How Burnout Pushed Him to Start His Own Shop with Caleb Mac

**Jeff Compton** (0:07)
You don't grow unless there's some discomfort to the growing. It's to understand, it's to go back to, like you said, when your former boss says to you, now I've got to change what I can actually buy or what I can do in my business because you're leaving. I want every technician out there to understand that that's the end goal, is that when that you are vital and valuable, and when you leave, you cause a ripple. Because that's the only way that's ever going to change this industry to the sense of we actually start to see the value in ourselves and the value of what we're able to do is when we see what the absence of that person actually does to the bottom line.
Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to another exciting episode of The Jaded Mechanic Podcast. You're getting another weeknight episode here from The Jaded Mechanic Podcast. I go, you guys don't care because you always listen on Tuesdays anyway, so it's always a weekday but what I mean is I'm recording on a weeknight. So if you see me fall asleep on a couple of times, it's because it's after a day at work.
Some of you are tired of hearing all the Canadian accents and the Canadian jokes and the Canadian humor and all those kinds of stuff. So we got you a good old boy from America again. Mr. Caleb Mac, how are you tonight brother?

**Caleb Mac** (1:21)
Good.

**Jeff Compton** (1:24)
Now, you, I just saw your little young lad, Xander, and we were looking at the shop that you have behind me, and you're kind of just getting used to your surroundings again, aren't you?

**Caleb Mac** (1:36)
Yeah.

**Jeff Compton** (1:37)
Yeah.
When I first talked to you, I think it was about just over a year ago, you were talking about quitting your job, and you went and did mobile, and now you're finally, you're kind of moving into a brick and mortar again, and you're happy to be there, which is good. Congratulations, Caleb.
Thank you. Yeah. Now, kind of give us the rundown, the skinny.
Where are you? How long you've been there? What do you love? What do you hate?

**Caleb Mac** (2:06)
I moved to Edgerton, Minnesota. It's way bottom southwest corner of Minnesota, about an hour from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and about an hour from Iowa.

**Jeff Compton** (2:15)
Right on.

**Caleb Mac** (2:18)
I moved on here January 17th, opened my doors February 16th. Was mobile up in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Last May, I quit my job, was the first of May was my first day on my own.
I was at a used car dealer for little less than four years. From there, I was at a start of my career at, I think I was 17, went to work at a Chevy dealership as a loop tech.

**Jeff Compton** (3:00)
I just announced my, or now announced, I just celebrated my one-year anniversary at the used car dealer I'm at, so I can definitely relate to the trials and tribulations of that.
It gets painted with a bad rap, but I'll say this, it's not the way they treat me and the way they pay me, is better than most of the people that I have worked for up to this point in the industry. So I'm not saying something. I think they get labeled as a bad rap a lot of the time because of the shady operators, which let's be real, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to have a car lot out front to be a shady operator in this industry. We see them all day long, we talk to them, we know of them. But I think it's a tough grind for them because everybody, well you know what it's like, they buy a used car and they expect it to be a new car and it's a new car to them, it's not a new car, right? So what's it like doing mobile in Minnesota?

**Caleb Mac** (3:56)
Summertime, great. You see some beautiful scenery, places I was going. Wintertime sucked, both from trying to run a business and also just because of weather.

**Jeff Compton** (4:11)
Yeah, because you get very similar weather to what I get in Canada. Like really, there's even parts of Minnesota that are farther north than where I am actually, right? So I mean, it's you guys know what the weather is like. Like you guys understand it for sure. So yeah.
So what I've seen in Minnesota is just absolutely beautiful. Just absolutely like land of a thousand lakes. There's so much for a fish head like me, right? Like I could probably retire there and and never get sick of it. So but yeah, so I'm from Wisconsin originally.