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As far as me, I ran my own shop from age 13 to 20. (Not kidding.) I did everything from valve jobs to complete body and paint work. I had a few hundred loyal customers and worked every hour I could after school and on weekends. I made sometimes $2k a week in the late '70's, early '80's. But sometimes it was only a few hundred dollars a week. So when I got engaged at age 20 I decided I needed a steady income job so I walked into an Oldsmobile dealership and was hired as a full Journeyman. In 6 months I was the lead tech in that dealership and was consistently highest in productivity and almost never had comebacks.
After a year or so I moved to an Olds dealership they used to call "The Country Club". (It later went from Olds to Pontiac, then GMC and Buick.) It was amazing, it had an excellent owner, good management and a group of amazing techs that didn't fit the "grease monkey" stereotype in any way. We made A TON of customers happy and were known and rated as the best GM dealership service dept in the SF Bay Area. I was the lead tech since I first started there, specializing in driveability, electrical and computer controls. I would also jump in to help the heavy duty, transmission or even body shop guys when they couldn't figure something out. I taught a LOT of guys how to fix things.
For a couple decades it was a really nice place to work. Then the economy slowed, we got a new owner that was more like a slimy used car salesman than a good person, and a service manager that was a textbook narcissist. He took care of me to the end because he knew I made his job easier, but he was horrible to some of the other guys and was also just not a good person.
So good techs with decades of experience started leaving. We lost 3 guys at once, a total of 80 years worth of training, skills and experience. I stuck it out until the the union mismanaged our pension and made it so instead of retiring at 54 with full benefits, I now would have to wait until 65 and even then there might not be any money left for me. On my 32nd anniversary at that dealership, my wife told me "32 years there is enough, you're going in tomorrow and telling them you quit!" (I love my wife!) I, along with a service writer that had been there for 35 years who the customers just absolutely trusted and loved, quit. We jokingly but somewhat seriously wondered if the dealership would survive us leaving, but really didn't believe two people were THAT big of a deal in any company.
Two and a half years after we left, one of the oldest, most trusted (at least the service department always was) and highest rated dealerships in the SF Bay Area went out of business. It was a dealership that was 103 years old when it closed. I'm still "retired without a retirement". I could get a job tomorrow, but my amazing wife wants to repay me for letting her stay home for 10 years and raise our kids so she's working to support both of us for awhile.
Times are definitely changing. Who is going to fix things in the future? True craftsman and people that can actually diagnose and FIX things are going away. Many of the talented guys I worked with are no longer working or in the trade. No young blood is coming in to do these jobs. Our body shop went a couple of YEARS without anyone applying for a job! Service could go months without an application. I don't see how any of it is sustainable.
So yeah, up until 3 years ago I was a GM tech. lol.
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