Oil changes Many of our cars need them, and when that little light comes on, we have to find a place to take care of it.
You arrive, exit, and head to the waiting room to pass the time on the phone or buried in a book until a technician comes to tell you your service is complete.
But at a Jiffy Lube in Oceanside, you might notice something unique.
“I feel like you don’t usually see a girl working on a car,” Itzel Reyes Rosas said. “It’s like mostly every man in this industry.”
Reyes Rosas is a female technician at the Jiffy Lube on Oceanside Boulevard, and she’s not the only one.
In that place there are three technicians who are women, Reyes Rosas along with Myami Faerber and Precious Soto. They are run by a manager who is also a woman, Sydney Stelse.
“I think it’s very empowering for women to come here and be able to talk to us and relate to us,” Stelse said. “It’s trust.”
The four have been working together for a few months. They said that even a handful of female technicians is not something many of their customers are used to seeing.
“It’s very ‘wow, I’ve never seen a woman in this kind of industry or working in this kind of field,'” Soto said.
Most of the people who enter and enter the keys support them, but occasionally they are underestimated or guessed.
“Honestly, it bothers me a little bit,” Faerber said. “But then I feel better because I show them, ‘Oh, I know this, this and this.’ Do you know how to do this, this and this?’ and then they sit there and say, ‘Umm no.'”
“I have guys like, ‘do you know what you’re doing?’ and I’m like yes!”, added Reyes Rosas.
The group has discovered that what really unites them is their love of cars.
Reyes Rosas dreams of being a technician and building her own engine one day. Soto grew up around guys who worked on his cars, and now he’s his family’s go-to person when they have car problems.
For Faeber, he first fell in love with cars because of his grandfather.
“He taught me how to change tires, change brakes and flush brake fluid,” Faeber said. “Things like a normal person, or a woman, wouldn’t be taught because they’re seen as a woman, which is inferior.”
Stelse went to beauty school, but then started working at Jiffy Lube as a courtesy technician, vacuuming and washing windows, and continued to climb the ladder.
“This completely changed my life and I’m glad I did, so I encourage everyone else to, uh, get out of your comfort zone,” Stelse said. “Do what you love, it’s in your heart.”
Stelse said she works directly with recruiters and is starting to see more and more female applicants.
Overall, in the Southern California region, only about 20 percent of field workers are women, according to Cody Kaidder, the regional vice president who oversees the area.
