Two Ford dealership employees have been fired after one of them thought it would be a good idea to write the N-word on the oil change reminder stickers of four customers. The story one of the employees decided to go with is that he typed the slur (bad start) “while creating a reminder sticker for his own vehicle after servicing it at the dealership,” according to a statement from Rusty Eck Ford. This employee didn’t clear out the system, and that’s how four customers who were in for oil changes — including a black man — got the N-word written on their stickers.
It was weeks before Larry Martin, Jr. realized what the Rusty Eck Ford employee had done. In fact, it wasn’t until he was contacted by the dealership, asking him to come in so they can check the sticker, that he noticed the slur, according to KAKE News. The sticker read “THANK YOU. COME AGAIN! N*****” As an apology, Martin was offered a replacement for the sticker and assured that the actions of the employee don’t represent the company or its values. Yeah, that was it.
“It’s humiliating … it carries a lot of weight, and every time I get in my truck, this is what I’m thinking. It doesn’t go away,” Martin told KAKE. “I feel belittled, and I just want to know why.”
An insufficient response
Martin’s family still doesn’t feel Rusty Eck Ford has done enough to get right with him. His daughter, Kelsey, told KAKE she still has questions about what exactly happened and how the aftermath was handled. “No one deserves to be humiliated like this,” she told a KAKE reporter. “An apology just isn’t enough, and it doesn’t suffice for the embarrassment that my father has experienced.”
Following a tepid first statement to KAKE, where a representative from Rusty Eck said that they initiated an investigation and fired the employee after becoming aware of “concerns regarding alleged inappropriate conduct,” they met with members of Martin’s family. There, the family “presented additional questions and information that warrant further review,” which prompted them to continue their investigation. Because of that, they found out that three more people outside of Martin received N-word stickers.
Here’s how this all unfolded, according to KAKE:
“Our investigation determined that the employee had entered the offensive language while creating a reminder sticker for his own vehicle after servicing it at the dealership. The language was inadvertently left in the system and subsequently appeared on reminder stickers printed for the affected customers.”
Another employee had discovered and removed the offensive language from the system, but didn’t report it to management.
That employee has also been fired, and Rusty Eck Ford emphasized that it has a zero tolerance policy for “racial, hateful, discriminatory, demeaning, or derogatory conduct.” I’d sure hope so.
This is unfortunately not the first time something like this has happened, because there are a lot of shitheads out there. In 2023, the crew at a Volkswagen dealership pulled a similar stunt and typed the slur out on a customer’s oil change reminder sticker, and a Nissan dealership in New York actually gave a woman a free car after a Wisconsin dealership wrote the N-word on her oil change sticker.
I’m not sure what’ll be in Martin’s future, but I hope it’s something a hell of a lot better than a half-hearted apology.
