During one of our many long late-night conversations about socioeconomics and culture, Paul described the delicate line his father, a manufacturing executive, straddled as the manager of a factory in Alabama. “He absolutely cannot drive a Cadillac,” Paul told me, emphatically. “Let alone a Mercedes. They would send the wrong message to the hourly workers.” Instead, his dad drove a Buick.
Employees and patients will recognize that success leads to a substantial luxury automobile, but they are less likely to perceive that you’ve spent $120K on said car, at a time when you might have just delivered meager annual raises or bumped up your rates on root canals.