Apr 14th, 2009 by Liz Opsitnik
If you don’t care for GM or Chrysler, what better way to express your anger and disgust than to heckle the car models? Letting the ladies who stand next to the cars know how much you hate the company that makes the car is really the best way to get your voice and opinion heard.
Ok, I’m being sarcastic, but really, what do these people think they are accomplishing here? Friday, at the New York auto show, Donald Han, an accountant from Queens, asked a model standing next to the Dodge Circuit electric car, “Why now? How come you’ve got to nearly go bankrupt before you come out with a car like this?”
These presenters are mostly young women who work part time for marketing firms and talent agencies that have contracts to run the exhibits, The New York Times reports. Many know little about the car companies they are working for beyond the scripts they have memorized.
Image via The New York Times.
“I try to explain that we’re not involved in corporate decisions, so complaining to us doesn’t really make a lot of sense,” said Kerri Moss, standing next to a Jeep 4X4 Laredo. Recently laid off from her job as a teacher, she is trying to earn some money on the car show circuit, which runs from September to May. “And if that doesn’t work, I tell them we’re doing the best we can.”
One of the GM presenters said a woman told her the company was responsible for the death of American soldiers in Iraq. The woman said that if GM made more fuel-efficient cars, the country would not need so much oil, and if the country did not need oil, U.S. troops would never have invaded.
“I didn’t say anything,” the GM presenter said. “What can you possibly say? ‘Thanks?’ ”
Call me crazy, but maybe writing a letter to the executives at GM and Chrysler and telling them what you think of their company may be a better option than taking your anger out on the car models. Leave the poor girls alone.