The Conference Coach™

Yes, that’s right — carma, which should not be confused with karma but which is directly linked to karma.   No doubt, you’ve had some bad karma which led to bad carma.

What is Bad Carma?
Bad carma is when you have some sort of horrible automotive disaster happens either through no fault of your own or as a direct result of your neglect, inexperience or downright irresponsibility.

Today, a friend of mine was telling me about a particularly nasty string of automotive disasters that had happened to a close relative.  It got me to thinking about my own automotive foibles and the various outcomes.

Here’s what has NOT happened to my cars:

• Killing an engine by not putting oil in it
• Walking out to find my car missing
• Finding something dead in my car
• Having ants or other pests take up residence in my car

If it’s not on the list above, it’s probably happened to my cars.

Before I go on, I’ll answer the questions that must be swirling around in your head about those four little “bad carma” descriptions.  Yes, I know people whose car karma is bad enough to have had these things happen.

Killing an engine by not putting oil in it
I would like to be able to tell you that I only knew one person who has killed an engine due to severe oil neglect, but in fact I personally know three — yes 3 people who “forgot” or “didn’t know” that engines require oil much in the same way that plants require water to survive.  How could this happen I wonder?  How is it possible that you would not know that a car engine requires some sort of maintenance to keep it running?

Of course, there’s always the possibility that it never really occurred to these people that they were required to do anything more than put gas in the car and go.  I know that in at least one instance, the father of the girl who managed to oil starve an engine was so flabbergasted that his daughter didn’t know about car maintenance that he took it upon himself to correct the situation immediately.  (He was under the impression that his casual conversations with her about car maintenance would be enough.)

Walking out to find my car missing
Really, there’s not much to say about this except thankfully I’ve never been the personal recipient of a car with wanderlust.  For a period of time, I lived in beautiful San Diego which also happens to be conveniently located next to the U.S.-Mexico border.  Good for quick trips to Mexico and for car thieves.  My friend drove a Toyota truck at the time and only after his car “left” did he find out that his particular model of Toyota truck was listed in Consumer Reports as one of the easiest to steal cars ever made.

Finding something dead in my car or having pests invade
So, finding something dead in my car would be a shock.  I’ve found things that have come alive (a really, really smelly taco that somehow got wedged under the front seat), but never something larger than a beetle dead in my car.  Although, bugs, mice and other pesky creatures do sometimes take up residence in vehicles.  My friend had to bug bomb his car to get rid of ants that had taken over and another friend actually gave up a car because he was unable to get rid of the mice that made his car their home.  He was hoping for several dead mice but could not manage to get all of them to vacate.  One might argue that eating in a car predisposes it to the likelihood of pest invasion except that millions of Americans and other people around the world eat in their cars without ever having any issues.  These poor souls are statistical anomalies.

Do I have bad carma?
Here’s what’s really interesting — I don’t.  I have a long and fabulous relationship with cars including trying to convince my father that, at 14, I absolutely and without equivocation needed a driver’s license so I could help my poor over-burdened parents ferry my younger sisters around.  I further argued that because we lived in a rural state, there were lots of people my age who had the legal ability to drive.  You might imagine my 14 year-old disappointment when my father refuted these well-thought out arguments by pointing out that although we lived in a state with just over 1 million people, we neither lived on a farm or ranch nor were my parents unduly burdened being neither handicapped in any fashion or without options to provide transport for said children.

Oh sure, I’ve had to call the insurance company after a hail storm with golf ball sized hail gave my car what I fondly described as teenage acne.  I know just what it takes to get a Suburban airborne.  I have fond memories of cars that met with an untimely demise. I had to leave “Pokey” in west Texas — permanently.   I’ve driven cars that are exceptionally fabulous and cars that were downright dangerous like the one with the steering column that required a lot of forethought to handle.  I’ve been in the middle of Kansas in November when the car caught fire.  The list goes on but none of this adds up to bad carma — at least not for me.

Good carma
I love to drive, which probably comes from the fact that a car provides freedom to a certain extent.  And most recently, I have been given legislative permission to not use a cell phone in my car — but that is another story of freedom for another day.  Having good car karma is mostly a matter of attitude, part good luck and part willingness to view every car adventure as something new and exciting.

So, share your car karma stories.  But do so carefully so as not to give away too much of the fun that goes with having good or bad carma.

Alycia Maier-Turner is the Director of Marketing for Copper Conferencing a provider of easy-to-use and affordable audio and web conferencing. Copper offers outstanding customer service and user-friendly wrap-around services including online account, invoice and recording management. You can try Copper’s great web and audio conferencing services — FREE. Just sign up now.