has been training and training events.
Is training worthwhile? And this training pay or does it cost more than what it's worth? Matthew, I know you, you are a trainer.

**Matthew** (1:08)
I'm retired.

**Jeff** (1:09)
Well, yeah, he's on the bench, but maybe he's not retired. He's still got a uniform on. And Brian, you just attended TST two weeks ago.

**Brian** (1:19)
I sure did.

**Jeff** (1:20)
It took how many guys from the shop went with you?

**Brian** (1:23)
We had five of us total went. I was the second oldest only because I brought Jim.

**Jeff** (1:32)
Yeah. And Jim's boss.

**Brian** (1:35)
And one of the fellows was about 23 years old, and one was 18 and one was 17
We brought them to TST and I think they enjoyed it. We do a little pregame before TST. We have been talking about specifically what they were going to teach there, a little bit of electrical fundamentals. I actually did that the week before TST. We really hit hard on electrical fundamentals. We went to TST and then after I got back, in this past week, I was actually at two classes at night for meter fundamentals with one of the young guys.

**Jeff** (2:09)
Awesome. And that was everybody with the exception of yourself.
That's their first kind of destination event, right?

**Brian** (2:16)
Definitely.

**Jeff** (2:17)
Like Jim has never even gone to such a... I mean, Jim's gone to training classes, but never gone to, you know, I guess what we call a destination event, which is like you travel to and you're staying for, you know, you've never been to one day. And that's a big deal, right? Because you and I have talked about how, you know, so much of what we do is just the networking and the culture and stuff is the destination events. It's not necessarily, you can sit in a class through, you know, anywhere. You can sit on an online class, right? Sure. It's the destination events, I think, that sometimes is what reignites that fire in all of us to go. I mean, I didn't, I never, you guys, you know, we've all been friends for several years now, right? But we never met until AST, ASTE in November.
So, I mean, I know that when I came home from AST, I felt like, you know, a totally revived person, completely different perspective.
And I, Brian, you've heard me say all the time, I think that would really, you know, help everybody in your shop, you know.

**Brian** (3:25)
Yeah, it's tough to, it's tough to budget.

**Jeff** (3:28)
Yes.

**Brian** (3:29)
To get 20 guys a year to destination training.
But there's definitely an advantage to doing it. That is for sure. So I just, it was really worthwhile for us.
I think Jim really saw the networking aspect of it, you know, especially we sat down for lunch with the guy that heads up the MAX committee, the Mobile Air Conditioning Service Committee. Then we sat down for dinner with Carmen Tracy Caprioto, which are actually, they're local to us. Yeah. Here in Western New York. But yeah, I think he really enjoyed the networking aspect, you know, the night before, you know, went to dinner somewhere real nice and stuff like that. You know, it was a good trip. It was a, you know, for us, it was a road trip. It's about a five and a half hour drive. So it was a good time.

**Jeff** (4:24)
What's the farthest, sorry to interrupt you. What's the farthest that anybody traveled to that event? Did anybody kind of say?

**Brian** (4:31)
Well, Oscar Gomez was there, and I know that he's from like Fresno, California.

**Jeff** (4:37)
That's where AESC Wave is.