Yesterday, I had the misfortune of a dump truck crunching my car’s ass as I tried to make it to a job interview. I am fine, but poor Brunhilda, my Accord, is missing a bumper and her left light is crumpled in like I lost the merging fight. Oh wait, I guess did.
Thankfully, my insurance is on point, and five hours later I was behind the wheel of a rental. The problem? It was a Ford Focus. I drove the plastic-y car home, as I tried to keep it under 60, for fear that the car would fall apart and I would be left Flintstoning it up the NJ Turnpike. Even the elbow rests were crappy and flimsy in design. Clearly made for people under 4 feet, the leg room was non-existent, with my ass was half hanging into the trunk. The cheapy parts made me feel like it was a prop car, or a starter car you give to your least favorite teenage child. In short - my step son has sturdier car toys.
This, my friends, is why the auto industry must be left to fend for themselves. How dare Ford, with a straight face, ask anyone to cough up $14K for a car with no center console for you to fill with crap? As a taxpayer, why should I pay for their inferior cars? And dare I say, it is not my bad if their workers lose their jobs. Dude, not one person from Detroit has sent me sorry-you-are-unemployed check or dropped a few G’s into my 403(B). But beyond me and my world, industries have had their ebbs and flows, and no one cried for the manufacturing jobs that left overseas which left a lot of immigrant workers unemployed. No one has tried to plug the hemorrhage of customer service jobs that have peaced out to India. What is so wrong with telling people, so get another job? Charlotte is a city built on the backs of Wachovia and Bank of America. New York City is suffering the likes we have not seen in a long time. Who will bail out those people getting cut from AMEX, Citi, etc? Who bailed out the dot-comers? The same way people trekked into Detroit three generations ago for the opportunity, the current generation can mosey on out and into another opportunity. Retrain and reinvent is what most people do under those circumstances, and both the industry and its workers need to do it. They are not owed their jobs, while 6% of us shuffle into the unemployment line. The writing was on the wall five years ago, but they were so comfy with their plump benefits and chose to stay. I made my choice, and it was Honda.
Thankfully, my insurance is on point, and five hours later I was behind the wheel of a rental. The problem? It was a Ford Focus. I drove the plastic-y car home, as I tried to keep it under 60, for fear that the car would fall apart and I would be left Flintstoning it up the NJ Turnpike. Even the elbow rests were crappy and flimsy in design. Clearly made for people under 4 feet, the leg room was non-existent, with my ass was half hanging into the trunk. The cheapy parts made me feel like it was a prop car, or a starter car you give to your least favorite teenage child. In short - my step son has sturdier car toys.
This, my friends, is why the auto industry must be left to fend for themselves. How dare Ford, with a straight face, ask anyone to cough up $14K for a car with no center console for you to fill with crap? As a taxpayer, why should I pay for their inferior cars? And dare I say, it is not my bad if their workers lose their jobs. Dude, not one person from Detroit has sent me sorry-you-are-unemployed check or dropped a few G’s into my 403(B). But beyond me and my world, industries have had their ebbs and flows, and no one cried for the manufacturing jobs that left overseas which left a lot of immigrant workers unemployed. No one has tried to plug the hemorrhage of customer service jobs that have peaced out to India. What is so wrong with telling people, so get another job? Charlotte is a city built on the backs of Wachovia and Bank of America. New York City is suffering the likes we have not seen in a long time. Who will bail out those people getting cut from AMEX, Citi, etc? Who bailed out the dot-comers? The same way people trekked into Detroit three generations ago for the opportunity, the current generation can mosey on out and into another opportunity. Retrain and reinvent is what most people do under those circumstances, and both the industry and its workers need to do it. They are not owed their jobs, while 6% of us shuffle into the unemployment line. The writing was on the wall five years ago, but they were so comfy with their plump benefits and chose to stay. I made my choice, and it was Honda.
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