A funny employee

At Enterprise, the management encourages all employees at all branches to "run tight." That lingo means to rent out the majority of the cars you have. It is a sound business principle, as the more rented cars there are, the more money the branch makes. The goal is to always have 90% of the cars on rent at any given time.

For example, at a branch with 100 cars in its fleet (this is a medium sized location), you would want 90 cars on rent at any given time. Naturally there are peaks and valleys, but a good manager keeps the on-rent percentage over 85%, even in the valleys. By default, this means that during certain times, there are 95% or more of the cars on rent. Take out a few for routing maintenance and repairs, and that means there are no more cars for now.

This happens weekly - usually in the middle of the week. Sometimes, it will happen on a weekend in certain places when there is a big event going on.

Jackson, TN in the fall of 2000 provides me with one such a place and situation.

One of the local colleges was having its homecoming weekend football game. Cars were rented out, and for top dollar. One of my co-workers had made a reservation for a friend. When she had done so, I told her it was not likely that the friend would get the car, as I knew we had many reservations already. My co-worker agreed and said make one anyways, and call her if we got an extra car. That Saturday I was working and that co-worker had the day off.

I get calls from her at 9 am, 10 am, and 11 am - each call a bit more frantic than the one before. As luck would have it, we had zero returns and all the cars were rented before 9 am. But my co-worker knew that would likely be the case.

12 noon arrives and I get another call from my co-worker. She is now sounding like a hysterical customer. I wonder where she has been the past 8 months? She had seen this side of things many times.

I calmly tell her that we still have no cars, but if we got one before closing time (12:30), I would wait at the branch for her friend... after hours... just to rent her the car.

My co-worker's response?

"But, she has a reservation!"

Oh, no, darlin' - that ain't gonna fly with me. I honor reservations, but this one had been made with express knowledge that she might not get a car!

"So, from your experience, does that reservation make a car magically appear on our lot?" I asked.

Normally, I am not that rude to customers. But co-workers... who are familiar with our situation... who had been advised we would not likely get a car... no way - all bets are off. I will tell things like they are.

I got no further calls. I got no more cars back in. I went home happy that day as all cars were rented and my branch was making a lot of money - which I got a small commission off of.

My co-worker said nothing about it Monday Morning.