The Long Winter

Marcos is leaning against the railing in front of the store doing his daily leg stretches. His leg is lifted on to the railing in a manner that resembles a practicing ballerina. The damp morning air is slowly being replaced with the fresh warmth of a new season. Across the highway, the once barren trees are shyly beginning to reveal their greenery. Bushes and shrubs are swaying in the warm breeze, the dark violet hue of their blossoms mark the end of a long winter. It was, for us Texans, one of the coldest in recent memory. Gas bills soared and sales numbers plummeted. As for the sales staff, Soul said it best just now,

"Shit, everybody's gone."

Last winter was harsh indeed.

Marcos is now standing to my left, his backpack resting on my desk. He quit this morning. His ride should be here in two minutes, he says. The sales managers pass by and shake his hand, joking in a manner that hides their sadness to see him go. Jeffrey tells him that even that greener grass on the other side might be hiding some manure. I can tell that they want him to stay. So do I.

“So what do you think man?” He asks me. I look up at him as I type this.

“I’m sorry to see you go Marcos, you’re good friend.”

"You're gonna be a good attorney," he replies. Marcos has been here for a long time. His desk has been just to the left of mine for maybe a year or longer. His ride pulls up in front of the store. Marcos, whose presence commands an odd combination of intimidation and humor. Marcos, who looks like he could be a old-time Chicago gangster, who has two grown children living outside of Texas, who is turning 54 years old next week, is walking through the big glass doors at the front of the store. Goodbye Marcos.

I delete his voicemails and change the name on his extension to GT, who is my new neighbor to the left. GT is back after a long absence from work due to his developing arthritis in his feet. I remember visiting him in the hospital when it happened. His feet swelled up to the size of bowling balls, but the doctors didn't quite know why. Today, he is better, though sometimes he walks with a cane. GT is 29 years old. Sometimes I wonder if the doctors would have found a solution to his problem if he had insurance. Or money, which is something that all of our sales guys are lacking right now. GT's limp, along with his rather beak-ish nose, makes me think of a bird with a broken wing.

My switchboard lights up with callers. A customer accidently leaves the big glass doors wide open as he walks out with GT for a test drive. The weather is beautiful so I leave them. Warm air and the sounds of a busy highway flow inside. The long winter is over and hopefully Marcos was our last casualty.

No Need for Plasma

It is New Year's Eve and the salesmen are briskly walking, single file, through the glass doors to the car lot. On their faces are scowls, angular and hard, masks made of long hours with little pay. In their hands are helium-filled balloons, which freely float and bob on their strings like fishing lures in water. The salesmen, with their solemn faces and bunches of red, white, and blue balloons, resemble sad clowns as they move through the car lot, placing one here and there in a patriotic whimsy that seems to say, "Yes it's New Years Eve, and yes we're open, and God bless America!"

The calls flow in on my phone. I vocally manuver my way through the oncoming waves of "uh's" and "um's," of needy husbands and ex-wives, and of needier solicitors, debt collectors, and the occasional customer. My fingers move fast on phone's keys like the beating wings of a hummingbird. My voice, stern and robotic, is often mistaken for a recording as I push each call to its respected place. I watch the flickering lights of my switchboard light up like a cityscape at dusk, muddled with the confused voices of its constituency, all asking to be guided here or there. It is the usual morning rush.

Dirk walks in from the lot and stands by my desk for a moment to adjust his tie. Last month he was asking me to google places where he could donate plasma for cash, a task I would pursue for beer money back when I was in college. Last month Dirk was nervously scouring beneath the seats of his car for loose change to buy gasoline. He was counting dollar for dollar the debt he owed to his bank in overdraft fees. But not this month. He's sold enough to hit his bonus, and mabye he'll sell more. "You never know in this business," he tells me. I jokingly tell him that this article is called "No Need for Plasma," and he says maybe not. He could always use the extra money.

The week between Christmas and New Years is supposed to be one of the busiest in car sales and so far it has been...okay. Stephen Paul Skinner asks me if we are open on New Years Day and I tell him, "bell to bell."

"Really?" He frowns and walks back to his office.

New Years is just another day in car land.

Stephen Paul Skinner

Our new 2010 Trucks have heated steering wheels. That's right. Your ultra sensitive truck driving hands will never have to feel the icy sting of the wheel again. If you read about the history of Chrysler from their perspective, you will learn that Chrysler has patented more innovations that Ford and GMC combined. Things like heated steering wheels are, in my opinion, along the same line as bacon flavored mayonnaise, useless, excessive, and utterly American.

Our new sales guy has been in the car business for years. When I ask him if he could change his name to any other than the one he has, he tells it would be Stephen Paul Skinner. He scratches his freckled bald head, puts his mouth to a make shift blowgun and *pops* a stray balloon at the ceiling. "Push pins," he says, utterly delighted with himself. "It shoots push pins. Do you got any?" When I ask him why he chose that name, he tells me that his birth mother gave him that name before she put him up for adoption. She didn't want his birth certificate to not have a name. It was eventually changed by his adopted parents, and he learned his original name years later.

Stephen Paul Skinner.

His one link to his mother. Three proper nouns. They give cause to wonder. Stephen Paul Skinner loads up another push pin and *pop* goes another balloon. The phone calls are flooding in. Customers are looking to get their vehicles fixed, looking to complain, every once in a while one will want to buy a new vehicle. Something that is reliable, affordable, and gets good gas mileage. Most of them won't be able to afford anything, which shouldn't come as a surprise in this economy. This is a time for cutbacks. HEB brand groceries and cheap toilet paper. But if any of you need a heated steering wheel in your giant-ass pick up truck, I have one question for you.

Really?

Dire September

Another salesperson is gone. Blake, who sauntered in with confidence and sunglasses. Blake was a closer. He told me himself. But he also joined the business during the month of September, which was surprisingly slow. Nobody did well this month. Somebody had to go. There will probably be more to follow. A dire September.

Bonnie thinks that September is slow because the Cash for Clunkers program pulled a lot of buyers out of the market during August. This article supports her assumption.

As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, salespeople don't like to look back. There is no paycheck in the past. You can't eat it or live in it. However, after a month like September, looking back becomes necessary. The furthest back you look in sales is 30 days. No further. And now the repercussions of September are being felt. Management is experimenting with the fine details of how the dealership is run, hoping that a slight change here or there might be the golden trigger.

The sales staff will bend and fold as they need. Anything to sell a car. "October is going to be great!" says Alfredo. "And know how I know why? 'Cause nothing can be worse than September." He's right. His optimism is the trademark of the salesperson. Doubt can lead to a poor performance, which is a quick ticket out of here. Alfredo will do fine, and so will this dealership because the sales team here are always looking forward. That is the golden trigger. They will keep on pulling it until it fires.

The New Guy

Soul got hit by a car. Twice. So he won't be back for a while. One of our new guys is sitting in his office. Lucky break. His name is Angel. His brother used to work here months ago. Angel is from Puerto Rico.

Margaret needs a good trial lawyer who will work for the fees of a court appointed attorney. I tell her that she would need to find somebody with an altruistic streak to who would take on her son's case. I don't tell her that I believe it is hopeless for him.

The month is over. Final numbers are being turned in.

Angel sits in Soul's desk, going over paperwork. I like him. He is excitable, and commands himself like this dealership is a schoolyard playground. He believes that his life is beautiful. That he or anybody can make it in America. He falls in love with every woman he sees. Sincerely. Every woman he sees is America. He is brimming with confidence. With expectation.

He hasn't sold a car yet.

Marcos comes up to my desk to check out. He needs to go to the bank. I ask him why nobody has taken their day off today, and why everybody is here early. "We didn't sell enough cars last month. No days off." Another seventy-two hour week for the guys.

My switchboard rings. I answer the line and the voice on the other end asks for Angel. I connect the call and watch Angel's grin fall from his face. He places Soul's phone back on the receiver. "Not this time," he says to himself. I feel sorry for him. I am sad that he came to Texas of all places from Puerto Rico. I am sad that he came when he did, during these hard times, particularly for Chrysler. I wonder if he will learn. Change. Become a true blue salesman. Live a life dominated by contracts and closing deals. I just don't see that happening to Angel, but he will hold on because this job is America to him.

This business will destroy him.

Goodbye Mr. Kidd

At approximately 12:09 in the afternoon, Mr. Jason Kidd placed two bean and cheese tacos on my desk and then announced that he was leaving our dealership. As I have mentioned numerous times, auto sales is a migratory business. Sales staff flock from dealership to dealership like birds at the change of seasons. It was inevitable, therefore, that Jason Kidd would leave us, as will all of these sales people eventually. It fazes nobody. As I ate my tacos, I listened to the sales staff quietly mutter variations of a phrase containing the words Jason and gone. But business continues as usual. Tomorrow, the only people who remember him here will be his customers and me.

I am sad to see him go.

I genuinely enjoyed working with Jason, who had been survived being shot in the face when he was younger, and had the scars to prove it. One time, Jason convinced me that his father-in-law was involved in some famous dealings with a well known Texas politician and I was so thrilled to hear the story that I relayed it to some friends only to learn that he was telling me the plot to the movie Charlie Wilson's War. But Jason could tell a story with such innocent elation it made me want to believe him. And I think I do.

He also helped to get me on the CAD grant review panel by introducing me to one of his customers, who was none other than the city grant coordinator. He encouraged me to not give up on my quest to embark on the same path that every salesperson eventually takes: the path that leads away from here. He would always joke that once I had a real career I could take him out to dinner.

And I will.

The Numbers

Chrysler has already been bought by Fiat and many dealerships were forced to shut down in the process. Now, in the aftermath of the storm, our numbers are slowly building back upward. Managment is pleased.

We had to hire new employees to handle all of the new customers who would have normally gone to the other dealerships that have closed down. Many of their former staff were also at my desk, borrowing pens, filling out applications, waiting, waiting to speak to anybody who might hire them.

A few of them were taken in. Those who weren't just moved on to apply at the next dealership. They'll find a job. That is the nature of sales. It is migratory. Salespeople are like basketball cards, collected and traded by dealerships.

Margaret passes by my desk. "Have you read any good books lately?" she asks in her shattered glass voice. "Not in the past six weeks," I tell her, "but I'll probably be reading more now that I am finished my work for the City." She smiles, lips clenched together and walks toward the sales tower. She is always asking me for books to recommend for her son.

Marcos is sitting quitely his office with his hand over is mouth. His eyes are looking in my direction, but they look through me, as if he is deep in thought. He rises from his desk and walks outside to scan the lot. His grey hair shimmers in the morning light. He spots a customer by the yellow Ram 1500 and moves in to greet him. I wonder what he was thinking about. I should have asked him. He probably would have responed, "selling cars," whether he meant it or not.

Another Day in Car Land

"I'm just trying to keep it rollin'. Just taking it a one day at a time," says Soul, "but damn, 789 is a big number. It'll take you some time to count there one by one. 789. Lord! Think about all the people who losing they job!"

That's what Soul, our most experienced salesman, told me on D(ealership) Day. It was like having lightening strike five feet away from you. But we made the cut. We stayed open. I printed lots of job applications to suppliment the fresh wave of newly out of work applicants who would surely crash up against our glass doors. And they did. So, now that the earthquake has ended, things have gone back to normal. "Another day in Car Land," as our managers would say.

Why Buy a Chrysler?

Why would anybody want to buy a gas-guzzling vehicle that requires frequent maintenance and has a significantly shorter life span than its competitors from a company that has gone bankrupt?

I have no earthly idea, but this article offers a few accurate suggestions. People are still willing to buy, which astounds me.

It looks like a lot of dealerships will be closing down soon. Ours is one of the last in town. All of the smaller dealerships have shut down or have combined the larger ones that sell Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep. We are one of two, I think, large dealerships left, both of us on opposite ends of the city. None of the salesmen seem worried about it. Their only concern is to sell cars. That is their focus. Gotta sell a car. Nothing more.

The phones are busy, but we are selling fewer vehicles. Perhaps people are calling just to see if we are still here. Or maybe they are calling with unreasonable offers, thinking that they can wrench a better deal from the corpse-like hands of Chrysler.

Actually, they can.

If they have good credit. Most people, I have learned, do not. They are trying to live beyond their means. I see it every day. People with virtually no income, bad credit, and enormous debt are all trying to purchase brand spanking new vehicles. A couple of years ago, they would all probably have gotten approved. With this in mind, America's current financial crisis comes as no surprise to me. People like to buy things. Unreasonable things. Unsustainable things. Anything.

Every time a customers walk through our front doors and gawks at the classic automobiles on our showroom floor, they say the same thing. "I want that." A phrase, shouted by children after every commercial, three simple words that encompass the mindset of nearly every American.

Service customers are impatiently pacing around the showroom floor. Our new-car manager is introducing himself to some customers. Things are as usual. Footloose is playing over our Muzak system and Jeff, our youngest salesman, is absurdly dancing and singing into an imaginary microphone. His customers are happily walking across the lot with the keys to their new American made gas-guzzler.

Americans and American cars; they both consume too much.

Good Morning Chrysler

I keep reading in the news about how far car sales are sliding, but you wouldn't know it working here. Our numbers for last month were as steady as they have been ever since our current management team took over. I think that this story paints a fair picture of how many of us feel. Certainly, we are not getting out two to three hundred vehicles a month like we did in the often reflected upon heyday, but we have kept ourselves steady since December.

It is early morning now, and I won't have time to blog later today because I am training our new evening receptionist.

Our lot manager, Booker, passes by my desk. He has a small, but muscular frame, like Bruce Lee. His eyes, which could pierce a hole through solid steel, are softened by the small framed glasses that he wears. A thoughtful and considerate man, he often stops by my desk to talk about various tidbits of knowledge. "Good morning Booker," I call to him. "Hey brother-man," he calls back, and walks toward the garage.

Now I check on yesterday's numbers and call our main store to give them to Lorraine, who is the morning receptionist over there. She is the voice of my mornings. Every morning I talk to her. Sometimes I ask for her advice. Often I just tell her about my evenings or weekends. Every morning for close to a year now I have talked to Lorraine, but I have never actually met her.

The salespeople are trickling in, tucking in their shirts, tying their ties, smoking their morning cigarettes out on the concrete stoop that looks over our parking lot. They lean on the rail and talk about yesterday's near misses and today's possibilities. Sales people always focus on the possibilities. Theirs is a profession that can't look back for too long, there's no money in it. You can't eat your past, or take shelter in it.

I see my trainee walking up the steps so I need to wrap this up. Until next time.

Bankrupt!

I'm not surprised that it finally happened. But what does it mean for us, who make our meager wages at Chrysler dealerships?

Customers have been calling in to check if we are still here. We are. They want to know if their warranties are still valid. They are.

The sales people here don't seem worried. Why should they be? There are still a lot of cars to sell. Gino strolls through the dealership with a closed mouth smile. He's excited that Italian company, Alfa Romeo is buying Chrysler. "Today is a good day," he cheerfully says. Gino is Italian himself, and so I suppose he feels a sense of pride. It puts me at ease.

But then there are the ominous signs. The Meeting. Upstairs. Between the managers of every department of our dealership. Service, Parts, Sales, Office. All of the boss folk are going up into that room. We, on the first floor, stare up with trembling eyes, wondering what ill news they will bring down with them. Even Gino takes a brief moment to stop at my desk and wonder what is going on up there. "Maybe restructuring," he tells me.

Our dealership is filled with classic cars, which tell a story of the history of Chrysler. I guess they are here to attract customers, who enter our dealership in a state of awe. I always hear, "You don't see that every day." Well, yes I do. Though I think the classic cars are interesting (especially the 1924 Depot Hack), I can't help but see them as symbols of past ideas that no longer apply to today. The monstrous, gas-devouring, road-hogging, cars from the fifties are offensive to me. Not the cars themselves, but the unsustainable and shortsighted way of life for which they stand. I recently read an essay on the nature of collecting, and how it was characteristic of groups or individuals near the end of their life span. This thought makes the presence of so many classic cars at the dealership trouble me. It's as if my desk is in the center of a whirlwind of fragmented memories, a life flashing before Chrysler's eyes.

The meeting is ending as I am writing this. The suits are filing out quietly. The sales people are leaning around my desk, talking about what might happen. Nobody is too worried. Sales is a "here today, gone tomorrow," kind of business. Salespeople come and go fast. Losing your job is part of the job. Let's just hope its not the only part.