Posted on 10/23/2018 4:25:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
This past week, I went to five car dealers in an upper-middle-class suburb of Los Angeles to see what SUV I'd like to lease. I wanted to patronize local car dealers because I want them to stay in business.
In each case, I experienced the following: I was greeted pleasantly upon entering the dealership. A young salesperson asked if he or she could help me. I told the salesperson the model I was interested in. He or she made a copy of my driver's license and returned with a key to the car, and off we went.
In every instance, the salesperson was sweet, unenthusiastic and largely ignorant of the car in which I was interested.
All of them answered most of my questions -- such as "Is this SUV available in all-wheel-drive?" -- with some version of "l'll look it up."
I began car shopping many decades ago but have rarely gone to dealerships in the last 25 years (I generally drove the cars of advertisers on my radio show). My recollection of my experience in earlier days is that car salespeople (especially those of foreign cars) were car enthusiasts. They were passionate about cars in general and very knowledgeable about the particular cars they were selling.
But in every instance this past week, I felt I knew more about the car, from doing some research on the internet, than the salesperson did.
It seemed to both my wife and me that these car dealerships hired any decent young person who applied for a job, and that these young people regarded selling cars as no different from selling shoes: It's a job. It requires you to show up on time, be polite, accompany potential buyers on a test drive, look up answers to questions on your smartphone and go home at the end of the day. Their interest in cars was not necessarily greater than drug store employees' interest in hair brushes. Selling cars is just a way -- one of many others to come -- to pay the bills.
My wife saw in the answer "I'll look it up" one possible key to the problem: If the young people we interacted with this past week are representative of their generation, many do not feel the need to know much, because all the information they need in life can be found via Google.
I focused on another issue: While these young salespeople were unfailingly pleasant, none of them evinced passion.
I remember young (and old) car salesmen who loved cars. Sure, they would exaggerate a car's qualities, but they knew all about it -- inside and out. But this past week, not one of the salespeople said anything about the car during the test drive. Unless I asked questions, their only words were "Make a right at the next corner."
It makes me wonder what young people are passionate about in our time: favorite TV shows and actors? Music? Video games? Sports? Global warming?
If a 65-year-old salesman seems to be doing little more than going through the motions, we understand that perhaps we have met a modern-day Willy Loman. But a passionless 25-year-old? That's just sad.
Do the car dealerships know this? Do they care? At one time, the general critique of car dealers was they were too pushy. If my experience is at all typical, I can assure readers that pushiness is no longer a problem. The only thing any of the dealers pushed was free bottled water.
I am aware that every generation laments "In my time ..." But that doesn't necessarily invalidate what follows.
In my time, young guys -- I can speak with greater knowledge about men -- had hobbies/passions. And ambition.
If I were 25 years old and had a job selling cars, even if I had other aspirations for my life, I would still aim to be the best car salesman in America. That's what we refer to as ambition.
I would learn everything I could about the cars I sold. I would learn how to advocate for the cars without being pushy. During the test drives, I would say a lot more than where the customer should next turn. In addition to talking about the car, I would ask customers about themselves.
I detected little ambition in the sex previously known for professional ambition -- men. But no one should be surprised. Many young men have been coddled by parents and by society. If you receive a trophy just for playing, why try to win? If self-esteem is given to you without having to earn it, why try to earn it? If the government will take care of you, why work hard? Anyway, ambition in men is probably now considered a form of "toxic masculinity."
Perhaps most importantly, young men have been given the message that women have no need for the support of a man. Women, they have been told all their lives, are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and any children they might have.
So, then, if the government will take care of you and your income is not necessary to support a family, why be ambitious? Why push yourself to succeed?
Talk to the young men in your life and ask them if they are ambitious. Don't be surprised if they answer "I'll look it up."
I would think that a car salesman would have the time to learn about the product they’re selling, at least; it is their job after all.
Willie Loman,,,?
I’ll Google that.
That's easy! I'll google it on my phone. Uh, how do you spell "government"?
Yep. I see it too in my industry.
Actually had a 20-something quit because he want to work at a “socially conscious” business. So he went to Chipotle.
No passion for the job, no passion for anything, just kind of drifting.
They get excited when talking about their next tattoo.
Sad.
Bought my last couple of cars locally, in a middle-class, mostly blue collar area - the sales people I dealt with weren’t motorheads, but they did have a solid knowledge of the models I was interested in, and could answer what questions I had intelligently. They were a good fit for their job, and they appeared to take pride in it.
I just wonder if the kids Prager dealt with had college degrees that they thought entitled them to middle-management-type jobs where their main function would be to tell other people what to do.
This tidbit of information is unrelated to the general theme of Prager's piece--the lack of passion or enthusiasm.
Being able to look something up is extremely useful to people of passion. It expands our base of knowledge and isn't at all indicative of how much or how little passion we have.
That said, I think Prager is correct in his conclusion that these young people have a lack of passion/enthusiasm. They are products of Leftie institutions which hate capitalism.
Consider for a moment what capitalism is. It is an invented term for free markets.
And what are "free markets"?
Free markets, as a term, refers to the active participation of a person in the exchange of goods and services...and ideas.
The difference between the world of "free markets" and socialism (which is the mother's milk of the world from which they came) is the difference between living in the jungle and living in a pen in the zoo.
These young people Prager encountered are zoo animals. They have no enthusiasm for life because they are not actually alive.
They have been provided for by their parents and then indoctrinated by their teachers that they should be provided for by their government.
In their jobs, they are simply waiting for the government to do what they teachers and professors told them it would do.
They are asleep.
IMHO, that is why they lack enthusiasm and passion.
He was writing about young people whose job it is to sell cars. Not just an avocation, they were being paid to do it. His point was the utter disinterest in knowing the first thing about the product they're selling. I'd think a lot of product knowledge would come from repeated test drives and repeated questions, just recalling previous expeditions onto Google or, goodness knows, they might even go on the company's website or pick up a printed brochure.
Now he has a job in his field, but he's keeping the retail job, at least as long as he can make it work out.
Thanks for the encouraging words, I appreciate them.
I see the lack of ambition, but exactly how widespread it is is uncertain.
Mr. Prager notes that necessity is a goad to ambition.
Many young men in America have little of necessity to push for.
Or he was fired because the manager was a dumb cluck and blamed his problem falsly on the employee.
Teach your kid the other side of work, politics and games.
I don't think this is all just related to a lack of ambition, either. Prager's observations reflect something that I've observed over the last few years when dealing with people in various industries. It's what I call an "unqualified upward migration" of workers in many industries -- caused by what is basically a serious lack of qualified people in jobs that used to be considered highly respectable in the past.
A perfect example would be the three bank branch managers I've dealt with over the last 18 months for various needs I've had related to my business. None of them was able to help me address something I thought was a relatively simple issue. By the time I dealt with the third one I realized what the problem was: A few decades ago, these people would have been working as clerical staff at a doctor's office or a small local business. Today, they're considered branch manager material in the banking industry.
I think Dennis Prager has been dealing with car salespeople who should be working in the fast food industry.
Cars are now purchased on your I phone from bed while eating bon bons and delivered or picked up from the car vending machine.
Check the digital dictionary on your phone ... [smile]
Yeah, but the telephone was an exciting new technology back then. :)
That's his point. LOL.
He's not talking about the general public. He's talking about people whose job is selling cars.
Re Bankers:
Women work cheap and follow the book with no thought getting in the way
You’ve hit on something. Used to be that cars were distinct from each other, had “prsonalities”, and were evocative of pleasant/nostalgic thoughts. In recent times it’s become a market of one-size-fits-all, no “personalty”, evocative of the gray, drab East Germany of yore. Hard to get excited about cars that all look and feel alike. I personally have a hard time telling cars apart on the road.
The answer is in your quote:
“is a technology laden piece of “something” that can’t even be worked on?”
Being able to work on a car, tune ups, oil changes, was fun back in the day (71 El Camino). Those were the days. Now I take it into the shop, I don’t think I ever opened the hood on my newer cars F150, Jeep Wrangler.
The era of information at your fingertips has introduced a new sales paradigm. Many customers have previously researched both the basic and specific details of the item that is being offered, putting the salesman at a disadvantage when it comes to their product.
Comparing the salesmanship of today to yesterday is an apples/oranges thing. Courtesy and organization as well as neatness of appearance are still as important as ever.
Given the rapid changes possible to the market and product designs, I don’t consider it a fault that the sales person has limited knowledge of their product and consider it a plus when they truthfully admit it.
I’ve made mistakes like that in the past, one that actually was that costly and was amazed to not have been let go. The company owner took me aside, reassured me and said he’d done it himself, yes of course he hated expensive errors but what was more expensive was attempting to conceal it and allowing it to get out into the world and into the hands of customers. He said it was part of doing business, and part of bringing new hires along, that good experience came from bad experience. He was a great guy.
A company that would put an inexperienced new hire in a position to make a 40K mistake really should reconsider their onboarding and training processes, though.
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