1st Gen Lunchtable Thread - General Discussion

esp in the auto industry, my brother talks about it now that he's in it and I don't envy it...even though the pay growth sounds awesome.

 

Yeah and he works in the service department right?

We always called our service department "part timers" cause their hours were only like 7-530pm (even though they'd stay til 6 or so to close out repair orders).

 

Take 1 week off and you have 3 weeks in a row too

I can’t wait for pto

 

yeah he's in charge of the service department....service director I guess? Manages the service guys and deals with all the whiny BMW customer complaints of which I'm sure there are endless ones lol

 

Ahh yesss

PTO to spend time with your little one

 

pto is awesome

so far I don't think Ive taken an unpaid day off in the 7 years I've been here

of course that also probably means I don't take enough time off

 

Yeaaaa

 

Yeah even though we worked longer hours, we didn't have anywhere near as many customer heaters as the service department does.

The worst ones are usually the husband-wife ones where the lack of communication really stems from the couple itself.

I've had one of my service advisors follow up with a customer, explain in full detail every part of the situation, only for a pissed off customer to either call in, or show up hours later raising hell about how we didn't call them. No follow up, no explanation on anything, etc.

It's like...mam, the advisor called and spoke in great length with your husband and he acknowledged/agreed everything we talked about.

 

It's happened many times actually, and I was there to witness it plenty of times already.

Imagine all the times I wasn't there. Seems to be very common.

 

Regretfully that's part of the volatility of such a small company in such a niche industry for me. It's so feast or famine here

 

yeahhhh....that kind of role would probably make me lose my mind. I can't deal with customer service at that level without losing what little faith in humanity I have left

 

You still have faith?

 

No doubt, especially when you're running the show its a different ball game. Gotta do whatever it takes no matter what the schedule dictates

 

I see that with my wife's businesses a lot. Some weeks her businesses are running themselves like a well oiled machine and she doesn't have to do much (comparatively, there's still work of course).

Then a GM quits or a client threatens to sue or corporate decides to go back on franchisee contract agreements or some shit like a fucking worldwide 2+ year long pandemic happens lol.

that first year was very touch and go with all the mandatory shutdowns and restrictions

 

I think I mostly just tell myself I do so I don't devolve into a total madman

 

It is a totally different ball game lol

I totally understand now why bigger companies cater to sales people so often... being as small as we are it's reaaaaallllllyyy noticeable to the businesses pocketbook when we hit dry periods of no sales

 

Fuck I can imagine :/ hopefully she weathered to stresses well, it's very daunting at times

 

It wasn't easy....throw a baby into the mix (born right before lockdown) and it definitely wasn't any easier. I was very fortunate that for the most part my job stayed intact save for 1 month that they put me on a part time schedule in the beginning.

She took full advantage of every single government assistance program that came about and I think it made all the difference. To this day they are still offering assistance even though it's not as advertised as it was a couple years ago.

the newest one is that small businesses are getting reimbursed for the majority of the money they spent on payroll for keeping employees employed during the first year. And surprisingly a lot of businesses are not taking advantage of it, mostly due to the massive paperwork involved. But the payoff is well worth it especially if your business was forced to stay closed for several months like hers was (gym) and you still kept paying employees rather than laying them off

 

Interesting, do you happen to know the name of that program? I'll look into for the owner cause we could benefit from that sort of thing. I know he took a loan out to keep paying payroll when there wasn't any money coming in the door

 

I'll double check but I believe it was the ERC Employee Retention Credit

https://home.treasury.gov/policy-is...for-american-industry/payroll-relief-programs