Bike Shop Operations Manager

Hey Melissa,

Apologies for the late entry. Super excited to see you stepping into the Ops Manager role for next year. There’s so many opportunities for growth within the ASUW Bike Shop and I’m certain that you will be able to both fill the role and push the shop further to be an even better resource for the UW community. You have an orientation to detail and empathy for experience that will surely help in running the shop.

There are a lot of documents that are on here written by Jesse and Oliver and a few by me. They are an attempt to outline for you the procedure for various tasks though with practice you will soon have them memorized. I would suggest reading them through!

You are the primary resource for the mechanics and customers. The main responsibiliy you have is to make sure the shop has everything it needs then make sure the mechanics have everything they need to do their job. This basically leads to ensuring the quality of work done in the shop (as you cannot do all work alone) and ensuring that the shop is stocked, tools are working, and it is clean and safe.  You will have to have the knowledge to know what the shop is capable of and tailor it to meet needs!

Make sure to establish a constant communication with the business manager to tackle problems! Feel free to communicate with me about anything that you need help with and I am super happy to elaborate or show or provide advice. Please don’t hesitate especially as our transition is made difficult due to COVID. I’ll be around in Seattle all year and will likely come in frequently so it’s not goodbye yet!

Cheers,

Nick

Email
User: asuwbike@uw.edu
Pass: ASUWrulz2021!

(Mechanic email used for the right computer)
user: asuwbikemech@gmail.com
pass: Bike0202

Instagram
User: asuwbikeshop
Pass: ASUWRulz20!

Shop Door Code
8365

Shop Computers
User: ASUW/asuwbike
Pass: Bike0101(Right) & Bike0202(Left)

Quickbooks
Bike0101

QBP
User: asuwbike
Pass: ridebikes

Office Depot
User: asuwbike
Pass: Bike0101

RSO Office Print Code
asuwbike-bike

Spotify
User: asuwbike@uw.edu
Pass: Bike0101

derailleurhanger.com wholesale discount code
3221775 (about 25% off) (you should be buying them from QBP now if available)

1. Set the schedule for the shop to be open, and create a schedule for the mechanics that fits with their class schedule.
2. Update the appointments sheet before each workday.
3. Upkeep the shop’s inventory throughout the quarter, placing orders through QBP to re-stock as needed. It’s also necessary to be doing semi-annual inventory corrections through quickbooks to ensure that the computer inventory data is accurate.
4. Communicate the shop’s goals and progress through quarterly reports and employee evaluations to be submitted to the ASUW officers responsible for them (you will receive emails about this towards the end of the quarter).
5. Keep the shop clean and organized, including contacting UW recycling when the metal recycling bin is full, recycling the tubes and disposing of tires and packing material in the dumpsters behind the HUB.

1. Establish clear goals to work towards throughout the quarter, and year
2. Communicate what these goals are to other ASUW officers who work with the bike shop, our RSO adviser, shop mechanics and volunteers, and why they are important.
3. Address successful progress towards these goals, or what might be preventing the goals from being reached, in the quarterly reports.

Periodic tasks (every day/few days/week/s) to remember to do to keep the shop running smoothly:

– put away tools 🙂

– sort abandoned parts on the counter into used bins or recycling bin

– sort or discard assorted hardware around the work benches and stands

– top up the 3-4 bottles of chain lubricant scattered about the shop

– sweep between/under the mats

– keep cables and housing, and other spare parts and components on the shelves organized

The shop used to take mechanic volunteers during normal operation. Unfortunately with the new COVID protocols we cannot have volunteers in the shop. When volunteers are in person again it might be a good idea to have this volunteer come in and help make the shop more inviting to customers (posters, organizing merch, etc). This position is a good way to get involved with the shop. It is also a great way to gain experience if they are interested in applying for Business Manager in the future.

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However, this year we took in our first virtual, social media volunteer. She has been a lot of help in expanding our presence at UW through our intagram.

This section below is from Jesse to Oliver to me though relevant still. I was not great at holding volunteers either though I’ve come to see that a lot of it is because the shop sometimes does not have the capacity in working hours or structure or space to keep volunteers interested unless they are highly motivated. Coordination with the Office of Volunteer Opportunities has been unclear as to what it would provide for us and what it entails.

I was not very good at recruiting volunteers, or retaining them. I think advertising that we take volunteers would be a great move. More important is a good system set up to keep them busy. It is ironic that the process of taking volunteers generates more work for us. The rest of this is advice from Jesse to me. – Oliver

Countless talented bike mechanics throughout the storied history of our shop started their career as volunteers.

People will email or come in periodically asking about volunteering at the shop. About half of everyone who asks about it may never actually follow through. I tell people that they can either (1) set up a schedule, so they can come in the same time each week throughout the quarter (this has worked extremely well this quarter as we now have nearly as many volunteers as mechanics, with varying involvement), or (2), they can just come in whenever they want and let us know that they want to volunteer. Option (1) may be preferable, because if you know when a volunteer will be there, it may be easier for you to set something aside to work on with them, or at least have that as a (tentative) expectation, that they will be there. Option (2) is obviously easier on everyone, but people tend to slow down and fade away if they don’t have a regular time that they come to the shop. It’s also harder to keep them engaged if they just come in and are expected to follow us around.

Volunteers should be worked with extensively, even if we don’t have a customer’s bike to work on at that particular moment. Volunteering at the bike shop is basically us teaching someone how to be a mechanic, either on our own bikes, a customer’s bike, or their bike, with the hope that in the distant future, after they have refined their skills, they will be able to work on a customer’s bike without direct supervision. It is important to be extra-careful about allowing volunteers who still have a lot to learn work on our customer’s bikes. It would be relatively disastrous if the volunteer damaged the bike, which is easy if someone is not familiar with what they are doing. It would be absolutely disastrous if a customer crashed or was hurt because a volunteer did improper maintenance. There were many occasions this year when I thought a volunteer or inexperienced mechanic was fine to do a simple task like a flat fix, only to have that customer return in a day complaining that we didn’t do our job. So, always, no matter what, it is a good idea to check each other’s work. It’s also important to make sure that mechanics and volunteers feel comfortable asking you for help, and that the expectation is that their work goes double checked before sending it back to the customer.

We have a list I’ll be handing off to you of all volunteers who’ve registered during my time here. You will receive an email near the middle/end of the quarter from the Office of Volunteer Opportunities asking for names and information on all of the volunteers in the shop. That information may be used to recruit the volunteers for a not-completely-necessary-yet-mandatory training event. It is sort of unclear.

One of Kris’ goals a couple years ago, which we never really found traction with, was to have a certain number of $10 gift cards to the food court in the HUB (or, if that is not possible, to some particular restaurant down there), that could be given to volunteers who spend at least 2 hours in the shop any given day. We could limit ourselves to the number of such cards we had to give per month, so it would never cost the shop, say, more than $100/month (for example). It’s good to remember that people do come in to volunteer, without pay, for hours on end, and some kind of appreciation really goes a long way to acknowledging that. Also, people like food, so I think it would be a popular program.

Lisa has rebuilt our social media and marketing from the ground up and I’m sure she has left the details with the new business manager. There is space for growth and hopefully with that a community can be built around ASUW Bike Shop which was one of our long term goals.

This section is not written by me but very useful:

To maintain the high level of rapport and trust with your fellow mechanics, shop volunteers, and customers necessary to preserve both the professional legitimacy and anarchic nature of ASUW Bike Shop , it is important to know each of these leadership principles, and to keep them close at hand:

1. Be mechanically proficient
2. Know yourself and seek self improvement
3. Know your mechanics and look out for their welfare
4. Keep your mechanics informed
5. Set the example
6. Ensure each task is understood, supervised, and accomplished
7. Train your mechanics as a team
8. Make sound, just, and timely decisions
9. Develop a sense of responsibility in your mechanics
10. Employ your mechanics in accordance with their capabilities
11. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions

1. You should be good at your job. You should be knowledgeable – this comes from reading, instruction, and practice. Be clear, when you are spouting off some more obscure knowledge or explaining a trick/shortcut/custom repair, about whether it is something you read (online? In a textbook?), something you were taught (by me? By someone who actually knows what they’re talking about?), or something you just think (not to discredit that, but as the authority on repairs, you should always put a disclaimer on any statement that you are not 100.0% sure about). This is probably the primary way to make sure that the ASUW Bike Shop community trusts your leadership.
2. You should be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses. Use this to leverage how you are able to contribute to the shop’s goals. Never stop learning. Be aware of your weaknesses, and cognizant of what you need to do to improve on them.
3. Your job would be impossible without the continuous, dedicated efforts of your mechanics. If they were unable to do their job, the bike shop would quickly cease to exist. Your primary job, then, is to make sure that they are taken care of, and have the emotional, mental, and physical capacity to excel at their work.
4. Your mechanics invest a tremendous amount of time and energy in their jobs. They deserve to know exactly what’s going on. If anyone ever feels like they are being kept in the dark, or just forgotten about, it will be a detriment to their morale and likely the quality of their work.
5. There is no better way to lead than by example.
6. If you are asking someone to do something new, something you are unsure of their ability doing, or something that they are unsure of their ability doing, be sure not to just give a verbal instruction, and then walk away to do something else. If you do, you will often come back to see that they are two-thirds of the way through their interpretation of what you asked them to do, which was nothing at all what you had in mind. Instead, watch as they do what you ask, and offer any guidance as you see fit. You are responsible for virtually everything that happens in the bike shop, so you should keep a watchful eye out for everything at all times.
7. This is the best way to promote not just learning, but also a positive and fulfilling work environment.
8. An important part of leadership is being able to evaluate all aspects of a situation and come to a decision that others can understand and that you are able to follow through with. People will have confidence in you and your ability to make decisions if you make good, transparent decisions.
9. If someone feels they have responsibility, they are dramatically more emotionally invested in the outcome of an enterprise. If someone feels like they are being denied responsibility because their competence is not trusted, they might eventually start to act the way they think they are perceived (i.e. treat someone like a child, and they will act like a child).
10. Just as you should be aware of your own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, you should be aware of the individual abilities, strengths, and weaknesses of each of your mechanics. Do not entrust someone to do something that they do not have the appropriate knowledge or experience to deal with. If you have a particularly difficult or important repair (for example, a bike at least 10x the value of what we usually see that needs some major overhauls), it may be better to save it for a particular mechanic than leave it for anyone to try to wrench on.
11. You are responsible for handling everything that happens in the bike shop. Sometimes, things will go wrong, and it is important to be prepared to take responsibility to defuse or resolve a situation even if you do not feel you were directly personally responsible. As the manager of the bike shop, if something happens in the bike shop, you are responsible for it, and sometimes moving forward requires someone to admit fault (if you explain the situation honestly, people will generally be understanding of mistakes).