We All Know That Guy

"Anthony Miller" (ahmille4) 08/07/2016 at 21:43 • Filed to: None

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While walking through my local Cars and Coffee not too long ago I came across something that I have always heard about but didn’t think I would actually see at this particular event. No it wasn’t an Iso Grifo or a super rare Abarth coupe, although I did see one of those. It was someone everyone knows as “That Guy.”

Now, we all have seen That Guy at a Car Show somewhere. He’s keenly interested in telling you the exact 0-60 time of the 2012 Camaro SS and how it’s the real pony car and sooooo much better than the Mustang. Now we all think avoiding That Guy is easy enough to do. However, I am absolutely positive that they have invented a tractor beam that would make the crew of the Enterprise jealous. As soon as you accidentally lock eyes, it’s too late. The next thing you know you’re nodding along as if you actually know why there is a difference between the breath-ability between regular leather and BMW Sensatec .

Now this particular That Guy experience wasn’t that bad, I only found 16 more grey hairs after I woke up from my daze. But it brings me to why I’m really writing about this. We all know the That Guy when it comes to cars, in fact we’ve all probably been That Guy at one point in time. This time though, my Cars and Coffee experience brought to mind an experience at the LA Auto Show so awkward that it would have made Kristen Stewart blush.

The offending Giulia stand, sorry for the crappy cell phone photo.

Naturally, since we’re talking awkward and a big auto show, this situation involves a hapless guy and a booth “product specialist,” a.k.a. what car companies started calling auto show models after they realized it wasn’t 1964 anymore. In this case, one poor Alfa Romeo Giulia “specialist” found herself on the receiving end of a barrage of questions and statistics that would have bewildered an engineer. Granted, it could be up or debate if Alfa Romeo engineers understand concepts that aren’t passion and how can we make a car make any less practical. That’s beside the point though as I am eleventy-million percent sure that there has never been a product specialist, wearing their most plastic of smiles who has ever been impressed by your encyclopedic knowledge of the car they’re standing in front of. Now I didn’t hang around long enough to determine if That Guy managed to talk her off the show stand and into a date, but something tells me she didn’t leave the convention center that night for a date with her new best friend.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking and that is: There’s nothing wrong with loving cars and talking about my obscure obsession with 1983 Buicks! However, you’d be wrong, very wrong, because nobody, particularly the specialists on the auto show stands, wants to talk about those. Especially until auto show staff throws both of you out of the convention center because they’re closing for the night. It’s not wrong to know these things and it isn’t wrong to want to share them but as a community, I think we can finally come to an agreement that it’s ok to leave those poor souls alone on the stands.

So with three months left before this year’s LA Auto Show, I think we can all come to agreement and say that we will try our hardest as enthusiasts to not alienate our fellow human beings upon first meeting them by reciting the exact compression ratios of the entire Mercedes-Benz model line-up. If not, well, I’m sure That Guy at your local Cars and Coffee will be more than happy to lose a few hours with you.

Told you there was an Abarth Coupe there! But did you know that there were only four built out of aluminuhhhhhhhh...........ZZZZZZ

chaozbandit > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 21:48

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20012 Camaro SS

Neat, the Camaro lives for a couple more centuries.

71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 21:50

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Santa Barbara Cars and Coffee?

scoob > chaozbandit 08/07/2016 at 21:55

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A couple ?

Nauraushaun > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 22:19

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There’s a time and a place for this sort of talk. I went to buy some targa bags from a fellow MR2 owner recently. He had 2 MR2s, one NA and one turbo imported from Japan to swap into his NA. I’m not a huge fan of talking to strangers, but before we knew it we’d lost an hour just talking about the cars. How his Gen III 3S-GE behaves compared to my Gen I, all the little JDM things on mine that his doesn’t have, the turbo differences, weight differences, little fog light things, engine covers, cruise control, wind deflectors, my foldy mirrors. That time he understeered into a curb, and that time I oversteered into one. Both of us love the car, neither had ever really met another owner. He was a nice guy and it was fantastic .

There’s a right way to do it too.

chaozbandit > scoob 08/07/2016 at 22:22

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Just a few.

yamahog > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 22:22

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Everyone please keep this anecdote in mind when people wonder why more women aren’t involved with cars. We all have at least one encounter like this, especially once we stop being “so-and-so’s daughter” and become “looks old enough.” It rears its head in so many ugly ways, from the super blatant creepiness to incessant quizzing (because everyone is totally dying to be a “fake car girl” and it’s a man’s duty to determine the fakers, but guys can bullshit all they want about 60 ft times) to condescending bullshit, and it is really tiresome. Being a paid model doesn’t mean they deserve to get harassed on the job all day. Don’t be that guy, don’t let your buddies be that guy.

fin

C62030 > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 22:28

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Ech, That Guy s. I didn’t talk to the owner of this, but I assume he was one.

As if I couldn’t hate the Carrera GT even more.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 22:41

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Amen, good article!

ALSO, THAT ABARTH 750 ZAGATO....one of my favorite cars! :D

GE90man > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 23:04

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weird. i was just “that guy-ing” with this guy about how BMW introduced a new design language with the 3 series and how audi didn’t introduce a new design language with the latest lee facelift a3.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > yamahog 08/07/2016 at 23:05

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Semi-related story. I just came home from an event for auto industry employees. Mostly, but not entirely, dealerships. ~100 people in my core group the way it was divided. Maybe ten women at the most. A co-worker and myself quickly made friends with two, he didn’t stay friends with them long though. Most of these women were very closed off to others. Because honestly 99% of guys in this industry look at women exactly as you described. Even my married co-worker quickly gained a reputation among the women for trying to pick up whoever he could. So I was told by my new friend, she says the women would talk about him in the rest room, but not in a good way. Most of these women found a respectful person to hang out with the whole time in an attempt to thwart the Mad Men-esque advances of our colleagues. It’s unprofessional, it’s demeaning, and it limits networking as well as the experience itself. Oh, and disgusting. It needs to stop. It would be refreshing to have more women in the industry rather than the same bros at every store having the exact same pissing and measuring contests and hitting on every pair of breasts they see (for most of them it’s all they see).

samssun > Anthony Miller 08/07/2016 at 23:25

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Discussing car stats with a booth babe is probably like playing classic car trivia with salesmen at the dealerhips...their focus is on this year’s features to sell this year’s model, until they forget them for next year’s model. Might as well ask a practicing lawyer what he thinks of 19th century English barrister procedures.

Anthony Miller > chaozbandit 08/07/2016 at 23:26

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Ha! This is the editing I’m looking for. Thanks, this made me chuckle.

Anthony Miller > C62030 08/07/2016 at 23:27

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Oh, yeeeesh.

Anthony Miller > GE90man 08/07/2016 at 23:28

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You were properly “That Guy”-ing.

Anthony Miller > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars 08/07/2016 at 23:29

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It was so clean, seriously could eat off the seats. Also, it is comically small.

Anthony Miller > yamahog 08/07/2016 at 23:31

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I’m really happy you chose to comment on this article!

Anthony Miller > 71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors 08/07/2016 at 23:32

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Yup!

yamahog > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 08/08/2016 at 07:03

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Wow. Do you think the conference would run things differently if you shared that feedback with them?

The engineering side of the business isn’t much different, albeit a bit more subtle. The ratios are pretty bad (in a staff meeting of 35+ I’m one of at most 5 women in the room, one is in quality and the other is an assistant), I’ve always had male bosses (most were awesome, one was pretty inappropriate), and hell I haven’t even been interviewed by another woman since graduating college. On my program team now, I’m typically the only woman in the room. I was referred to as “so-and-so’s assistant” by someone higher up who knows damn well I’m an engineer in front of a room full of dudes. I’m honestly not sure if it was supposed to be a joke that fell flat or what, but he’s never said anything like that about the young male engineers and it felt awful.

Luckily, despite the numbers, there’s a lot camaraderie among the few us, and I’ve had great networking opportunities because of it.

chaozbandit > Anthony Miller 08/08/2016 at 07:07

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Haha np! Great article.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Anthony Miller 08/08/2016 at 07:51

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But small means lightness! :P

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > yamahog 08/08/2016 at 09:47

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To be honest I’m not sure what they could change. They already limit alcoholic drinks when they are served and run the event from 7am to 8pm. It’s mostly after that that things get crazy. I do have the email of the event organizer though, and she seemed very capable.

Sounds like that higher up is just insensitive. Which certainly doesn’t make it ok, it’s still a very sexist joke, if it was meant to be a joke. Have you confronted him about it?

yamahog > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 08/08/2016 at 10:44

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Yea, can’t hurt to share your concerns, maybe they can improve the ratio a bit.

And nope. It’s one of those things that’s enough to be annoying, but not enough to risk looking like a whiner and deal with possible backlash (so basically the definition of a microaggression, and lack of is recourse is part of what makes them so irritating). I’ve taken the “keep quiet and prove em wrong” method on smaller things like that and it’s been working well so far.

Anthony Miller > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars 08/08/2016 at 12:54

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Which is needed with only something like 80 HP.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Anthony Miller 08/08/2016 at 16:34

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Exactly! It’s very surprising even what the original FIAT 500 did with just 18hp, or the old FIAT Topolino with just 13hp!

71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors > Anthony Miller 08/09/2016 at 14:12

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I used to go there before I moved and I certainly know that guy. He was rather interesting.