Right or Wrong?

Not using real name, never know who reads. I run a business that does machinery repairs. One customer has a son that works for him. Good kid, late 20's. Not the sharpest tack in the box, but used to be respectful, would ask questions, and I was pleased to go the extra mile to try to educate him. I saved his case many times, and even covered things for him at times,when he goofed up. He used to appreciate it and often thanked me.
Last few months, he has really changed, has become arrogant, has told lies about how things got damaged (I am no fool) List goes on. Has hung me out to dry a few times. Tried to gently talk to his Dad, but I could tell that was a waste of time.
I really hate to have to do this, but it looks like I am going to let him really mess up.. Not that I would do anything intentional, just stop spending the extra effort to educate him. Sink or Swim. Is this wrong?

If no one is getting injured then let him learn.

Hi
Maybe a behavioral change means drugs involved!! His Dad ought to be payin' att'n. Just a tought. Ed Will

A person likes to help a kid out and give benefit of the doubt. I agree something is wrong. Drugs, alcohol, or a nasty woman. Not picking on women, but been there done that. Hope it works out for the better.

Let him learn the hard way........throw him under the bus if you have too.

99% sure not due to drugs or booze, I think he is just getting too big for his britches. Biggest problem is he is not bright enough to see the big picture.

Let him sink. If you have to throw him under the bus that would be ok too. Just don't go out of your way to do it. I'm dealing with a guy at work who doesn't know near as much as he thinks he does, and on that note what the owner thinks this guy knows either.

He was hired to replace another guy who just got a job down in Florida for universal studios. Friday is his last day and then we'll really see how he does.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Let the dad know that you are getting no respect. Further that you have no intention to set him up for a fall and will stay out of the issues that are going to arise. Make sure you cannot be placed in the cause and effect string of grief he will create. If the customer goes away because of the childish child it is your loss, but it also is less of a burden. It is always a sour feeling when effort invested goes down the drain. Let it find its own course after it hits the "P" trap. Jim

Sounds like a kid that use to work where I do.Got the job because his father used to work there. Owner gave him a chance.He worked about a month. Then quit to work for an oil service company. Got fired. Then he went to work for the city. Got fired. Then came back to us because the owner felt sorry for him. Got caught in several lies and was always coming in late and taking off early. Owner had enough. Let him go.

Now he is going Around town. Telling everyone what a great worker he is and how he quit all the jobs. Because he was tired of doing all the work. Not a smart thing to do in a town of less than a thousand.

Thought I was the only one with a situation similar to this. In my case I"ve known the kid (22) for about a year. When we met he had a real interest in machinery, mainly on the operator side of things, but still seemed to have a real desire to listen and learn how to work on them too. That turned into him starting his own business and winding up getting way too big for his britches. It didn"t help when a relative threw a lot of money at him in the form of a brand new $60,000 truck....Would have been a nice gesture had the older one he had not needed but about $1000 to make it work just fine for his needs, the fact that his main/only machine needs a new undercarriage, and pretty much every attachment he has needs some sort of maintenance. In the end the money could have been spent on repairs, and still had enough left over to buy a second machine as a backup, (already had two mulch heads and only one machine to run them), a second used truck, and two trailers (been borrowing mine thus far).

Basically for the money spent on one brand new truck he could have doubled the size of his new company and still had money left over.

Longer story short, I guess the new truck basically amplified the fact that he had delusions of being "big time" like companies that have been around for years. With this attitude he decided that he didn"t really need to listen to any advice given to him by those of us who have been in business for ourselves and know how to stay in business and make money. As a result he is consistently losing money, bouncing from job to job trying to keep ahead of the money given to him to complete the last job, and on, and on, and on. That wouldn"t be so bad except for the fact that he also went from a nice kid wanting to learn, to a arrogant pr!ck who told me to go F myself the other day when I once again told him all the things he was doing wrong. Between that and quite a few things I have discovered in thre past week that he has flat out lied about and......

Needless to say I"ve told him a couple of times he was burning bridges, but between the lies and the F-you the other day was pretty much a napalm bomb that obliterated the bridge. He"s now trying to play nice, but I"m pretty much done with him........he can now sink or swim on his own, without my help, and if his disrespecting me gets him under the wheels of "the bus" with others that I know (some of which were giving him a chance to work for them), then it"s his own fault...................

Not to hijack your thread with my situation, but I just wanted to let you know there are others with similar problems. That said, the best thing to do is let him sink or swim on his own, and if his actions are what you say they are, he"ll jump under the bus on his own, without any help from you......heck it"s your help that has kept him out from under those wheels thus far anyways.......But that"s just my opinion....

wile E.- Why would you intentionally "throw someone under the bus"? That colloquial means to sacrifice someone else to save yourself.

Experience / mistakes can be a great teacher, Fools learn from no other. He will not be the same in three years

NC Wayne, That sounds like this young man too. I remember a while back that you posted about the one you were talking about. You seemed impressed that he was polite and wanted to learn. Same thing here, over the last few months this boy has made a total change for the worse. I did hear his Dad gave him a big raise. Maybe it went to his head.

The kid has actually thrown me under the bus a few times, But I prefer to take the High Road, Makes it easier to look in the mirror.

Sounds like this guy is tearing things up and is rough on stuff. Not being honest with his old man about how it got tore up. And your covering for him by saying, well.. it could of been this or that or whatever. If thats right, you need to stop that right now. A mechanic knows when a certain break down is normal wear, or just plain abuse by the operater. Next time that happens, you personally let the old man know that the equipment failed because of operator being hard on it. It wont take the old man long to figure out the kid is lieing and flat out being hard on stuff. Let the dad handle it. But he first and foremost needs to know the truth about whats going. That has to come from you, especially if the kid's got the wool pulled over dads eyes.

Your mistake was you started 'catching' him. Let him fall and hit the ground.He's makeing his bed,let him sleep in it.Even if he's not smart enough to know any better.Sounds like you need to keep as far away from that as possible.....

Sometimes a change like that (respectful/trying to learn into obnoxious jerk) can signal the kid has started drugs. I hope that's not the case. Continuing to bail him out is not the answer. He's an adult now. Let him learn a hard lesson of life.

Apparently you are not yet a grizzled old *&#%@+ like me and still LISTEN to the raving of "BLEMS"?

While I admire your effort, and have done the same thing MANY times, NO more.

You've got a good memory, because it is, in fact, the same kid I was talking about. Don't know what it is about the money, but it seems like the more is thrown at these kids, the more they think they own the world, or that those of us that do 'own' it owe it to them. It's like the money blocks every grain of common sense in their heads and makes them think that they are better than those of us making and giving them that money.

Wish I knew of another way to describe it but it's hard to accurately describe something I have never had the 'pleasure' to experience myself.

What makes matters even worse is when they get to the point they absolutely expect the world to revolve around them, and then get mad when it doesn't. What they fail to see is that those of us helping them out are doing so for a reason and really don't mine, and in fact enjoy, mentoring them......but only as long as we know that our efforts are appreciated. When the appreciation is gone the desire to help them goes right out the window as our actions become less of a 'crutch' to help them than a third leg that allows them to idle one of their own. Pull that leg out and their unused one is so atrophied that they have no clue how to make it function.

In the end it's so frustrating to see someone with a real talent for something wasting their talent simply because they want everyone to 'KNOW' how good they are 'right now' instead of taking the time to prove themselves like the rest of us had to do. In the end all we can do is all we can do and, just like most of us, they will either have to sink or swim on their own, just like we all did.

Good luck with your situation. Given that it's the son of a customer I can see where problems could arise...especially if it's with a good paying, long time customer (something hard to find). Hope thing work out for all of ya'll.

Unsure how to reply, I was young and learning, at one time...
now I'm old and learning.

You tried to learn him and get him thinking in the right direction. If he has excelled,
and now teaching you, the engineers at the factory, the ag school, and others as he goes, Well, so be it.
Short of that, Darn shame, especially,
if Dad don't catch the hints.
Hope he don't hurt himself or others.
For you, Sir, just do the required job, with minimal explanation, and shake your head as the son (and or Dad) leaves.
You know now you're wasting your time and breath.
Sorry its a customer and his son, but sometimes,
no matter how hard ya try, ya just can't fix everything.
We want them to understand what they're operating, for maximum life, warranty, ease, production, etc...
Don't know...
Lets hope it passes, maybe a family or woman thing, lets hope not drugs, and worse yet, lets hope its not a case of stupid.
I suffer from that, its incurable.

I think there's a very good possibility the dad is feeding the kid, as in not only giving him a job but paying him more too. Too many kids like this that somehow think they're entitled and the most valuable employee in the company. When my dad owned a company, he had a policy not to hire relatives. If we were in dire need, we might get hired temporarily if there was work. His term was SOB's...Son of the boss. Some family businesses work but a lot more struggle. I always respected my dad and would have done everything possible to make him proud of me. The last thing I'd want to do is hurt his business. Sadly some parents are too blind or don't want to believe their relatives are hurting their business.

I've been there a few times, you help someone out and then they start getting all cocky. what i do is give them plenty of rope to hang themselves. if they worked for me, I'd give em rope, then shirt can em.

Been there done that helped kids out then its either there better then you or they blow it . very few times in my life have i ever been thanked for what i have done.the few times were mainly older people and those few keep me trying to help others but be more carefull about who i help.

for my 2 cents your right, young people need to learn that getting the free additional help and covering his fanny come with respect and the willingness to benifit from the additional time spent on him, when a underling becomes arragent or disrespectfull or thinks he knows more than you do, its time to let him learn it on his own, but like others have said a sudden change of mood usually indicates some form of drug use too

I have similar young men in my classes that I allow to fail on smaller repairs. Nothing major. Then I discuss with them what they could have done differently. He is simply maturing. I do require they fix the mistake themselves and I only offer advice. If they can't, I show them then disassemble. I frequently encounter this with drum brakes. I show them how it's done and why, and then I require they do it. I then point out their mistakes if they have made any.

(quoted from post at 16:40:37 04/10/14) Not using real name, never know who reads. I run a business that does machinery repairs. One customer has a son that works for him. Good kid, late 20's. Not the sharpest tack in the box, but used to be respectful, would ask questions, and I was pleased to go the extra mile to try to educate him. I saved his case many times, and even covered things for him at times,when he goofed up. He used to appreciate it and often thanked me.
Last few months, he has really changed, has become arrogant, has told lies about how things got damaged (I am no fool) List goes on. Has hung me out to dry a few times. Tried to gently talk to his Dad, but I could tell that was a waste of time.
I really hate to have to do this, but it looks like I am going to let him really mess up.. Not that I would do anything intentional, just stop spending the extra effort to educate him. Sink or Swim. Is this wrong?

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You tried to do the right thing by talking to his dad. If that got nowhere, leave it be, it'll only create hard feelings if you press it.
When I do repairs, I only deal with the person who signs the check. Stops second hand changing of stories.
If they ask, I'll tell them what actions caused the breakage or how to avoid future repairs. no names.
He's the boss, it's up to him to educate his employees. Not my job.
As far as the one being disrespectful to you.
That is between you and him........................ :evil:

The red flag went up for a good reason. Behavior/attitudes do not change quickly with out a cause. One word: drugs.. probably a meth head. No good will come of this. My advice is: if Dad owes you any money, get it now! Make some excuse that you need it right away and meet him at bank to get it. Cause when kid is busted, Dad will spend on lawyers, rehab and whatever else to try to keep kid out of slammer. Denial is not a river in Egypt. Then you keep away from this place, other wise you could get caught up in the mess when the poo hits the pneuma accelerating device. Don't put it past kid to implicate you as the seller. Then you are in a real mess to try to prove that which did not happen, that you sold/provided illegal drugs. Just decline to do business with them and do not even drive there to say hi. This may seem like harsh advice compared to some of the posts, but been there, seen it before. My son, now an EMT in an isolated area out west tells stories about it too. More that a few families destroyed in NYS here abouts by meth and heroin which seems to be big lately. HTH

In my transmission shop I work for quite a few kids (late teens-early twenties). Around here they pretty much fall into two types.

1. The kid who is just starting out scratching by, whether its being in school, or having a young family and trying to make a go of it. These kids are great to work for, and honestly are in the majority.

2. The kid who comes in with a $20-30-40k truck that dad bought for him and arrogant as heck. Usually the parent is totally blind to the fact that their little cherub could ever wreck anything, so it has to be someone elses fault.

The sad part is that these kids know that no matter what they destroy on a weekend of impressing everyone, daddy will either swoop in and come to the rescue with his credit card and bail them out or call you every name in the book for not fixing it right. You can show dad how the rear tires are down to the cords, with burn lines in whats left of the tread, broken mounts, bent drive shafts, smoked out rear brakes, blown u joints and the lights still don"t come on.

That"s the hard part of your situation, its the kid giving you trouble, but the parent is the one to blame. You found out talking to the dad does no good, hes in denial and it will always be your fault. The kid isn"t being respectful of equipment or the cost of repairs simply because he doesn"t have to be and he knows it.

The only advice I can give you is to be straight up with dad about the repairs. Be prepared to lose him as a customer for awhile. He will probably go somewhere else, but when he does come back, he will be a great customer again. BW

Distance yourself from the family and be "too busy" to do any more work for them. It is a safe guess that drugs are involved and it is not your job to try to save him.

Your job is to protect yourself, your family and your business, not someone else's kid.

Amen to that.

Only way he will learn is by getting his Masters degree from the school of hard knocks.

Back off and let him learn.

and let him buy his own trailer too.

Gene