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[quote user="selector"][quote user="Grog"] I really have to speak my mind here...With 28 years of Auto/Light truck experience I can tell you, for a fact, we (mechanics)are underpaid. We buy our own tools (I personally have about $50,000 in tools). We get the snot beat out of us everyday. We literally bleed from doing our job. No one is happy to see us. In the northeast of Ohio we have to deal with temperatures ranging from sub-zero to over 95 degrees. Rain, snow, road salt, and even dead animals that people have hit or run over. We use torches to burn off rusted and siezed bolts, exhaust systems, and parts that no longer have a hex head from all the corrosion all the while breathing in noxious fumes and dealing with fluids that cause cancer. My back is shot , wrists have carpal tunnel, knees and feet are always sore, hands are a little arthritec, hearing is going and to top it all off....we get paid less...let me repeat that...less than any other trade.I personally make $22.50 an hour, pay part of my medical insurance and have to make my own retirement plans. I am also at the top of my field with no major raises in sight. A top technician will earn from $20.00-$25.00. I can not even afford to purchase one of the new vehicles I repair. We fix the things that the engineers did not design right, the manufacturers did not build right and the assemblers did not put together right. We fix them. I do not complain about my job..it is what I chose.  This is  not meant to be harsh so please do not take it that way. Yes, it is expensive to have your vehicle fixed but believe me when I tell you that it is going to get way worse. The old timers are getting out and no one is replacing them. Who would do this job for that kind of pay/benefit. A dealer charges $90.00 an hour and the tech gets about 1/4 of that.I have never sounded off like this before and appologize if it is inappropriate but people really have no idea what a technician does.I do agree that model trains are getting expensive but no more so than anything else.[/quote]Grog, you have generated what I feel is one of the most eloquent compositions this forum has ever received in the nearly three years that I have been a member.  Thank-you for posting your thoughts....very nicely stated, and it has given me a new understanding and appreciation for your trade.I think One Track Mind was not suggesting that his observation is true, but used it as an illustration about complaining, in general.  Perhaps he will return and offer his own explanation...paticularly if I misspeak on his behalf.In any event, I understand your statement, and why you made it, and it was most well said.-Crandell[/quote]I agree. Im a late comer to this thread. I only have a comment to make about the wages. If 22.50 an hour for a 40 hour week isnt enough to live on for a given state and county, pack up everything and move somewhere else that might offer a lower cost of living. My home state requires wages so high and real estate out of sight it was impossible to live there. I bet you could be paid 40 dollars and hour and it still wont be enough.I remember hitting some of the ceilings in pay over the years in trucking. I solved those pay maximums by seeking work elsewhere for higher wages and bonuses. Yes there was a great deal of job hopping but I did not sign on anywhere unless something was in it better for me... usually the paycheck. Sometimes better trucks which became more important as the bones started to wear down.Here in Arkansas everything is much easier financially although you sort of go 20 years into the wayback machine on some of our towns. Just putting a tag on a motor vehicle only cost 20 dollars here. I recall shoving 120+ dollars plus inspection, emissions, insurance and medicvac fees on top of that back in the old place just for tags. And that is just a start as long you pass your vehicle on everything.Hopefully by the time Arkansas does all of this fee stuff Oil will be used up and we all would be running on something else.Model trains and the associated costs are at the very bottom of the list each year. Next to the annual dues such as post office fees, bank box fee etc. In my home everything is paid first BEFORE trains. Although there is a budget amount set aside for the trains each month.
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