u/I2evenant

I’m one of those “Swiss Army Knife” PMs.
The rural area type of dealership where there is only two parts people. We gross like 35-55k a month. When it gets around 40k a month for a manager that has to do literally every job in the parts department, your brain starts to hurt.

My other guy also gets overwhelmed when we start getting around that mark as well. Because I can’t get in the weeds with him all day long because I’m in my own weeds. He is 100% counter. Retail, wholesale, techs, service. We are also a CDJR dealership..for those that know, you know.

The other day he ordered a remote start as a special order directly on Dealer Connect. Unfortunately, in the quantity selection he put the bin number there. Our special order bin number, you might have guessed, is 1010. Yea, he ordered 1,010 remote starts. I only caught it by accident for just randomly looking at the order status list in Dealer Connect. All I saw was the near $80k for one single order. My stomach was in my throat. Because when you order something as a Stellantis brand dealership and it isn’t on back order, it goes into process and you cannot cancel it. I clicked on the order and it said, “In Process.” My heart dropped into my nutsack. I almost went into panic mode. Luckily, it was a supplier ship direct part that was actually back ordered, but all SSD orders go into a “In process” status whether they have the part or not. I was able to cancel it. Otherwise, we would have become the new supplier of that part lol. Our special order bin isn’t 1010 anymore either.

My dealership has myself and one other guy in the parts department. Him and I are pretty close friends. He is in the upper echelon of friendship categories. Basically, my best friend. I’m 46 and he is 61. We both love the movie Snatch. Well, we were afforded the opportunity to basically skit out a part from the movie at the unknowing expense of a phone customer.

I pick up the phone and say the normal greeting spiel. The customer is a woman and she says, “I have a Grand Cherokee. Y’all have a Cadillac convertible for it?” Without a second thought I yelled at my coworker, “Will, do we have any catalytic converters on hand?” He replied,” Yea, dude, we have some catalytic converters.” The customer can hear the whole conversation btw. “Yes ma’am, we’ve some Cadillac convertibles.”

Will is doubled over laughing hysterically. I’m trying to keep it together myself. Then she asks the price. So I lost it with laughter after that. I couldn’t keep it in anymore. I know for a fact if the boss knew he would have fired me.

Anyways, I tell the lady that a tech walked in with his shirt on backwards and I thought it was funny and couldn’t hold in my laughter. Then, I asked her for a VIN and quoted the part. She never once caught on to any bit of it and continued to call it a Cadillac Convertible. Maybe we were the ones being trolled? lol