WAS: Re: 5W-20 engine oil? NOW: Semi-OT Doctors and Mechanics compared.

[Peter Serwe]

Speaking from a little bit of personal experience..

I was employed by NYU Medical Center, right around
the time they were being bought out by Sinai in the NYC
area.  Suffice to say, with HMO's and the managed care
system in general, Doctors are lucky to be out of debt within
10 years of graduating medical school.  As with high end computer
people, your paying for the incredible amount of experience.

However, I don't like book rates.  There are a couple of guys in
this local area who don't work on book rates, and they are the
guys I deal with when I'm in over my head.

Furthermore, in my (not terribly) humble opinion, most mechanics
who charge off book rate, quite a lot of them, even dealer mechanics,
often don't know what the f--- the're doing. They monkey around quite
a bit, get lazy, and just plain don't care if something's all screwed up.
There are countless examples I could cite in this local area, and I know
it's not just a regional problem.

The don't call them $tealerships for nothing.

I have also learned a really GOOD way to assess mechanics
in my local area.  If I explain to them that I have a pretty good
idea of what I'm doing, and ask them if I can help, the good ones
don't mind.  The bad ones do a big dance citing how they can't
work with someone looking over their shoulders, and estimate
times that I know aren't even plausible.

I have also learned, that for the most part, I don't want to trust
someone else to work on my car, I want to do it myself.

Nobody cares more than you do about your baby.  If your
over your head, you need help, but finding the right guy is
_very_ difficult.  If you can find someone off the list, then
your probably in good shape, but up here, that's not an option.

spdracer@mail.utexas.edu wrote:

> As for why doctors get paid so much... it's because they're all around $250k
> in debt from med school.  And for the hell they have to go through to get
> through med school, they deserve the money.

--
Peter Serwe <peter@easytree.net>
Cheaper, Faster, Better, pick any two.
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