The Early Bird Gets The Worm

In 1973 my brother, Danny, purchased a Ford dealership. Elmhurst Ford was a small affair. Next to Hayward Ford it was barely a blip on the radar screen. It was located on the corner of 96th Avenue and East 14th Street (Now International Boulevard) in Oakland, California. Danny hired Al Gracier to be one of his managers. Al worked with us on the used car lot at Hayward Ford. He was a very talented Car Man with a lot of energy. He has since passed on, but I think of him often, especially about that time when I really--I mean really--pissed him off.

We had a sales meeting every morning before work. It was held in a meeting room located at the top of a sturdy staircase in a corner of the shop. The wood-paneled room consisted of a long conference table, a dozen or so chairs, and a large blackboard at the front. Every morning I would grab a cup of coffee from the machine downstairs and tread my way upstairs. I have always disliked sales meetings. Many times they are little more than depression sessions where the managers vent their frustrations. I especially hated the meetings that were about the same things over and over again. Unfortunately, most of the meetings held at Elmhurst Ford fell into this latter category.

I would guess that Al was about fifty at the time. He was a barrel-chested man, medium height with a crop of thinning brown hair that was rapidly giving way to gray. Al wore thick glasses that made his eyes look very large. He had a commanding presence, booming voice, and was a natural born leader. Al Gracier was a Car Man personified.

Promptly at 9:00 he would enter the meeting room, say a hasty good morning, and go over the necessary business for the day. When he was finished, he would launch into his favorite subject: the write-up. It was the same routine every morning. He would draw the outline of a write-up sheet on the blackboard and begin.

“Gentlemen, this is a write up,” he would announce. Then picking a salesman at random he would ask, “Joe, what goes in the top left corner.” And so on until he had covered all aspects of writing a deal up properly. In those days the write-up was king. It was the road map to a successful deal, and woe to those who did not do it properly.

The meetings usually lasted anywhere from thirty to forty-five minutes, long enough for me to get bored to death, but every once in a while Al would add a special twist. He would begin by intoning a sermon that potential deals could be found just about everywhere, and to always remember that the early bird gets the worm. You should incorporate prospecting into your life, he would say. You should never let an opportunity to look for a deal no matter where you were or what you were doing.

“Hell,” he would add, his voice rising. “Money can be found everywhere! It might even be right underneath you!”

With this clue, the salesmen would realize something was up—spiff money! Everyone would get up from their seats and look under them. There, taped under some but not others, was money. Pandemonium would begin.

It was never a lot of money, fifty bucks tops. (Keep in mind that in 1973 a McDonald’s burger was only about a quarter!) The amount did not matter anyway. It was the pure joy of finding a little beer money and getting yourself pumped up for the day ahead. The guys loved those meetings.

Until I screwed it up.

One morning I arrived at work early, a good twenty minutes before the meeting. I put my dime in the coffee machine, realizing I was actually starting to enjoy the instant crap that poured into the paper cup. I then proceeded up to the sales meeting room and picked a chair at the very back.

I was alone. I drank my coffee, imagining the outline of the write-up that would soon appear before me. Suddenly, a thought came to my mind. “The early bird gets the worm.” I was inspired to reached under my seat. There, taped to the bottom, was a $5 bill. I did not hesitate. I proceeded to upend all the chairs in the room, grabbing all the bills I could find. When I had them all, I sat down and waited for my moment in the sun.

The salesmen wandered in one or two at a time, eventually followed by Al. The meeting began. “Gentleman, this is a write up”, he said for what seemed like the millionth time. I was giddy. In my mind I embodied all the attributes Al had been preaching about for all these months. I had thought outside the box, seized the opportunity to find money where it was not expected. To my twenty-three-year-old mind, I was SUPER SALESMAN!”

I waited. We went through the write-up start to finish. Then Al launched into his speech that would lead to the salesmen looking under their seats. When he reached that moment, a smile spread on my face. The salesmen were searching under their chairs looking bewildered when they found nothing. My moment had arrived. I jumped up, held the fistful of bills up in the air and shouted, “The early bird gets the worm!”

There was stunned silence. I looked to Al for the praise I was sure I would get for being so clever, but something had gone terribly wrong. Al turned beet red. Large, angry, magnified eyes glared at me from behind his glasses. For a moment he grasped for words, looking as if he might have a stroke. I became horribly aware that things were not going as I had imagined. Then he bellowed, “David! Get your ass out of here now and wait for me in my office!”

Oh, oh.

What happened next is a blur. I was dead. I knew it. I went downstairs, head down, suddenly feeling the need to piss. I went to Al’s office and waited. As the say in these situations, minutes felt like hours. An eternity--at least the amount of time that dinosaurs walked the earth--seemed to pass before the salesmen began to filter into the showroom, laughing at me through the open doorway as they passed.

Finally, Al came into the office, demanded the money back, and proceeded to chew the crap out of me. I was well aware that if my brother had not been the dealer, my career at Elmhurst Ford would have come to an abrupt end. When it was over I was sent, tail between my legs, out to the sales floor to face the ridicule of my fellow salesmen.

Al Gracier never held that meeting again. I had ended it forever. I felt bad about that, but I could not shake the feeling that Al did not understand the meaning of his own words. I supposed that he did the meeting because when he was a young salesman his manager did it for him, all the while not truly grasping the significance.

Damn it. I was right! I assured myself.

Or was I?


Talk to you later,

David