I have a statement issued today by Pep Boys CEO Mike Odell announcing how profitable Pep Boys has been this year, and how much more money we (Pep Boys employees) are being paid. Trouble is, it is all polotics, subterfuge and propaganda (lies for the lay folk).
I am a Master Technician of 20 years experience. I am smarter, wiser, and faster at my job than ever before...and yet I am making less money this year than ever before regardless of my competency and qualifications. Is it the economy you may wonder? The answer is yes...though indirectly. .
Pep Boys has had issues with inventory(and still does...though it is better than before), operations streamlining, and uncontrolled spending for some time. Our last CEO Jeff Rachor was paid a compensation package of approximately 14.5 million dollars for less than a year of service with us, and from the service bay perspective, his ideas were not sound to say it very politely. Now we have Mikle Odell (again) and while there has been progress made in some areas, what progress there has been has been very over-rated. Is the company "back in black" (AC/DC rippoff anyone?) this year of 2009, though it has come at a grave cost to many of us (employees). We lost alot of money and time training for something called "drive up service". We have lost money (locally) because of equipment that was repaired over and over again, was inoperable for more than half the year only to finally be replaced with a new piece of equipment that works...at half the cost that was already spent on repairs, not to mention service tickets lost durring that time. Pep Boys is taking advantage of the economy to shaft their own employees and pay them less, pocketing the cash to pay off debt, and open 25 new service centers this year alone.
I work in a shop that is not busy enough to support all of the technicians that currently are employed...and they just hired a new one this week...we'll have fun splitting 100 labor hours a week between us...just so we don't have to make any customer wait on anything ever...that's the plan at least...it's "the Pep Boys way".
An example of this fraud on the part of Manny Moe and Jack towards their flat rate employees is their "packages". Flat rate as defined by Pep Boys is that we are compensated at an hourly rate as provisioned by the Pep Boys labor guide or Mitchell equivilent. Two shocks as per the package pays .5 hrs to replace a set (2) shock absorbers...no matter what the year make and model of the vehicle is, and Mitchel indicates 1.4 hours for a set (2) front shocks on a Chevy Astro 4x4 van. What this means is that the job is realisticly going to take at least an hour, but I will only be paid for .5 hour. Does this sound equivilent to anyone?
I have adressed this with my service manager, as well as his boss (our DM) and his boss as well. To make this matter more complicated, other labor times have been increased beyond what Mitchell reflects as an appropriate time estimate. It was explained to me that these increased labor times are intended to "offset" the other labor times that we are being screwed on...trouble is, that comes at the cost of now defrauding *some* other customers by over charging them...to offset the losses for the other customers whom Pep Boys intentionally *under* charges.

I say keep it simple...if we really want to be the "We do it all...for less" leader in the industry, just drop the labor rate charged to customers UP FRONT and pay us what you agreed to pay us employees instead of over complicating everything and defrauding both your own employees and customers in some fancy dance of financial doom.

As for folks at the service desk being paid more, it's only true in busy stores where much more customer traffic is present. The new concept of trying to turn us into a "quickie lube" is also dismal...service writers doing service...and lube techs (installers) answering phones, writing up customers and doing more intensive service work like front end work and brakes with NO training or qualifications?
I have to ask where the communication breakdown is occuring between the real world and our leaders in the Pep Boys orginization...this is insanity.

Feel free to ask questions or otherwise respond to this post, I'll check back weekly and respond appropriately.