I received a comment re: my post on the Batali/Bourdain evening at the Paramount. And I just thought that I would share our story and what we are going through as dealers/owners and how things are not always as they seem......
Both my husband and I were born in this great country. I was born in Madigan Army Hospital in Tacoma, WA and my husband was born in Flushing, NY. Our parents are immigrants from South Korea and have a very typical immigrant story of hard work, hardship, and success. My parents came to WA many years ago because my father was in the US Army (Even today, military service is required by all males in S.Korea.) He was lucky because he was qualified enough to join the US army instead of the Korean army. My mother is an instructional aid for a school district in Tacoma. She has been teaching ESL for over 30 years. This job provided stability and insurance while my dad did various jobs and businesses over the years, just trying to get ahead. She also teaches adult ESL at night and I grew up thinking your parents working multiple jobs or morning and night was typical. Over the years, we had businesses that failed or promotions that were given to someone who spoke better English than my dad but that just added to the fact that they had to work harder than anyone else to have what everyone else had. They both worked VERY hard and gave our family a very middle class life....with the immigrant twist.
My husband's parents have more of the "American Dream" type of story. My father-in-law was responsible for the food in the teahouse for the South Korean pavilion in the 1964 World's Fair in New York. The S.Korean government thanked him for his service by allowing him to stay in the US and immigrate over. He started with only a couple of hundred dollars and with my mother-in-law, they worked their hands to the bone for 40 years. They did many businesses in the New York area and moved to Florida to run a motel. They did make a great living for themselves but worked almost 7 days a week and since motels do not close..they were on-call 24 hours a day. They made their retirement nest-egg by hard work, sweat, and tears.
So, instead of living off their retirement or buying an RV and traveling around the US, they decided to invest in a business called Spokane Chrysler. Yes, 6 years ago when the economy was booming, the numbers were right and everything looked rosy. The business was solid and we hoped to build something better for the next generation by working hard in a family business once again. Then, we noticed that the business year after year was contracting.....maybe it was due to the steep learning curve my husband had to tackle or because we had to fine-tune things. And well, we sure know that the bottom basically dropped out of the car market and we are doing all we can to make things work. Hindsight is 20/20, right? We don't have generations of money stock-piled up from when the car business was "good" and we don't have a business that is all paid off free and clear. We have to work hard to provide good customer service, be aggressive in our prices, and build relationships with our customers not only because those are good business practices, but also because our lives (mulitple generations) depend on the success of Spokane Chrysler.
And so to address the comment that was left.....how do I not have extra cash when I am a car dealer? Well, if you haven't noticed, we are in a global recession and people do not run out and buy cars when jobs are on the line. My family are immigrants and don't have anything else that what they earned on their own. There is no huge savings that we can just tap into. We "own" the dealership but really the bank does....and the money that might have been around to initially buy the business has long been invested into the business. Also, we do not "own" the cars we sell either...once again, the bank owns them. So, if you have bills and a budget for your home, imagine that multiplied by 1000 and that is almost what running a dealership is like. The cars I drive are for sale at any moment because I do not own them. If anyone wants to see the car, I have to load up my kids, drive down to the dealership, move the car seats to some other car, and drive back home. And also, if Chrysler had closed us (THANK GOD THEY DID NOT!!) then I would have lost my home and everything else I own. My husband works 6 days a week, usually from 8am to 8pm, and right now is on his 14th day of working without a day off. Is this a sob story? Of course not, it is what it is. The risks are huge in a business and we chose this life so we deal with whatever may come. We do not live the plush life that you might assume for someone who "owns" a big business. I'm sure there are car dealers out there who have had their dealership in their family for generations with HUGE homes and extra cash that lines their walls, but we are not one of them.
And if you knew me, I never act poor or claim to be poor. Because I know where I came from and what my parents had to do just to keep us in our house. I know the long hours my in-laws put in just so they could build on that American dream. Also, I was a teacher in Seattle in the poorest area and even taught in a school that was marked for homeless kids. I have seen how poverty affects kids, first hand. I don't try to get people to buy cars from me and I would never use something like poverty as a ploy. We are just trying to build something for my kids. But more than that, we also have 50 families that rely on my husband and his hard work. Our employees mean the world to us and I know my husband would pay them before he paid himself. The dealership doesn't just pay the bills but it supports families and keeps part of the economy in Spokane and Spokane Valley going. It's a much bigger picture than you are painting.
Obviously, you must not be a small business owner because you would know that any "extra cash" we have can be used 50 million other ways...not on a night out to hear 2 chefs talk. I guess I should have re-phrased it in saying that I do not have extra cash for such things as a show at the Paramount.
yy
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