The sweet smell of desperation

The thing I hated about being a car salesperson was the constant pressure. You have monthly sales targets to hit, and your progress towards these are charted weekly. So even if you had a great month and hit your numbers, the next month you're starting from zero again.

The yard I worked in was not a very good yard (bad location and some slightly sad stock), so I soon learned that you had to leap on any whiff of interest and also recognise the cars in the yard that appeal.

One friday, we had a family come in looking for a first car for their son who'd just gotten his license. The young lad, much like many other young men, wanted a car with a bit of shove but also communicated that they were inclined towards Fords.

We only had two Ford Falcons in stock at the time, one being a FPV that was only a couple of years old, and way out of budget, and the other being a much older XR6 that was a little tired. They left their details, but went to look further afield.

The next day, early on a saturday morning, one of our trade-ins got delivered after the customer collected their new car. It was Purple Falcon XR8, and would fall into the ballpark that this young man claimed to be looking for. Problem is that customers rarely clean their trade-in when they collect their new car, and cleaners don't work saturdays. So after calling the young man to confirm that he could come in that day, I was off into the cleaning bay with the trade-in, rolling up my sleeves and trying not to get the dirt, grease, old burgers and other junk on me, while scrubbing this car inside and out.

It wasn't as grand as a professional detail from the cleaners, but the car was presentable and the nasty stink on the inside was gone.

Didn't sell him the XR8 though. I think the dad had an unfortunate moment of clarity realising that his son behind the wheel a 5L powerplant was a bad mix, and it was his money funding the deal. I also managed to annoy the other salesmen, as the yard manager was now asking why they didn't clean cars too. Bad day, that one.