Dad used to say "Cheap aint good and good aint cheap." I've been in parts for over 30 years both at a jobber store and at dealerships. Mike told the absolute truth in his post earlier. I would add there is no excuse for not knowing what you are doing. If you are gonna take that paycheck at the end of the week: EARN IT. If you don't know parts, learn em. I'm still learning after 33 freakin years. And that goes for both sides of the counter. Get a casting number or better yet bring it in if it's a modified vehicle.
I started working behind a parts counter in July 1973. And without it ending up sounding like the 'I had to walk back and forth to work, and it was 10 miles, uphill, each way,' story, you simply did not get a parts job if you did not have some pretty solid automotive experience.
I interviewed for a commercial sales position at the local O'Reilly, a couple years back. What an absolute joke. They wanted someone with the kind of experience I have, but they wanted to pay minimum wage for the position. Thanks, but no thanks. They were then willing to offer me a position at their counter, but I had to agree that if I were scheduled to work a given day and they could see they were not busy on that day, they could A) call me and tell me not to come into work, or B) send me home early. They want professional sales help, but they want to treat employees the same way the fast food chains treat their employees. Any wonder the average counterman in those places doesn't know spit from Shinola?
And let me just share that
@cptn60 called it. For every dummy counterman story that gets told, a counterman with 30 days experience can tell a dozen dummy customer stories. I dealt with hundreds of people that had no business trying to even drive a car, let alone buy parts to work on one.
One of my favorites (and it would happen almost once a week), would be when someone would bring a bare block into the speed shop, wanting us to hot tank it. No other parts, just a block, but they would want a price on what it would cost to hot tank the block, then balance (?!?!) and blueprint it.
Of course, these would be the same people who would howl, when I would explain we were going to have to knock out the cam bearings and freeze plugs, to tank the block. And yes, I did have an old cam under the counter, that we had cut the rear 4 lobes from. When the numpties would walk in asking for a '3/4 cam', I would lay it up on the counter for them.
And here's a phone conversation every counterman is painfully familiar with -
Counterman answers ringing phone, to hear woman's voice, asking, "How much are your (fill in the blank) _______?"
Counterman - "What did you need that for, Ma'am?"
Woman - "For our car." (Gee, imagine that!)
Counterman - "OK, what kind of car is that, Ma'am?"
Woman to husband - "What kind of car is it, dear?"
Husband to Woman, loud enough for counterman to hear on the phone - "It's a Pontiac."
Woman to counterman - "It's a Pontiac."
Counterman - "What year is it, Ma'am?"
Woman to husband - "What year is it?"
Husband to woman - "It's a 1992."
Woman to counterman - "It's a 1992."
Counterman - "What model is it?""
Woman to husband - "What model is it?"
Husband to woman - "It's a Firebird."
Woman to counterman - "It's a Firebird."
Counterman - "Ma'am, can you just put your husband on the telephone?"
Woman - "Oh, no, he's busy watching the game."
GRRRRRRRRRRRR...
How about the customers (yes, that was plural) who would have us build race engines, then call 3 or 4 months later to complain of a ticking noise. And when asked about the last time they had checked/set valve lash, they would ask, "Well, didn't you guys do that when you built the engine?"
I once sold a guy a mechanical oil pressure gauge. He was back, the next day, complaining they gauge wouldn't work, that I had sold him a junk gauge. He insisted I go to the parking lot to see how this gauge would not work. He started the motor and I had him shut it off. I pulled the dipstick and showed him it was bone-dry. Junk gauge, indeed!
A local guy was running an Alcohol Dragster with a Mopar B-motor (strange, but true). He had me order a new camshaft for the car. He was back, a couple days later, with a box full of broken and bent pushrods and some bent valves. I'm walking him through how he had installed the cam and I asked him if he had checked piston/valve clearance. He told me he had used strips of clay on the pistons and had not seen that first impression in the clay. When I asked how he had set valve lash for the test, he looked at me as if I had a third eye. He had simply bolted the heads on and had rolled the motor over a couple times, with no valvetrain on it. Any wonder there were no impressions in the clay?
I've seen instances where more than one individual had put a small journal 327 crank in a large journal block, because, "all 327 cranks are the same." Or people who put 427 balancers on a 454, because, "all big blocks are the same."
I always loved the customers who would go buy parts elsewhere, then come to me for help on how to install those parts, or how to make them work properly. Give the other guy your money and then expect me to provide tech assistance for free? Sure, hold on, I will be right back with you. Don't hang up, this may take me a moment or two, but trust me, I will be right back.
Trust me, the customer side of a parts counter sees its own share of losers. Any counterman, with any experience at all, could write a book on some of the silly things they have seen and heard.