Working with Randy

I dreamed I was working with Randy Mitchell, aka the Brother Man, in a small independent auto shop. He was a service writer, as he had been when we were working at Yuba City Honda, where he'd been fired for a number of unethical business practices ranging from fraud to showing up to work drunk.  It was my first day, so I was still getting accustomed to how things were run in a non-dealership type shop. 

It was a smallish shop, and some of the bays were serving double duty as storage areas for various non-curricular purposes. I cleared a space for myself in one of the unused stalls adjacent to the office and, per Randy's instruction, began tearing apart a 2001 Honda CRV. I had the cylinder head torn off and stripped to send out to a machine shop, and I was awaiting further instructions from Randy. 

"When the head comes back," he said, "throw these parts on there," and he handed me a box of gaskets, rubber seals and spark plugs.

"Aye, aye," I said, looking through the box.

I couldn't find the repair order, so I went into the office to look for it. It was at that point that it occurred to me that I'd never actually seen a work order for this job. I wondered if Randy was up to his old tricks, running side jobs without the owner's knowledge. I was about to speak to someone about it when Randy accosted me.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked accusingly.

"If you're doing what I think you are, I can't be a part of it," I told him. "It's my first day, and I don't want to start out doing something that could get me fired."

"Then you don't want to work here," he said coldly. "This is how the game is played, so keep your mouth shut and your head down, and do as I say, or get out."

"I will not," I said, defiant. 

Since my stall was taken up with the disassembled CRV, I looked for another bay to use, but they were all being used for one thing or another. I began cleaning up, hoping a legitimate job would come in, but who was I kidding? Randy was the dispatcher, so if I didn't take part in his little side job racket, I could kiss my chances of landing any decent work goodbye. I'd be lucky to get the random oil change.

Later in the dream, I was in a large warehouse. The place was being used for some kind of business, but the owners were nowhere around, so I began staking out the place as a possible site to set up my own shop. I didn't have a clue what my business was going to be, so I looked around at the mostly empty space and tried to envision a thriving business of some kind. 

I heard a voice coming from the office area, so I went in to investigate. There was a customer standing at the front desk, apparently waiting for service. I figured I could just take over the existing business -- if I could determine the exact nature of the enterprise, that is. I rifled through some stacks of papers on the desk as the customer stood there, patiently waiting.

"I'll just be a minute," I said, stalling for time as I tried to make sense of the files and folders. Then I had a different thought: I'd let the customer tell me what he wanted and just go from there. "How can I help you today?"