Work Life Lesson #44: What Your Car Can Say About You.

Not my jeep, but looks exactly like it.

When I was in my mid- to- late twenties I was a Human Resources Manager and Payroll Manager for a large car dealership with several locations.  There were about 220 employees that ranged from sales, service techs,parts clerks, managers, office staff, etc.  We had a color of diversity in culture, personalities and management styles.  The one department I very much loved and appreciated was the Service and Parts Departments.  It was a man’s world and I tend to get along very well with men; I am not easily offended and I love practical jokes.  Every day I would check in with the various service departments and get my fix of off-color banter and practical jokes.  I was far from being a conventional Human Resource Manager, which I was told made me a good one (I think many in my field would debate that).

I had recently bought a brand new bright yellow Jeep Wrangler (that was the love of my life until I got pregnant and had to sell that for my beloved Volkswagen wagon – somewhere in Idaho that little yellow Jeep is playing in the snow.).  The first day I drove it to work a bunch of the service technicians and managers were standing in the service bay drinking coffee and one yelled out, “Did someone call a cab?”.  They did that everyday, thereafter, it never grew old to them.   As I was getting out of the car, one of the service managers starting giving me the business that I must have decided to change teams.  “Change teams?” , I asked.  He said,  “Yes, you decided to become a “lip stick” lesbian.” He continued with,  “Everyone knows that when an attractive single woman buys a Jeep that is their “coming  out” gift to themselves.”  I just rolled my eyes and laughed and finished his banter with famous Seinfeld line, “Not that there is anything wrong with that!.” 

A few days later I had happened to pull into the local health food store and a woman just pulled in right behind me and started up a very friendly conversation. Once inside she kept following me and talking and finally she blurted out that I was so beautiful and she just has to go out on a limb and see if I am seeing anyone.  Me, being naive, yet obviously knowing that she was on the opposite team the minute I met her, I thought she was asking because she had a brother or a male friend she wanted to set me up with.  I told her I was single and she said, “Great, would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow,”  My head started spinning since I had never been picked up by a woman before. I turned a million shades red and fumbled all over myself trying to find the words to say,  “I am not gay,  but flattered by your invitation.”  The woman then proceeded to ask me if that was my Jeep I was driving.  I was a little confused what my Jeep had to do with this, but I told her it was.  She looked really confused and then rejected and quickly excused herself. 

The next day I went into work and told the two service managers about my adventure in the health food store and they were just rolling on the floor in tears holding their stomachs.  One of them said to me, “See, I told you, that Jeep is going to open doors to your rather boring dating life that you never knew existed.” 

Over the next two weeks I had four more similar experiences happen like at the health food store.  Every time I would go and tell the service managers about it and they would just be hysterical over it.  I was starting to think they were right.  Wow! I never knew the type of car you drove determined your sexual orientation.  It was a shame that I was not interested in women because my dating life would have been resurrected from the dead. 

A few days later I was leaving work early and it was the light of day.  I went to put a box of employee handbooks in the back of my Jeep and there I saw it; the answer of why all the advancements from the same-sex.  It was a thin rainbow bumper sticker that ran along the length of my bumper.  I never saw this before, I had not put anything in back of my jeep until that day, the way I parked at home never gave me the opportunity to see it and I never left work before sunset. 

The sticker looked very closely like this.

The minute I saw the sticker, I knew who the culprits were.  I peeled it off my bumper and headed into the service manager’s office. As I entered in the office with the sticker in hand they exploded into laughter and asked me what took me so long.  They told me that they put that on my Jeep the very frist week I bought it.   They said it was a riot to hear me come in and tell of my encounters and walk away so puzzled by how a car could be that impactful. Now it made sense why each woman looked utterly confused when I would tell them I was not gay.   Apparently, the whole service and part department were in on this joke and were highly amused.  I had to admit after all the practical jokes I was in on with other people, I had it coming to me and I too had a good laugh.  However, I did tell them to fasten their seatbelts, the karma from the lesbian community coming back to them was going to be really bad.