Gulliver, I've been a lurker at DU for years, but your post has finally moved me to speak up.
I cringe every time I see the 'used car salesman' swipe on DU (and it's been used a lot lately) because my dad is a car salesman (both new and used). He's a good, honest man, and not a liar or a cheat. He should have been able to retire 20 years ago, but life hasn't worked out that way for him. He sells cars because it was the only job he was able to get after decades of self-employment, and he keeps doing it because at his age, the likelihood of being hired anywhere else is extremely low. I can't tell you how often he's been treated like crap by customers and would-be customers who assume that as a car salesman, he must be a sneaky asshole who's out to get them, so it's okay to treat him poorly - the times he's gone in on his day off to accommodate a customer, only to end up waiting for hours when they decide not to show up for their appointment; the times he's been lied to by people who promise they'll come back and don't; the times he's driven for hours to deliver paperwork to a customer who lives in another city, because they don't want to have to drive back here. I'm not saying saying there aren't any sneaky assholes in the business of selling cars, but they are no more endemic to that profession than any other. Jerks can be found doing every kind of job imaginable.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience, gulliver, and making an attempt to defend a much-maligned group. Back to lurking now...
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