READER MAIL

Please click here to send us an email. (We do not publish email addresses.) Be sure to include your initials and hometown! -WG



Thank you.

I see some of myself in your description of yourself. I did reasonably well in my career but could have done so much better had I just played the game. I had one boss that changed the middle initial on my office name tag because he wanted everyone to know I was an A$HO... I had an SVP ask me how I did what I did. After several conversations with the president, I walked away wondering why he didn't fire me. Looking back, I was able to deliver some real meaningful value to the company that I'm proud of. Had I not fought, that would not have happened.

Bob Longstreth
Rochester Hills, Michigan



Running on empty.

This constantly playing catch-up by groping along blindly in the dark is certainly nothing new – at least not in the case of General Motors, anyway. The General has a veritable history of foregone opportunities and misreads of the market scene, spanning back decades: examples in this regard include GM's decision to cancel its full-size, rear-wheel-drive Chevrolets, thus bestowing the market of police cruisers, taxi cabs, and rental fleet cars to Ford's Crown Victoria model. It deciding to cease Camaro production, and in so doing gift the muscle car market to Ford's Mustang. The company's termination of the Buick Grand National at its peak of popularity – one which encouraged younger buyers to actually want to buy a Buick – and replace it with a non-descript FWD non-contender.

I could go on, but why bother? The die has been cast: what's happening now is merely the culmination of a growing trend in the industry. The chickens are all coming home to roost.

Eddy S.
Newcastle, Ontario, CANADA



The gathering darkness.

PMD, those of us on the front lines are already seeing the effects of Trump's dismantling of the auto industry. BEV work that was baked into the last UAW contract has been cancelled or terminated. Shifts being eliminated because of high gas prices and tariffs. The insane thing is that anyone with a pulse in this industry has seen the likes of Trump. The BS meters pegged the minute they opened their mouths. The turnaround plans we all knew were absolute bullshit. The serial rewarding of incompetence. Stuff that breaks the collective spirit of those not asleep. We watched again as such people elected to government positions destroyed our industry at home while dismantling it abroad, those places we sent work to in search of profits at home. If only we had more self-drummers and less ass kissers. We might be the standard of the world, not a recluse breathing its last breath. We might be leaders into the future. Not marching into darkness.

JRR
Plymouth, Michigan