patticake, your story reminds me of a TRUE story. This was told to me by someone who actually works at this place.

There was an old man in my hometown who won the lottery. He was a true good 'ole boy ... just a regular guy.

There is a very large RV dealer in my hometown (many of you have probably heard of him becuase he advertises in all 50 states) and this good 'ole boy millionaire went to buy an RV. He was in his flannel shirt and bib overalls. He was very polite and was standing around waiting for someone to wait on him. And standing. And standing. And still standing. This man could buy and sell the whole dealership 14 times and no one was waiting on "the old guy in blue jeans and a flannel shirt"!!!!

FINALLY .... one salesman recognized who he was and quickly went over to him ... and made the biggest sale of his year.

Okay, here's a good one. My husband I are the youngest people in our neighborhood. When we got married and bought this house (6,000 sq ft on 9 acres- waterfront) I was 23 and he was 28. One day shortly after we moved in, our dogs got out and ran down the street to a neighbors open garage. Well, this huge older guy wearing an FBI hat came pounding on my door and asked to speak with my mom. I told him she lives in California, but he was more than welcome to call her and complain about the dogs. When I told him it was my house, he proceeded to yell at me like a little girl. I gave it right back to him. He is nice a as pie now. the president of the HOA did the same thing when a tree of ours was about to fall into the road. the same old- where's your mom, and if you don't cut it down I will be sending you a bill I got the freaking chainsaw and cut it down myself.

It must be so difficult to possibly conceive that yes, I am a woman and yes we are successful and young.

I'm sharing these stories with hubby and he wants everyone to know that not all car salesmen are like the above stories. He works for a dealership and the salesmen there would NEVER treat a customer like this. It is common and necessary for salesmen to try to determine a person's ability and intention to buy before they invest a great deal of time with "tire kickers". However, asking for your husband to come in and fill in the paperwork is totally unacceptable and has nothing to do with qualifying a customer's "buyability".

He adds "most salesmen will tell you that it's the wife who makes the decision!"

as my grandma used to say,
"your grandfather wears the pants in this family, but who do you think bought, washes and sews up those pants? The same person who may or may not wash, sew and cook for the person in those pants."
So gwan ahead and put on them pants.....

Great thread!! Too many stories for me to share. Especially since I was the only woman in a male-dominated industry for the beginning of my career.

One more comment when it comes to pre-judging or jumping to conclusions-
We need to keep this in mind when selling cakes, too! I've seen lots of threads here where we tend to presume that a customer or bride can't afford what we really want to charge for a cake, or we feel sheepish about quoting a big price tag, or we don't promote our cakes to certain people because we think they can't afford them. Making those decisions for customers is a big mistake!

Oh yes, let me count the examples I deal with this every blasted day at work in this regard working for my IL's...

I agree on the car dealership stories though... When we bought my HHR I went around and did the looking at different vehicles and had one guy trying to push on me a Saturn Vue... He was like "and this (flimsy piece of plastic that he can't figure out how to use) can be folded up to hold up to four bags of groceries..." I was like "BUDDY, I told you, I'm HAULING WEDDING CAKES, not two dinky bags of groceries that fit in the front seat."...

Then at another dealership we told them "I can order a vehicle using the GM Family plan if I go back home, we'd prefer to purchase the vehicle up here, to buy it today, what will you sell it for?"... without skipping a beat he walked over to point to the price on the window, and without skipping a beat, we walked out. After test driving several vehicles, I had found the one I wanted that had the features I wanted (everything folds COMPLETELY flat all the way up to the glove compartment, it's plastic interior so it's a quick soap/water cleanup, the back end shelves up or down flat) and we were ready to jump.

We ended up going to the dealership back home (250 miles away) that we've bought most of the vehicles in our family from. They cringe when my Dad walks through the door, but at the same time he knows he's going to have customer loyalty on his side. We called, he said "pick any vehicle you want, it's $100 over dealer to dealer invoice, just let me know." No dinkering around, no pushing the upsale, we've driven back there for warranty work because they're so great about just being honest about the problems, etc. etc. We simply said this is the vehicle we want and the features, in this color, this interior, they got the vehicle in, and that Thursday we were signing the paperwork for my new car that at one year old has 26,000 miles ...

I am not sure where I would even start to post similiar stories. I work as Project Manager for a Fabrication/Plant service division of a construction company, I am the first female out of the office a lot of these guys have seen, and I used to work in the field with the guys... I get a lot of this at first but it doesn't take them long to see I can do it too.

Oh and all of your car dealership stories.... I think a few of you heard about the problems I had when i bought my last car a few months ago.... But I have to say I did have fun this time around... I let them go on and on about this "pretty thing" and that "pretty" thing... I can't wait to get the next vehicle. This one I had to get with good mileage b/c of how much I drive right now... but come next spring I get to pick a vehicle out for Cake! (I am so in love with the HHR right now for that)

I am a proud boycotter of SEARS, and DELL, They don't Back up their warranties.

I Love going into a dealership by myself. I always get the guy who thinks " like the vanity mirrors and pretty colors. I don't tell them My DH is a master tech, who likes to make sure I know everything I can about cars, The first thing I do is pop the hood and l and check it all out. Then I take it on a test drive, if I am happy about it I will them check out the interior(unless it's brite yellowee brown then I won't even look further) I have had a foe sales mens mouths drop when we get back and they ask if we can start the papers and I say" No that's ok and this is why..... It's got an exaust leak, the brakes need to be redone, there is an oil smell which means that either your mechanics are really sloppy or their is another leak so on and so forth." once I had one of the guys try to tell me oh really well we'll just have to fix that won't we. NO, don't put them on the lot like that.

My DH always has to laugh when I tell him, SO Proud.


Indy-- My Dh also works at a dealer ship where I have bragged that they aren't the typical beat you down sales men. But sales men are sales men. They try to get a deal where they can. We were selling puppies and one of the sales men wanted one, He and my DH haggled for a few weeks,(I said forget it I won't play games), he wound up paying full price for the dog and hasn't been happier.

cCc

Ha! Take that Mr. BRP jack*ss I just sent an order for 4,000 boxes, plus cookie bags, plus shopping bags, plus giftwrap tissue to Image Packaging.

Where I grew up mostly everyone does their own work on their cars so I know a thing or 2 about it. Well one day when I was about 19 looking to buy my first car I walked into the Nissan dealership in FEASTERVILLE PA and was waited on by a A**hole namd Sergie (just in case any1 wants to go there) and we take this altima out for a testdrive and the entire time he's telling me about the radio with the power antenna, which he is pronouncing antenn. So after like the 3rd time I finally turn to him and flat out tell him F*ck the antenna which is how its pronounced and F the radio b/c my cousin will change it for me. And I'm looking to buy a car not a radio. So i finish test driving it which was done in anger so i know he was a bit scared. When i'm mad my wreckless philly driver comes out. lol So just to harrass him more when we get in the lot I pop the hood and am all into the engine, under the car and so on. So he gets me too his desk and I tell him yea go get the papers . So when he gets up to get them me and my friend run out and leave .lol
But to make matter worse a couple of months later my husband takes his pathfinder in for service and while he's waiting he goes onto the new car lot and looks at the newer pathfinder and guess who walks up to great him?????????? ITs Sergie yall!!!!!!!!!!! so they get the talking and he tells my husband oh no you can't afford that come over hear. ONly b/c my husband was dressed in thug gear a jersey wih a chain and jeans with a pair of timberland and he's black. So my husband got mad at him and threw him his business card and told him to call him and he could get him a better job. We all did have a plan to have one of us get dressed up very professional and see how Sergie would treat us and then have someone dressed thug and see how he treated them. Then based on the results we would go and have his ass fired or make it known to the news stations hear in the city. But we never did and now after reading this thread I kind've regret it b/c that would've been like the perfect payback for all of us to every car sales man that acted like an idiot towards women.

My husband and I have certian "jobs" that we each take care of when it comes to shopping for large and small items. I usually have to do the interviewing for home repair people. It's funny how the older men pratically cringe to talk to me. If my husband walks by they try to talk to him but he just tells them "that's my wifes job, you'll have to talk to her she does the budjet". They don't get picked if there is no respect.

There is a story around town, from several years ago, of when the local veterinarian (very prominent guy) went to the bank after making a "farm call". He walks up to the teller and starts to explain the transaction he wanted to do and the teller tells him (not knowing who he is) she is not going to wait on him until he goes home and cleans up!!
That of course did not sit well with him but he went home, cleaned up, came back to the bank and told the teller that he wanted to withdraw all his money and close his account. When she looked up how much money she was going to have to get for him, she had to call the president of the bank and explain. I am not sure if the president could presuade Doc to keep his account open or not, but she was fired on the spot when he heard the whole story!!
Never judge someone on appearance alone.

Sam Walton drove a beat up pick up and wore a ball cap.

txkat,

OK girl friend let me break it down like a newyorker. lol not rude but just blont.

when you get those boxes from th other competitor call him up and tell him thank you. he will be like thank you for what, and your reply should be for letting me realized to go with someone that is more respectful of my CHOICES. LOSERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

SOME PEOPLE HAVE NOT F DECENCY SO GIRL TAKE YOUR CHETTAR MONEY MULLA AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE, THAT IS HIS LOST SOMEONE ELSES GAIN.

WHAT A LOSERRRRRRRRRRRRR
MICHELLE

Ok, first of all I want to say that guy is what my DH calls a tool! So I am not defending in anyway what so ever - Ok now that I have made my disclaimer let me say this:

I worked in a packaging for 5 years and my boss turned down business from people with "small" business's quite a bit. The reason is it cost a lot for custom work or a lot for shipping in "a small order" (they think). I had problem with that as well, but I was just the assistant and what could I do but tell him what I thought (which I did a lot ).

This guy could have and should have handled better, because now look at where it has gotten him nothing but bad rep.

Good luck to you and I hope that you fine a good company that will work with you.

Here is why the guy is a jack ass. My original email said this:

and his reply was this:

Notice how he completely contradicted the words " which is no problem" and came back and told me it was a problem, and how I should wait 'til next year and then maybe Santa would bring me boxes next year when I am a big girl.

( last part edited by me to reflect jackassiness )

and all of this from a guy whose webiste says :

from reading your email to him, i can see how he misunderstood what you wanted (although you told him 1000 is no problem.) looks like he read it as 3 1/2 dozen of cupcake boxes, instead of 1000 of each size. he sure did blow your order.

I'm a proud, Proud member of the Boycott All Sears Stores (BASS)! (Just made that one up. I'm 'into' wierd made-up acronyms.)

It's a long story involving first a dishwasher that we bought from them that had no control panel electronics and then second, a washing machine that they wanted to charge us just to come look at it when my husband (Mr. Uber-Fixer and mechanical whiz) knew exactly what part we needed. They refused to come with that part and we refuse to buy from them every again.

Jerks!

This topic is close to my heart today. I was ringing around trying to get quotes for a new double carport.

I ring the first NATIONAL place to get them to come out for a quote and HER first question to me was - "what's your husbands name?" (note NOT what product are you after).
I said "I don't have a husband" (I do but that's none of her business) and then she came back with "what's your fiance's name?"
I said why would you need to know this when I want a carport. She told me that she needed to know the person's details on who they are dealing with.

I politely told her unfortunatley she has just cost herself the business I would have given her as I deal with the contractors and payments.
There is a $15k contract lost. & I am considering emailing the company tonight to complain.

When I told my husband he said I should have told her "my partner's name is Mary......"

BRP makes cupcake boxes that hold 2 dozen cupcakes, 1 dozen cupcakes and 1/2 dozen cupcakes. Those are the names of the items. I guess I would assume that he would know the names of those items hus compnay makes.

How much clearer could I have been than 1000 of each box is no problem ?

Like My DH and I were discussing last night. Boxes don't go bad. So it shouldn't matter if it is too much that's up to you after you get them.

I wish all business men were like the guy DH and I dealt with this week, We went on an inpromptu trip. The second night we decided to look into some chalet style cabins to stay in for one night. They were 269.00 a night. The owner only charged us 125.00, Now that's a good business man he felt 125.00 was more than the nothing he was getting before we got there.

cCc
proud member of the BASS