Ford bans competitors' vehicles from lot

[john@johnhudakracing]

Does Microsoft care if you choose to use Linux at work? Can you opt to use your competitors' products at work whenever you want? Maybe it's different, since Microsoft isn't on it's deathbed.

How can you effectively compete in a marketplace when all of your employees are living in a bubble thinking that their own company's product is best? Self-hosting and using competing products with new features brings innovative ideas to the table all the time.

I have zero problems with this policy. If the Ford union employees don't have enough faith in their own product to own it, why should anyone else? The unions are the cause of the problems in the first place, so they get no sympathy from me at all.

This is a parking policy, it has nothing to do with an employee and how much faith his or her has in their company's product. Maybe the employee has a medical impairment and his truck broke and parking in the other lot would be a real problem. Maybe his wife needed it for a chore.

What would be unfortunate is implementing such a policy, then having it be the last thing that pisses off the top project engineer enough to move somewhere else. I'd hardly think of living in Michigan as being the perfect opportunity in the first place. Ford should be far more considered of its employees and less worried what the locals in Michigan see in their lot.

 

[nsxtasy]

All I meant to get across was that even with lets say only a $3k to $4k difference between the cars, I would still be swayed towards getting the cheezy focus to save having to walk a quarter mile or more in the winter up North to get to the plant, and to keep from being harassed by my fellow co-workers for not being company person. If your going to work for a company you should have some interest in their products.

And I agree with you on that point. Heck, I also think it's important to be intimately familiar with your company's products, and there's no better way to do that than to own and drive them. (Although John's point, that it helps to be familiar with the competition, is valid as well.) Furthermore, if you really feel that your own company's product is inferior to the competition, you should be working to improve it...

 

[Pacemaker Kid89]

If people like certain cars and want to own them, let them do so. What if there is someone working at the factory and another late night job who has saved up enough money for lets say a used S2000 around 25 grand. Should his amition and choice in automobile preference matter? A job is a job. Maybe he didnt want to spend money on a mustang GT becuase of insurance, or maybe because of economy.
Ford is just losing it now. Their cars look like crap, their euro models would sell well here IMO. All these cars on Top gear look really awesome and I would buy them, like the sport ka...funny looking thing, but if I felt I wanted to buy my own first car fairly cheap I wouldnt be dissapointed in buying it.

Fix
Or
Rrepair
Daily

 

[len3.8]

Sounds like this could be considered an "Undue Burden"
I wonder what will be the outcome when it is challenged. Will Ford end up paying for the cars that they are requiring their employees to have in order to park in a designated parking area. Are the supplying them with another parking area with a Shuttle service, does it have the same conviences as the parking for the "Ford driving employee"?

As an employer with developments for the retail market, I wouldn't want my emplyees using my competitor's products in an open manner, those that allow my customers the ability to see them using those products. I would have an R&D staff using them in an area that is far from the public eye as well as any other staffing that has nothing to do with that part of my company.

I am just curious too see what will happen with this.

 

[Juice]

A couple of insider notes for the debate. First off, Honda offers great discounts and incentives to its employees who buy a Honda from factory. On par with what Ford offers its employees.

The bigger problem with the long distant parking is that the cars in the remote lot still get vandalized. It's Detroit, what do you expect.

 

[enesexdreamer]

F***ing
Old
Rebuilt
Dodge

Found
On
Road
Dead

Fix
Or
Repair
Daily

 

[4AU4LIFE]

I don't agree with this policy myself. I can understand where they are coming from but think it is a little silly to do that. I have to say that even though I work for a FMC dealership I don't own a single one and would be pretty ticked off if I had to walk further than others do just because they do own one. I don't like any of the products that FMC has to offer so I shouldn't be 'punished' for that. Matter of fact, the company I work for owns an Acura dealership and I didn't even buy my newest car from them because they wouldn't give me a price, at all.
I don't have a problem with other employees not driving FMC products either. Just because we work there shouldn't mandate what we drive.

 

[Meeyatch1]

A couple of insider notes for the debate. First off, Honda offers great discounts and incentives to its employees who buy a Honda from factory. On par with what Ford offers its employees.

The bigger problem with the long distant parking is that the cars in the remote lot still get vandalized. It's Detroit, what do you expect.

Big difference between incentives to buy a product and BANNING a car from the lot and possibly vandalizing it.

 

[Q]

F***ing
Old
Rebuilt
Dodge

Found
On
Road
Dead

Fix
Or
Repair
Daily

You forgot one...

F**ker
Only
Rolls
Downhill

 

[Meeyatch1]

I just re-read this and it still makes me shake my head and be ashamed of those people...:frown:

 

[Ncturnal]

Next you will be complaining that the Valet's didn't put your 1977 Pinto in the front spot of the restaurant.

But the Pinto being a Ford product can park in the closer lots at work. :biggrin:

If the Ford union employees don't have enough faith in their own product to own it, why should anyone else? The unions are the cause of the problems in the first place, so they get no sympathy from me at all.

Agreed. I hate labor unions. They are way up on the list of what's wrong with America.