After the quick stint in the Aviation Instruments office, I decided to get dirty at a local oil changer/transmission shop. I’ve always been into cars. My stepdad had a series of old jalopies he was always working on and my dad dad restored hot rods. I fixed up my first car, a 1981 Honda Prelude. Did a lot of maintenance work on it, and I enjoyed it. Why not give it a try professionally?
A local (Fairfield, CA) shop called the Clutch Connection/Oil Connection was hiring part-time and were willing to work around my school schedule. I spent a lot of time sweeping, mopping, and cleaning up the transmission shop. I helped with a few clutch jobs, and did some minor repairs on some old cars. I also did quite a bit of angle grinding on a customer’s Jeep project. Lots of sparks and metal particles. Grease under my fingernails.
One hot summer day the boss was helping his buddy work on an old Winnebago. I was cleaning up in the shop. He asked me to grab a replacement bolt for him out of a giant hardware cabinet. I couldn’t find the right one—searched the whole cabinet three times. I went back to tell him and he blew up, started yelling about how I was stupid and incompetent and how he had to do everything himself. I just stood there, shocked. He spent the next 15 minutes searching for that bolt and couldn’t find it either—we just didn’t have it. He never apologized for his outburst. I quit the next day.