Truth be known, although they do their best, most of the fleet managers we interviewd felt like they were fighting a losing battle. High schools don’t have many shop classes anymore, community colleges are perpetually underfunded, and every parent thinks their little darlings are college material.
One suggestion that arose in my interviews with these fleet managers is that you may just have to work harder at developing your own people–finding young men with a good work ethic and teaching them what they need to know. My group didn’t dwell much on this point, but its worth exploring further.
One of the best examples I’ve seen of this was a professional photographer I worked with years ago. I know photography and diesel equipment maintenance are far afield of each other, but hang with me here. The principle is the same.
Most high dollar professional photographers work with a photo assistant. Photo assistants do all the grunt work and handle the technical details while the photographer schmoozes the client, calms the nerves of the models or homeowners and probes for any political tensions between editors and graphic designers that might impact his paycheck.
The assistant drags out all the power packs, sets up the umbrellas and lights, loads the film in the camera (back before the digital era), stages and cleans up the settings and backdrops, and tests and balances the output of the lights all with only a few brief words of instruction from the photographer. And when the photographer extends a hand out open palm, the assistant better put a camera in it and a have tripod ready for the camera within seconds. If you’ve ever seen a good one in action, you’d be amazed. Hustle doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The assistant has to be a mule of a worker, master a thousand technical details and have a sixth sense about what the photographer wants. And even though the pay for assistants stinks, young people covet the job because they know that one year slaving for a top notch photographer can often give them the skills and knowledge to go out and make the big bucks themselves. A year as an assistant is better than a four year degree in photography.
