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June 13, 2023 16 mins

Demeny Pollitt is an automotive technician and the founder of Girlington Garage, a female-run auto garage in South Burlington, Vermont. In operation since 2009, Pollitt’s business has not only survived, but thrived. Ms. Pollitt talks about taking the leap to entrepreneurship, entering a male dominated industry, and the joys/challenges of business ownership. Find out more about her business here (https://girlingtongarage.com/).

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am Demenie Pollett, and I am the owner of
Gurlington Garage in South Burlington, Vermont, Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I appreciate you building a fort there for our reporting.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
You're welcome. It was kind of fun. I haven't built
a sheet fort since I was a kid.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome back to on the job today. We're speaking with
Demanie Pollett, as you heard, is the owner of a
female run auto repair shop in Vermont. But Girlington Garage
is more than just a cute name. Demenie's mission is
a creative place where women feel comfortable having their cars repaired.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
They walked in and they didn't feel out of place
or like they didn't belong. They immediately felt like, yeah,
I can sit down here, and this feels like I
don't want to say this feels like home, because you know,
it doesn't feel like home to go to a repair shop,
but something equivalent to home. This feels like a comfortable
coffee shop. Maybe I don't know.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
To that, and Girlington does serve some pretty darn good coffee,
and the lobby is the kind of place you wouldn't
mind passing time reading a book or catching up with
an old friend.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
So our waiting room is very clean, it has really
comfy chairs, it's full of plants. We also have I
remember when I was a kid, the funnest thing in
the world was when we got a new refrigerator and
there was a big box to play in. And so
when we got a tire machine, I took that box.

(01:29):
I painted it and I cut out little windows and
a door in it. So we have that in our
waiting room for kids to play in. We have lots
of toys.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
And in addition to the comfy furniture and a cardboard
playhouse for kids, the lobby of Gurlington also has a
large window which looks out under the garage bays where
the mechanics do their work.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
One of the pillars of my business is transparency and honesty,
and I feel like if I can see what's going on,
I am more likely to trust that what is happening
is right because I'm watching it happen. So I feel
like it just lends a sense of trust for our customers.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And that sense of trust that Demni is trying to
instill is just one of the many ways she is
hoping to revolutionize a slippery, historically male dominated industry. As
she tells it. Demni was far from a natural born mechanic.
In fact, it took a lot of trial and error,

(02:34):
sometimes at her own expense.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
I think, actually I had changed my own oil once
and I found it was it was at my parents' house,
and I found a gallon of oil in the in
the garage, and so I thought, okay, that's what you
put in. So I put a full gallon of oil in,

(02:58):
which is not what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
At that time in her life, pre Girlington, Demni was
working in the social services field, tending to the elderly
and people with developmental disabilities. But it seemed that no
matter how much she worked, she just couldn't get ahead.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
I lived in this cabin that you had to walk
to out in the woods that didn't have running water.
It only had an extension cord like running along the
ground for electricity, and it was two hundred dollars a
month and I couldn't afford that.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
So she came up with two potential career paths, which
on their surface seemed completely different, but not to her.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
So the only two things that I thought would be
at all interesting were psychology. I thought that would be
very interesting learning about people figuring out their mysterious mysteries
every day, and fixing cars again, figuring out these machines
fixing There are mysterious mysteries every day. And so I

(04:03):
did a little bit of research and I realized it
was going to take six years to become a psychologist
in two years to become a technician, And so that
was my decision right there.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
So Demni is learning about cars, turning those mysterious mysteries
into solvable problems. When one day, while studying front end assemblies,
she suddenly thinks back to an experience she had with
her own car, an old Ford Bronco.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
And as I learned them, I started remembering this time
I had brought my truck in. Then the technician came
out to me and said, hey, come out to your
car with me. I want to show you something. So
he got me down, we got on our backs, we
went underneath the truck and he grabbed this bar that

(04:54):
went from one wheel to another, and he grabbed it
and he moved it back and forth, and he said,
see that that's your tirod and that should not move
like that. And I saw him moving it, and I thought, boy,
that's definitely moving. So I guess if he says, is
it should it shouldn't, that's that's bad. I need to

(05:17):
fix that. And back in school, years down the line,
I was remembering this, and I realized that the part
he grabbed was not a tirod but a sway bar,
and a sway bar is not a safety issue. And

(05:37):
also it moves like that the way he grabbed it
and moved it, that's what it does. It was fine.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh man, do you think he got swindled?

Speaker 1 (05:46):
I don't know. I mean, I don't know if he misspoke,
or if he showed me the wrong thing or what.
Whatever it was. I was misled, whether on per or not.
And I didn't have any understanding of what was going on.
And I realized that that had probably happened to me

(06:07):
so many times, more times than I could count.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Here's the thing about Demini, though, instead of thinking back
to that moment and getting bitter about it, she gets inspired.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
And I thought, God, I wish there was I knew
of a woman mechanic. I would drive long distances to
bring my car to a woman who was a mechanic.
And then I thought, I bet a lot of other
women feel this way, I'm going to open up an
old girl garage and I'm going to make a million dollars.

(06:45):
And then from that point on, that was my plan.
That was what I was working towards, was figuring out
how to open my own business.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
But the more Deminie learns about the industry, the more
she realizes opening up a business is a lot of work,
much more than she can do alone. Luckily, she knew
just who to call.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
My mom was looking for something new to do with
her life, and so I said, Hey, come up to Burlington.
I'm trying to start this business. Why don't you come
help me? And so she did.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
When we come back from the break, the pilot ladies
roll up the garage doors.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
This is the kind of.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Person you need.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Express Employment professionals can help because in good times or bad,
we understand how critical it is to manage your business
for today with the right workforce.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
We offer hiring solutions to fit changing demands.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Express knows jobs. Get to know Express go to expresspros
dot com to find a lotation near you. We're back
talking with Demonie Polytt, who, along with her mom has
just opened up her repair shop, Burlington Garage in South Burlington, Vermont,
and for the first few days things go exactly as

(08:15):
you'd imagine, with only a handful of curious customers trickling in.
Like any business, Deminie knows, it will take time to grow, unless,
of course, you get a lucky break.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
I was at the shop on the weekend because we
had just opened, so I was there twenty four hours
a day, and I got a call from someone whose
car had broken down in another town and they didn't
have Triple A, and so I gave her my Triple A.
I called Triple A and I said, hey, my car
broke down, so I had Triple A tow her to

(08:50):
the shop. I think it was just like a flat
tire or something. I just fixed whatever it was, and
I sent her on her way and she had and
to be a DJ on the local radio station. It
was really the most wonderful stroke of luck.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
And that was in your first week.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, first or second week, right in the beginning.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
It was amazing, and you noticed the uptick in business
right away.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Oh immediately immediately, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was it was
really incredible. I mean, would she would talk us up
on her radio show every week. It was so incredible.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
From then on, business continued to prosper as more and
more customers kept coming in and spreading the word that
there was this cool, new female run auto shop. And
while Demni could breathe a little easier with the influx
of new customers, she quickly learned that owning an auto
shop comes with some built in challenges.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
You know, being a technician is a really hard job.
It's physically difficult and it's hard on your body, and
most technicians don't last much past fifty two because of
how physically difficult it is. But I would argue that
the most difficult job is being the service advisor. That's
a person that you talk to when you bring your

(10:11):
car and to get fixed. They're sort of the go
between the mechanic and the customer, and it's nearly impossible
to take your own emotions out of it. Everyone knows
what it's like when their car breaks down and when
they have this painfully expensive bill that they have to
pay if they're going to get their car back. Everyone

(10:31):
knows how that feels, and so being the person who
has to explain that to a customer and say your
car is not safe to drive unless you give us
two thousand dollars. It's just a brutal job, mentally and
emotionally exhausting. And then there are the customers that have

(10:55):
sent me messages saying, I don't trust you, think that
you're taking advantage of me. I think you're cheating me.
I think you know this other shop told me such
and such a thing. And while I do understand it,
it's the whole reason I started my shop, and it's brutal.
It kills me a little bit. I die a little

(11:17):
bit every single time learning that no matter how good
we are and how careful we are and how hard
we strive, not to take advantage of people, not to
cheat people. If you tell them they need to pay
you a lot of money, they're not going to trust
you anymore. That's just gone. It doesn't matter what you do.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
No amount of nice coffee and tea's going to fix that.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
No, of course not, of course not. And I mean
I'm the same way I get my housework done, and
all of a sudden it needs twelve hundred dollars more
than they quoted me. Of course I immediately think that they're
doing something wrong or that they're cheating me or they're
trying to just squeeze more money out of me. That's

(12:06):
just how our brains work. I think there's nothing you
can do to stop it. It's just I think psychology.
But it still hurts.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
The job also impacted her relationship with her mother, who,
as a partner, was sharing the responsibilities of the business,
albeit not always smoothly.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Being partners with my mom owning a business destroyed our
relationship one hundred percent. When we were still working together,
we would just be in our office and we would
just constantly be yelling at each other.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Things eventually got so bad between Demoni and her mom
that they couldn't even be in the shop at the
same time.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
We had changed it so that we were only each
working two and a half days a week, and we
would overlap for an hour on Wednesday and sort of
have a conversation and talk about what was going on
in the shop, and then she would leave and I
would take over and I'd be there for the end
of the week.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Then, eight years into the business, Demni came down with
a thyroid condition. She struggled to even work the two
and a half days a week, and that's when her
mother's unconditional love took over.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
My mom, being a really really good mom, said you
need to take some time off, go away for two years.
Come back. We'll see where the business is at. If
it still exists, I'll take care of it till then.
And so I did that and it did still exist.
She did good.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
So your mom held the fort while you were gone.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
She did. Yeah, my mom, she ran the business all
by herself. She became the service advisor. She did it
all all by herself while I was gone. Really amazing.
And then she immediately retired.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Since Demanie's mom stepped away from the business, the two
have attended therapy sessions to overcome the damage they're working
together had on their relationship.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Really helped us to heal things and get over the
damage that was done. Being business partners. I couldn't have
done it without her, but I also wouldn't choose to
do it with her again.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
And with her health greatly improved, Demanie is back in
the shop these days, but she admits she's in that
challenging phase of ownership where it's no longer as exciting
as it once was for her.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
I care about the business, I really do, and I
love my employees, I love the people that I work with,
and I do want Girlington to run forever, but it
doesn't make me very happy, and so I'm mostly just
there for support for the manager, Susan McGrath. She's fantastic
and running the business like nobody's business.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Demenie still goes in two days a week, but her
goal is for Girlington to grow independent of her, for
this thing that she created to reach a stage where
it no longer needs her. So what do you think's
next for Deminie.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
I have no idea. I think I still I'm still
in a transition getting it to a stable point. Once
that is sort of settled, I'll have to think about it.
I haven't thought about it. I don't know what's next.
I don't know spring's coming, So anything outside that's definitely next.

(15:51):
Definitely gardening, Definitely walking in the woods, swimming in some
cold streams. Yeah, I have no idea. What's going to
happen work wise. We'll see.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
From the job. I'm Avery Thompson
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