I8ABMR

http://jalopnik.com/5449945/auto-sho...yline=true&s=i

We've asked "The Booth Babe," the anonymous auto show model behind the hilarious "Do You Come With The Car," for a behind-the-scenes scoop on the world of auto spokesmodels. It's a series we're calling "Tales From The Turntable." —Ed.

Gentlemen, we need to talk.

I know my very existence makes you question why underwear was ever invented. Keep it to yourself.

I am an auto show model. A product specialist. A booth babe. A car girl. I am not a stripper or an escort. I will not give you my phone number. I do not come with the car.

The fact that I am an attractive woman being paid to draw your attention to a vehicle does not give you license to hump my leg, literally or figuratively. While I'm glad for you that your wife let you off your leash for a couple of hours, that does not mean you need to cram all the smarminess you can muster into our short interaction. If you try to sneak a photo up my skirt with your camera phone while I'm on my spinning platform I will not hesitate to "accidentally" kick it out of your hands with my five-inch stiletto.

Most of you are okay to our faces. You do a decent job of maintaining eye contact instead of looking down our shirts, complimenting me on my eyes instead of my *** and generally keeping your hands to yourselves. Quite a few of you do not, however, and that has to stop. The comments on this and other websites that publish 'Girls of the Auto Show' posts can be downright disgusting. Do you have a daughter? A sister? Wife? Mother? What would you do if a total stranger walked up to her and asked how much she charges for the evening?

Despite our appearance (which is dictated head-to-toe by the marketing department of the manufacturer we represent, including wardrobe, hair and makeup) most of us are not just there to be your eye candy. We have extensive training from the very engineers that design these vehicles. We have piles upon piles of confidential and public industry information we spend months studying before we take a single step onto the show floor. If we don't know the answer to your question it isn't because we're dumb, as you too often imply, it is because there is not an answer available to us.

Also, because we're not dumb, we know that one of the reasons we're there is exactly because we're attractive and direct your attention to whatever we're standing next to. I don't object to being a sex symbol. I object to objectification. When you ask me, even in jest, "Do you come with the car?", do you know what you are implying? Let me fill you in: that I am nothing more than an accessory to be bought, like 20-inch rims or a stereo upgrade. It's not cute, it's degrading.

And it sure as hell won't get you my phone number.

If you want to have a pleasant interaction with a booth babe without being mocked by her as soon as you walk away, here's a set of rules on how to handle your business, keep it in your pants and still enjoy an Auto Show:

Rule #1: Respect my personal space. Easy to do if I'm on a platform, but if I am at ground level don't get any closer than half an arm's length. If I could elbow you in the ribs or smell your nasty cigarette breath you're way too close.

Rule #2: Eyes up here, buddy. Give me the courtesy of looking me in the eye when I'm answering your questions.

Rule #3: Understand that the information I have comes directly from corporate and our engineers. If you don't like that information, I really don't know what to tell you. Arguing with me about it will not magically make an engineer appear, and even if it did he would tell you the same thing.

Rule #4: Please don't ask me any personal questions. You are a complete stranger. For all I know you could be a furry or a serial rapist. I am not comfortable telling you where I live and there is no way I'm telling you what hotel I'm staying in. There's pretty much zero chance of you getting my phone number for the same reason.

Rule #5: Unless it is really slow (less than 5 people in my booth, which never happens) or you are seriously considering buying this vehicle and want a walkaround, do not hijack my time. I'm being paid to do a job, and that job is not flirting with you for an hour.

Rule #6: Do not come back later with a present for me. You call it nice, I call it stalking. Again, you are a complete stranger. Our initial time together was very special and I will hold the memory dear to my heart always - let's just leave it at that.

So gentlemen, I do hope you take what I've said here today to heart. If not for you and the other great people who visit the auto show I would be out a big chunk of change, and I think I can speak for all the booth babes out there when I say we do appreciate your patronage. All we ask is that you behave yourselves.

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

Yeah, she don't get it.

Let me help "YOUR JOB........ is to be my eye candy. You are not getting paid to write a dissertation on world peace, to further the greater good of stem cell research, nor to inspire persons to wonder how smart you are. You are a hood ornament, that's what you get paid to do. So shut up and look pretty, pose for the camera, stick your butt out and do your damn job."

bigbwb

There's cars on those rotating platforms?

Stormforge

so can i have your number again?

Och

iTrader: (3)

What a retarded attitude that chick has, sorry but she clearly thinks too high of herself and doesn't get the point of her being there.

bluerex

ahhaha who the hell do YOU think you are. you are getting paid to dress skimpy and look good and smile. you WONDER why you are being pestered. i agree with the whole "how much you charge" comment being degrading, but to be blunt, why the hell are you doing a job that projects you as an object and then become irrate that you are objectified. Shut up and do your job; or get a job that doesnt objectify you. But lets be real, we all know deep down you like the attention. You have craved it all your life, why complain about it? oh I know why, it is to bring further attention to yourself.

nn432100

Wow Im ashamed of myself cause I usually look at the cars and not the anorexic chics. Take my man card away fellas I deserve it.

I8ABMR

I was at the DUB show here in Phoenix and I actually told two of these models ( who looked more like heroine addicts in short shorts) to move to the left because I only wanted a shot of the Phantom on 24's. The car was awesome, but the look on that "models" face was PRICELESS. Seriously it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

bluerex

:ahhahahahhaha

mmarshall

I don't think either you OR her get it.

It's pure B.S. to have these models at car shows to start with....and dancers and celeberities. One goes to an auto show to look at new CARS, not women. If I want to look at shapely women, I'll watch the Miss America Pagent.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

all i read was waaa-wah, wa, wa, waaaaah-wah...

STIG

LOL. I agree.

mmarshall

I don't NEED your body.....or flashy clothes......to look at a car and analyze it for myself. I'm perfectly capable of doing that.....I was doing it before most of you babes were born.



"Cigarette breath?" ? Try again.....most shows don't allow smoking out on the floor.


That is...the few you CAN answer.


Then WHY aren't the corporate people here who DO know the answers?
I ask the questions I do for a REASON.

Just answer the car question I asked. I couldn't care less who you hump or who you bump.

Then get off the turntable, and I'll get up and do the walkaround myself. YOU'RE the one telling us to keep off of it.




Of course, I've posted this, to some extent, just to be facetious and to answer this arrogant girl's comments....that's not my typical attitude. I actually am very friendly (in a proper manner, of course) and courteous with most the show models I deal with, without ogling them or trying to get their number. And, in fact, a few of them have ended up, during their breaks, asking ME about MY opinions for them concerning new-car purchases, if they are in the market. One of the girls I made friends with several years ago (I saw her at the D.C. show for several years running) had worked for three auto companies there at the show......Isuzu, Cadillac, and Saab. She drove a Chevy Trail Blazer until she decided to replace it and wanted my help and opinions (she got married a few years ago....haven't seen her since).

superchan7

I do feel bad for the vulgar approaches, but this is seriously a reality fail.

Lil4X

For nearly thirty years I spend a good deal of time at petroleum and industrial shows and have conducted seminars for dozens of private meetings, large corporations, and industry groups. I NEVER recommend the use of "models" in a professional exhibit for several reasons:

• Thirty years ago there were dozens or hundreds of models on the show floor of any major technical or industrial trade show. They have all but disappeared along with the comedians, magicians, and pitchmen that distracted from the primary purpose of the exhibit. Put a model in your exhibit and you take your organization's image back to 1975. Show delegates are a WHOLE lot more sophisticated now.
  
  
• Today, most businesses recognize the trade show as a powerful business opportunity - and a showcase for the company and it's latest technology. Exit interviews for the past twenty years have shown that the #1 reason people attend these shows is to see new technology. That applies to car shows, gun shows, boat shows, as well as technical, engineering, and industrial shows.
  
  
• The people who will be attracted into your exhibit by a bimbette are NEVER people who can sign the checks. Face it, no matter how emotional the appeal of a product might be, there have to be good technical data behind the buying decision for anything but an impulse buy. That's where your salesmen, product and application engineers come in.
  
  
• In today's business world many of the decision-makers are women. Why tick off a good portion of your target audience with a sexist appeal? You are lowering the image of your company in the eyes of not just the woman executive, but any thinking individual.
  
  
• It's distracting to put a clueless 20 year old model, no matter how well rehearsed, on the stand as your spokesperson - WHAT do you think they are selling here? Certainly not your product. . It doesn't make good business sense to floorplan a model, no matter how stunning - particularly if she's handing out her business cards, good for a free drink at the local upscale strip club. (Yes, it happened to one of my clients.)

Trade Shows have become serious business, with booth space going for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Add in the booth construction, lighting, media, and decoration, and it's easy to drop a half million on a single show if you have only a mid-sized exhibit in an international show.

Then you look at the "secondary" expenses - transportation, setup, teardown, and storage - travel and entertainment for your visiting salesmen and reps. Then there are the "unledgered" expenses - downtime for the key people that will be out of place for a week hanging out at the show, tossing back expense-account drinks at the hotel bar, and not taking care of the customers back home. Double that first number and you get an idea of what that exposure on the show floor is really costing you.

The Trade Show isn't the drunken carnival it was as late as the mid-'70's, when professional women at the show were not affiliated with any of the exhibitors. They were there to sell their own services, and often roll their customers. Once in a great while nowadays you meet a really professional model, but they are increasingly rare. They are also deadly serious about their work - as in the OP. Understand they will not be pawed, and can deflect roving hands with a clipboard like a bullfighter executing a perfect Veronica. Oh, and if you call the number they give you, it's going to be answered down at the animal shelter.