Bonzai: Thoughts and Expressions

Easy come, easy go?

Are we in the Twilight Zone or what? One of the service advisors at the dealership in which I work just got reamed out by a customer for fixing his car. No kidding… but there is a bit of a story behind it.

This particular customer is well known for frequenting the casinos up on the Indian reservation in the mountains. He used to own his own business doing something tedious (I forget all of the details) and worked hard to earn his first Mercedes-Benz. He was feeling good that week and went to the casino for the first time. It was in the driveway of the casino where the valet brushed against the hood ornament and managed to get it crooked. This pissed off the owner pretty good but since he was with a group of people, he decided to speak to the manager privately at a better time.

So on he goes to the casino and apparently hit the jackpot or something – instant millionaire. On a whim of stupidity and incredible luck, he ‘lets it ride’ on a bet at one of tables and winds up tripling his money before the casino politely ‘retired’ him for the evening. He had his 15 minutes of fame and has been living off the money he won ever since. He somehow attributed his luck that night at the casino to the incident with the hood ornament on his brand new car. It has been about 18 months or so since that first night at the casino and he has been a frequent casino visitor ever since.

The service indicator in his car finally showed that his car was due for service. He brings it in and has the work done. When they pull the car around for him afterward, he just about turned white. As a courtesy, the tech that worked on his car saw that his hood ornament was bent and fixed it – under warranty, no charge. He didn’t say a whole lot at that time, muttering something about not asking anyone to fix the hood ornament, but thanked the tech just the same and left the dealership.

That all happened last week. He came in yesterday morning, furious, and just laid into the service advisor that helped him with his car last week. He was adamant about having the old hood ornament put back on the car and was raving about never coming back here again. The tech explained that the hood ornament wasn’t actually replaced, it was the same piece of equipment, but it had a manufacturing defect in the base that caused it to catch and sit crooked in its seat. He simple filed off the defect and it stood like it was supposed to. The customer was incensed. We couldn’t figure out what the deal was. He yelled for another several minutes and tore out of here.
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We found out this morning that he apparently has lost nearly half of his net worth at the casino and his loses are still spiraling downward. He is blaming the tech and service advisor for his change in luck since it all started the day we fixed his hood ornament. All I could think about is that episode of the Twilight Zone where the guy tossed the coin in the beggar’s box and it landed on it’s edge, resulting in a day of good fortune. Sort of makes you wonder if it was the actual coin/hood ornament that brought the luck or the mindset resulting in the action? Whatever. We’ll see what happens.

posted by Bonzai @ 10:27 AM