While staying up to date with modern technology is important, nothing beats great customer service.
This man took to Reddit to share his father’s story.
A little background: My father never properly learned to read and write. He came from a dysfunctional home, but that’s another story.
He was however very good at fixing cars. He worked at a junkyard since before I was born, I’ll call this junkyard A.
A lot of times he would offer advice or even fix the cars of the customers on his own time as a side hustle.
The man’s father was very beloved.
Another thing about my dad is he knew everybody. Anywhere we went people would always stop him and speak to him (mostly asking about a problem they are having with their cars).
It didn’t matter where we went even on vacation across the country he ran into people he knew.
The junkyard he worked at was originally owned by two brothers. They were good bosses and he made a decent wage and had very good health insurance.
They made good business there and my father was the “Senior Sales Specialist”.
Business was so good they bought a new location and built a new building and moved there.
Once new ownership came in, things started to go downhill.
A few years later the business was sold to a guy named Dave. Dave was alright although we lost the health insurance, he stayed there for I’d say 8 or 9 more years.
One day out of the blue Dave fires my dad and said it was because he didn’t have enough “technical skills”.
He couldn’t hardly read or write but he could use the computer one handed to search the system for parts while on the phone with a customer.
He and two or three other guys would be in the front to help customers and my dad’s line would have two or three people waiting especially for him and would refuse to be waited on by someone else.
It didn’t take long for him to find a new job.
So he came home and filed for unemployment. He stayed home for maybe three weeks and was offered a job at another junkyard that was located between the city we lived and the next city over.
Now comes the malicious compliance.
Since my father was so well liked and everyone knew he got a raw deal from junkyard A, they also switched businesses.
All his longtime customers and friends now frequented Junkyard B. Many used car dealerships had “deals” with my father for the junk cars they sold for parts or parts they needed for fixing their used cars.
All these businesses also switched junkyards and followed my dad to Junkyard B.
This was a devastating hit to junkyard A’s business. So bad in fact, they ended up selling the business to the owners of Junkyard B.
As soon as the sale was finished my dad was sent back to junkyard A where he worked for the rest of his life. He actually died in the junkyard. Massive heart attack.
The community rallied to show their love for the man’s father when he passed.
The funeral was so full of people there was not enough room for everyone in the funeral home. His funeral procession (the line of cars that drive uninterrupted from the funeral home to the cemetery) was over an hour long due to so many cars.
My mom went to buy the plot next to his a few days after the funeral and the lady working there said she had been working there for over forty years and it was one of the largest group gathered for a funeral she had ever seen.
He may not have been able to read or write very well, but he knew cars and he knew people.
A lot of people.
Reddit users enjoyed reading the writer gush about his dad.
One person said it’s clear that the love he has for his father love shines through.
Another reader was amazed by how impactful the father was.
This person kept is short and sweet.
Just goes to show how the way you make people feel matters!
If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.