If GM’s Design building had been even the slightest bit modest and if there would have been ANY indication that anyone cared or wanted to make their products better in any way I might have stayed longer but none of that existed. It was truly shocking but as I look back on it I understand that they were all living in a sort of candyland where reality didn’t matter. I seem to remember figures like 50 billion dollars of fall back money, 250 million dollars advertising budget - just crazy numbers.
The most telling memory I have of GM before the ‘fall’ was that almost every day I went to the dome, where they took all the promo shots of the clay models and pre-production vehicles, we had a project going on in one of the conference rooms there - you walked in an underground tunnel (not mahogany walled, but close) to get there and every day I passed the same two guys sitting on a black leather & chrome couch at the trailing edge of the tunnel. I never thought much about those guys, other than the fact that they were always drinking coffee and reading a newspaper - and that they were ALWAYS there…until the day I stopped to tie my shoe and said Hi as I sat down. I asked, “Can I ask what you guys do?, I always see you here.” One of them smiled and said, we’re union forklift operators - we move car models back and forth when they need us." I asked, “Cool, how often do they need you” and the response was, “about once a day for 30 minutes or so - other than that we sit here making $72 an hour.” He saw the look on my face and continued, “the best part is that I’m guaranteed 10 hours of overtime every week if I want it.”