Dear Mr. Ford (and to a lesser extent, Mr. Mulally),
You have cost my generation quite a bit. You have cost my neighbors a lot as well. My friends, my family, my town, my state, my country have paid dearly. And it makes me angry Mr. Ford, it makes me angry because it was completely avoidable. It was unnecessary. It could have been prevented. Sure, you're not the only car company down in the hole digging away fruitlessly but as long as not all of the companies are down there with you (oh let's say Toyota for one), you can't put the blame on the outside world. There were countless exit ramps, you were just too greedy. Flush from the SUV boom of the 90s. The trucks and SUVs were your cash cows. And the hometown crowd bought into it. My neighbors drove heavy duty trucks to their office jobs, teens drove full sized SUVs to school. I remember the gas per gallon price in 1999 too Mr. Ford. 99 cents a gallon. Times were good. Hybrids were purely hobby then. Every kid of every Ford employee at my school had a shiny new Cougar in the school parking lot, never mind that your company was just looking to quickly unload a supply of flashy coffee cans. The common man was still going gaga over Mustangs. Every hometown kid in high school and college was looking to a Ford horizon. We all wanted to work there, even me.
Working at a place like Ford use to mean something to people. It was like a social hierarchy, the golden ticket to a successful career. It use to mean something special to my family. I've had uncles, cousins and countless other relatives root their careers firmly in Ford. My great grandfather worked there, devoted most of his life to it, with someone who may be vaguely familiar to you--Henry Ford? Maybe I shouldn't blame you so much Mr. Ford---after all, decisions are made by many different people on many different levels and power is portioned out. But you have a vested interest that sets you apart from all the other decision makers because at the end of the day, you still end your signature with Ford.
The world is not what it once was. Gasoline, politics, OPEC--they're ego chess games. They are games of chicken, of Stratego power plays. But SUVs stopped being the golden calf a long time ago. People didn't want to pay for heavy duty trucks when all they hauled around suburbia were themselves. You had time to slow down, turn the ship, at the very least see the writing on the wall. But Ford was filled with middle aged Baby Boomer men who refused to give into the times, even though they were a-changing. They had a good formula going--they were so sure they could convince the American people, the hometown crowd, that they still needed SUVs. That, to complete their lives, suburbanites needed full sized trucks. Of course, the people who actually needed them to drag their boats to the lake had already seen the writing and were trying to unload not only their gas guzzling vehicles but their boats as well.
Factories manned by unionized linemen, who made more money with overtime and benefits than most college grads, kept churning out vehicles who were putting down roots in dealership lots. If you really need to point the finger at someone other than yourself, Mr. Ford, pointing to the unions would be understating their role by leaps and bounds. Unions are the noose that Ford has hanged itself with. For years, you let the unions call the shots, pilfering what they could. Union members have a well earned reputation of being untouchable, Mr. Ford, and they know it. With health care costs soaring, how did you expect to square benefit costs with a growing crop of unsold vehicles? How did you expect to kick start a new chapter where Ford is synonymous with quality when union workers get paid either way, regardless of whether the work gets done right or at all? With that disastrous recipe Mr. Ford, I wasn't surprised in the least when the layoffs began. Nor was I surprised when you announced your expansion south of the border. After all the unions had to know it too. They were the proverbial straw. They caused their own layoffs. Former employees should demand their union dues back. I've seen the union hierarchy on the news, swaggering around like they were knee deep in gold bargaining chips. You let it come to this Mr. Ford, the American auto industry becoming an utter joke. People like myself, who were raised die hard domestic consumers, are tired of the incessant recalls, the shoddy parts, and non existent durability. Someone should clue in your marketing and design teams, who seem to be trapped in a 90s time warp, cars are no longer extensions of our personalities. We are not going to pay through the nose for flash and flash alone. Especially the hometown crowd. People who are chronically out of work, Mr. Ford, are more worried about paying their heating bills than plastic flash.
As a side note to Mr. Mulally, how do you square away, how do you reconcile in your mind, the fact that your company had a thirteen percent decline for the month of February and yet, those results somehow warrant bonuses for all employees and might I add, hefty ones at that for senior management. Million dollar stock options and large cash bonuses that use to be someone's paycheck, someone's salary. Someone's money for groceries. Nauseating, Mr. Mulally, disgusting and at the very least, tacky.
I'm sure none of this is news but it needs to be reiterated, as many times as necessary, until you get it. In a post Enron world, accountability, honesty and sacrifice are held in the highest esteem with the American consumer. Gone are the days when CEOs were viewed as benevolent Father Knows Best figures. Ford's reputation and its products have vandalized the history of the classic American company. A history filled with ironic wistful slogans of yesteryear. Built Ford tough. Ford has a better idea. Think Ford first.
