The 3 Hours a Day Nobody Pays You For

What would you tell your twenty-year-old self? 0:00

Steve Shaw: We are back again. Dave Rogers, what is going on?

Dave Rogers: We were kicking around work-life balance in the last episode, and it got me thinking. I was chit-chatting with Tori, a friend of ours, and we were talking about all kinds of stuff, health-related stuff, the way old guys talk now. The question was, what would you tell your twenty-year-old self? Nothing, because I wouldn't have listened. So you twenty-year-olds out there aren't going to listen to anything we say anyway. Fast-forward to the end and get the GM tip of the day. No, I'm kidding. But it brought up an interesting conversation, because I think work-life balance is a bit of a media-hype thing.

The car business is different than it used to be. Sales used to have twelve-hour shifts, bell to bell, nine to nine. They're working five days a week now, and I don't think they're working bell to bell five days a week. Maybe two nine-to-nines. I used to use the example that there are 168 hours in a week. How do you spend them? Say you spend fifty hours at work. That's a lot. It's roughly thirty percent of your week. And that thirty percent determines what kind of car you drive, where you sleep, what kind of house you have: a single-wide, a double-wide or a single-family house. Let's be honest: are you going to sleep in a nice bed or on a cot? That's what that thirty percent pays for. And you and I were talking about the old-day car business, and how much of it was self-inflicted. How many hours a week were you working when you became a manager?

The hours new managers put in 1:59

Steve Shaw: When you take over a store, it's bell to bell until you get that thing running. Probably ninety days of madness, if you're lucky. Five, six days a week, Sundays, whatever. Easily.

Dave Rogers: Five or six days a week, sixty hours maybe. You were in California. Some of those places are open on Sundays.

Steve Shaw: Well, even if you weren't, you'd go in on Sunday just to do paperwork. "I've got to get caught up. I need some quiet time to get ready for the next week." You're right, we do that to ourselves. No question. No one ever made me work any hours. But like I said in the other episode, I never missed a lunch. I promise you, not one time. At eleven-thirty or twelve-thirty, whenever it was my time, or whenever I felt like it, I'm out the door. Would I take my phone? Yes. Did I want someone to call me? No. Would I take a call? I would. But people knew. My buddy Bob, no joke, used to go in his office, turn the lights off, close the blinds and close his eyes for an hour. "Don't bother me." That was his deal. And I have no problem whatsoever with somebody doing that.

Dave Rogers: When I was younger, I grew up working on a farm. We worked ninety hours a week in the summer. I was a big shot: I got paid a dollar an hour when I first started. Forty hours on the check at a dollar or two an hour as I got older, and the other fifty hours were cash. So I was used to working seven days and ninety hours a week. I never minded working. When I got into the car business, it was a union shop with a forty-hour week, but I'd work the evening shifts and the day shifts, and even though we weren't open weekends, I'd come in Saturday to do accessories on the Chevy pickups.

When I became a manager, I did the same thing. Bell to bell Monday through Friday. We weren't open Saturday, so I'd come in and do my warranty claims for a couple of hours, then come back in Sunday to get the acknowledgments. But even if it was sixty or seventy hours a week, I didn't have the commitments. I just had a wife, no kids, when I first started. In my twenties, I could work twelve hours a day, come home, shower, go to the bar and stay up until three in the morning. I used to get changed into my mechanic's uniform, drive to work, sleep in front of the door and have somebody wake me up when they got there, because I could barely stay up.

Carving out time for yourself 4:51

Dave Rogers: It was self-inflicted. What I never learned to do until I was much older, instead of the work-life balance statement, was carve out time for myself. Like you said, the one-hour lunch, or the half-hour lunch sitting in the car listening to music. Don't be bothered. I never did that. It wasn't part of my DNA. I think that's a better message. When you hear these young kids saying "work-life balance": when it's time to step up and work forty-eight or fifty hours a week, if you want to move up or get to that next level, you've got to do it. Nobody's going to make you. But if your heart's really in it and you want to succeed, fixing a place in sixty or ninety days is not asking much.

Steve Shaw: I think it's a different culture, a different expectation. I worked way harder as an entrepreneur and company owner than I ever worked at the dealership. If I went back to work at a dealership, I'd probably have a better work-life balance, because I could turn it off when I go home. I always tell people I work hard so I don't have to go get a real job. That drives me, so I can continue my lavish lifestyle working 120 hours a week.

But I think it's unreasonable in today's society to have the expectation most of us have. We expect people to work the overtime and the extra, and sometimes we're not willing to pay them for it. We expect an advisor to work bell to bell: you come in at 6 or 7 a.m. when the door opens, and you stay until you're done, which is generally when the door closes. And if an advisor said, "I work my eight hours, and I'm going home," they wouldn't last in our stores. We'd say we don't see any growth or desire in him, the hell with that kid, and we'd move on.

Whether you call it work-life balance or something else, I think some of our old-people expectations of young people need to change. We interviewed one gentleman the other day who had a great work ethic, but there aren't a lot of people like that. So we have to manage our stores for today, where people are going to work eight hours. We could have a shift change. We could have a meeting at five o'clock, with the people who came in at six working until three and others working later. There are so many things we could do, but a lot of us are stuck on "You're an advisor, you come in at six and work until six, or until you're done." I don't know that that's the best approach.

Dave Rogers: Every area is different. North Jersey, Long Island, the urban areas look at things totally differently. I'm in Pennsylvania now, which is a little more country than I was used to in Jersey. But when you have a salary plus a commission based on your performance, like an advisor, it's silly to give yourself a cutoff. If you're salary only, with no incentive, bonus or commission, then yes, leave it at forty hours. If you work in the accounting office on a salary or hourly, I get it. I personally don't believe you should work for free. That's never been part of my thing. But time management is a big factor. People don't know how to manage their day.

Asking an advisor to work nine hours a day, take a lunch or don't, make it ten hours with an hour lunch or nine and a half: it doesn't matter to me, as long as your job is done, your customers are called and your paperwork's closed. But the carve-out part for me is, if you need time with your family, if your wife or your kids are sick, I get it now in a way I would have had a hard time with when I was younger. Everyone has a situation. You have to take care of your family, your kids, your grandmother, whatever it is. There's got to be balance.

And as a guy, I think most men need to start carving out a little time for themselves, whether it's a hobby, golf or the gym. Everybody should go to the gym, even though I'm not good at it myself. And they should start eating better so they can stay healthier, because another reason people can't work a lot of hours is that they're overweight and tired. That's part of the problem too. Nobody ever taught us that when we were younger. We ate off the truck every day. Think about what you did. When you went out to lunch, were you eating healthy food? Maybe you were in California, but the rest of us weren't. We were going to McDonald's and Wendy's.

Steve Shaw: My nickname was Hollywood, so I was kind of into it. But yeah.

Dave Rogers: One of my old bosses used to send us over to Taco Bell all the time. That's the mistake we make: not carving out that time to make ourselves feel better. Because you do feel like crap at the end of the day when you're eating crap. You're overweight, you're having that carb crash, because all you've been doing is throwing Snickers bars down all day.

Steve Shaw: You always gain at least ten pounds when you start a new job, because you eat right out of the vending machine for three months, and you bring in donuts, and you've got to eat the donuts. The new guy's got to do all that nasty stuff. We're certainly going to put on a few pounds in those first ninety days.

A wake-up call at fifty-six 11:13

Dave Rogers: I'd say it wasn't until I was probably in my fifties that I really started paying attention to how I felt. I think it was James Garner who said at his fiftieth birthday, "If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken a hell of a lot better care of myself." I agree with that statement. When I was twenty, I didn't think I was going to live to be fifty or sixty. That's the way all young guys think, to a certain stage.

Steve Shaw: Well, you had your accident not too long ago, and I had my surgery. I was invincible until a year ago. I was still drinking a handle of vodka a week until a year ago. And when I had my surgery, all of a sudden I realized, even at fifty-five, fifty-six, that I wasn't forty. That was the revelation for me. I've done plenty of things for myself, I've carved out time for myself, and I've had a great life. But about a year ago, when I had my situation, it dawned on me: "Hey, bro, you're fifty-six. You're on the other side of forty for sure." I started really planning long-term financially four or five years ago. I should have started at forty, which I did not do. I was going to become rich, so I didn't need to plan for that. But now, at fifty-six, it's even more important. And if you've had some traumatic or life-changing event in your world, you look back and go, "Wow, I wish I would have."

I had some young men at my house when I was really sick, guys who worked at the dealership, young up-and-coming managers giving me a ride home, because I couldn't drive at the time. I was showing them my studio, and I gave away a bunch of whiskey. I'm always in the mindset to give back. If you give me a dollar, I'm going to give somebody else ten. That's karma, whatever you want to call it. And it dawned on me back then: I've been pretty lucky, and I'm going to go live my life and do everything. Now I've structured my life and even my company that way. I'm trying to bring as many people up within my organization as I can, so they can be the face and build their careers, and I get to do the stuff I've worked hard to do. I wish I'd known it back then. You're probably right, though. I gave up many a night with my significant other because I was on the road, because I wanted to grab the brass ring or ring the bell. I get why we do it. And had somebody told me, I wouldn't have listened to them either. It is important to carve that time out for yourself. No question about it.

The commute nobody pays you for 14:31

Dave Rogers: And for your family. There was a period when my kids were little and I was working close to home for a short time, and I did go to their T-ball games, watch them and help coach, which I thought was cool. I got a chance to do it. Then I got transferred ninety miles away, so I had to stop.

That's probably the biggest killer when you look at the job and quote-unquote work-life balance: the necessary part, let's put it that way, of the commute. The wasted time. If I had to reminisce about time I should have back, it's that two to three hours a day of commuting. If I was working five minutes from home, it wouldn't have been an issue. But when you're driving two or three hours and you add that on top of a ten-hour day, you're not getting paid for that time. It's not clock time. But you're definitely away from your family, your friends, or whatever it is you like to do. People have to look at that. It's probably the biggest challenge, and sometimes it's unavoidable.

If I had to change anything from the twenty years with the company I was with, Penske, maybe I would have said no to a few of those transfers with the three-hour rides. But hindsight is hindsight. You do what you have to do when you do it. To me, work-life balance was making sure my kids could go to college if they wanted to, or to hair and beauty school, that my ex-wife didn't have to work, and that we could have a nice house. That was my motivation. I did whatever I could to provide for them. But three hours a day is a lot to give up to drive. It really is.

Steve Shaw: No question. When I started getting clients, I was on the road 45 to 50 weeks a year consistently, for years. But the one thing I did was make sure I took my days off. Everybody knows I lived on a boat and got to live in the Keys and the Caribbean, so I got to structure my time differently. As an independent contractor, I could put multiple days or weeks together. I might travel for a month and then come home and have a month off.

And I remember, when I first started, there were very conscious decisions I had to make about a family. I don't have kids, because I couldn't have done what I did if I had them. I could barely leave my dog. My dog travels with me everywhere I go now. She rides on my lap. I certainly wouldn't have built a powerhouse training company. I'd be working at a dealership, which, if I had a family, would have been amazing, and I wouldn't have complained about it at all. But I did miss out on what a lot of people have, which is a good family.

Plan your vacations on a calendar 17:50

Dave Rogers: When you're looking back, the other thing I'd redo is taking a few more vacations when you work in a store. Use your PTO. When I was a technician, I used to get paid out my five or ten unused days. I never took the vacation. I was in my twenties, single, living with my uncle not too far from the ocean, barely able to pay our bar tabs. As I got older, in my thirties and forties, I figured out three-day weekends and small trips.

But I always laugh at the same people who talk about their work-life balance and then get paid out their unused PTO at the end of the year. Maybe you could have taken a few extra days. And one of the pet peeves of any manager or general manager, myself included, is people who don't look at a calendar and plan things out. I used to ask my team to pick a vacation before the end of March. Take a picture of the big yearly calendar, go home, ask your wife where and when you're going on vacation, and get your dibs in first, because in the union shops it was seniority and first in. Get as much in ahead of time as you can, so we can plan around it. There are going to be sick days, days you don't feel like working, medical days and mental health days. But give the vacation enough lead time that we can work around it and keep the business running.

You mentioned 85 percent calendar utilization in the last episode. How much of that is last-minute bullshit? "I forgot to tell you, I need two days off next week. My wife wants to do this." What do you mean you forgot? You've probably known about this for months. You could have let me work around it. Your home life is important, but so is work. We have to keep paying our bills and running the dealership. The courtesy should go both ways.

Poor planning or poor leadership? 20:31

Steve Shaw: Okay, I'm going to play devil's advocate. I agree with what you're saying. But the one thing I'd throw out there is that we're the managers and the directors. Hopefully everybody knows what their calendar utilization is, whether you use 93, 85 or 75. It doesn't matter, but we should know it. So that falls back on us too. If you hire me to train and I show up and you've got a guy on vacation, is that my fault? It happens: we show up, and the guy who most needs the training isn't there that day. Could we jump online and do something with him? I'll never say no to you, but that's poor planning. Poor planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part.

As managers, and I'd go up the chain as far as I could, we have an obligation to look at these things. Too often it's "New month, let's get started," but the week before, we weren't planning the month ahead either. It's a vicious cycle. Then when I, as your associate, have an emergency, all of a sudden I'm the bad guy because I have to go take care of my wife, when internally, as an organization, we haven't planned. Maybe that's an HR issue. I wouldn't lay it all on the service manager. If we have an HR department, that's their expertise, keeping us in compliance. There's got to be a balance in that as well. We've got to take some responsibility.

Dave Rogers: I think a lot of times it is poor management. You don't have the calendar on the wall, you don't have a vacation policy in place, and you get surprised. I used to like it on a calendar so I could plan training. Back in the old days, you were three or four months ahead, so we'd block it off: these guys are in training, let's minimize vacations that week. My point was more that this happens more now than it ever did: "Hey, Dave, I need to take off next week." "For what?" "I forgot. My wife booked a trip to the Caribbean." "I have two other guys out next week." "Yeah, but I've got to go."

That's what I mean by courtesy, because people aren't doing it anymore. They think, "I have PTO time, I should be able to take off whenever I want." I don't think employees are ever going to care as much about my business as I do, or you do. But they should care enough about their coworkers to know their absence is going to cause a lot of angst. Being down three guys is a big issue. Lack of planning on your part shouldn't constitute an emergency on mine. I've used that saying for years, but it's true. Now I've got three or four guys off, it's the end of the month, we have state inspections in this state, we're jammed, I'm down four techs, and I'm the bad guy if I get mad or tell them no.

Steve Shaw: So I'm going to throw out this nasty term: leadership.

Dave Rogers: Listen, there's one thing I've refrained from saying in most of our podcasts, but I'll tell you: it's very difficult to out-manage bad parenting and character flaws. When you have someone, young or old, man or woman, who doesn't have good moral values and character, you can't out-manage that. I don't care if you're Vince Lombardi. The only thing you can do is throw him off the team.

Steve Shaw: That's true. Vince Lombardi would have said, "You can't work for me. Your values and mine don't align. You don't belong on my team."

Dave Rogers: You never would have made the team. That's when you have to make the decision. That's the challenge nowadays, and that's the real world. When I'm visiting the dealerships and we talk about calendars, utilization and vacations, I can see the smirks on their faces. They look at me like, "Dave, you have no clue what it's like anymore. I come in on Monday, and half my shop called out sick."

Staff a third higher and build a bench 25:37

Steve Shaw: But it happens all the time, so were you prepared? Did you do anything about it? Do you have eight techs when you need seven? It happens every week, or on payday everybody leaves at lunch to go cash their check. We know this shit, but what did we do about it? That's what gets me. When I get on my high horse, I say: I know a guy who will tell you he cannot hire people, and I know a guy over here who can. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy every time. I'm a third-party outsider, not doing it right now, but that's how I feel.

Dave Rogers: My staffing advice for everybody is to staff a third higher than what you need, especially technicians and advisors. But you get blowback. I had a general manager recently where we put a sixth advisor in a store. He felt he only needed five. I felt that with CSI, days off and everything else, he could use the sixth, and we put some bigger numbers up. And you're hedging the bet that somebody leaves. Two months later, somebody left. If he hadn't taken the sixth guy we gave him, he'd have four instead of five. You almost have to be overstaffed, in case two call out sick on a Monday, or one's off schedule and another calls out. It's not cheap. It's expensive to do, and finding good-caliber techs is not as easy as everyone thinks.

Steve Shaw: Of course. But what about this: do we have a bench? Do we have minor leagues? Do we have a valet ready to step in? Have we started training those people? Some of the things we do are criminal. Maybe he's right, and he doesn't want to pay that sixth guy. You're in charge of the P&L, Mr. General Manager. But when number five takes a dive, who's going to fill in?

I had lunch yesterday with a buddy of mine down here, and these guys are the masters of the bench. There's a gaggle of porters lined up. It's like the minor leagues, bro. They've got so many people lined up to become service advisors. They're greeters, they do Service Lane Tech, they do the walk, they do all this stuff. If somebody leaves, it doesn't matter. The guy I talked to literally fired a guy on site while I was there. "You're fired." And then, "You, move over." He literally walked a guy right into that spot. That's the coolest thing I've ever seen. That's what we've got to do. And that's one in a million that I know of.

Dave Rogers: I agree a hundred percent. But the bench isn't that deep on the management side either in some cases. When you really push some of these guys and gals out there, and the gals are great, most of the time they can sell, and they have that empathy toward people and do a much better job than we do as guys a lot of the time, you find out some people have been skating for years. They're just not managers. They've been riding the tide of the economy or the car line. But you're right, building the bench would solve some of these problems.

Back to the initial premise: when people ask for time off, I think you have to be humane about it now, where in the past you never were. You had a deeper bench, maybe. People are going to have issues, and you have to plan ahead for them. But to the younger folks you're trying to move up: get off the work-life balance statement. When you're in a position, do what's required of you in that position. If it's an eight-to-five job, do eight to five. But if you want to be a manager and you just took over a new store, you're not doing eight to five. Plan on being there seven to seven. Plan on coming in on Sunday to do paperwork. Whatever it takes to get the job done. You sacrifice that small piece of your life so you can succeed, and, in Steve's way, after ninety days you can start taking it easier.

Steve Shaw: "Let me check in. Did I make my ninety? Okay, cool."

GM tip: it starts at the top 30:45

Dave Rogers: "I made my ninety days, I can take my days off now." As far as the GM tip of the day goes, thirty minutes in: it's your job as the general manager to make sure that whatever your vacation and PTO policies are, you have a calendar up and you've communicated as well as you can. You can't compensate for people calling out sick or getting hurt over the weekend. It's going to happen. But you've got to make sure you're staffed. To do the major league baseball thing Steve likes to do: you didn't go out there with nine players. You came out with twenty-four or thirty players on the team. You've got to have a bench built up and be ready to go.

Steve Shaw: You've got the minor leagues, man.

Dave Rogers: That starts with the general manager. It's a failure of leadership on the general manager's part if you have these issues, because either they're not giving their managers enough leeway to hire what they need, or the structure isn't there. It starts at the top. You can't have a service manager who wants to hire a sixth advisor for good reasons and then gets cut off at the knees.

Steve Shaw: Awesome. Let's catch up again next week. If anybody wants to weigh in on these topics, we'd love to have you on. I'll talk to you later, Dave.

Dave Rogers: Yes, sir. I want to hear about the quality of life, the work-life balance, all the things we missed.

Steve Shaw: By the way, today's Tuesday. This episode won't air until next Tuesday, but don't forget: every week, Fixed Ops Focus is streaming live on Fridays. Look forward to seeing you on Friday, Dave. All right, later.

Dave Rogers: See you on Friday, brother.