Speaker 1: Welcome back to On the Job. I'm Avery Thompson and
Speaker 1: on today's episode, we're headed up to Vermont, or should
Speaker 1: I say back up to Vermont to check in with
Speaker 1: an old friend from a previous season.
Speaker 2: I am Demenie Pollet, and I am still the owner
Speaker 2: of Gurlington Garage.
Speaker 3: It's been two years now, correct.
Speaker 2: I guess, so, yeah, it's a lot longer than I thought.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it to see how the last
Speaker 1: couple of years have treated Demenie Pollitt and her team
Speaker 1: at Garlington Garage. When Demanie Pollet was last on On
Speaker 1: the Job, she was an open book about her highs
Speaker 1: and lows of pursuing a career in the automotive repair
Speaker 1: business after working for years as a social worker.
Speaker 2: It's nearly impossible to take your own emotions out of it.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows what it's like when their car breaks down
Speaker 2: and when they have this painfully expensive bill that they
Speaker 2: have to pay if they're going to get their car back.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows how that feels.
Speaker 1: One of the things that really stuck with me from
Speaker 1: our previous conversation was a strain working with her mom
Speaker 1: had on their relationship.
Speaker 2: Being partners with my mom owning a business destroyed our
Speaker 2: relationship one hundred percent. When we were still working together,
Speaker 2: we would be in our office and we would just
Speaker 2: constantly be yelling at each other.
Speaker 1: So with her mother now retired from the business, I
Speaker 1: wanted to start by asking Demoni how things were going
Speaker 1: between them.
Speaker 2: It's better. It's much better. It's not like it was
Speaker 2: before we work together. I don't think it ever will be.
Speaker 2: But she's living nearby again, and we have dinner together
Speaker 2: every Thursday night, and she is trying really, really hard
Speaker 2: to build our relationship up again. And I am accepting that.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying as hard as she is, but I'm
Speaker 2: not angry anymore the way that I was. So things
Speaker 2: are much better.
Speaker 1: One thing I love about talking with Demanie is her
Speaker 1: honesty and transparency, and Demanie founded Gurlington Garage on those
Speaker 1: same principles, offering her customers honest, straightforward car repairs, no gimmicks,
Speaker 1: no tricks, no lies, and it's proved a successful business model.
Speaker 2: Yeah it has grown. I think I have at least
Speaker 2: one more, if not two more employees than I had before,
Speaker 2: and so yeah it has.
Speaker 1: Girlington Garage has even become something of an icon in
Speaker 1: the community.
Speaker 2: People often come in just to buy a sweatshirt or
Speaker 2: a T shirt for someone, but I don't think we
Speaker 2: actually make any money off of it.
Speaker 3: It's just fun.
Speaker 1: So someone that founded their business on trust and transparency,
Speaker 1: it came as such a surprise to me when Demani
Speaker 1: started describing those qualities as her shortcomings.
Speaker 2: One of my greatest feelings is that if you look
Speaker 2: at me and tell me something, I will believe you
Speaker 2: whatever it is. I just believe that people are telling
Speaker 2: me the truth always.
Speaker 1: But it turns out there's a reason because not too
Speaker 1: long after the last time we spoke, Demini discovered that
Speaker 1: one of her employees, an employee she really valued at
Speaker 1: the time, had been well, this isn't a true crime podcast,
Speaker 1: so I'll just say negatively impacting the business financially.
Speaker 2: And then I sat her down. She told me she
Speaker 2: really cared about me, and she was really sorry, and
Speaker 2: I told her I didn't trust her anymore.
Speaker 1: And while there's never a good time for an employee
Speaker 1: to act out of line, it came at an especially
Speaker 1: trying one for Demine.
Speaker 2: I was in the middle of a really deep depression
Speaker 2: and I don't know if I talked to you about this.
Speaker 2: But I get migraines and they had gotten really bad.
Speaker 2: I was probably getting them twenty five times a month,
Speaker 2: so I mean almost every and so when I discovered this,
Speaker 2: I just didn't think I could go back to running
Speaker 2: the business on my own with.
Speaker 1: That feeling incapable of taking the reins, Demani tried to
Speaker 1: make it work with that employee, all in the name
Speaker 1: of keeping the business going, of upholding her obligation to
Speaker 1: her customers and the community.
Speaker 2: She served to have someone who could do the majority
Speaker 2: of the day to day stuff and I could deal
Speaker 2: with the financial stuff. I could handle that, and a
Speaker 2: lot of that I could do from home if I
Speaker 2: needed to, and it would still allow me to try
Speaker 2: and get better.
Speaker 1: But that arrangement didn't last long because as Demanie started
Speaker 1: spending more time in the shop again, she started to
Speaker 1: learn that this same employee had created a very unhealthy
Speaker 1: work environment. And that's when Demanie knew she had to
Speaker 1: draw the line.
Speaker 2: I just didn't want to hurt anyone else, and it
Speaker 2: was for me to deal with. It wasn't for anyone
Speaker 2: else to worry about or deal with.
Speaker 3: That is quite the dramatic update. I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 4: I know I wasn't either, But don't worry, folks, It's
Speaker 4: not all doom and gloom on this episode of On
Speaker 4: the Job.
Speaker 1: So when we come back from the break, we'll hear
Speaker 1: how Deminie Polytt gets her garage all fixed up and
Speaker 1: running like new. We're back with Demanie Pollett of Gurlington Garage, who,
Speaker 1: as we heard, for the sake of her business, had
Speaker 1: no other choice but to let go of a key employee,
Speaker 1: even if doing so meant that she'd have to spend
Speaker 1: much more time at the shop in spite of some
Speaker 1: real challenging health problems. I know it was often painful
Speaker 1: for Demoni to get into the shop. Once she was there,
Speaker 1: it didn't take long for her to realize that she'd
Speaker 1: made the right decision.
Speaker 2: And my tech came to me and he said, I
Speaker 2: know that things are really hard for you right now,
Speaker 2: but your presence here is really important. It really matters,
Speaker 2: and we really need you here. And I hated that.
Speaker 2: I still hate it, but I know he's right.
Speaker 1: Demoni had found herself in a tricky spot one I
Speaker 1: think a lot of business owners get into when the
Speaker 1: business they started continues demanding more of their time and
Speaker 1: attention than they want to keep giving it.
Speaker 2: It's like my only thing. I don't have kids, it
Speaker 2: is my only thing, and so I think there's a
Speaker 2: part of me that doesn't want to let it die.
Speaker 2: I could live on disability, I really could. And my
Speaker 2: house is almost paid off, and I don't spend much
Speaker 2: money anyway because I don't do anything. I have migraines.
Speaker 2: I just hang out at home all the time, so
Speaker 2: I could, And I think that there is a part
Speaker 2: of me that just doesn't want to let it die.
Speaker 2: I care about it, even though I don't really want
Speaker 2: to be a part of it. I don't want to
Speaker 2: see it, and I want it to keep going.
Speaker 3: I've had some relationships like that.
Speaker 2: Ye yes, yes, it's a dad relationship. You're totally right.
Speaker 1: So what do you do to keep going? After nearly
Speaker 1: sixteen years of criming along and retirement a mere speck
Speaker 1: on the horizon. Well, for Demini, she treated it like
Speaker 1: the cars in our shop. Assess the problem and come
Speaker 1: up with a solution.
Speaker 2: We pull every car in first name in the morning
Speaker 2: and we do the evaluation on each car, and then
Speaker 2: we call the customer and we go through the evaluation,
Speaker 2: we say, here's everything that we found, so you decide
Speaker 2: what happens from that point on, but you're able to
Speaker 2: make an informed decision.
Speaker 1: Taking that same approach to her own business, Demenie evaluated
Speaker 1: Gurlington Garage and realized that in her absence, the morale
Speaker 1: of her team had been severely damaged by that one
Speaker 1: bad apple.
Speaker 2: Every single person came to me and said, I'm so
Speaker 2: glad that you did that. I was looking for another job,
Speaker 2: all of my employees. I was about to lose everyone,
Speaker 2: and I had no idea, like, not even a hint.
Speaker 2: I really didn't know.
Speaker 1: So to remedy that, Demani started having weekly one on
Speaker 1: one meetings with her employees.
Speaker 3: What do these meetings look like? Are they coming into
Speaker 3: your office? Are you sipping coffee?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sometimes it depends on what time of day. I
Speaker 2: have a tech who usually comes in at luxury, brings
Speaker 2: his luncheon and eats with me. But they come into
Speaker 2: my office to close the doors. I asked them how
Speaker 2: they're doing, how their week has been, and then I
Speaker 2: asked them to tell me something good since the last
Speaker 2: time we met. Something that has been a struggle or
Speaker 2: a hurdle that they had to get over something that
Speaker 2: really didn't go well, and then ask them tell me
Speaker 2: something that they learned or it's something that they're proud of,
Speaker 2: and it takes fifteen minutes. They're really not long meetings.
Speaker 1: As we learned the first time we spoke with Demani.
Speaker 1: Prior to going into auto mechanics school, she was a
Speaker 1: social worker helping people in need. So these meetings in
Speaker 1: a way feel like a healthy blending of her passions.
Speaker 2: The meeting is often about their personal stuff, and I
Speaker 2: think that's really valuable, knowing what's going on in their lives,
Speaker 2: knowing how that's their lives are affecting their work.
Speaker 1: And as anyone who's ever held a job knows, the
Speaker 1: more of ourselves were able to bring into our work,
Speaker 1: the more fulfilling that work becomes.
Speaker 2: I love talking to them, hearing about how they're doing,
Speaker 2: working through whatever struggles they're having, and coming up with
Speaker 2: goals for the future. I don't know, I always leave
Speaker 2: those meetings feeling really good. I really like that. It's
Speaker 2: a really nice part of my day.
Speaker 1: So will Demanie might have resisted coming back into the
Speaker 1: shop these days. Her own relationship with the business is improving, and.
Speaker 2: It was good to get back in touch with the
Speaker 2: business and really be a part of things again.
Speaker 1: And staff morale has definitely improved since Demni's returned and
Speaker 1: instituted those weekly meetings, so much so that one of
Speaker 1: her service advisors recently approached her about potentially taking over
Speaker 1: the business someday.
Speaker 2: In the time that she's sort of been working into
Speaker 2: the role of a service manager, she has decided that
Speaker 2: she really wants to eventually buy the business, which probably
Speaker 2: won't happen for another fifteen years, but it's what she's
Speaker 2: working towards. And yeah, just talking about business ownership and
Speaker 2: management and yeah, are progressing slowly, but they feel stable
Speaker 2: for the first time in about it year and a half,
Speaker 2: which is lovely.
Speaker 1: And while Demanie would love to pass the business off
Speaker 1: sooner rather than later, she's accepted that it can't be rushed.
Speaker 2: I think that I'm going to be there full time,
Speaker 2: probably at least for another year, if not longer, and
Speaker 2: in maybe about fifteen years, I'll be ready to transfer
Speaker 2: the business to them if they are still interested in
Speaker 2: taking it over, and then I will retire.
Speaker 1: But until that day comes, Demenie Pollitt is keeping her
Speaker 1: hands firmly on the wheel.
Speaker 2: It's rolling along and it can't be stopped. It is
Speaker 2: a stable, sturdy business that's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: For on the job, I'm Avery Thompson.