I hit 1000 bottom brackets serviced and honestly it felt like nothing

I was cleaning up the shop last Friday and my work log showed I'd just passed that number. Everyone talks about big milestones like they're a huge deal, but for me it was just another day. I remember the exact one was a square taper on a 90s Trek that came in from a customer in Tacoma. It took the usual 15 minutes, I greased the threads, and moved on. Maybe I'm just burnt out, but does anyone else find these round number counts kind of meaningless?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamieperez2mo ago

You said it felt like nothing, but that's the point. Hitting a thousand of anything means you've built a real rhythm. That Trek took 15 minutes because the first hundred probably took an hour each. The round number is just proof you can do the work in your sleep now, and that's worth something.

iris_mason882mo ago

I get what you're saying about rhythm, but "proof you can do the work in your sleep" is where I disagree. For me, hitting a thousand just means I'm numb to it now, not that I'm better. That feeling of nothing isn't mastery, it's just boredom. The first hundred were hard, but at least I was paying attention.

rayc382mo ago

@jamieperez is wrong, numbness isn't rhythm.