Whew! The hustle and bustle of the holidays are over and I’m looking forward to getting back into a routine. I haven’t had as much time for reading as I would like, so I’m ready to dig into a new book. For the next book club, let’s read Jeannette Walls’ Half Broke Horses. Walls is speaking near me next month. I’m planning to attend and capture some good info and a few pics for the blog. For those of you in the Washington D.C. area, you can catch her on Jan. 20 at the Borders in Baileys Crossroads. I’ll plan to post about the book on Jan. 29, so let’s get reading! See you in a little less than a month.
Writing: Quote of the Day
“When you first start writing, you never fail. You think it’s wonderful and you have a fine time. You think it’s easy to write and you enjoy it very much, but you are thinking of yourself, not the reader. He does not enjoy it very much. Later, when you have learned to write for the reader, it is no longer easy to write. In fact, what you ultimately remember about anything you’ve written is how difficult it was to write it." — Ernest Hemingway
Writing: Now on Newsstands
The sidebar to a feature story I wrote on warehousing technology is up online. You can read it on Transport Topics’ Web site here.
Reading: The Next Book Club Pick
I am trying to come up with the next selection for the virtual book club. Does anyone have any suggestions? Jeanette Walls is going to be speaking near me next month, so I am leaning towards her new book, but I’d love to hear what others are reading right now. E-mail me or leave a comment.
And the Winner Is…
The winner of the Loraine Despres autographed book plate is Sarah! I will get it in the mail to you right away.
Auto Techs May Fit the Bill
By Mindy Long
Published in Light & Medium Truck. View the story at www.lmtruck.com here.
As car dealerships across the country close, automotive technicians who become casualties of consolidation may provide a solution for light- and medium-duty fleets and repair shops facing a shortage of commercial techs.
“There is always a commercial truck technician shortage,” said Mark Oliver, senior vice president of maintenance for Penske Truck Leasing, Reading, Pa., “but the degree of it varies and it varies by geography.”
Bob Brauer, vice president of sales and operations for Kelley Fleet Services, Mission Viejo, Calif., said he has had an easier time hiring technicians during the past six months, unlike the past eight years. “We hear that they are getting laid off or leaving dealerships because they were concerned about their jobs. Also, people who left the field for other jobs have lost those jobs and are coming back into the workforce.
Neither Chrysler nor General Motors could provide figures on the number of auto techs who have been laid off as a result of closures. Kathy Graham, spokeswoman for Chrysler, estimated that at least half of the almost 800 dealerships that were losing their Chrysler franchise would stay open. “Forty-four percent of our dealerships were dualed with another manufacturer and 88% sold used cars,” she said.
Frank Larkin, communications director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said layoffs are inevitable when consolidations occur. “It is the equivalent of a merger in a large corporation.
There are going to be redundancies and they are going to look to reduce head count,” he said.
Fortunately for technicians, their services are in demand.
“We’ve been able to keep most of the folks who have lost their jobs employed by moving them to where the work moves after the dealership closes,” Larkin said.
That movement also provides a labor pool for fleets and medium- and heavy-duty repair facilities.
Tony Molla, vice president of communications for the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, said a lot of auto technicians are going to have to find different career paths. “We’ve suggested to these technicians that they consider working in the light- and heavy-duty segments,” he said.
He also recommends that truck fleets recruit heavily among the auto technicians.
“If I were the truck guys, I would absolutely be advertising to these folks and advertising in areas where franchises are closing. Good, quality certified auto technicians could easily be retrained if a business is looking for someone,” Molla said.
Solid Tech Skills
One of the strongest skills automotive technicians could bring with them to the commercial truck sector would be an understanding of basic electronic theories and computer skills.
“If someone has good analytical skills and diagnostic skills, those skills are going to transfer over fairly rapidly,” said Carl Kirk, vice president of maintenance, information technology and logistics for the Technology and Maintenance Council of American Trucking Associations.
Chris Crowel, director of service training, information and channel readiness for Cummins, agreed. “It isn’t about turning wrenches; it is about using software and personal computers,” he said.
Nevertheless, Crowel said there would be different service information systems auto techs would have to learn how to navigate.
Penske’s Oliver said “without a doubt” he would hire auto techs. “We would want to develop them further, but we are very skilled in training technicians. Automotive technicians have a lot of PC diagnostics, but they’d have to expand their electrical diagnostics for the light and medium truck segment,” he said.
Christopher Tate, a technician at Mohawk Truck, a heavy- and medium-duty truck service and Thermo King dealer in West Seneca, N.Y., started as an auto technician before moving to the commercial sector. He said he was exposed to both systems during tech school, so the transition was easy. He keeps his skills current by participating in the TMC SuperTech competition and training.
Dick Fazzio, service manager for Mountain West Truck Center, a Class 4-8 truck dealership in Salt Lake City, said he continues to have a hard time finding qualified technicians and would consider hiring auto techs. “Even though everybody in town has been laying off, I’m still looking for certified journeyman and engine technicians,” he said.
Fazzio is hesitant to train new hires and instead invests in long-time employees. “It is extremely expensive. In addition to paying his wages and losing the revenue for the week, you have classes that range from $150 to $300 a day,” he said. He would be more likely to hire an auto tech who completed additional education prior to applying.
The Changes They Face
Automotive techs would be moving from spark ignition engines to compressionignition engines, which Kirk said could be easier. However, auto techs would need to become more familiar with high-pressure fuel systems in diesel engines and more complex emissions systems.
Fazzio said that for years the computer technology in trucks lagged behind that in cars. “Then [the] trucking industry caught up and has actually surpassed them. The technicians that are extremely strong in that area have less of an issue adapting,” he said.
Auto techs with strong computer diagnostic skills may still need to expand their electrical diagnostics skills, Oliver said, particularly as they relate to detecting antilock brake system fault codes, identifying the root cause of a failure and diagnosing the proper repair.
“I don’t think any of those things are insurmountable,” Oliver said, noting that technicians typically undergo regular training to keep up with changing technology.
Auto technicians also would have to adjust to a different pay scale when moving to a fleet. “In an auto dealership, it was a piecemeal type of structure and the more vehicles they worked on or the higher the bill, the more money they made,” Brauer said.
In a dealership, techs who work quickly can earn more, but slower techs may end up making more at a fleet than they were before, Molla said.
“In our industry, technicians are typically paid in a 40-hour work week that is more of a team atmosphere,” Oliver said. He noted that Penske typically operates two shifts a day Monday through Friday and often on the weekends. “We have to make sure our techs are available when our clients aren’t using the trucks.”
Fazzio said the pay would be similar for auto techs moving to Mountain West Truck Center. “They would be coming in as entry-level and make a certain percentage of the door rate — the standard repair rate and time needed to complete a job,” he said.
Molla said most technicians earn more for each hour of ASE training they have, which he expects would be the same for auto techs and commercial techs. However, he said a tighter economy means fewer companies are sending techs for additional training.
Kirk predicts that good automotive technicians won’t have a hard time finding work, either within the private automotive repair facilities or in the commercial sector. “There isn’t going to be a declining volume of service work required,” Kirk said. “If anything, people aren’t going to be buying new equipment, so they will have to maintain their equipment longer.”
Ironically, Tate said he is seeing the amount of routine maintenance on vehicles decrease. “You used to have scheduled maintenance. Now people come in with a broken down, big job and want it right away,” he said.
While opportunities for auto techs exist in the truck segment, technicians will have to be willing to chase them. “In a lot of cases it may require relocation,” Molla said. “Like any other occupation, you have to be open to opportunities as they arise, and if a good opportunity requires you move, you’re going to have to be willing to.”
Book Club with Belle
I love my virtual book club, but every once in a while even I miss talking in real time about the books I love. So tonight I hosted an in-person book club, pulled out some serving platters and dusted off the carafe.
The holidays and the dreary weather here resulted in a small turnout, but we delved into The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell by Loraine Despres and had a great conversation. In addition to writing Belle, Despres wrote The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc in which Belle appears as Sissy’s grandmother. Despres was generous enough to call in and take part in the discussion and we peppered her with our questions.
Belle is full of details from the 1920s—details that could only be captured by meticulous research. Despres said she spent a year researching the time period. “Thank God for the Web,” she laughed. She read books, visited the library and studied magazines from the period.
To capture the details of one particular scene, Despres reached out to the Stutz Barecat Club and found someone who shared the particulars of how to shift.
Despres even committed to only reading literature written before 1920 during the three years it took her to write Belle.
I fell in love with Sissy, and the entire time I was reading Belle I couldn’t help but think about how Despres weaved the two stories together even though they were very different stories. I was also left wondering how much the author knew about Belle when writing Sissy.
“I knew I wanted a lady like some of the ladies I knew in New Orleans—very imperious, very sure of themselves. Belle really came to me,” she said.
Of course we asked Despres her favorite rule. Without hesitating she said, "It’s okay for a woman to know her place. She just shouldn’t stay there." She also told us she doesn’t usually come up with a rule cold. “If something tickles me, I write it down,” she said.
Several parts of the book were inspired by Despres’s own experiences. She told us she grew up in a house like the Rubinstein’s—a house complete with bullet holes in her bedroom wall. “A vigilante group tried to drive my family out of town. It probably happened in the 1890s, but I knew I wanted to tell that story,” she said.
She also shared that she some of her favorite traits of Belle’s were her courage and her cynicism. “She was pretty much based on my mother,” she said.
SPOILER ALERTS—IF YOU HAVEN’T READ BELLE, STOP READING NOW. COME BACK AFTER YOU FINISH THE BOOK.
Based on the letter Belle found in Claude’s jacked, I assumed he was having an affair, but since I’m ever the optimist, I held out hope that Belle just misunderstood parts of the letter. I asked Despres flat out if Claude was having an affair. She confirmed my fear—he was unfaithful. Oh Claude—how could you? I will cut him a little slack since he was at war.
Throughout the novel I went back and forth on whether Belle was ignorant of the dangers she faced or if she was brave. I felt that she became more aware of her danger she faced as the novel went on and clearly was courageous when defending the Rubinsteins against the Ku Klux Klan.
Despres said she envisioned Belle as being brave when writing her. She added, “As a middle-class southern lady, she thought [the KKK] wouldn’t hurt her. Her family was important in the town and she thought they wouldn’t go after her.”
There were so many great story lines in the book. After we hung up the phone with Despres, we kept chatting about the book. I definitely recommend it as a book club pick and, you never know, Despres might call into your group, too. You can visit her blog at http://www.lorainedespres.blogspot.com/ and her Web site at www.lorainedespres.com. Also, check out my earlier Q&A with Loraine here, my post about Sissy here and my virtual book club post about Belle here.
By the way–my local library system had a a good number of copies of Belle available, but there was a wait list! So, you may want to check your local library or order from Amazon.
GIVEAWAY!!! What could be better than adding an autographed book plate courtesy of Loraine Despres to your copy of Belle or Sissy? Leave a comment by midnight Dec. 4 and I will pick a lucky winner on Dec. 5.
Freelancing is Hard, But So Are Other Jobs
I read yet another article today about how hard it is to make a living as a freelancer. I will be the first to agree that a successful freelance career requires persistence, determination and a lot of hard work. Yes–it is time consuming and no–it is not easy. But how many jobs really are easy?
My time spent as beat reporter at newspapers wasn’t a walk in the park. Covering Cook County Criminal Court in Chicago was a tough gig that came with daily deadlines, whether or not a trial went the way I thought it was going to. Some days writing pitches and facing an editor’s rejection can seem easier than walking up to the family of a murder victim and asking for a few minutes of their time.
Covering transportation at a weekly paper came with many of the same deadlines, obstacles and challenges that I face as a freelancer. You know that source that promised to be available at 3:00? The one that you’ve been counting on so you can wrap up your story? Well, he will forget, but that can happen whether you’re a staffer or a freelancer. Finding and cultivating sources takes time. So does learning who you can trust—no matter who you are writing for.
When I moved on to edit a trade magazine, I not only had to create editorial content, but also had to deal with creating budgets, monitoring ad sales and maintaining the bottom line. I also had to commute an hour and a half each day.
So, every time I hear someone say that freelancing is hard, I remind myself that most things in life are. Luckily, I’ve never been afraid of hard work and I have had a great year as a freelancer. Plus, the benefits of the freelance life far outweigh the obstacles. I promise.
The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell
The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell by Loraine Despres grabbed me with its opening lines. The book starts, "Belle Cantrell felt guilty about killing her husband, and she hated that. Feeling guilty, that is. A lady shouldn’t do something she’s going to feel guilty about later was a rule Belle kept firmly in her mind, along with its corollary: No sense in feeling guilty about all the little pleasures life has in store for you."
I fell in love with Despres’s first novel, The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc, and the main character, Sissy (you can read my post about Sissy here). Belle is Sissy’s grandmother, so I couldn’t wait to read about her.
The book introduces us to Belle in the 1920s. She is a young widow and is pushing the limits of what society deems socially acceptable for her. It starts when she decides to cut her hair and keeps getting better and better.
Here are some questions I found online to get some ‘virtual book club’ discussion going:
he Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell celebrates the tie between women of different generations. Discuss the relationship between Belle and Miss Effie. How did it change? What was Belle’s relationship with her own mother? How did it change? Do you think their relationship affected Belle’s relationship with her own daughter?
Belle makes up her own rules for her "Girl’s Guide to Men and Other Perils of Modern Life." If you had to pick one, which rule did you find the funniest? Appropriate for our time? Would you like to make up your own rule? Would you like to share it?
Do you think Belle was foolish or wise to risk so much for love?
My question for readers is, did you read Sissy first? Do you think that created expectations for how Belle would act? Do you want to re-read Sissy now that you know more about Belle?
Do you have any discussion topics? Post them in the comments!
If you’d like to learn more about the author, you can visit her Web site at www.lorainedespres.com. Also, I was lucky enough to interview Despres for an author Q&A on this blog last month. We had a wonderful conversation and Despres spent so much time with me that I had to break the Q&A into two posts. Read the first Q&A here and the second here.
Book Club is Coming…
I had planned to post my book club post on Friday. Yes, I know, today is Sunday. Never fear–the post is coming! Soon. Trust me. A sick toddler, editorial deadlines and a few other little things here and there kept me from writing the post when I wanted to. It will be up Tuesday, I promise! And, the good news is that if you haven’t read The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell by Loraine Despres yet, you still have a few more days! So, go buy it or check it out from the library, lock yourself in your room and devour every word. Then stop by and leave a comment.