I've had so many different jobs, it's ridiculous. My resume makes absolutely zero sense. From freelance web designer to assistant Lunch Lady to English Teacher in Japan; then I found myself working for a toothpaste inventor in California in 2009. I get bored very easily.
I resisted my friend's advice for over a year, thinking that selling cars would be super sleazy, but extreme poverty had me and my daughter in a vise grip in 2012 and I got desperate. I also had my sights set on working for Tesla in the future, so I figured I better get educated about the automotive industry. I was hired very quickly at the first dealership I applied to.
Even though there were some bright spots during my time at the dealership, the vast majority of my experiences there sucked on a level that is quite difficult to explain.
The primary reason it sucks is that it attracts greedy soul-sucking vampires, cash-desperates, losers, deadbeats, idiots, and get-rich-quick types to work there. I fit into the cash-desperates category. There were many decent people who didn't fit into those molds, but it seemed that perhaps 60% did fit into those categories. Out of a sales staff of 32, only 2 of us had a college degree. The top salesman was a full-on sociopath, a charmer and charlatan. The managers were really greedy and the guy at the top of the dealership who ran the entire show had some really bizarre and fishy characteristics. He did some stuff that in other states was considered to be illegal.
Here's the thing he did with full awareness: on our dealership's website, it was common practice that the website manager remove images of pre-owned cars that had sold. Usually, this was done in 2-3 days. This was to prevent buyers from coming into our dealership to view cars that didn't exist anymore. Well, all the salespeople had noticed that the photos were no longer being removed. Customers were coming in wanting to view used cars that had been sold months before. We alerted our managers about this issue. Nothing was done to fix the issue. Customers were really pissed off when they came in and found out the cars on the website were already sold.
We then had mandatory company training sessions where we were instructed to lie to customers who called and asked about the cars. We were also trained on how to "switch" a customer to a different vehicle from the one that was already sold. These training sessions felt extremely deceitful and I could barely even get through them. I realized my boss was a corrupt fuck from that point on. I reported this illegal activity to a trainer who helped us learn some new dealership software. I talked to a bunch of salespeople and we all decided to report our boss to the head office via the trainer so he would be forced to stop his behavior. He did stop after we reported him.
Then there were the dickhead sales managers.
When you have no feelings for others, you can do things like rip people off, treat salespeople like shit, lowball trade-ins, destroy deals in front of salespeople and brag about ripping off elderly, innocent car buyers.
I’ll never forget one late night when I overheard one of the high-ranking managers who I shall name, Dragon, telling the story of how he swindled $7000 out of an innocent, elderly car buyer. He lovingly told how he low-balled the trade-in vehicle and sold a bunch of unnecessary products to this customer, which, when totaled up, equalled $7000.
When he told this story, he was surrounded by newly-hired salespeople who were all looking up to him for direction. This type of behavior creates a pathological atmosphere for the entire dealership.
As the Dragon had more and more interaction with me, he realized two things:
When he fully realized these two things, he started avoiding me. But there was one problem: he had power and I did not.
This particular manager was a controlling asshole who got off on having power over others. He also had another compulsion: cheating on his wife and seducing young women.
One day, a young, attractive 18 year-old girl was hired to be a car salesperson by the Dragon. I have to admit, even I was taken off-guard by her beauty. She had a perfect body and her face looked a lot like those Bratz dolls. She wore lots of make-up and had long black hair. When she walked by you, she knew you were looking at her. I picked up on a weird sensation when I was around her. I’m not sure what I was feeling, but she definitely changed the room when she entered it. I’ll call her the Doll from now on.
During his interview with her, he talked her into a sales position so she would be directly under his control. He promised her he would make her a bunch of money if she just followed his directions.
He knew exactly how many cars she had sold, and he took extra care with all her deals to ensure he made the most profit for her (and him). She became sort of an extension of him. When she arrived late to meetings, sweat would roll down his forehead and I bet his dick shriveled up a little each time.
The head boss hated salespeople who arrived late to our morning meetings. The head boss was a real old-fashioned Southern, racist dickhead. He fired all the black people that he could. He got sued for it later on, too but that’s a different story. Salesmen were fired all the time in those morning meetings when they arrived late. Each time the Doll arrived late (and she arrived late all the time), Dragon knew exactly where she was since they text messaged each other frequently.
I wondered at what point they were sleeping together. Dragon was married and had a small child and a wife. I felt sorry for his wife and wondered what STD’s she would eventually be catching from her loser husband.
The gossip mill revealed that the Doll had slept with Dragon and a couple of different guys at the dealership after being there a few months. She seemed prone to drama and the more I learned about her personality, the less beautiful she seemed. She was always chewing gum, cussing and bad mouthing others. Whatever, she was 18. She was not grown up at all, but who is at 18?
More than anything though, I felt bad that she was hired basically because Dragon wanted to fuck her. I was sort of glad to learn that she was a tough girl, a rebellious sort who always arrived late to all the meetings as a way to say “Fuck you” to all the slime balls who ran that dealership.
I also witnessed the Dragon giving her a neck massage one time in the finance office. AWKWARD. It was weird how he didn’t stop even when I entered the office and saw them. Dragon had too much power and the head boss would do nothing. As long as money was rolling in, nothing would change.
I never found out which guys she slept with as I decided to stay out of this ugly situation. But it was getting in the way of people’s livelihoods because Dragon was giving house deals to the Doll and to no one else. House deals were car deals that had already been arranged outside the dealership and were basically a free pass to a big commission. Only select salespeople got house deals and they were highly coveted. Instead of the managers distributing them equally, they just gave them to their favorite sales people.
He was also giving the Doll our customers and most of the sales staff was getting really pissed off about it. They could see what was going on and weren’t going to sit by and say nothing. Many complaints were filed and eventually the Doll was fired.
He was the one who cheated the sales people out of their commissions, cheated on his wife, and abused his power in order to seduce a young girl. Why was he not punished? Oh yeah, greed rules the world. Dragon was ruthless, forceful and greedy. And he brought in a ton of money to that dealership.
The dealership is a microcosm of the world. Most of the reasons why the world is so fucked up can be found inside the walls of a car dealership. It’s a place where empathy and honesty are in short supply. This is the real reason you can’t stand being inside a car dealership. You sense that it is rotten to the core. And just think, car dealerships are actually a lot better than they used to be. These places have been run by the most vile men on the planet since they came into existence. They are still being run by vile men. I had the pleasure of witnessing their terrible behavior from the inside.
