Minority Consultant

Not only hard on minorities. Us white females have it just as hard to get into the ERAC boys clubs. It's definitely a white mans' company.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not only hard on minorities. Us white females have it just as hard to get into the ERAC boys clubs. It's definitely a white mans' company.

I agree that ERAC is very sexist in so very many ways (the men getting to go to ballgames, but the women not being invited and having to stay at the office to work, etc.); yet I have seen a higher percentage of women and minorities in management positions here than I have ever seen elsewhere (other than Federal Govt.) That impressed me when I hired on and still impresses me. The guys are very "looks" oriented, but have all been respectful around me. What they say behind my back I can't control - at work or on the street. As long as they don't use it against me if I haven't done anything wrong with my job, then I can't say anything. Like it or not, they have a right to their opinions, sexist or otherwise. Just don't say it around me. Otherwise, I enjoy my job with ERAC and hope to be there a long time.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I agree that ERAC is very sexist in so very many ways (the men getting to go to ballgames, but the women not being invited and having to stay at the office to work, etc.); yet I have seen a higher percentage of women and minorities in management positions here than I have ever seen elsewhere (other than Federal Govt.) That impressed me when I hired on and still impresses me. The guys are very "looks" oriented, but have all been respectful around me. What they say behind my back I can't control - at work or on the street. As long as they don't use it against me if I haven't done anything wrong with my job, then I can't say anything. Like it or not, they have a right to their opinions, sexist or otherwise. Just don't say it around me. Otherwise, I enjoy my job with ERAC and hope to be there a long time.

I'm looking at the 2004 Annual Registration Report for Enterprise Rent-A-Car filed with the Missouri Secretary of State. The top corporate officers are listed. Out of a total of 99, only 19 could possibly be women, and that's only because I'm counting every name for which I'm not sure, including Lee Kaplan, Dana M. Beffa, Carmen R. Davis, Shannon P. Malone, Shelley M. Roither, and Daryl H. Scales. If any of those aren't women, then the count is even lower.

The other thing I noticed on this list is that with the exception of one name, they all look like names I could find in a midwestern phone book from the 1940's.

No wonder Enterprise doesn't "get" the Internet, they've turned inward, are truly a "red state" company, and aren't that open to new ideas.

Women and minorities, move out to the coasts where you can work for companies run by people who look like you.

Admin

Believe it or not, ERAC hired a multi cultural teacher to sit down with branch and assistant managers to make them understand other cultures better when dealing with them. I left the training even more confused. I was one long argument about black, spanish, indian cultures. It was a complete waste of time. But ERAC just does these things so they can cover their own ass in case a customer ever yells racism.

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

2004 Annual Registration Report

The other thing I noticed on this list is that with the exception of one name, they all look like names I could find in a midwestern phone book from the 1940's.

No wonder Enterprise doesn't "get" the Internet, they've turned inward, are truly a "red state" company, and aren't that open to new ideas.
Admin

Admin, I usually agree with you, but this is a stretch. You can tell someone's technical acumen by their name?????

A "red state" Company????....oh THAT's RIGHT....Al Gore invented the internet, I Forgot.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Admin, I usually agree with you, but this is a stretch. You can tell someone's technical acumen by their name?????

No, I don't claim you can tell someone's technical acumen by their name, and I can't imagine how you could have concluded that.

What I'm asserting is that openness to new ideas is a personality trait and some people (like me) have a lot of it, and some people don't. There's a lot of racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S., particularly in the coastal areas, but I'm not seeing that reflected in the names of the top 99 officers at Enterprise. Being a homegrown St. Louis company, I can understand how the culture at Enterprise isn't very embracing of new ideas, including the Internet.

The Internet offers a flood of new ideas, languages, peoples and ways of doing things. Enterprise doesn't seem quite ready to embrace this yet.

From a quick reading of that list, I saw very few women, and don't recall seeing a single hispanic or asian name. If I missed one, please correct me.

To be clear, I'm definitely not one of those people demanding racial and ethnic quotas or set asides, or any of that, but if you spend your life living and working in the St. Louis suburbs, with people who look just like yourself, I can understand how this whole Internet thing could be scary and difficult to understand. Some of us embrace it, though.

Admin

Originally Posted by Floridian

Send Ed Adams a note at Corporate. He is the Company's VP of Human Resources.

Sometimes the individual groups like to make up the rules. Last I knew all it took was the recommendation of your Group VP and the other Group had to take you.

Let us know how it turns out.

on a side note:

yes a couple of friends of mine at erac and i took a look around the company and noticed that in our region there were no minority ARM .. all white people .. made us feel bad .. even the ones in the group that were white .. but look at the owners .. i didnt feel as bad as them because as you guys all know .. before going into the interview .. like your sales call you need to research .. who are these people you're going to see .. and yes their ethnic background and what ratio of those of the same ethnic background of the owners in upper mgmt .. and of course if its a huge company and private ie erac .. then duh! of course its just going to be one of those .. that you're either going to make it because you're a minority or you wont because they'll find some jack@ss reason .. haha .. but its like that in business .. so be prepared to tell yourself this is not a career option for 2+ years .. in fact your days are numbered .. meanwhile learn the skills you need that pertains to the actual job you want and party hard so you dont have to think about useless customers and upper management .. ;)

Originally Posted by bumperac

I recently read that ERAC hired a Minority Consultant to help them find more qualified minority workers for their company. Sounds like their just trying to CTA(cover their ass) in case they get hit with another class-action law suit like back in 2002. Just wanted to know if anyone has heard anything about this "consultant."

I guess I'm totally f 'd. I am a conservative, straight, white male. I'd better start climbing my family tree and tie the rope.

Well, this is what you get from ERAC management who are minorities themselves.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I think it was around the time she first got promoted to Area Puppet err....Area Manager. My old assistant manager was completely disrespected by some asshole bodyshop guy. He dropped the N-bomb on her. She took it as well as she could I guess. She wanted to just drop the shop all together and cut all ties. ERAC sent their puppet area manager (an african-american female) to talk with my assistant to calm her down. Part of the conversation went along the lines of, sometimes you have to deal with these things in the business world, and pretty much told her to suck it up. Mind you, this is some crap shop that owed ERAC money, and wasnt even sending all of their business. Instead of having my managers back, ERAC sent their corporate puppet to calm down one of their own employees that was direspected. They put a jerk ahead of an employee to save a shit account, all in the name of a dollar. To be fair, this did happen a long time ago, and I hope that she has gotten a lot better since then.

After hearing about that, I knew my days were numbered. Good job ERAC...you put your people first right???