When I began blogging, it only occurred in fits and starts. I had the impulse to write, but I didn't really have a topic, an animating idea, a pulsing purpose, a lodestar, or an editor (and it shows). But as I was walking back from the garage contemplating what modern mechanics expect us to believe about what they do, I had an epiphany.
I am in the process of moving from Pennsylvania to Maryland, with the intent of remaining there for a while. In order to get my car registered in Maryland, it needs a one time inspection (yes, it is ridiculous, but whatever). I took my car to one of the many authorized inspection stations and received some bad news. The man told me that I needed to replace a steering linkage, a CV axle, and the entire rack and pinion. He thought that the rack replacement might cost about $900 and he would have to see what the other parts would cost and when did I want them to get started. This simply boggled my mind. This mechanic would never put it in these terms, but his actions demonstrated that he believed that he was a member of a secret brotherhood who kept the mysteries of CARS (spooky music!) and that, as he was a shaman/priest of a dark art, utterly inaccessible to myself, I should simply agree to submit myself to his ministrations and his requests for payment so he could wave his hands over my car to make it conform to what he said it should be.
Once upon I time, I would simply have sucked it up. I would have had my suspicions, but in the end, I would have just dropped the cash and let it be. But I have worked in theatre production for six years. I have replaced starter motor on the car: with my own two hands (and a borrowed jack, and borrowed tools, and another person, but my two hands were definitely involved). I have not only seen sausage being made, I have actually made the sausage. Most mechanics (and plumbers and contractors, et al) have an essentially Manichean understanding of the world: there are those who can and those who pay, those who make magic and those who pay to have magic made. I reject that world view and I refuse to countenance being presented with what is essentially an ultimatum.
Bear in my mind, that I can't exactly blame the mechanic for the hand waving act. Quite a lot of people do not understand mechanical things in the slightest and many of them have neither the time nor the inclination to crack open the black box of their daily driver, or any other piece of the world they use every day and simply take for granted. As a businessman, and not just an artisan, I fully expect mechanics to charge as much as the market will bear and in this world, the market for throwing money at a problem somebody else can solve is probably endless. It's certainly large enough that this mechanic will not be going out of business anytime soon (even if he doesn't run a particularly good business).
But I don't have to buy into that worldview either. I looked the part up: an entire steering rack for my Subaru costs around $270 net (more, if I decide to keep my old rack, you know, for my collection). That's a re-manufactured part. A brand new one costs $350. Assuming the job takes about six hours (way more than the internet estimates it will take - it is a unit that is very easy to take off and replace) and he is installing a new part, then he is charging me $100 an hour for labor. That is absolutely staggering. I realize that unit labor costs for a garage include the cost of labor and tools, so most of that doesn't actually go into the mechanics pocket, but that number is still ridiculous. Mechanics are not special; they have special access to private information (you try getting a service manual for a car - it ain't easy for a private citizen) and a collection of special tools. Theatre production isn't all that different, especially for lighting. I get paid $15.50 with benefits. As a freelancer, I would charge $25 an hour for labor, $40 an hour for more specialized services, so I get it. I'm in even a little bit jealous. I definitely run into people who have no understanding of how easy theatrical lighting really is and for whom it is simply magic and who might even been convinced to pay me $100 an hour.
I took the scenic route, something I am known to do whenever I get the chance, but that is the essential point: as an electrician, someone on the inside of a specialized artisanal product, I don't believe in magic. I do NOT believe in magic. I don't believe in black boxes. You should never allow something into your life that you don't understand on at least some basic level. You may not be able to design a computer chip, but you should get the gist of how a computer basically works. This world involves constant trade-offs between knowledge, time, and money. It is possible not to take the time to know something, if you are willing to fork over money to those who make it their business to know everything about the innards of such black boxes. I get that a lot of people let black boxes into their lives because it is easier not to think about it. But I think this attitude infects people's entire lives. If you aren't interested in making yourself aware of how a radio works, or aren't at least aware that it is possible to inform yourself on the subject, then you are not going to inform yourself about public policy either, or about finance, or about any number of other things in life. Cars and computers are the prototypical mechanical/electronic black boxes, but finance is another black box. The particular activity of government is a huge black box. So that's what this blog is about: exploding, prying open, and otherwise banishing black boxes from our lives. If I find something that I don't understand, then I will inform myself about it and pass it on - the knowledge and the process. Because there is no such thing as magic.
