Note: I wrote this orginally for the Harr / MHQ team newsletter, hoping it would encourage our terrified employees to climb out from under their desks and maybe sell someone a new Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge or Toyota instead of being afraid that a bear (or maybe me) was going to get them. I don’t know if the note succeeded in its original intent, but it was pretty catharctic to write. So here it is.

Outrunning the Bear.

So this is what it feels like in our business, the wonderful world of cars, in March, 2009: Every morning, you get up, get dressed, come to work, and feel like you are being chased by a bear. A big hungry mother of a bear. Even if you’ve never been caught by a bear, you know if he catches you, it won’t be pretty; it’ll be a bunch worse for you than it will be for the bear. So you run.

Every night, you go home, decompress, sample an adult beverage or two, towel off and rest up. The next morning, you get up and do it all over again.

This may not be the reason anyone choose to get into our business, in my case nearly 40 years ago, but that’s the way the game is being played right now. We can bitch, moan and complain to our heart’s desire, but that doesn’t much affect the bear.

We are not without resources to outrun the bear. There is in our organization many hundreds of years combined experience in bear outrunning. At Harr, we continue to have the best products and services in the industry. Gold Star Boulevard remains the best location in the market. We are not having the financial issues that are plaguing our competitors. At MHQ, we have proprietary expertise unmatched in the country. Over the years, there have been lots of other bears. This bear acts a little hungrier, and maybe a little meaner, but it’s still just another bear. And the fundamentals of outrunning the bear have not changed.

So here are some reminders and thoughts to keep you company while you’re running:

First, don’t panic. It’s only a bear. Bears are big and mean, but they’re not real smart. I mean, they’re bears. What kind of way is that to make a living? You can outsmart it. Remember that age and guile beat youth, innocence and a bad haircut every time. You maybe can’t outmuscle this guy, but there are other choices.

Second, remember the bear can’t eat everyone. It’ll become a fat and lazy bear, and wind up as a rug in someone’s ski lodge, or served as bear flambé in some fashonista restaurant. Too bad, bear, although I hope the bear will forgive me if I don’t feel all that bad about it.

A long time ago, I won a dealer trip to Kenya on a wild animal camera safari (we were shooting Kodachrome, not bullets, a better solution for both the animals and the guests). There were many unforgettable sights, but one in particular stays with me. Millions of dog-like animals called wildebeests spend their days running along the plain of the Serengeti. The wildebeests seem kind of cute and cuddly, but, in a certain season, all they do is run all day. The Serengeti being the precursor of the car business in 2009, they are chased all day by lions. Like our getting caught by a bear, a wildebeest caught by a lion suffers certain immediate complications in his life, none of which are good for the wildebeest. I got to watch this bit of natural drama at sunrise one morning, up in a hot air balloon drifting over the plains. And what I realized was that a wildebeest didn’t have to run faster than the lions, just faster than the next slowest wildebeest. There are lots of people trying to do what we do, who are even more freaked out than we are. Let them be the lion’s lunch, or the bear’s dinner.

Third, remember why you came into the woods in the first place. This is a business that is not for everyone, the proof of which is in the high employee turnover we and every other automotive organization has. You can admit that many of your friends and neighbors think what we do is pretty brainless and easy. I remember my mom describing what my dad and his compatriots did was like playing with electric trains. With all respect, we know that is wrong; there is nothing all that easy about how we spend our days. There are lots of frustrations, lots of hours, lots of kookaberries that we get to deal with. On the other hand, there are few other (legal) ways to make the kinds of livings we are able to. People join our industry because it’s a way to make a pretty good living, not so they can cure fatal diseases. It’s likely you did, too. And we still can, and will. That part didn’t change, either.

Finally, remember that this won’t last forever. The rate of cars being scrapped now exceeds the number of cars being sold by about 2,000,000 units a year. I don’t know how many of you have ridden the RTA lately, but I can promise you (or, if you’ve taken a ride, you can promise me) that public transportation is not the wave of the future for anyone who has any other alternative. Further, as much better as cars are now than the day I tried to open the door of a 1971 Honda 600 and it came off in my hand (hence, no Honda dealership; nice move, Charles), we all know those suckers still break. And when they break, owners have to fix them. And when they fix them, many will come see us. A police car with 200,000 miles on it has about the same utility as a grocery cart – it’ll go as fast as you can push it. Faced with a choice of patrol cars or grocery carts, municipal vehicles will continue to be replaced on a regular basis. And they will come from us, too.

So, while there is no room here for false confidence, there is no need to give up, and give in to the bear, at least without one mother of a fight.

My advice is pretty simple: rest well tonight, and get up tomorrow to run as fast and as smart as you can.

I should be easy enough to recognize. I’ll be that cranky old guy running as hard as I can to stay at least two steps ahead.