A Company Culture All Its Own

At the company I joined straight out of college, the prevailing attitude was: “Cars are for bosses who treat them as toys. Spending money on a car is out of the question!” (Some company culture, huh?) The founder and president at the time had started out as a live-in apprentice, overcome all kinds of hardships, and built a staffing company from the ground up. So the workplace had a deeply ingrained ethos of:

“No luxuries. Hard work is a virtue. Work 24/7, 365 days a year.”

(By today’s standards, it was definitely a toxic workplace—but we had our share of fun, too.)

The president often told clients things like, “You’re taking business for granted if you buy a luxury car! Sell the whole lot!” I was a “pure” new graduate back then, so I naturally came to think that the president considered luxury cars a bad thing.

From the time I joined the company, I worked in sales, securing training and consulting contracts with business owners. Many of the presidents at our client companies would say things like “An old car is good enough for company use,” and “When we make a profit, we should give back to our employees and customers.” I listened and thought, “They’re all such good people—almost saints.”

In fact, I rarely saw foreign or luxury cars parked at their offices.

What I Learned After Leaving the Company

Some time later, I left the company. Around then, Facebook started taking off, and many of the presidents I’d worked with sent me friend requests. As I casually browsed my feed, I realized something:

They owned a ton of luxury cars for personal use.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus, Porsche, Ferrari, Audi…

They’d post photos with a car somewhere in the frame, along with captions like “Bought a new car” or “Went for a drive with the family.” I began to see that even if they hadn’t shown their cars to salespeople back then, many of them had owned luxury cars privately all along.

“An old car is good enough for company use… (but I’ll buy a nice one for myself).”
“When we make a profit, we should give back to employees and customers… (and make sure I get something back, too).”

So that was what they meant.

Well, of course. Somehow, that realization made me feel reassured. These days, I understand how owning a luxury car—or the car you’ve always dreamed of—can motivate you to work harder. But I sometimes wish I’d known more about cars when I was a new graduate. I could have had a lot more fun talking cars with those company presidents.