In the summer of 2010, during the worst part of the recession, I sold luxury cars at a San Fernando Valley luxury car dealership showroom – Jaguars, Aston Martins, Lotuses…
Every Monday – I mean EVERY Monday (no matter if you had a day off or were dying) – we were expected to show up for the morning meetings. We had to get pumped up to sell, sell, sell – you know.
So one Monday morning meeting, I sat in the room full of mostly men (about 100 to 3), between a beautiful, feisty and stylish Filipina who didn’t take any crap, and another saleswoman, a gorgeous, Southern blonde former Miss USA, who’d had her crown taken away by Donald Trump after her raunchy (Eh, she had some fun, so what?) behavior hit the media; she sold Astons upstairs, near the James Bond-esque Aston Martin member only room (leather walls, bond theme door bell, top shelf liquor behind the bar, pass code, vault).
A male sales manager stood at the front of the meeting room, and asked for everyone’s attention. He then began his “pump us up to sell” speech, and turned on a scene from the movie “300.” On the wall before us, buffed, bare chested men were pumping themselves up for battle (get the analogy? Selling cars, it’s a battle!). I elbowed my fellow female co-workers, and began to wolf-call and howl at the screen. My feisty friend joined me: “Yeowww whoo hooo!” The manager giving the speech scowled, “Who’s doing that? Have some respect.”
I rolled my eyes and whispered to the feisty Filipina to my right. “Yeah, right. If those were women in bikinis on that screen would this room full of men be quiet? I think not.” Working with these guys everyday, I knew what hornballs they were.
So I howled some more. The battle leading General (errr, sales manager) stomped over to us three women and pointed his finger. “Stop that now!”
I bit my cheek so I wouldn’t laugh.
Then the meeting ended. We went off to battle.
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