My parents decided to close their auto repair and tire business last week, December 21st 2018. My great grandfather JO Branson opened Branson’s Auto Service in 1959. He then handed it down to my grandfather Ed Branson, who then handed down to my father Elliott Branson. My parents have decided to close the business and then put it up for sale in 2019 to prepare for retirement.

Every business has a certain kind of culture that must be created for the business to be successful and to thrive. Business owners must create good morale among its employees, create work standards for employees, establish trust with customers along with multiple other elements that make a business run. When I think of my family’s business closing, I think about the work culture that will disappear that has existed my entire life. This culture was created and maintained by my family for nearly 60 years. While this work culture will disappear now that the business will be sold, I have carried many elements of this work culture into my job as a community college English teacher. That gives me some consolation that I can carry on what my family has built. However, when I think about it-----many parts of this automotive repair business has shaped my expectations of “work” along with how to enjoy work as an adult.

My first job was refilling the Coke Machine at the age of 12 on Saturdays at the shop(that’s what our family calls the business). My dad would often bring me to work for about 2-3 hours on Saturdays and I would put Coke, Diet Coke, Mr. Pibb and Mellow Yello cans in the drink machine then count all the quarters, dimes and nickels. I would get one free 12oz drink for doing this. I was put in charge of keeping the tire inventory in order at the age of 14, the summer before my freshman year of high school. Soon thereafter I got my driver’s license and showed up to work everyday after school and worked from 8 to 5:30pm in the summers. I was expected to be at the business when it was open, if I had nothing to do. This slowly shaped my view of work.

First, manual labor can be as fulfilling and enjoyable as any other job. My primary role at the shop was to be a “tire guy” who changed tires, stacked tires, disposed of tires and changed oil. My dad sold so many tires daily that he always used me as a “tire guy” the whole time I worked there. Part of being a tire guy was to haul old junk tires to the county landfill. Part of being in the tire business is to properly dispose of the old tires that come off people’s cars. By law, you have to dispose of the old tires by putting them in a special trailer at the county landfill. We fill this piece of crap 1995 Ford box truck with about 250 tires and make the 20 minute drive to landfill. Driving this truck was like something out of a cartoon, it was very loud, all the paint was peeling off and it was a stick shift which made it tricky to drive.

This is easily one of the my favorite memories of my entire life----working hard, getting dirty and driving an old truck while getting paid to do it.

Loading and unloading the truck was physically demanding and communal (2 people always had to go). The tires would typically collect rainwater(which had bacteria-like stuff floating around in it) from sitting outside which would splash on you while throwing the tires out of the truck. By the end of it------your arms were black with dirt and your pants were covered in funky cold rainwater.

Why was this enjoyable? Because it was required that you get dirty. Not since childhood when I used to dig big holes in my backyard for fun had it been necessary that I make a white t-shirt black with dirt. When I left work at 5:30, I had to use GoJo soap to scrub all the black dirt from underneath my fingernails. My biceps got a workout from lifting old 31x10.50 BFG truck tries and my right leg always got a work out from hoisting tires up to stack them. This is a contrast from my current job today as an English teacher where I typically stand in front of a classroom for 3 hours and sit at a computer for 5 hours a day. There is a certain kind of physical pleasure that comes from doing manual labor that I will never get from being a teacher.

Second, I learned that the experience of manual labor while listening to rock music is a potent mix of freedom, motivation and meaning.

After I finished grading essays for the fall semester(all English teachers spend November and December sitting at a desk for hours grading), I returned back home for Christmas break so I could spend a few days helping my dad at the shop. If the shop was going to close forever, I had to be there for the experience.

Part of that experience is how rock music aligns so well with work. Didn’t people sing “I Been Working on the Railroad” while building railroads across the United States in the 1800’s? Didn’t Walt Whitman write about the alignment of manual labor and singing when he wrote the poem “I Can Hear America Singing?” Doesn’t music and song help the worker stay motivated while pressed against deadlines and times of monotony?

This happened on daily basis working with air guns and changing oil aligns (an industrial setting) paired with classic rock at Branson’s Auto Service. My last few days there offered me a chance to relive the glory days with an ideal soundtrack. As I was changing oil in a car, Green Day’s “When I Come Around” came on the radio. Shortly thereafter “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam came on while I was using an air gun to take tires off of a car. The sound of an air gun aligned with rock music is amazing sound. On my last day there, I was dismounting a tire when a Van Halen song came on. It is like a drug to hear Eddie Van Halen’s guitar riff perfectly align with the physical work of wrestling a tire off a rim. Dismounting a tire off a wheel is somewhat of an art, and we were in a hurry to do the best possible job very, very fast. The song gave me a jolt of energy, I turned it up and yelled above the noise to the guys “This is what you work on a car to!”

It is a small miracle when the ideal song aligns itself with the ideal setting and task. Classic rock music was made for the industrial setting of an auto-motive repair shop, working with metal only feels right when you are listening to metal.

Third, I learned how to master bad moods in the morning and fight laziness from the older guys around me.

The central goal of being a “tire guy” was to put on the maximum amount of tires on multiple cars in a day as possible. Being a tire guy is about physical endurance and speed. This was a team effort as one guy took the tires off the car, the next guy dismounted the tires and the third guy balanced the tires. Working on a team of 3 guys required focus, communication and optimism. Most days we looked like the team of hurried guys who were methodically changing tires during a pitstop of a NASCAR race. We each had our own assigned task and we had to do it quickly. Here's a video of NASCAR pit crew team with their assigned roles:

The difference between the tire guys and the NASCAR team would be that we did this for 8 hours straight for 5 days a week, perhaps knocking out 20-30 cars over the course of one day. I'm not saying we were as athletic than these NASCAR pit crews(I do believe could have cut it as one of these NASCAR jack guys when I was 19), but we had the same kind of intense mentality that required team work for success.

The guys I worked with knew how to endure a long work day by coming to work with a good attitude. Those guys were Fred, Timmy, Smitty and my father. They were always in a good mood and rarely got mad. They told stories, they seemed excited about work and made jokes. I would often show up to work in a bad mood. But their jokes made it fun to endure the small difficulties and physical exhaustion. These guys had accepted the hardship of work and knew how to make it through the week. I saw how my own bad moods and laziness hurt the team effort of changing as many tires as possible.

My father Elliott taught me about fighting bad moods and laziness by example. He always showed up to work at 5:30 or 6am and worked till 6pm. How does a person keep a consistent mood of getting up and working for 12 hours day for over 30 years? I still don’t totally know how he does it, but he does. Sometimes an explanation isn’t necessary. I say to myself “Well, he does it somehow. I can do that too.” And that's part of the internal narrative that has shaped my work ethic for years now.

Whenever I run into funky moods as a teacher (or any other job I've had since I worked at the shop) I subconsciously say these to myself to work hard:
----“Timmy would ask everyone sarcastically “Are we having fun yet?” to lighten the mood.”
----“Fred would his fantastic story about aliens in this situation to make everyone laugh. Is there a funny story I can tell to cheer up my co-workers?”
----“My dad worked long hours when he didn’t feel like working. I can do it too.”

All of these elements of handling bad moods for the sake of accomplishing goals at the shop were an ingrained part of the morale at Branson’s Auto Service.

Fourth------it is possible to be intentionally ignorant of what is right in front of you.

When I was 17 years old, I was stubborn, insecure, full of dreams and very distracted by girls. At 17 years old I was chiefly concerned with being popular at East Davidson High School. Whatever I could do to be popular in high school or get a girlfriend, that’s typically what I would do. In this situation, I did not consider working on cars to be something that would help attract attention from women. However, the paycheck that I got every week helped me in with my teenage goals (buying a Jeep Grand Cherokee, putting cool speakers in my car, wearing cool clothes).

In fact, I often considered working at an auto-shop beneath me as a long-term career. I always imagined myself working an “easier job” that wasn’t as physically demanding as being a mechanic. Like any teenager, I was looking for shortcuts and considered taking over my dad's auto shop as taking the hard road. Why take the hard road? I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to find a middle/upper class white-collar job where I would drive a brand new Land Rover. At 35 years old, I see that I was very insecure and just wanted more respect from people and I thought getting an white collar would give me that. Thankfully, I found Jesus Christ in college and I do not feel I need to earn respect from others through upward mobility or Land Rovers.

Why did I stay ignorant? I knew deep down that if I learned about the "deep things" of auto-mechanics, I might end up taking over my dad's business. I didn't want that. So I intentionally stayed ignorant about some of the deep elements of auto-mechanics. A large part of this was because, as I said earlier, my dad needed me to change tires for 8 hours a day. My teenage athleticism helped me do this effectively. But looking back I could have learned about how to change starters, align vehicles, and complete diagnostic tests on engines. My identity as a Christian today has helped shape me into a more teachable person, helping me to be open to look like a idiot while trying to learn something new.

Do you want to run a successful business or organization? If so, you have to be intentional about shaping the culture of your small business or organization. I am sad to see Branson's Auto Service close, but thankful that I was born into this family that created a culture of trust, consistency and integrity that lasted for decades.