I have been laid off before. I didn’t go crying to my mamma afterwards. I accepted it as a fact of life, and moved on.
But I am very annoyed by the constant whining of the car dealers who are losing their precious franchises. I looked at the list for Los Angeles, and it is mostly dealers that I have never heard of, in locations that no one buys cars anymore. These guys should have moved on long time ago, turned their real estate in 99cent stores, anything other than selling junky American cars.
Now comes CNN and does a little cry-me-a-river-piece on a Chrysler dealership, “Claxton Chrysler Jeep Dodge” closing in a small town called Claxton, GA. Every bit about this piece is intended to elicit little sobs and sniffles from the ith-tho-thad crowd. I feel that CNN has lost any pretense of substantive journalism with this piece. Its writer, Jim Kavanagh, should be forced to turn in his keyboard.
The piece writes about all these locals who supposedly love the dealership. Now, considering that overall, auto dealerships are ranked lower than dentists in terms of customer experience, I pulled up the record of this Dealership with the local BBB.
To no surprise, the BBB rated this dealership an “F”.
Now let me show you some choice quotes from this article, with my comments. Quotes in italics, my comments below the quotes.
“It was like standing out in the road and having a bus run over the top of us,” he said.
Wrong. You most likely knew it was coming, based on your customer feedback, your revenues, etc. If you didn’t, then you deseve the shutdown even more.
“We all know each other, we see each other every day. I spend more time with this group here than I do with my own family.”
That’s a sad reflection on your personal priorities in life.
Take Gary Sapp, for example. The military veteran, wounded in Vietnam, stopped in Saturday, as he does just about every day, to say hello and maybe talk about cars a little bit. He said he might come back Monday and make a deal, just as he’s done there three times in the past 10 years. But it’s not really about the cars and pickup trucks. “These are good folks here,” Sapp said.
No, you just have way too much time on your hands, Mr. Sapp.
“How the hell they gon’ sell to those people in small towns?” he said. “They’re a different breed. They’re not gonna go no damn hundred miles to buy a car.”
They won’t have to, there are three other dealers within 30 miles. Just like Wal-Mart.
“It’s just a cryin’ damn shame, is what it is,” he said.
No, it’s a necessary change that’s been a long time coming.
