Busted Honda Deal
The Honda store I worked at in the 90s was small…and old. The sales office was a small square stuck between another small square office and the admin office on the other side. The desk in the sales office took up most of the space. What was left was closet space like. We had sales meetings at the restaurant down the street at the bar. Actually, we didn’t have sales meetings, but we still had fun.
One day, Tom got in trouble with John. We were all pretty tight, but John liked to pick on Tom, and John was the big boss, so Tom took it, dishing back here and there all pretty light-hearted. Until the one day when John stuck the big-ass potato bug in the peanut machine dispenser. Then he told Tom to go get him a quarter’s worth of peanuts. Nothing that would put you in the hospital for long…you know, light-hearted.
But this one Saturday the shit flew. I don’t even know what the beef was about, but I was in the sales office behind the desk working a deal, and John marched in with Tom right behind him talking a mile a second. I didn’t know what he was talking about. It was fast and furious, and long-winded…not even close to light-hearted. And they stopped right in front of me, blocking my way out.
Every once in a while, John would bust in with a threat to fire Tom if he didn’t shut up and Tom would get louder. They were less than two feet from me and it was like they didn’t even realize I was there, and I was trapped. It went on, then some more until John told Tom in a “this is your final warning” tone. “If you say another word, you’re fired!” Tom was a sensational salesman, replacing him wouldn’t be easy, and now I was sort of concerned. Tom’s tirade continued like he didn’t hear or didn’t care, or just didn’t have an off switch
John turned around and looked at me and told me to go get Tom’s sales license off the board. It gave me an opportunity to part them enough to slither out the door. I was free! I didn’t go get Tom’s license. I was the manager, John was the owner, and we would get this figured out.
Tom continued and John told him over and over to get out, he was fired. John was one of the most well-controlled people I ever knew. I only saw him lose it one time in the ten years I’d been working for him, and he was no different this time. He was controlled, but I could tell he was as pissed as he ever got. He finally walked out of the office right past me and went and opened the little display case where we put the sales licenses on display, pulled out his key, opened the door, pulled the little pin out of Tom’s license and very deliberately closed it up and handed the license to me and said. “Give this to him when he shuts up and tell him to go home, he’s fired.”
John left and went fishing, I finished the car deal I was working on, got the check, got the paperwork signed. I told Tom to go to the Green Barn and pick up lunch for all of us.
When he got back he sold a car. Then we all went home. I never heard another word about anything. Tom stayed put, I put his license back up, and John never said a word to me about it. I don’t know if he ever said anything to Tom either. But they were friends again and Tom sold cars.