Quoted from Tranquilize:As I've said before, if Tim would hire ONE full time tech that knows his shit, the PHOF would gain so much more business. The tech could train others to do simple maintenance that would prevent future mechanical failures so he could focus on board work and other more complicated work. Give me a week in that joint and I could have 90+% of his solid state games playing well if not perfect. He would make way more money for his charity, and everyone would be happy. The fact that he refuses to do this boggles my mind. My wife took me there for my birthday, and it was a complete letdown due to almost every machine that I wanted to play being broken in some significant way. The place gives pinball a bad name and WILL suffer from a lack of repeat business.
TL;DR - don't be an asshole, or risk fading into oblivion.
You know, I remember a guy in our DeLorean community named Ed Bernstein. Guy was a complete and total asshole; he believed that DeLoreans should basically only sit in the round-about driveways of 8 bedroom mansions, that no one under 50 should own one, and that if you were under a certain age threshold, you were an inferior human being unless of course you had majorly deep pockets. You could ONLY do business with him if he was the ONLY person you ever did business with. You bought anything from anyone EVER - you were blacklisted, and he kept records - trust me.
When I first got my car in 2003-2004, he treated me like total shit when I reached out for help. He cursed me for doing business with anyone else, and that my car would never run without the part he had that I needed (we got it running like 2 months later at the end of restoring the engine).
Over the years, rumors and stories were going on about how he was completely segregating the entire community, and that he was hanging on by charging his most-dedicated customers insane prices. Parts on the defunct website would show something like $900 for a battery, and he limped on due to the loyalty of the people he knew when the car first came out in 1981.
Now, the majority of our community are "young whippersnappers" in our mid-30s with aftermarket parts, full engines/transmission swaps, re-designed suspensions, and total new EFI fuel systems - things that bring the car into the future. You mention his name to nearly anyone under 30 who owns a DeLorean, they will respond with "Who...?"
As for Ed, my understanding is he passed away, and his wife sold a majority of his stashed-away parts on eBay. I know because I bought some of them - a tachometer, a voltage/engine temperature gauge, and a oil pressure/fuel gauge - for less than the cost of a college textbook. His ex-business partner, Stephen Wynne, owns DeLorean Motor Company in Humble, Texas, and is considered the flagship for the vast majority of the "original car parts" community.
The moral: stop pushing your core community away, or you risk fading into nothingness.
