Main Character of the Week is a weekly column that tells you the most prominent “main character” online (good or bad). It runs on Fridays in the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter. If you want to get this column a day before we publish it, subscribe to web_crawlr, where you’ll get the daily scoop of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.
The internet is a stage, and someone unwillingly stumbles onto it weekly. This makes them the “main character” online. Sometimes their story is shocking, like the doctor who told us not to make the bed; usually it’s a gaffe. In any case, that main character energy flows through the news cycle and turbo-charges debate for several business days.
Here’s the Trending team’s main character of the week.
It’s the AutoZone worker who controversially told customers and the internet: I am not a mechanic.
We go to the AutoZone when something is wrong with our car. But it is fundamentally a store that sells you parts. Therefore the worker is perfectly reasonable to say that he’s just there to ring up your merchandise.
Unfortunately for him, that’s not the social contract that we have agreed to.
We expect to be pointed in the right direction if we need, say, a new alternator… And then some modicum of shared know-how when it comes to installation.
Part of this is on AutoZone itself. It famously lures in customers with free diagnostic readings. You find out why the check engine light is on, they can sell you the right part.
And as this viral AutoZone worker said himself, part of why he works there is because he is an expert on cars in the first place. So this is a tricky one.
On the one hand, few professionals are asked to give out free advice and do free work more than mechanics. They are regularly asked if a certain car is a good deal and reliable, in theory making less money in the long run because you then buy a car that needs less of their labor.
If you are friendly with a mechanic, the expectation is that they can help you in a pinch with minor fixes.
This bartering system has worked for generations. I have extended holiday invitations, six-packs, and gummies to the good men who have kept me on the road.
None of them work at AutoZone, true, but just the other day I went to AutoZone and the worker sold me a new headlight for my 2019 Hyundai Kona. Real ones know what happens next.
You install it in the AutoZone parking lot! This is encouraged in fact, just in case you need something else while you’re under the hood. Here, a kind AutoZone soul gave my final effort a thumbs-up and that inspired confidence to turn on the high beams once again.
So when you don the iconic orange shirt, I’m afraid society deems you an expert who is there to help with reasonable hands-on, low-level car tasks. Please and thank you.
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