The shop owner often complained about problem employees he'd had in the past, starting out, "He was a good mechanic but . . . " the guy had a lousy, rude attitude, foul mouth, anger management problems, whatever. The owner's favorites seemed to be local teenagers he had hired as summer help, who had little work experience or training as mechanics, but he said they were "really good kids with a great attitude," who were friendly, pleasant and helpful with customers, and he could give them the training they needed with mechanical work and shop procedures.
I'm confident I would compare favorably with the bad workers, but I'm not so sure about the teenage boys. As girls, we generally get less teaching about simple things like using tools, knowing the difference between a flat-head and Phillips screwdrivers - I do know that much, but I'm a bit slow and clumsy using tools. And the shop was, um, idiosyncratically organized and not spotlessly clean, so it was often hard to find the right tool.
After being away from work for so long, and isolated in Ferndale over the winter, at first it was hard for me to get used to just being around people so much. My first several days were a period of retraining myself to chat with others, starting with making eye contact and speaking clearly. Even with that, as the summer went on I found it could be hard to keep patience with difficult customers, like the people who came in asking for free maps and tourist info, wanting to know how to get around the island without riding up any big hills, or the rental customers who expected a lot of time and attention in getting fitted for helmets and bikes, or tried to bargain on rental rates or repair pricing, or didn't pay attention when I tried to demonstrate shifting or braking.
In general, I think in customer service jobs, women are still expected to be deferential, helpful and eager to please, while men are expected to be knowledgeable and authoritative. In the bike shop I found it was hard to get customers to accept any answer or advice I could give them, and I needed to have back-up from someone with a deep voice, a beard, and hairy, muscular forearms. Then again, for customers with more complex questions - anything to do with gear ratios or compatibility of different components, etc. - I would call one of the experienced mechanics anyway. And I admit after my first couple of weeks, my self-confidence was a bit shaken so I didn't try to deal with anything but basic, beginner issues.
Probably the most difficult situation I faced came near the end of the summer, when I was working with the owner and a younger male co-worker. Often there were only two people working in the store, but this day was quite busy even with three of us, and at one point we had a couple of groups of two to four people at the front desk, a group out back waiting to be set up on rental bikes, and another group of three or four people returning from a ride with rental bikes. I had been out back checking in the returning riders, but came back to the front desk to ring up their rental charges, then help out another group of new renters.
Then the telephone began to ring persistently, past the point when the voicemail system should have picked up the call. My younger co-worker, who was standing less than two feet away, hit his over-load limit. He yelled not quite in my ear, "Hey can somebody answer the phone!"
Here my years of waitress and retail experience kicked in. I smiled pleasantly, speaking quietly and calmly to the customers in front of me, directing them to follow me out back to get their bikes. I walked past my red-faced co-worker, acting utterly oblivious to him, ignoring the phone, leaving him, my boss, and the groups of (male) customers looking mildly stunned.
I was also sometimes frustrated by the way some women customers behaved. One woman who came in a couple of times made a point of calling me "honey" in every sentence she spoke. It was tempting to reply with "Hey chickie babe, how's tricks?" but I held to the rule for dealing with road-ragers: just don't get into it with them. On several occasions customers, usually women, assumed I must be married to one of my male co-workers. It was confusing and embarrassing to deny this in the man's presence, especially if it was my boss. On the phone, some women callers would say "I spoke to your husband earlier this week, and he said . . . " as if I should accept this second-hand instruction from male authority. I vaguely recall hearing about attitudes like this back in the 1970's, but I thought we'd put all that behind us by now.
I tried to treat women (and men, too) as individuals, but it could be hard to second-guess how physically fit and experienced people were. I know one time I pleased two women of about my age when I set them up on racy-looking road bikes rather than townies or beach cruisers: I checked out their ropy arm muscles, toned legs and strong, straight backs and knew they could ride. Other times I had the feeling that a customer was actually hoping I would help them talk their friends or spouses out of renting bikes because they really didn't want to ride in the heat, or up hills, or in traffic on the road. I never wanted to send people out to have a bad experience, so I would be frank about how difficult a ride might be.
I'm airing some gripes here, writing about conflicts and challenges, but the job was fun and interesting, too. And I was impressed by the owner's ability to fix up bikes I would have thought were trashed, improvising and patching together components, looking at an old, classic or a brand new road bike and saying, "I have the part you need," then going to a back room and actually finding the exact right brake set, derailleur, whatever, or something he could make work just as well.
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