Stupid people are everywhere. It's a simple fact that many outwardly intelligent and seemingly harmless people are in fact dangerously devoid of brainpower.
Somehow we as a society have chosen to let them walk among us unchecked, unfettered by such trivial things as common sense. This is a crime that needs to be rectified immediately.
Working in car sales has only deepened my sad impression of the human race as a whole. It's ironic really that although the general public has a low opinion of people in my profession it turns out that car-buyers are in fact the most ignorant, rude, pathological liars and, to bring in the mandatory 19th century lingo, 'dunderheaded louts' ever unleashed on this poor unsuspecting world.
It amazes me on a daily basis that in this age of free information people have no idea how things really work. Simple, everyday things like interest. I had a customer a few days ago who came in to our store loudly proclaiming that he'd 'buy a pickup of ours today' if we'd lower the price. Retail price on the truck was $23,000. Our price was $16,000. This was not a good enough deal for him. He wanted our truck, including some six THOUSAND dollars of negative equity from his trade to come out to 250 a month.
Upon running his credit (Equifax actually stuck up their collective middle finger at him) it was pretty apparent that we weren't going to get him anywhere near that payment. He hemmed and hawed and stewed and finally whipped out a calculator and demanded my full attention.
I leaned over the table as he commenced pulling numbers out of his ass and input them one after another into the calculator showing me what he felt the final price of the truck should be. He attempted feebly to explain to me what he was doing but it was so incredibly wrong as to be unable to follow.
He then told me that he should have an interest rate of ten percent as he took his final price and divided it by 72 to calculate what he felt a six-year payment would be.
My eyes hurt, my head was pounding and I wanted to desperately to just tell him to leave as he was keeping me from someone who actually could buy a car. Instead, my professionalism took over and I stood there in awe of his magical $292 truck payment.
I then took the opportunity to extricate myself from the situation by turning him over to my sales manager who sat him down and patiently introduced him to the concept of creditworthiness and the related concept of 'interest'. He seemed utterly incapable of comprehending in any way shape or form how his $292 turned into $440 when we used what we like to term 'real, actual, honest to god math.'
Needless to say, he stormed out cursing us and our obvious desire to NOT sell him a car.
It's no wonder I sometimes close my eyes and wish people would have to pass an IQ test before being allowed to procreate.
