The Garage Must Go On

Welcome back to On the Job. I'm Avery Thompson and on today's episode, we're headed up to Vermont, or should I say back up to Vermont to check in with an old friend from a previous season.

I am Demenie Pollet, and I am still the owner of Gurlington Garage.

It's been two years now, correct.

I guess, so, yeah, it's a lot longer than I thought.

So let's get into it to see how the last couple of years have treated Demenie Pollitt and her team at Garlington Garage. When Demanie Pollet was last on On the Job, she was an open book about her highs and lows of pursuing a career in the automotive repair business after working for years as a social worker.

It's nearly impossible to take your own emotions out of it. Everyone knows what it's like when their car breaks down and when they have this painfully expensive bill that they have to pay if they're going to get their car back. Everyone knows how that feels.

One of the things that really stuck with me from our previous conversation was a strain working with her mom had on their relationship.

Being partners with my mom owning a business destroyed our relationship one hundred percent. When we were still working together, we would be in our office and we would just constantly be yelling at each other.

So with her mother now retired from the business, I wanted to start by asking Demoni how things were going between them.

It's better. It's much better. It's not like it was before we work together. I don't think it ever will be. But she's living nearby again, and we have dinner together every Thursday night, and she is trying really, really hard to build our relationship up again. And I am accepting that. I'm not trying as hard as she is, but I'm not angry anymore the way that I was. So things are much better.

One thing I love about talking with Demanie is her honesty and transparency, and Demanie founded Gurlington Garage on those same principles, offering her customers honest, straightforward car repairs, no gimmicks, no tricks, no lies, and it's proved a successful business model.

Yeah it has grown. I think I have at least one more, if not two more employees than I had before, and so yeah it has.

Girlington Garage has even become something of an icon in the community.

People often come in just to buy a sweatshirt or a T shirt for someone, but I don't think we actually make any money off of it.

It's just fun.

So someone that founded their business on trust and transparency, it came as such a surprise to me when Demani started describing those qualities as her shortcomings.

One of my greatest feelings is that if you look at me and tell me something, I will believe you whatever it is. I just believe that people are telling me the truth always.

But it turns out there's a reason because not too long after the last time we spoke, Demini discovered that one of her employees, an employee she really valued at the time, had been well, this isn't a true crime podcast, so I'll just say negatively impacting the business financially.

And then I sat her down. She told me she really cared about me, and she was really sorry, and I told her I didn't trust her anymore.

And while there's never a good time for an employee to act out of line, it came at an especially trying one for Demine.

I was in the middle of a really deep depression and I don't know if I talked to you about this. But I get migraines and they had gotten really bad. I was probably getting them twenty five times a month, so I mean almost every and so when I discovered this, I just didn't think I could go back to running the business on my own with.

That feeling incapable of taking the reins, Demani tried to make it work with that employee, all in the name of keeping the business going, of upholding her obligation to her customers and the community.

She served to have someone who could do the majority of the day to day stuff and I could deal with the financial stuff. I could handle that, and a lot of that I could do from home if I needed to, and it would still allow me to try and get better.

But that arrangement didn't last long because as Demanie started spending more time in the shop again, she started to learn that this same employee had created a very unhealthy work environment. And that's when Demanie knew she had to draw the line.

I just didn't want to hurt anyone else, and it was for me to deal with. It wasn't for anyone else to worry about or deal with.

That is quite the dramatic update. I wasn't expecting that.

I know I wasn't either, But don't worry, folks, It's not all doom and gloom on this episode of On the Job.

So when we come back from the break, we'll hear how Deminie Polytt gets her garage all fixed up and running like new. We're back with Demanie Pollett of Gurlington Garage, who, as we heard, for the sake of her business, had no other choice but to let go of a key employee, even if doing so meant that she'd have to spend much more time at the shop in spite of some real challenging health problems. I know it was often painful

And my tech came to me and he said, I know that things are really hard for you right now, but your presence here is really important. It really matters, and we really need you here. And I hated that. I still hate it, but I know he's right.

Demoni had found herself in a tricky spot one I think a lot of business owners get into when the business they started continues demanding more of their time and attention than they want to keep giving it.

It's like my only thing. I don't have kids, it is my only thing, and so I think there's a part of me that doesn't want to let it die. I could live on disability, I really could. And my house is almost paid off, and I don't spend much money anyway because I don't do anything. I have migraines. I just hang out at home all the time, so I could, And I think that there is a part of me that just doesn't want to let it die. I care about it, even though I don't really want

I've had some relationships like that.

Ye yes, yes, it's a dad relationship. You're totally right.

So what do you do to keep going? After nearly sixteen years of criming along and retirement a mere speck on the horizon. Well, for Demini, she treated it like the cars in our shop. Assess the problem and come up with a solution.

We pull every car in first name in the morning and we do the evaluation on each car, and then we call the customer and we go through the evaluation, we say, here's everything that we found, so you decide what happens from that point on, but you're able to make an informed decision.

Taking that same approach to her own business, Demenie evaluated Gurlington Garage and realized that in her absence, the morale of her team had been severely damaged by that one bad apple.

Every single person came to me and said, I'm so glad that you did that. I was looking for another job, all of my employees. I was about to lose everyone, and I had no idea, like, not even a hint. I really didn't know.

So to remedy that, Demani started having weekly one on one meetings with her employees.

What do these meetings look like? Are they coming into your office? Are you sipping coffee?

Yeah? Sometimes it depends on what time of day. I have a tech who usually comes in at luxury, brings his luncheon and eats with me. But they come into my office to close the doors. I asked them how they're doing, how their week has been, and then I asked them to tell me something good since the last

As we learned the first time we spoke with Demani. Prior to going into auto mechanics school, she was a social worker helping people in need. So these meetings in a way feel like a healthy blending of her passions.

The meeting is often about their personal stuff, and I think that's really valuable, knowing what's going on in their lives, knowing how that's their lives are affecting their work.

And as anyone who's ever held a job knows, the more of ourselves were able to bring into our work, the more fulfilling that work becomes.

I love talking to them, hearing about how they're doing, working through whatever struggles they're having, and coming up with goals for the future. I don't know, I always leave those meetings feeling really good. I really like that. It's a really nice part of my day.

So will Demanie might have resisted coming back into the shop these days. Her own relationship with the business is improving, and.

It was good to get back in touch with the business and really be a part of things again.

And staff morale has definitely improved since Demni's returned and instituted those weekly meetings, so much so that one of her service advisors recently approached her about potentially taking over the business someday.

In the time that she's sort of been working into the role of a service manager, she has decided that she really wants to eventually buy the business, which probably won't happen for another fifteen years, but it's what she's working towards. And yeah, just talking about business ownership and management and yeah, are progressing slowly, but they feel stable for the first time in about it year and a half, which is lovely.

And while Demanie would love to pass the business off sooner rather than later, she's accepted that it can't be rushed.

I think that I'm going to be there full time, probably at least for another year, if not longer, and in maybe about fifteen years, I'll be ready to transfer the business to them if they are still interested in taking it over, and then I will retire.

But until that day comes, Demenie Pollitt is keeping her hands firmly on the wheel.

It's rolling along and it can't be stopped. It is a stable, sturdy business that's not going anywhere.

For on the job, I'm Avery Thompson.