man doesnt matter anymore....i should stat work at acura soon, i talked to the service manager and told him the situation and he said that guy is an idiot, i showed all my certs, and he told me he would start me top pay, wich means ill be making more than what i made at honda. so it tuns out ok in the long run, (by the way i can park right next to my bay) lol this manager is cool as hell, younger guy,

 

I like my middle-aged service manager. I don't want my service manager to be "cool." I want him to be sensible, mature, level-headed, and fair... dare I say more like an uncool father rather than a cool kid.

But props to you for getting a new job. If you consider others a tiny bit more, everything should work out great. Acura customers may be even more entitled and less tolerant of juvenile behavior.

If you pulled that crap in someones CL63 AMG or M5, I don't think it'd be too warmly received....

 

I agree with you that legally there isn't any ground for him to stand on, because of the "at-will" status I'm sure he had. They had every "right" to fire him if they felt like it. However, I'm simply arguing that in a "right or wrong" sense, this seems a bit wrong...

Do you really think of everyone in the service dept, charging a cell phone is the worst thing anyone is doing? I'm sure worse is going on with customer vehicles. If this really IS the worst thing happening there, I'm going to drive over to his former shop next time I need something done.

Like someone said, the OP doesn't sound like the type of person who would have this as a "tip of the iceberg" of their abuse of property.

I think unless they really just needed to cut the headcount, the reasonable thing to do would be to censure him as they found fair.

Like I said, I'm just more realistic. If I have people getting paid $75k a year to take care of me or my property, I expect nothing like this. If I'm taking the car to a shop where guys are probably making <$15/hr, I expect SOME stuff to slide. It's the difference between a waiter at Ruth's Chris screwing up your order as opposed to a guy putting pickles on your Bigmac when you asked for none.

My outlook on these things isn't just to make the life of slackers easy... it's to make MY life easy and not be upset 15x a day when someone makes a small error in judgement.

 

It's not worth stressing about the small things in life. Save it for the things that really matter. Lots of people don't allow others to smoke or eat in their cars, but I've never heard anyone say they're maintaining the virginity of their power outlet.

 

I think my dad used to say it best when my brother would get seat covers for a new car...

"Why don't you just relax and enjoy it? All you're doing is making sure the next owner has nice seats"

 

You can speak with the BBB if you feel that they didn't follow proper business procedures. May entitle you to unemployment at least.

 

This is exactly why I will probably never own a Chevy Vette. I still shudder thinking about the last Chevy dealership I had to spend any ounce of time in.

I don't want pickles in my burger when I told them no pickles. I'd rather pay someone to get it right the first time.

Unfortunately, that's what I've been finding as the salary increases... hypothetically, if you make $2 per minute (and you have the option of working more when you'd like), I'd rather pay someone $10 to get it right than having to stand in line frustrated for 10 minutes to correct the mistake (at a personal cost of $20).

A big part of the buying experience for me is the service experience. My current Honda dealership treats everyone with the respect of a luxury dealership... minus the bigscreen TVs, hot receptionists, coffee bar, and putting greens. If I had to deal with the juvenile <$15/hr mentality every time I went to the dealership, I'd probably be soured on the Honda experience.

If the guy at McDonald's kept screwing up my Big Mac, I'd probably try switching to a different fast food chain. Same with vehicles. The OP's boss was right. It sends an unprofessional message that some people with deal with just fine, but others... when given a choice... will express their satisfaction by taking their business elsewhere.