By Marc Karon
President, Total Truck Parts and 2007 Distributor of the Year
This month’s cover story is Truck Parts & Service’s annual look at the unusual, unexpected and sometimes just plain bizarre occurrences that occasionally happen in our industry. They are tales that leave you shaking your head, sometimes laughing, sometimes feeling like crying. But they help make everyday a new challenge and a new adventure.
For instance, the other day, I was working on the counter and a customer came into the branch looking for a seat belt. As I tried to get more knowledge about his application, he explained that he and his wife would always argue when they rode together in his truck. To solve the problem and save the marriage, he had mounted a bench seat in the bed of the truck and wanted a seat belt so his wife could ride and be safe. After we took care of him, I began to think of all the crazy stuff that had gone on over the years.
In 1979, when I first became an independent truck parts distributor, I really had no idea what to expect. Almost 30 years later, I wish I had kept a diary of all the strange things that happened with customers, suppliers and employees. We all remember the classic story of the customer who responds to the question, “What kind of truck do you have?” with an answer of “my truck is red.”
In this business, the unexpected is commonplace and a sense of humor is mandatory.
Here are just a few of my more memorable trips into crazy land.
My background for becoming a distributor was a 10-year stint as an engineer for Bendix in the design of their antilock braking systems. When I opened my first branch, customers desperately wanted to know how to disarm these systems since they were causing problems. My training taught me just the right wires to cut and I was gaining customers every day.
