How much money do you think the guy at the LBS makes? Entry level position as an assembler? Senior Mechanic? Service Manager?

This industry cannot attract or retain anybody that has the experience or knowledge required to fix most bikes, the wage simply tells them to use their skills in other industries and make 3x - 4x out of the gate. Top quality service shop/employees are the exception not the rule.

Every skilled mechanic that I've worked with were in two groups. People who are going to school in a technical field (engineering) and really like bikes and has the motivation to work for low pay. Or they have been working in the industry for 5-10+ years and don't know how to do anything.

Every idiot customer that walks into the store thinks they can do a better job than you can. This is probably true most of the time. Unfortunately this also means any mechanic who can half ass a bike assembly gets hired by pretty much any shop in town. Thus leading to the abundance of 'my LBS service sucks' threads.

It's a common complaint and it's not going to go away anytime soon until bike mechanics in general ups their professionalism and pay.