Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

Well boys...You shoulda been at work with me yesterday..( or at least been the fly on the wall)

All commissioned retail sales businesses suffer from the same dilemma...Having to walk the line between salespeople when a dispute comes up over whose customer was whose.

Such was the case for me last week. When a Customer calls into our call center inquiring about a car, One of the phone agents takes the call and sets an appointment. Then they'll shoot an email off to a salesperson to ensure that they are aware of the appointment.

What's "supposed" to happen, is when that customer walks in, the salesperson greeting that customer is supposed to ask him a few questions to determine if they were just walking in off the street, or if they had been assigned a salesperson already based on a set appointment.

That didn't happen this week. ( It probably doesn't happen a lot of times, If it doesn't get caught)

Last week I get an email on Monday, confirming a Wednesday appointment. On Wednesday morning, I call the customer to introduce myself. Only as I'm listening to his phone ringing in one ear, I'm hearing an actual phone ringing in the other that's in the store. ( This customer was already here, and had been for almost an hour......and was now sitting at another salesman's desk.)

You can imagine that this didn't sit well with me.

I head directly into the sales office. The offending salesman sees this, and rockets to intercept me on the way in. I tell him that he just stole a set appointment, and that he was now working for half of what he thought he was gonna make.

You can imagine that that didn't sit well with him either.

To keep the drama to a minimum, and in the interest of keeping the story shorter...The manager that had to make the call was on vacation for part of the week. The thief had made the case that the customer just walked in off the street, and I had a screenshot of the email from Monday confirming the appointment in my name.

Who had the stronger argument ya spose?

As the week progresses, and after talking with the other desk manager about it, he tells me that he thinks the theif had made the case that I had no record in our CRM of ever reaching out to the customer, and no record of the appointment even being assigned to me. He tells me that he thinks that he thinks that the deciding manager had softened on his decision to force a split.

I go back to my desk,..look through the CRM,....and sure enough....there is no record that I was ever assigned the customer.

Somebody had manipulated the history. ( All except the email with the screenshot of the customer, the date, and my name on the same page). I don't think it's possible at the sales level to do this,..I didn't think anybody could go back into history, and change something,..but somebody was able.
It didn't help my case that the theif was also the deciding managers "pet", and had shown favor to this guy numerous times by handing out opportunities over the last several months. Could this manager have actually gone as far as change history in our CRM to squeeze me out of the deal?

After learning that the DM ( I'm just gonna shorten " deciding manager" to DM) had softened, I firm him back up by shooting him a copy of the screen shot..He responds back,..that..............I'm right.
So,........despite the fact that the DM wasn't gonna be back till Saturday, I take solice in the knowledge that when it gets listed on the board on Saturday,...the sale that the theif was expecting to be 100% his, is now split,.....in half.

Now we're caught up. It's Saturday morning, the DM is back, he's getting all his ducks in a row,..and he's updating the sales board to reflect how many cars have been sold by each one of us.

And there's that half sale in each of our names,..and the theif was in the office bitching.

I figured now would be a good time to walk in.

* As a footnote to the above, I knew this was gonna happen. I'd known it now for a couple of days. I also know that the theif was a hot head, and he would possibly get physical if I pushed him into an altercation. I also knew that I wasn't gonna back down from him either. I was literally able to plan my reaction to his aggression in advance well before it ever happened.
It was like I was......psychic.

The theif was yelling that the customer was a walk-in,.....I stood there for 5 seconds and said "no, that'd be wrong", planning to produce the screenshot to shut him down, but as expected, he tells me to "shut the phck up!" In front of all three managers.
They have no choice but to shut him down,,...and are telling him to go home. He has to walk by me to leave..

Remember the part where I push him into an altercation?

As he walks by, I tell him Bye-Bye. That's all I had to do. He stops, bristles, turns and walks right up to me. We're......ohhh 10" apart.

* Now,..had I not seen into the future, this probably would've intimidated me, but since I'm psychic I expected it, I closed the gap. I yell "Hit me! I won't even hit you back! It'll be a cheap price to pay to see your ass fired!"

All three managers are now in max alert damage control mode, because of the impending fight in the glass box that is in the middle of a luxury brand automotive store where everybody can see into, and both my name, and the theif's name are being yelled out repeatedly by all three. The theif is about 5 seconds from making the choice to being jobless, and giving me something bloody to remember him by,...but decides to step off and leave.

I so wanted him to hit me.

It's a sad state of affairs that things come down to this. I blame management. The sale shouldn't be split when somebody is caught stealing. It should go completely to the injured party. The only way people are gonna adhere to a rule is if there is a consequence for not following it. Working for free is a pretty stiff fine that only needs to be levied once to change a behavior permanently.

droopie85gt said:

Too bad you don't have a body camera. This would have been some prime time viewing. Even if you didn't get what is rightfully yours, you have the satisfaction of him getting put in his place.

My bigger concern with the BM (Big Manager) or OO (owner operator) is WHO went in and deleted the sales record. Either a mgmt level helped head delete it or head knows a manager's password!

Click to expand...

Yeah,.....I have to decide to let that go for the sake of the bigger picture. I have to go to Nashville tomorrow night so that I can be at the Brentwood BMW dealership to observe the functioning version of the new position I'll be in starting sometime this month.

I'm tired.

The grille is black,...and clearly..installed.

As bad as the trunk was, I shoulda got a different one. It had pretty significant impact damage that had started to rust between the bottom and top skin. The metal was separated, and badly pitted..and to make it even worse,..it had fairly heavy hail damage.
But...
It's not like there is a buttload of futuras out there to choose from...so I had to fix it.

It's primed,, and it's close to to being good.

The hood was much better, but was still damaged where the prop rod had caused the hood to break at the mid-point where old futuras have their prop rods. That, and having having to make the reinforcements for the Aerocatch hood pins made this into more of an ordeal.

I missed a small dent,..and there's still work to do to blend the center line upfront where there was a hood ornament, but at least it wasn't trashed by hail like the trunk.


Don't know when I'll get to work on it next...but at least it feels like I'm closer.

droopie85gt said:

Looks like it's getting close! Where's a mockup with the scoop?

Click to expand...

There be no mockup...just the finished product.

Ok then.
It's my turn to ask for opinions.

If you look, you'll see the holes drilled for the scoop. I'm committed to it. It fits nicely, and I think it looks good.

The question is: to cut the hood under it, or not.

I know that no "cold" air will get into the opening as a result of any ram effect due to its placement, and low profile. That isnt the objective for the cuts. I want "hot" air to be able to get out in slow or non-moving traffic.

The dilemma is rain, and the red hot hotside that'll be exposed to the rain should I get into something like that while driving.

It seems to me, if very little air is gonna get into that opening as a result of placement, how much rain will get in instead? And,is this all a non-issue that I'm worrying about?

Ok closed it stays...but when this thing boils its balls off in Mississippi summer traffic..I'm blaming all you bitches.

95BlueStallion said:

Earlier today I stumbled on a FB story of a super clean ‘96 Ford F-150 4x4 that had a 5.0 and 4r70w. Got me thinking how I wish I still had that fresh one from the Ranger with the Baumann controller. I would love that transmission in my F-250 over the slushbox it has. That Baumann controller let me adjust shift points and firmness. My truck needs that pretty badly. I may have to revisit that Ranger thread soon and relive those glory days of you being a bad influence on me.

Click to expand...

The problem is...I write: All this stuff about this and that. And what to do if this happens, and what to do if that happens. And how to adjust this, and how to Macguyver that... And how to make this work, instead of paying for that...

But all you can get from that is Blah-blah-blah......

Then you go out and buy a transmission that fits a 4.6 and pay for it to rebuilt in a shop despite the fact that it has to fit a SBF (that shoulda known better).....Then drive half way across Iowa for a flex plate and a separator plate, when all it woulda taken was a small cut here, a weld there, and a phone call to summit for a pioneer flex-plate that woulda shown up at your door the next day.....

Then,...when it all goes to hell in a hand basket, your mom calls you to remind you to stop hanging around hoodlums like me, all while preaching that you shoulda known better, and wondering what she ever did wrong to lead you so badly astray.

And in the end...despite the best laid plans of mice and men...you still blame me for choices you made even though I was never consulted..and a bazillion miles away.

It's gotta be something in the water you Iowa boys are drinkin.

I can say that I have all of the paint product to do this now. Today, I bought 1qt. Of Competition Orange in urethane, and the required reducer. Turns out, I actually have a hardener product that will work with this , so I was able to get that scratched off the " I need" list. It took the better part of the afternoon to block the mess I made of the hood and trunk.

I've got to figure out how to spray paint that doesn't look like Elephant hide.
The primer that I spayed on Sunday was so orange peely...it was like sanding ........Well,....Elephant hide.
It took forever to get it flat.

I don't know what the magic is...of the times I've painted,...I primed my 86 drag car's engine compartment ( came out freakin flawless) I Followed that up with Competition orange urethane..( I know, right?) Turned out like liquid plastic. It was perfect.
I painted the rear bumper on my 2003 terminator....despite the color mismatch..it turned out flawless.

I painted the engine compartment in the current car....primer turned out flawless,...paint took two times..( but only because I missed some body work) second time turned out flawless.

I painted the wheels on the current car...turned out flawless.
I painted the dash bars on the current car,..turned out flawless.

I attempted to paint the WHOLE car.....Orange peel like a mutherphcker.
I primed the hood and trunk this time...orange peel like a mutherphcker ..

What the hell is different..or did I get lucky 4 times in a row.