Well, I need a new car. It was so generous of LL to lend me her car for the time being, but she’s gonna move home at some point. I’ve done my research, and I’ve narrowedit down to a Mini (fingers crossed), a Mazda CX-30, or a Subaru Crosstrek. All three dealerships are within 90 seconds of one another here in London, so off I went. I did invite my nephew to join me, but he had other plans. Fortunately (foreshadowing).
Hit MINI London first. No one was there. Not in the lot, not in the showroom, no one. Finally a guy with his his face firmly in his cellphone drifted up and when he looked at me (no questions, just looked), I said, “I want to buy a car.” ‘Buy’. Not trade-in, not look at, but buy. The sales manager (that’s who this guy was, I found out later), didn’t introduce himself, ask my name, or ask me a single question. He just pointed to each car in the showroom and identified them by name. My favourite moments were when he (a) told me that ‘a three-door car has two doors on the side and one at the back’ (because I had assumed that third door was in the floorboards?), and (b) said, “and there’s a yellow one outside.” I said “I see,” drifted towards the door, and he went back to his cell phone. He was the sales manager! I stood alone in the middle of the parking lot, absolutely baffled and incensed. BTW, never shop MINI London.
Off to Mazda, where the greeting was better (still no exchange of names), but the salesman spent the entire time telling me that every car I was looking at was expensive (what do I look like out in public? a recent escapee from an asylum? a broke gambling addict? I was wearing a nice coat and scarf and drove in in LL’s perfectly lovely Toyota Venza.) And when I asked for a test drive, he looked shocked and said I’d have to book an appointment. ?!? The showroom was full of sales people, but devoid of customers, and yet I needed to make an appointment? By now I was starting to steam.
My experience at Subaru was better, at least he told me his name and gave me a brochure. But by this time I was fit to be tied. Remember, my career was in sales training, coaching, and sales management. Maybe if my background was in nursing, or academia, or road maintenance, I wouldn’t have taken this so badly, but because sales was my livelihood, I was absolutely OTT with anger.
I got in my car (LL’s car) and sat there fuming. Then I remembered that the LandRover dealership, which had always treated me so very very well, was just 2 minutes down the road. Now, to be perfectly clear, I was not going to buy another luxury car, but at least this would end my afternoon on an up note.
Reader, I purchased one.