Semi-Bad News Bears, but with some Light at the end of the Tunnel

So last week, when the shop opened, was probably the most stressful time of my life.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of stressful that is good because so much good stuff is happening, more like stressful because I'm concerned that the fledgling reputation of the shop has been severely damaged.

I'll try to explain the situation.

First, I was under the impression that the guys who went to school had learned enough to be able to fix moto's on their own, well. This was sort of foolish, becuase no one who gets out of any school is going to immediately know what they are doing in a job. It takes a fair amount of practical experience to really know what you are doing.

Secondly, I thought that if we got customers, everything would work out. I was so focused on that it prevented me from thinking about the fact that we weren't totally ready for customers. This may just be my extreme lack of experience in running a business coming to the fore. I don't really know how to do this, I just do what feels correct. Sometimes it's wrong, and having some promotions to bring in customers was probably overzealous.

So this is what happened. I said we were going to give the first 10 customers five dollars of free work. Once word got out about this, too many people wanted in. We didn't work slowly enough, taking time to really focus on doing a good job. We just tried to get through customers, which I guess is a natural enough reaction to having many people want work done very suddenly.

Once we went through those 10 people, I said anyone who got over 4 dollars of work done would get a free oil change. At this point I was still trying to get customers in so we could get some experience, and didn't realize that we were probably doing damage to ourselves by not doing a good enough job. I've really only come to that conclusion after having 3 or so days to think about it.

Things came to a head when one old customer who I recognized from my trips to TC came in, wanting a new piston put in. I had been working from 8 AM until that point, which was about 1:00PM, and needed to go to lunch. The customer wanted his bike done by 4 PM, which I didn't think was going to happen. Before I left for lunch, I told the guys that we should wait until the next day, because 2 hours was not enough. They said it was fine, It would take half an hour. I did not push it.

Unsurprisingly, this turned into a huge debacle. I will spare everyone the technical details, but the bike would not run well when we finished putting it back together at about 6 PM, and the old man was pissed. He had to keep leaving and coming back because the engine would die, and eventually decided to leave the moto at the shop over night and get it fixed at a different shop the next day.

I was totally crushed. I couldn't really handle what was happening, because I felt like I had predicted it, but had been unable to head it off. The feeling was akin to being locked in a car that was driving itself off a cliff, with no way to stop it. Just utter, stark, dread. I have since resolved to be more forceful in my avoidance of disasters I see coming. Actually I learned the lesson pretty quickly. Like while we were trying to fix the piston, another customer came up to us wanting some broken bolts removed from his forks. We didn't have the tools, and I said we couldn't do it. One of the guys called his teacher for advice, but it didn't lead anywhere, and I pretty much sent the customer on his way with my apologies. So hopefully as I learn things like this will be avoided more easily.

Anyway, back to the story. The next day, I got to the shop, and the customer had already taken his bike to a different shop. He called Lee Him, our shop manager, to tell him to have our mechanics go to this other shop to see what they did wrong. The other mechanic was willing to teach them how to avoid the mistakes they had made.

They wouldn't go, which was extremely upsetting. There is definitely an ego thing at play here, where they were sure that the problem was X, and not their fault. They were wrong, but I don't think they wanted to admit it. In Asia, losing 'face' is a big deal. Anyway, that afternoon no customers were coming in so I left and did all my laundry for about 3 hours.

The next day, I told Sai Ha he and I were at least going to go to the other shop to find out what went wrong. At this point, the TC guys decided it would be okay to go, and the other mechanic told them what was wrong, which I didn't totally understand because the explanation was in Khmer, and Sai Ha doesn't really know how to translate technical stuff very well. So I'm not totally sure how helpful it was to go after the fact, but hopefully the TC guys learned something.

All in all, It was an extremely difficult week. When 3 hours of doing laundry by hand seems like a vacation, the rest of life is no party.

After thinking about it for the weekend, I have come up with a few ways to try and salvage the situation.

The principle factor in being unable to run the shop now is the lack of experience all of us have. I know what to do to some extent, and would be comfortable doing some repairs on my own bike, but at a MUCH slower pace, too slow to be practical for business. Also, I don't know how to teach through the language barrier effectively, and how I do things is different from what is done here. Doing things differently, while sometimes a very good thing in the U.S., is not practical here, or at least is not within my time frame.

So our biggest problem is lack of experience.

Our greatest assets are availability of funds and about 11 weeks.

I think to solve the problem I am going to try and pay to apprentice the guys at a shop in TC, so that they get hands on experience that includes good oversight and teaching from someone who speaks Khmer and knows how to run a business. If this sounds like throwing money at a situation that I don't otherwise know how to solve, it isn't that far removed. But it's the best idea I have come up with, and it has a chance to work.

I may alternate the guys every day or couple of days so that one of them is in the shop in case we get the odd customer looking for an easy repair, while the other one can learn the harder stuff at an established shop.



So that's the status of things. The shop opened, which was exciting, but we were totally under prepared and now I'm trying to salvage things and move the project onward.



I would like to express how nutso this project has been. I can't decide If it should make me laugh or cry. It feels like warfare, long periods of not much going on punctuated by short bouts of overwhelming intensity. Without a doubt, it has been the greatest challenge of my relatively short life. I have heard so many stories of people being here for a long, long time, and failing to make business or NGO type things work out that I don't really feel so badly about what I've gotten done. As I said to one friend, I have exceeded my own expectations, and really whatever happens from here on out is bonus points.

That being said, I really want to leave a functioning shop when I depart.

I'll keep everyone updated. Thanks for your comments and good wishes, they mean a great deal.

Take Care.

Ned.