Tools to make it

I’m sitting on the other side of the glass where I was four years ago. I use to burn my hands with that solder iron. My clothes reeked of oil, gasoline and brake cleaner. Mechanics use brake cleaner to clean off oil in the engine because of the way it interacts with the oil. It makes it easier to see where a leak is coming from. It’s highly flammable and should only be used when the engine is off. The first year I was a mechanic I didn’t know this. After I had finished a job I raised the lift with the car running and sprayed under the engine compartment to make sure the leak was fixed. The heat of the engine ignited the brake cleaner and fire quickly swirled around me. My arm hair got a little burnt but the mechanic next to me put the fire out before I could even move.
I’m watching them work on my car. It seems ridiculous. I know how to fix it. I can take the tires off, remove the calipers and brake springs and switch out the pads. I can resurface the rotors, assemble everything back together, and tighten the tires in a star pattern to torque them to the proper balance. But I am not. Jim is doing it for me. Ever since I stopped working for Japanese Auto Masters I rarely touch my own car. Once you get paid for something it takes all the fun out of it and really it was a means to an end. It got me off the streets.
As I watch Jim bleed the brake fluid on the right rear tire I remember what is like to be him. Jim works on flat rate which means he has an hourly rate but the hours he gets is by the job. An oil change is .5 of an hour, unless it is on an Audi. A timing belt job on a 97-00 Camry is 7.5 hours. And the brake job on my 2000 Honda Accord V6 with dual exhaust is 3.5 hours. At a base rate he will make $70. If he does two brake jobs today he’ll make $140. As long as cars are broken Jim will make good money. However, I can see that lifting his arms up over his head each day has cause the cartilage in his shoulders to wear. Every time he moves he can feel bone against bone. His boss will come up for braking that brake spring and secretly charge me for it even though Jim knows it’s his fault. That is why mechanics are shady; their bosses make them be that way.
I am an ASE certified L1 Master Tech. I took a bunch of multiple choice tests and gained patches to put on my coat. I worked with a pit crew for an NHRA drag racer. The money I made from being a tech paid for my first year here at Pacific. But I have no cartilage in my shoulders and was harassed daily for being a woman. I still work at a parts store doing diagnostic work and still I am given crap and co-workers inadvertently grabbing my ass.
Three more months and I’ll be out of here with a degree. I’m not really sure where I’ll go or what I’ll do before I’m ready for grad school. And I am terrified. What if what comes next is the same as before? What if I grow tired of philosophical study the way I grew tired of cars? What if the life that follows a single career is a life that fades with the time spent on it?