Despite the fact that the used car lot was a full fledged capitalist operation, one that by the Iron Laws of Capitalism could be deemed successful because it hadnt failed yet, it couldnt really be called a model of efficiency. Efficiency is about the effective management of time. But there is a problem when different members of the staff are addicted to different kinds of chemicals and therefore experience time in their own personal way. Put a drunk, a coke head, a doper, and a meth addict in a room and ask each of them what time it is and you wont get an answer. But each one will not be answering for a different reason.Compounding this time problem was the assembly line issue. Unlike a relatively more efficient Japanese auto plant where a new part rolls past your face every 7.5 seconds, the speed of the used car conveyor belt depended on what kind of customer was sitting on it at the time. Fast Eddie outlined the science of it, and it would have made Frederick Taylor, the founder of Scientific Management proud. Or at least amused.Now you got your customer said Eddie, who has the money to buy a car but not the will. This kind of customer has to be put in a headlock and marched as quickly as possible through the whole process. The function of the sales guy is to loan this customer a pair, but not such a large pair that the customer needs more than 20 minutes to make his selection, and no more than 45 minutes to drive out the front gate. Then you have your customer who has both the money and the will. These guys have to be handled thoroughly. Move too slowly, they smell a rat. Move too quickly, and they also smell a rat. You have to make them think they are going through a reasoned and complete inspection and negotiation. When they are satisfied that they have outsmarted you, then you got them. Finally, you got our bread and butter; those people who have the money and the will but dont really know that they have the money. They think that their credit is worse than it really is. They half expect that when you call the credit bureau about them, some kind of red light is going to go off and we are going to set the dogs or Zeus, or something on them. So they go through the lot in a sort of daze, looking for the minimal car that they think we will let them have. They make their choice and while they are sitting in the front office listening to George talk about George, they are very very nervous. But when I dont immediately run out of the back office telling them to piss off, this nervousness turns into excitement. They start thinking that maybe their credit is good after all and they were a little fast in choosing the Pontiac; that maybe they should have gone for the Honda that they had their eye on. But I keep letting them sit. Then they begin to get angry for having to wait and this gets their heart rate up. They start thinking that maybe theyll tell me to just shove the Pontiac and maybe even the Honda too and theyll go for the pretty blue Toyota instead. But I still just let them sit. Finally, they decide that they really must have a big problem with their credit after all. Otherwise, why would they be sitting there so long? So now they start to wonder whether they can even get the Pontiac. They hope and pray they can get it. Theyll sign at almost any kind of interest rate to get it. Thats when I come out and do the deal. I kinda based this on that whats her names Four Stages of Death.I had to think about this one. Four Stages of Death. Do you mean Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her Stages of Grief? So the four stages here would be panic, optimism, anger, and panic?"Yeah, thats the one.In all of the time that I was the credit manager of the used car lot, I only had one person walk away from a deal. This was a Iranian who had noticed at the last minute that while Fast Eddie had allowed himself to be talked down $600 from the sticker price, Eddie had added the $600 back to the line called fees on the contract. Iran is a mercantile society and was something that the Iranian could not accept and still consider himself an Iranian.The other customers always signed the contract, andas they did, their free choice expressed in the car they bought and the price they chose was locked into paper. Of course no economy could operate unless there was some point where the arguing stopped and the transaction occurred. I certainly can not envision any economic system where everyone gets protected from themselves by some outside agency; not any economic system that I would ever want to live under. On the other hand, the theoretical transparency of price and product celebrate in first year economics texts is a myth and the freedom it produces is in many ways a way that vendors and customers cover themselves after the fact from things they do to other people.Labor day 3/4