I worked at two different shops. My first job was wrenching at a small shop in Allston. Usually, it was just me and the owner, who was a frame builder -and a bit surly. I learned TONS just watching him. I also learned to tolerate and maybe even like jazz (maybe "like" is a bit strong ) and learned to love coffee and Belgian beer. HOWEVER, we could go for days with only a handful of customers in the winter especially, but there always seemed to be plenty of work. I became a pretty competent mechanic, IMHO. But my friends would come in and just hang out for hours while I was working. It was a cool place to work, hang out and talk about bikes.

The other job was a pretty negative experience. I remember assembling seemingly endless truckloads of entry level MTBs and hybrids. No challenge, didn't further my knowledge or mechanical skill. Just mundane and repetitive. Terrible pay. It was part of the sponsorship deal with the team I was racing for at the time. We got very generous sponsorship from the shop, but did a lot of pretty unglamorous grunt work -and nearly all my pay went back into the shop. This was (is) a huge shop and is still in business. The first one, is long gone....