Customer Makes A Fool Of Himself At Auto Body Shop After Complaining He Doesn’t Want A “Chick” Working On His Car

Dec 13, 2021 by apost team

No matter how much progress we as a society make, it sadly seems like there will always be someone who is stuck in their old ways. For example, some people believe that certain jobs are gender-based. It tends to be more common for women to be teachers and childcare workers, while it's more common for men to be construction workers or car mechanics. However, as long as people have the proper qualifications, anyone of any gender can obtain whatever job they want.

This is a stereotypical issue that one female car mechanic, unfortunately, ran into a lot at her place of work, and she shared one of her experiences on the r/MaliciousCompliance Reddit forum in August 2021. She explained that she was the only licensed mechanic at the car dealership she worked at, but that didn't seem to matter to one male customer in particular back in 2012. 

The customer needed his car serviced but immediately put a halt to that when the mechanic pulled it into the garage to start working on it. He claimed that he didn't want a "chick" touching his car, and demanded that a man work on his vehicle instead, even though that meant having to wait for a while.

As more and more time went on, the customer grew more frustrated that something that should have only taken a few minutes was taking hours to get done, since no one else in the shop was able to service his car. He still wanted to wait for a man to work on his car, but ultimately looked like a fool in the end.

Dealing With Troublesome Customers

In her Reddit post, the original poster (OP) explained how she used to work at a car dealership with an attached service garage. She was the only licensed mechanic at the time. "I would occasionally have issues with male customers – they would second guess my diagnoses, watch me while I worked on their cars from the bay door, double check my work in the parking lot, etc.," she said.

One morning in particular, the car dealership was extremely busy, and the lot jockey and apprentice were both occupied. The service advisor – another female worker at the shop – left a work order and keys on the parts counter, and OP got ready to service the car. "It was in for a service campaign, which was an update done with a scan tool," she said. "It takes about 10 minutes."

The customer was sitting down, waiting for the work to be done, but immediately stood up when he saw OP take his keys. OP missed the conversation, but the service advisor later filled her in. The male customer said, "Who is that chick? Is she going to be working on my car? I don't want her working on my car."

The advisor explained that since the other technician was out at the moment that it would be "quite a wait" until someone else could work on the customer's car, but he didn't care. "That's fine," he said. "I'll wait for a guy. I don't want that chick touching my car." The advisor proceeded to let OP know, so she put the work order and keys back on the parts counter.

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Standing Up For What's Right

As time ticked by, more customers had their cars worked on. The male customer continued to get more frustrated as he waited close to two hours for his car to be looked at. However, no one currently at the shop besides OP was licensed to do so. The customer remained determined to only let a man touch his car, and finally demanded to speak to the service manager.

The manager guided the customer to the garage, pointed at OP and said, "That's my best technician. Those guys take orders from her. You can either wait for her to finish what she's working on, and then you can ask if she's willing to do your work, or you can take your car somewhere else." The customer decided to leave.

OP continued, "The service advisor has this very dead-pan sense of humor. She knew full well it would easily be an hour before the apprentice would return from his errand, and that no one else could do the recall. This was not the first sexist we had encountered."

Redditors were blown away by OP's story and commended her and her team for standing up for what was right. They also pointed out just how rude the customer was. One user commented, "HE can't fix his car, how the hell can he determine who can? Don't pay an expert and try and second guess them." Another user said, "A mechanic is a mechanic. I don't care about gender, I just want it done right. I'm sorry you have to deal with that."

Have you ever encountered any rude customers or clients at your place of work? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your loved ones, too.