Feature Friday, July 1st, 2016

Ontario Motor Sales is very pleased to announce Feature Friday, a web series that will highlight our talented staff here at OMS!

Each week we will be featuring a description of, and brief interview with, one OMS employee to find out what makes us a great place to both work and do business.

We are excited to feature Lynne Ashmore, Account Receivable, as our Feature Friday interviewee this week. Please scroll down to read about Lynne's take on life around the dealership.

What does Ontario Motor Sales mean to you?

OMS is honestly like my second family… but that almost seems disingenuous to say since my first family is here too. I started in 1998, when my oldest son was in Junior Kindergarten. I was looking for part-time employment but Brian Snyder made a polite push for me to come aboard as a full-time employee. He said he thought I was a good fit for the company and talked about its family-owned and operated values. I listened to him and came on full-time, and since then, my husband has joined the team as a mechanic in the Service Department and my oldest son, no longer in kindergarten, has worked here in Sales and in Marketing (interviewer’s note: he’s writing this!). I’m truly grateful that OMS has given us the opportunities we’ve had, and I would tell anybody about how great our combined experiences have been.

What has been your favourite part about working here?

It would be hard to pick just one favourite thing… But I think it’s the diversity I’ve had in my job. I get to interact with people all over the dealership, which isn’t necessarily something a typical Accounts Receivable person might do. But I’ve added a lot of different responsibilities to my role over the years, which have allowed me to see new areas of the dealership and meet countless new people. I’ve worked closely with Service, Parts, and the Bodyshop, and recently, I’ve done more Sales administration too. It’s always exciting to have new things going on, so I never get bored.

What is one thing you try to bring to your interactions with customers?

I think efficiency is the key thing I try to keep in mind. I’ve worked on switchboard in the past and I think that, for example, is a key job where the most important part—other than being polite and courteous, of course!—is to get the person to where they need to go as seamlessly as possible. No one likes to be bounced around, and I haven’t found that that happens a lot here.

How would you describe the working environment here? Why?

We work together as a team at OMS. During busy times, people will pitch in to help each other out so that we can all get the job done. We are a very well-oiled machine, and with so many long-serving employees, how wouldn’t we be? You won’t hear “that’s not my job” because you know that if someone is asking for help with something, they truly need it. Never have I seen a group of people work so well together.

What is your most interesting—fun, funny, or otherwise—OMS story?

Three years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily they caught it very early on so with radiation treatment, I overcame it quickly and have been in the clear since. But it was a hard thing to cope with both for me and my family, and I was pretty distraught at the time. A coworker knew what was going on and wanted to help; she had a past contact who was organizing a makeover series for Canadian Living magazine and got in touch with the group to find out what they could do. They were seeking candidates to go through an ‘extreme makeover’ process and I ended up getting selected for it. It was a wonderful experience and really made me feel brand new again.