By an odd comparison and perhaps shamefully I respond more acutely to a visit to the car repair shop than to my family physician. The reaction naturally speaks to the no doubt fleeting though momentarily surpassing penetration of my car to that of my corpus. The damaged goods of my body are predominantly irreversible whereas the maintenance of my vehicle admits to predictable optimism and hopeful triumph. Incited by this consummate seduction I awoke very early this morning, drove to the dealership and was the first in line for what I reckon was equivalent to a psychiatric appointment with the service department under the auspices of the assiduous Shop Foreman Wayde Kingsley at Lincoln Heights Ford, Richmond Road, Ottawa.
As I sat in the car at 6:40 am for twenty minutes awaiting the huge garage doors to be propelled open onto the meticulously clean reception bay, in addition to thoughtfully composing the specifics of scrutiny to review with Hussien Abdel Aal of the service team, I couldn’t help but notice the beehive of activity incrementally overtaking the place. One by one men and women materialized onto the scene with patent purpose, filtering into a network of tributaries where presumably they took up their posts for the ensuing business day.
Assuaged by such obvious zealousness in the surroundings of the lately updated capital hardware it was easy for a customer to overlook the engineering and stratagem underlying the whole. Trust and gratification tend to do that. Success is such a diluting palliative! The prodigious feat is made none the less challenging by having to deal contemporaneously with both goods and services – the product and the people behind it.
Noticeably the crew (which I believe numbers about 50 in all) from top to bottom is largely long-standing, those with whom I have been regularly acquainted for several years or more. The constancy alone speaks loudly of the devotion and satisfaction of the staff, management and the principal. But it is my guess by any measure an uphill venture, an ambition complicated by having to account for another’s product (Ford/Lincoln) and by having to deal with rightfully entitled customers who can I am certain become at times precipitously demanding and objective. The gulf between mechanical idealism and substantiality – just as that between medical fervour and diagnosis – is not for the pusillanimous. Remediation in either instance requires both intellectual and emotional acuity. Both likewise demand commitment to overcome the barriers encountered. It is no less true of nature, materialism or physical well-being that deterioration is inevitable and in some cases incurable.
Stock inventory, Lincoln Aviator
As I expressed this morning to Les Bell, Principal he has the advantage of retailing a product of the highest quality. I didn’t shilly-shally to proclaim my assessment of the Lincoln Aviator as the nec plus ultra! Nor did I overlook punctuating the heartfelt assertion by reiterating my not inconsiderable familiarity with domestic automobiles over the past fifty years. Besides associating my palpable liking of the Lincoln product with artistic compliment and mathematical precision (but a tack from the world’s celebrated complicated watches) I added the in-bred alliance provoked by my father and his father, both car buffs. This seeming obsessiveness of mine is I am confident a parallel with many others.
Yet in rating the dealership there is no escaping the manifest imperative of diligence and sophistication, credentials which never suffer the pitiful indignity of meritless self-aggrandizement or warrantless bravado. Like anything else in this world, the road to perfection is accomplished but one step at a time. I venture to say that Lincoln Heights Ford – and the Ford Motor Company – are destined to continued profitability and distinction.
For my part – the unattached recipient of this filigree of extraordinary product and people – this morning’s entire communication was accomplished with directness, putative simplicity and the esteemed grace of human nature at its best.
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