But what happens when they ghost you after the first week of work?

Shuddered just reading that lol

My buddy saw me doing it once and thought I lost my mind.

A good spreadsheet with some basic validation rules would've saved me weeks of that headache.

I had a similar situation up here in Bellingham where this old mechanic told me he'd been rebuilding his own hubs since the 80s and wouldn't trust any factory sealed bearing. He was dead set on loose ball bearings and cup and cone stuff. I finally got him to try a set of DT Swiss wheels just by letting him spin them on the truing stand and he admitted the smoothness was close to his hand built ones. He still won't touch disc brakes but he at least respects that some of the new stuff works. The key for me was just showing him one thing that worked better than his way instead of arguing about everything at once.