I'd seriously question the value of having formal training to be a bike mechanic. Anyone who isn't a complete mechanical numpty should be capable of fixing a bike anyway, without bits of paper. All the kids I grew up with were pulling bikes apart in our back yards when we were still at junior school.
It's not even a very well paid job anyway, outside of the tiny pro cycling arena. Most of the people doing it working in shops would earn just as much, if not more, if they were stacking shelves in the supermarket.
I agree re remuneration - or compensation as our US colleagues tend to call it - no, it's not well paid but then, that's the industry all over.
There is a perception that it's the customer's hobby, it may well have started out as the the retailer's hobby, so somehow the retailer should be prepared to sell or repair for the love of it, not to try and earn an honest living.
I've spend upwards of 40 years learning my skills and yes, I'm going to charge for that time spent acquiring and then working to improve my skills and my knowledge - and I don't feel ashamed to do so. Nor do I feel ashamed to charge for the fact that we have something around £20k in tooling in our service workshop (and considerably more than that in our teaching workshop), the company is fully insured both for third party and professional indemnity risks, we maintain the workshop space and heat it, light it and insure the customer's goods whilst they are on our premises.
As someone who has owned a shop, I've had customers tell me that I shouldn't be in it for a profit, in no uncertain terms. One reason I escaped retail before it became the box-moving exercise that's rapidly turned into (and COVID has done nothing to attenuate).
That attitude amongst a good sector of the public is the reason why even excellent technicians don't get paid as well as they should.
As for seriously questioning formal training - well, none of us were born knowing all the stuff that we learn through experience, so what training should do - and I stress the should - is first introduce the learner to the basic mechanical concepts and understandings that they have to acquire (and some are better at that than others), then their practical application - usually those two things are done to a certain extent in tandem - and then the application across a range of different manufacturer's product.
It should also encourage both the trainer and the learner not to be so "all-knowing" as many pretend to be - I've been working as a mechanic for 40+ years and I definitely don't know it all yet, nor will I ever.
Training is ultimately, the distillation of the information specific to the item that you are delivering the training on, plus a review of all the mistakes that a wide variety of others have made, that the trainer should be able to reformat into a routine that will prevent the trainee from repeating, whilst applying that knowledge to the item or procedure in question.
People that tell me that they are already competent are often the ones that end up coming to me with jobs in bits that they were competent enough to get into trouble with ... but not competent to get out of trouble with. I can't always help them, because in some cases I don't know how to fix the problem either - though I am always happy to admit that and to try and either find out, or to recommend someone that I trust who will be able to assist them - or they've made such a Horlicks of it, the only assistance there is, is to scrap the item and start again.
The minute you lose that thirst for knowledge and the desire to be better at what you do, you cease to be a professional, IMO.
