Car Salespeople Live on Planet Saturn

There are only two kinds of people in the world: car salesmen and everyone else.
My wife’s car has spent the last two months suffering through some undiagnoseable problem that four different mechanics haven’t been able to figure out. Probably, there’s nothing wrong with it at all, it just doesn’t like us and now refuses to run on our command.
Anyway, tired of the constant sputtering of the car and adrenaline flow as we put our lives in God’s hands every time we take it on the highway, Liz and I finally broke down and went car shopping last weekend.

Little did I remember that we were walking into a different dimension.
Car salespeople are not like the rest of us. I’m convinced that everyone who spends any time in the industry eventually goes nuts.
In an hour and half of dealing with these folks Friday night, we met one guy who drives around with a giant dog decal on his vehicle to signify that he is the “Car Dog,” a guy who accents his handshakes with a cheesy wink straight out of the Handbook of How to be Sleazy, and a 65-year-old slightly senile bald man whose business card identified him as “Handsome” Mr. Ransom.
In the real world, coming up with the cheesiest possible professional nickname is not considered a career achievement. Would you buy your meat from the butcher shop of Jimmy “the Cow Monger” Stevens? Would you want “Litigious Larry Long” representing you in court?
Me neither.
Why do car salespeople think these horrible nicknames gives them credibility?
People in the car industry not only have funny names. They operate in a different social reality than every other person on earth.
If I were to meet a perspective new friend for coffee, and I refused to let him leave despite the fact that we were done with our drinks and he had already told me he had somewhere else to be, that would be a recipe for ensuring that person would never want to see me again in my life. And if I then closed our coffee meeting by asking that person what it would take for us to make a long-term commitment to each other, the person wouldn’t be able to run out of the coffee shop fast enough.

But car salespeople somehow think this routine is foolproof.
Maybe this is why the automobile industry is in so much trouble.
I’m not a car person. But the one time every seven or eight years that we go car shopping, I usually get excited about the process of seeing how different cars drive and ultimately upgrading our future experience. As a lawyer, I actually even enjoy the negotiating process.
And then we go to a car dealership and I remember why I want the process to end as soon as possible.