BIDDING FAREWELL TO HIS “TRADITIONAL” STORE FOR THE LAST TIME, OUR FICTIONAL DEALER IN 2030, BILL TANNER, IS HIT WITH A TINGE OF A SADNESS AND PERHAPS LONELINESS. NEVERTHELESS, IT’S WHAT LIES AHEAD THAT’S IMPORTANT AND THERE’S WORK TO BE DONE…
It’s taken three years to actually get to this point but when that lock clicks behind me, that’s really it, for good; forever. No more new car showroom with one of every model in the lineup. No more F&I office. No more service bays. No more Friday nights spent celebrating a great week with my colleagues.
I guess if I’ve ever felt ambivalent about anything, this is it. I make one last round, surprised by the lump in my throat as I run my fingers over the glass top of the reception desk. I can picture Rachelle sitting behind it, eyes sparkling each time I get to the doorway of my office and realize I left another half-drunk coffee perched on her desk. I poured six or eight coffees some days, but I bet I never got to drink even two of them.
It was a hustle, that’s for sure, but I haven’t found energy to beat it on its best days. Even on its worst days, it was challenging in a way this new world order just isn’t. For one thing, there were always people around. If it wasn’t teeming with customers, there were always people and comings and goings from sales, service, techs wandering around, a couple of admin staff. Always someone to bounce an idea off, talk over a problem, maybe just bitch a little, let off some steam. I’ll tell you, when practically your whole business is online and you’re by yourself with a Sim for company, you start to get imaginative.
YET ANOTHER CONDO COMPLEX
I know a guy who says he can hack the Sim at the new place so I can run a golf simulator off it too, just so I can whack a few balls now and then. Probably cheaper than therapy. The deal’s done. I have given our fair city the gift of another condo, an “urban jewel” according to the buyer, one that’ll comprise 47 storeys where the dealership now stands — an overpriced concrete phoenix, rising from the ashes.
Lori, of course, is thrilled, and not just with the number of zeroes on the developer’s cheque. Seems like another anachronism now, real estate. “Cyberspace” doesn’t take a lot of land, does it?
She’s also thrilled, mostly because she still equates the size of the dealership with the amount of work to be done and thinks that by operating from a smaller site, I’ll be home more often. But it’s not more square footage equals more cars anymore, is it? These days, a couple of the top “dealerships” in the country don’t even have a physical footprint. I don’t get it. Why be in the business at all? The day I give up a real space altogether is the day I hand over the keys.
Ah, the hell with it. Onwards and upwards, as they say. Or in my case, onwards and downtown, to what constitutes my “dealership” now. I turn out the lights, take a deep breath, and leave the past behind.
I arrive at the new location half an hour later. Jenn’s the only rep I’ve got in here today.
Some people still like a little face time so it pays to have one rep around to work the Sim, especially Jenn, since she’s very much into that. But a lot of those other jobs are gone or moved. The service department is in a much cheaper part of town, now that no one actually has to bring their own car in.
VIRTUAL SUPERSTAR
The F&I department, which we fondly call Fiona, is now an interactive, virtual reality experience we just project into people’s homes. She’s gorgeous, too, our Fiona. Looks eerily like an actress from the early millennium, though I can’t seem to remember the name.
Fiona’s sales record is better than any living, breathing business manager we ever had. Isn’t that something? I close myself up in my office, a nice enough space with a fake brick wall and a window on the fake cobblestone courtyard. The last bastion of my kingdom, reduced to 300 square feet. “Fiona?” I say.
“Good afternoon, Bill,” Fiona says, emerging from thin air just in front of my desk. Some days, I swear all this technology is going to make my head explode. I can’t help but smile at the lovely Fiona, even knowing she’s a made-up non-being — courtesy of some tech geek.
Fiona does all our company communications as well as the F&I, and regularly fills us in on all the corporate goings-on downloaded into her fair head by the manufacturer. Her male counterpart, Caleb, is just as attractive, but his sales figures aren’t as good, not even with our female buyers. People just love her.
“Good morning, Fiona,” I say. “Bring up the website, please.”
“Of course,” she says. I’ve got her programmed for “high interaction.” Is that creepy? She doesn’t laugh at my jokes like Rachelle and the other girls used to, but it beats working alone.
A hologram of the website appears, dangling from nothing in the middle of the room, and Fiona disappears simultaneously. “What would you like to see?” Her voice comes from the dozen or so tiny speakers integrated into the mouldings around the ceiling. You wouldn’t even know they were there.
“I’ll do it, thanks,” I say, and swipe the desktop to make the virtual control panel come up beside my right hand. I quickly navigate to the vehicle configurator, and play there for a few minutes just to make sure it’s all running OK. When the Juno model drives out of the frame towards me, I actually jump a bit, even though I’ve seen it over and over.
ALMOST REAL
The miniature 3D replica pulls up in front of me and parks, looking so real I am tempted to reach out and touch it. I run my fingers over the control panel and the car rotates. A quick swish on my part and it’s tossed back into the website, where it comes to a cool, satisfyingly tire-squealing stop. Fiona pops up on screen. “Why, hello! Looks like you’re checking out the Juno. Why don’t I make an appointment to bring it by for a test drive?
Or maybe you’d rather come visit us and check out all our models on the Sim?” A smile steals across her face, as though she knows a tantalising secret she’s about to share. I swipe her out of the frame — disabling her for the duration of my online visit.
I bring up the private management area, and start browsing the numbers. Looks like the fractional ownership department is still hopping. I swear, I thought that was just a flash in the pan, like that big disco resurgence in 2021, but here it still is, accounting for a pretty whopping percentage of overall vehicle sales.
Between the ownership and the monthly fees, plus all the special requests like the custom skins for every owner and every occasion, it’s a lucrative little racket. And we get to keep the cars! The used sales warehouse is doing just fine too.
I drop by the virtual financing department and check a few figures with Fiona before I collapse the whole thing and stand up, stretching my legs. Lunchtime. Of course, there’s no one around to eat with.
I catch myself thinking, “Well, I guess I’ll just grab a sandwich” in an internal voice that sounds a little melancholy and force a smile instead. Attitude is everything. So what if progress means that a dealership that used to take up the better part of a city block now takes up a couple thousand square feet. At least I’ve got Fiona.
