3 ms·
I disagree. I worked for Chrysler near Detroit during the mid-90s. The Chrysler employee discount wasn't much better than if you did a good job bargaining at th
by coin 15y ago
I disagree. I worked for Chrysler near Detroit during the mid-90s. The Chrysler employee discount wasn't much better than if you did a good job bargaining at the car dealer.
In the Detroit area, there was tremendous pressure to buy American. I observed this both from friends and coworkers. There was definitely at attitude that you should support the local economy, especially if you're employed by one of the Big Three. If company X is employed you, then you need to buy company X's product. It's almost as if you owed it to your employer, that your paycheck somehow has strings attached, that the proceeds should never be used to purchase a foreign car.
Chrysler took it a step further and forced non-Chrysler cars to park in the "competitive vehicle parking area" of the employee parking lot - which happens to be the farthest few rows.
- mc32 15y agoI don't think it's too outlandish to expect people who work on building a product to buy the brand of product they help manufacture. Imagine Google engineers NOT using GMail --or, rather, avoiding GMail. Exceptions for studying the competition and all. Imagine the pressure form colleagues. "Yeah, I work at Google, of course, but I prefer to use Hotmail. I don't even have a GMail account". It's their version of dog-fooding it. Albeit, one with greater bottom line involved.
- coin 15y agoI've met many Microsoft employees who use iPhones. Can you blame them? I believe that as an employee, I am free to purchase any product or service without any obligation to my employer.
- grandalf 15y agoIf you actually comparison shop and get final quotes you'll find that the employee discount is actually a much better price, particularly on leases. The mid 90s was also toward the early edge of the use of the technique to generate sales. To give you an example, a vehicle that the typical person would lease for around $400 per month would be available to an employee for about $275 per month. Chrysler executives get a new free lease every year, even after they retire.