Nobody ever asked her to stay. · Technician Find Community

Chris Lawson

Aug 1 • 📣General discussion📣

Nobody ever asked her to stay.

Two high school kids rotate through a shop I know. Two weeks on, two weeks off.

Sharp kids. Show up early. The techs like them.

Both of them have told the owner they aren't staying in this industry.

Nobody ever asked them to.

Nobody ever showed them what this job looks like in fifteen years.

I read a piece this week about young people flooding back into the trades. Six out of ten Gen Z adults surveyed said they're going blue collar this year. They watched a generation take on six figures of debt for a degree that didn't guarantee anything, and they did the math.

Most owners will read that and feel some relief.

Then look at the trades reporting the worst shortages this year. Electricians. Welders. HVAC. Plumbers. Heavy equipment mechanics.

We're not on that list.

That's not because we're fine.

The kid in your town who decides to work with his hands has options now.

HVAC is hiring. Electrical is hiring. Somewhere within a hundred miles of most of us there's a data center going up, and they pay apprentices while they learn.

So when that kid picks, he isn't choosing between your shop and a four-year degree.

He's choosing between your shop and an outfit across town with a written apprenticeship, a posted starting wage, and one person whose entire job is finding him.

You've been fighting the dealer for twenty years. You know how the dealer fights.

This one doesn't fight like a dealer.

Here's the only number in this you need to hold onto.

Between now and 2032, four skilled workers retire for every three coming in behind them.

That gap doesn't close. It widens every year.

Which means the technician you go looking for in 2029 will cost more and be harder to find than the one you could start building a relationship with this month.

Kids aren't avoiding this trade because they hate the work.

They're avoiding it because nobody in their life ever showed them the work.

You can't hire your way out of that. A kid who never considered the job is never going to answer your ad.

You already know this works, though. You've seen it run the other direction.

A technician watched one shop's Facebook page for two years before he ever applied. Saw the birthday celebrations. Saw the lobby decorated for the holidays. Saw them handing out dog bones to customers' dogs. Then he walked in and said he'd been watching how they treat people, and he wanted to be part of it.

Nobody ran an ad at that guy. He decided on his own, over two years, that it was a good place to be.

Same thing works on a seventeen-year-old.

The two years just has to start before he's old enough to hire.

A master plumber in that article said the thing I keep coming back to.

What young guys miss is the ceiling. Field tech, then foreman, then estimator, then running their own shop. The ones who can see that on day one go the furthest.

You have the same ladder sitting in your building. C-tech. A-tech. Lead. Advisor. Manager. Owner.

Is it written down anywhere?

Could the last kid who walked through your door draw it on a napkin?

If not, you don't have a career path. You have an opening.

And an opening loses to an opening that pays fifty cents more. Every time.

Back to those two kids.

The owner who has them is a good man running a good shop. He'd love for one of them to stay. He's never once said that to her out loud.

Another owner I know puts money into scholarships for the top students at the local automotive program. His reason, in his words: to get to those kids before the dealers do.

Same shortage. Same year. Same headlines.

One of those two shops is going to be staffed in 2030.

The article's here. Read it for the numbers, not for the conclusion. [Students Seek To AI-Proof Their Careers With Trades Over College]

Most owners will finish it thinking help is finally on the way.

Help is on the way to somebody. It lands wherever somebody built the relationship first.

4:14

4 comments

Nobody ever asked her to stay.