Today was a slow day, one spent following up on the 100+ leads we have to pester with calls and texts every day, letting the new guy (which I no longer am) shadow us, and generally collaborating while bullshitting among ourselves. The day started out mild, but the clouds rolled in in the afternoon.
I showed my first car around 2 PM, to a barely 19 year old girl who couldn't afford it. As I did, the wind was starting to whip and the sky turned dark, as it does on a dime's edge in Colorado. Losing that particular sale, I retreated inside to the whirring warmth of our temporary office trailer and continued to bang through the leads.
At about 5 PM, everything broke loose. The first flakes lasted for about ten minutes before becoming a deluge, quickly accumulating on the cold hoods and windows. Of course, this is when all of our late appointments showed up. I was finishing a sale, delayed for a repair, while a demanding client sat with my coworker, and a walk-in sat with another. Then the phones went out.
There's nothing more terrifying at a high-volume dealership than your phone suddenly displaying a big "X" on its screen. You're alone suddenly, unable to call tech support, loan support, or even transfer a call. We started to shake apart, but we held fast, getting our deals done.
Our desks were full. Two deals approaching completion, two requiring financial review, and a lone guy standing around, trying to pull his paystub off his phone. A perfect time for the copier to go out, leaving us with only an ancient machine that printed maybe five pages a minute when it cared to.
Panic set in, but we had to keep up the veil of professionalism. If you're buying a car during a snowstorm, expect to wait. Most of our customers were patient. One was not, demanding to know why she had to sign a contract when she already put up a down payment. That's the end of it, right?
I was brushing the snow off of my customer's potential purchase when L stepped out, shivering partially from the cold, partially from barely restrained rage. "I'm gonna punch her in the face," she hissed through gritted teeth, knuckles white. She squinted against the bright white LED lot lights flashing off the snow, knowing she had to get the contract.
My fingers were chilled to the bone when I finally got in to realize my client's contract hadn't been processed by the cutting-edge online system we use--it'd simply been dropped, requiring me to start the contract all over again, guide the customer through setting up payments again, and have them sign the options and agreement...again.
But I got through. I ambled out into snow and brushed off my car, finally pulling out of the lot by 8 PM. Only one hour later than my scheduled out time--pretty par for the course, all circumstances considered.