cracks the shits?
Sorry, Australian slang.
Gets upset / angry / mad.
What quick thinking by that van driver. No see boss he totally fucked up that box after I gave it to him, I can prove it, it’s still in the van…
A friend of mine sent me this. Apparently it’s an email from a departing employee, which was subsequently posted on Reddit.
[quote=some Redditor]the following is an excerpt from kickstand #22 to hit the streets early March:
When I finally quit this messenger shit, once and for all, I’m going to open a bike shop. A big bright historic space with huge store front windows and high ceilings and wood floors. With passive solar heating in the winter, and well placed shade in the summer. I’m going to work there all the time, six or seven days a week. The shop will be beautiful, stocked with every bike tool ever invented. French, Italian, Japanese, you name it, I will have it, hung neatly on the shop walls. Everything in its place. A place for everything. I will have two Campagnolo Cork Screws with Cherry handles. I will have seven different kinds of bike tool bottle openers. I will have four brands of headset presses. The 3000 square foot work space will have works stands and tools for 5 full-time mechanics, so I can work on 5 of my bikes all at once. And 2 air compressors enclosed in sound proof cases. Truing stands bolted down to work benches 42.5 inches off the ground. I will have two Phil Wood spoke cutters/threaders. There will be cement floors and drains built in so I can hose it all down when the kegs overflow or the chainlube explodes or the cat pukes or the shit hits the fan. I will have shop dogs and shop cats. The bike book library will be monumental. The furniture will be well designed, attractive, comfortable and functional. There will be no non-dairy creamer. The coffee will be good. The beer will be cold. There will be wholesale accounts with everyone and everyone. Paul, Phil, Chris, Grant, Brooks, Mavic, Moots, Sachs, Sidi, Swobo. For me and my friends of course.
I will be at work all the time. I’ll show up 5:30am, or 3:00pm, or not at all. I’ll spend the night. I’ll stay for two weeks straight. Or take a week off if I feel like it. However, the shop will not be open to the public. The sign on the door will say “closed”, and if you flip it over it‘ll say “closed”. I’ll also have a large neon CLOSED sign, and it’ll be on all the time, like a beacon of freedom constantly sending its message, at all hours of the day and night. I’ll be in there working hard on my own bikes. Or on poetry, free lance writing, silk-screening, carpentry, cooking breakfast, pondering or drinking beer and pondering. The shop hours will not be posted. The phone will not be connected, so people cannot call and ask about the shop hours. And there will not be any employees because I won’t need any. This will eliminate any potential human relations issues, staff meetings, communication failures, personality problems, scheduling conflicts, and all the junior-high shit that goes along with trying to run a business with employees. Fuck that.
I will be in the shop but I won‘t be selling anything. Retail bullshit will not enter my sphere of existence. The windows will have incredible displays of bicycle art and elegant simple functional bikes because I like window displays. And I’ll spend hours creating them for my own enjoyment, not to attract customers. I‘ll be in the shop, reading the NY Times, listening to Miles Davis, or the White Stripes, or the Minute Men, or Bob Mould, or Guided by Voices, or Modest Mouse, or Guns n Roses or NPR and drinking coffee and beer and beer and coffee. Customers with stupid questions or flat tires or sheepskin seat covers or cracked carbon fiber forks can knock on the door all day long and I might even notice them between Husker Du songs playing on the Bose Wave Radio, but probably not, and if I do, I’ll give them a half smile then get back to my work. My work as a sole proprietor and my work drinking beer and pondering.
The back door will be unlocked and open whenever I am in the shop. And friends can stop by and bring their dogs and work on their bikes and add or subtract to the cold beer in the double wide Sub-Zero fridge or hit the bottomless pot of black coffee. The shop will include a beautiful stainless steel commercial sized kitchen. And a sleeping loft and an amazing bathroom with more magazines than a news stand, and I will not have to worry about customers fucking it up, because there will not be any customers.[/quote]
Amen
That’s the dream.
The shop’s name is Closed, and there’s a door sign that says “Yes, we’re Closed”.
That’s like the best bar in the world is the one no one else is allowed into.
Certain elements of a Rivshop in that Closed Bike Shop
Lots of rich people waste millions of dollars on dumb shit, but this seems like an ongoing waste of money that might actually make you happy.
Side note: this is probably one of the reasons why I am not a rich person.
Sounds a whole lot like Tati’s shop back in the day and not dissimilar from his (rumored) current coffee shop.
can confirm this about the bike shop, was pretty close to my office
whats the deal with the coffee shop, i haven’t heard this?
there is a well known filmmaker in chicago with a secret bar that is completely free. its a fun spot. no customer bullshit just friends.
Old shop is falling apart. Corporate is scratching their heads, asking why people are leaving. I’ll tell you why, they make the company tons of money and you don’t pay them enough to pay rent…
I cut 7mm off a seat tube extension yesterday on a steel Seven. Customer has had the frame 11 years in a box and when he had it powder coated the shop messed up the carbon seat tube insert, making it out of round and measuring 28.5mm across in some spots. Seven tech said, send it in for a new insert (300 dollars) or cut it. Customer chose to cut it.
Only things my boss/shop owner gets nervous about when it comes to shop work: hammer, drills, and saws. Well, in the first month I’ve used all of those, often.
[quote=motorbacon]Old shop is falling apart. Corporate is scratching their heads, asking why people are leaving. I’ll tell you why, they make the company tons of money and you don’t pay them enough to pay rent…
[/quote]
This is fucking up my shit man. There’s so much turnover I hardly know any of the mechanics and only a few still let me work on my bike in the back anymore!
I guess what’s actually worse is that there are still any people there at all from when I worked there 5 years ago.
Oh, on my stand yesterday: Pinarello F10 full Enve/DA9100, Crumpton full Enve/Campy SR, Volagi with eTap, Seven steel build I’m doing with new Record/King all the things, and I have two steel Landsharks, a Paul Taylor, and a Pegoretti in for today. haha. Just ordered parts for a Di2/hydro dick, White Industries build Hakka MX for a customer. heh. Things are good for me.
[quote=deadforkinglast][quote=motorbacon]Old shop is falling apart. Corporate is scratching their heads, asking why people are leaving. I’ll tell you why, they make the company tons of money and you don’t pay them enough to pay rent…
[/quote]
This is fucking up my shit man. There’s so much turnover I hardly know any of the mechanics and only a few still let me work on my bike in the back anymore!
I guess what’s actually worse is that there are still any people there at all from when I worked there 5 years ago.[/quote]
Get this:
Walnut Creek was the ‘bike dream team’ (as the COO and buyers said it) 2 months ago. Now, the Guru fit bike sits unused because the fitter is doing flat repairs and organizing shoes. The shop is EMPTY for repairs. I swung by yesterday to pick up some random things and the repair queue had a single repair slotted for this week. For comparison sake, I’m out 3 days and each day is full of big repairs. Two others key sales/mechanics employees have left within the month.
San Ramon has no bike oriented employees yet has a bike shop…
Ugh, sounds bad, man. I miss East Bay shops.
[quote=deadforkinglast][quote=motorbacon]Old shop is falling apart. Corporate is scratching their heads, asking why people are leaving. I’ll tell you why, they make the company tons of money and you don’t pay them enough to pay rent…
[/quote]
This is fucking up my shit man. There’s so much turnover I hardly know any of the mechanics and only a few still let me work on my bike in the back anymore!
I guess what’s actually worse is that there are still any people there at all from when I worked there 5 years ago.[/quote]
As coastal rents skyrocket and low-wage workers leave the big cities or the bike industry, shops are going to find themselves with a dearth of talent, and this among other factors means that a lot of them are going to close over the next few years.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the shop I work for, which has been around for 85 years, is slowly circling the drain. They refuse to pay more money, so they have burned through basically every mechanic in town, and can’t attract new talent. At this point, I am basically the only full time mechanic - everyone else is either part time, or has to spend 8-24 hours a week working the counter just to keep the bikes from being constantly screwed up at check-in (causing more delays). Because no one there can fix a bike, we are down to scheduling $4-600 in repair work (from $1200, when I started), for a department with like ~12-15 employees (most of whom poorly assemble kids bikes).
The owner and manager made a deliberate decision to value short term profits over long term viability, and now he’s going to be the one to ruin the family business. The joke is ultimately on us, because he owns ~$10-20m worth of Seattle property outright, so no matter what happens, he cannot lose.
Yeah, I think the larger shops are going to start disappearing if employees don’t actually get a living wage. A local shop is down to one mechanic FT because the other three left the area because of living expenses. The new shop is 2500 feet including shop and storage. Owner lives a few minutes away and half of the garage is new bike storage. He and I are the only FT people, and we have two high schoolers that race on the mtb team and are good kids. Each are currently 12-16 hrs a week and I have a college kid in the shop that is here 24 hr a week buy easily pays for himself with the repairs he does. We’re running more on a ‘showroom’ platform for 1500+ bikes and have a bunch of demos. 1000 and below we keep in stock as they sell themselves.
A lot of it is managing expenses and rent. Our rent is stupid, but we’re in a great spot.
[quote=Tail Hook Lengthener]
As coastal rents skyrocket and low-wage workers leave the big cities or the bike industry, shops are going to find themselves with a dearth of talent, and this among other factors means that a lot of them are going to close over the next few years.[/quote]
this is happening in NYC too; a few of what I think of as the ‘good’ shops in town recently reached out desperate for leads on competent mechanics
I think they lost a whole generation (or more), with their shit pay and dead-end career path.
That’s why I don’t work in a shop anymore. I’ve had two shops recently reach out to me because they knew I used to be a competent, certified wrench. I told them what I needed to make and they couldn’t/wouldn’t pay me what I wanted. I’d rather be wrenching, but I’d also to not be broke all the time.