Short Rant

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

This really isn't that serious but I wanted to get it off my chest and talk to people who might have gone through similar.

Why is it that people seem to want to disrespect and blow others off based purely on appearance? This has happened to me several times now but just to give some context I'll share what happened today. It's worth mentioning that while I am a grown woman, I look younger than I am.

A little over a week ago my dad purchased a car. When we got said car home we noticed that there were these little scratches all over the car, that looked like whoever had washed it had done so with a dirty brush and scratched the paint. Not that big of a deal, we call and they say to bring it back up there and they'll try to get the scratches out. Today that's what I did and I was there starting at 10am. At 12:30 when they brought my car back and I looked at it, it looked absolutely no better, there were still those scratches all over the paint. I tell the man I'm not happy about it and he says he'll go get his manager. This is where things start going south. Now, I really try quite hard in these situations to be as nice and polite as I can be because I know dealing with customers all day can be a huge pain, but this manager came out of the building with a I don't want to deal with this attitude. Immediately started talking about how he "didn't see any scratches, thought I was out here to see scratches all over the car". Needless to say I'm already quite incredulous as to his attitude. Then he starts going on about how those aren't actually scratches, they're just products of the paint and "all the cars on the lot have them". Talking down to me like I don't know better! I know for a fact that he wouldn't try this crap with my dad because he very much didn't try it with him when my dad called right after I left. As nice as I try to be, that ticked me right off. I forget the exact words I used but I said something along the lines of how if that's how all the cars are on the lot then obviously they have a problem and that this was unacceptable to do to a brand new car that someone just bought. Upon realizing he wasn't going to just run me over the manager immediately backpedaled and started talking about how he'd talk to people to see what they can do, but seriously! Why force someone to put their foot down by claiming there isn't a problem when you can visually see it?! Is it because I'm a young woman so they think I don't know better? I don't get it.

[Dragoncat]

This sounds like sexism more than anything. In the auto industry, women are looked down on all the time.

[omegaxis1]

1 hour ago, Dragoncat said:

This sounds like sexism more than anything. In the auto industry, women are looked down on all the time.

Seriously? Is this one of those, "Women can't drive" BS? 

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, omegaxis1 said:

Seriously? Is this one of those, "Women can't drive" BS? 

More like "cars are part of a man's world, and a woman wouldn't know about it".

This also applies to things like hardware stores, tech support, and finance.  It's irritating as all hell when it happens.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

 

5 hours ago, Silver-Haired Maiden said:

Is it because I'm a young woman so they think I don't know better? I don't get it.

Seems like it from your side of the story. If you happen to have pictures before sending it there and when they brought it back and "looked the same", it'd be easier to tell.

But yeah, generally speaking, when it comes to cars there's often preconceptions at play and folks will hold on to the cases where they feel validated and just act like it's always the case. An example of this is my own dad where any time he notices someone in front of him could've made a turn in a time he feels comfortable with but didn't, he tends to say "Of course it's a woman".

2 hours ago, eclipse said:

More like "cars are part of a man's world, and a woman wouldn't know about it".

This also applies to things like hardware stores, tech support, and finance.  It's irritating as all hell when it happens.

Pretty much. It's surprising to see even just 1 girl at a meetup for C++ coders.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Dr. Tarrasque

[omegaxis1]

10 hours ago, eclipse said:

More like "cars are part of a man's world, and a woman wouldn't know about it".

This also applies to things like hardware stores, tech support, and finance.  It's irritating as all hell when it happens.

The typical annoying stereotyping. It always gets aggravating whenever I see how people try to "generalize" how a gender is focused on. 

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

It is certainly very irritating! >.> Especially for a manager to be that way. I don't understand what's so hard about being polite. I mean really, if he'd just been up front, or said something like "I don't know that we can fix it" I would have a lot more respect for him than trying to claim it isn't actually a problem.

11 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

Seems like it from your side of the story. If you happen to have pictures before sending it there and when they brought it back and "looked the same", it'd be easier to tell.

Due to the fact that the scratches are thin but long clearcoat scratches and that the paint underneath is a metallic flake that's super shiny, it's virtually impossible to get them to show up on camera even though they're easily visible to the naked eye. To be fair I don't have a great camera either but I have tried to get them on camera and it just doesn't show up clearly. Either way you can clearly see them with your eye and they're all the way from the hood to the trunk and on all the doors. If it had only been a few we wouldn't have even worried about it, but the fact that this manager seemed so determined to not even try and fix it just rubbed me completely wrong.

[eclipse]

On 12/13/2019 at 7:43 AM, Silver-Haired Maiden said:

It is certainly very irritating! >.> Especially for a manager to be that way. I don't understand what's so hard about being polite. I mean really, if he'd just been up front, or said something like "I don't know that we can fix it" I would have a lot more respect for him than trying to claim it isn't actually a problem.

If a guy is so sexist that he thinks a women has no business in a car shop, there's no way in hell he'll have the humility to admit he doesn't know something in front of a woman.

It's dumb, and it's not your fault.

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

On 12/14/2019 at 2:39 PM, eclipse said:

If a guy is so sexist that he thinks a women has no business in a car shop, there's no way in hell he'll have the humility to admit he doesn't know something in front of a woman.

It's dumb, and it's not your fault.

Thanks for that, it makes me feel a bit better.

For a positive update, while it took me and my dad getting a bit nasty, they are going to fix it. I take it to an independent detailer Thursday on their dime and he promised me today that he could get the scratches taken care of. This guy was very nice!