Toronto, Ontario–October 11, 2019– As the editor of Collision Repair, it is fitting that my favourite scene in my favourite film features a collision.
For the benefit of anyone who has not seen Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller North By Northwest, the scene occurs near the beginning of the film. Cary Grant, playing a hapless insurance agent, is confused with a CIA agent by two cold war thugs working for the other side. He is taken to a seaside safehouse, plied with scotch and placed behind the wheel of a car headed downhill towards a cliff’s edge. Fortunately for Grant’s character, he is more accustomed to functioning on extreme overdoses of alcohol than Kruschev’s goons imagined, and he manages to steer his vehicle some distance into the relative safety of the back of a police car.
The next morning, Grant’s character desperately attempts to explain the situation to a skeptical judge. The reds have, however, covered their tracks well, and his protests of innocence become too embarrassing for his mother, who advises him to “Just pay the two dollars.”
There are two lessons here: one, mid-century drunk driving laws were distressingly lax. Two: perception is everything, and sometimes swallowing one’s pride is the only option.
This is a lesson that business leaders in the collision industry know all too well. It is inevitable that some customers make fatuous complaints and insist on some form of compensation. In these situations, business owners must always perform a grim calculus–do I stick up for what I feel is right, or do I bite the bullet and let someone rip off my business.
Unfortunately, in the age of online reviews with five-star ratings, that calculus has swung uncomfortably against business owners’ pride.
Sites like Glassdoor–which allows employees to rate employers–business leaders should also consider rethinking that calculus in labour disputes as well.
I recently heard of a situation where a collision repair sector business had a disagreement about the terms of a deal with a short-term digital information entry worker. When I heard the business was taking a stand on the matter, I felt a shiver run up my spine.
On the one hand, sticking up for oneself when one is wronged is admirable.
On the other hand, a business’s reputation is its most valuable resource, and labour disputes rarely sound as black-and-white to outsiders as to those involved. This is unfair, unjust and unreasonable–but it is also reality.
In the business owner’s shoes, I am not sure I would have the same courage of my convictions.
I would just pay the two dollars.
