New Car Shopping

One of my favorite things to do is to eat with my friends. Breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner, snacks...it doesn't matter. To me, there is nothing better than food and friends. A couple of weeks ago when I met a friend for brunch the conversation steered to cars. We shared a desire to, some time in the future, purchase an electric vehicle. We had both been doing some research and my friend had settled on one she liked a lot.

After brunch, while hanging out, we decided to stop in at a dealership to take a look at the EV (electric vehicle) she liked. As with most dealerships, the place we wanted to go happened to share space with another dealership. It was a Cadillac dealership. We were definitely not looking for a Cadillac so we parked and headed in the opposite direction. The salesman informed us that the EV she wanted to see was not on the lot yet however, he was very patient in answering all of our questions and giving us an estimation on when the EV would be in stock. We thanked him and headed back out to my car. Just as I unlocked the doors, a gentleman from the Cadillac dealership walked up to us.

"

You ladies leaving without a car?" He says.

"They didn't have what we were looking for." My friend replied.

"Well, why don't you come on over here and let me get you in this brand new Envision we just got in." Said the Cadillac guy.

"No, thank you!" My friend replied.

Of course, as our luck would have it, this guy did not like the word no! And of course, he stood there engaging us in conversation hoping to win us over. He, apparently, did not know who he was dealing with. For the most part he was pleasant but I can tell you the exact moment the conversation went south. He asked what kind of work we did and without any hesitation we both responded, "we're educators." To that he replied, "oh, you guys got the cool jobs, long vacations, summers off to chill, no stress." If he was going to sell us a car that day, that comment right there lost him the sale. My very sweet friend, very sternly corrected his very small minded thoughts on education. For no less than five minutes, she let him in on just how important teaching is and that it is not all fun, stress-free and vacations! The poor guys didn't know what hit him.

When I got home and relayed the conversation to my Love, it got me thinking about just how out of touch most people are about education. When most people think about teachers and school they see children having lunch, recess, specials and maybe some reading and math. Outside of a school building, no one knows the planning it takes to simply get 25 students to line up without knocking each other over. People do not know the chaos that ensues when there is a slight change in the schedule for picture day or an assembly. Teaching is very hard work and the pay does not match the job description.

When the salesman started going on about he had gotten a call from his son's teacher to come in for a meeting, I said to him, "be open and hear the teacher out. Try asking how you can help rather than assume the teacher has nothing better to do than to pick on your kid."

With that, my friend and I got in my car and drove away completely annoyed but with a clear understanding that unless a person actually spends time in a classroom, volunteering and supporting their child's teacher, they will never understand that comments like that are totally inappropriate and insensitive.

Support a teacher!