Nope, it isn't Chicago but it is a Sheraton. A very nice Sheraton at LAX.
Before GSA
taught us how to waste money we use to have Sales Meetings.
The purpose was to make as much money as possible playing
poker and prove that you could drink and remain fairly coherent.
The secondary mission was to train us in all the latest sales
technique and let the engineers lie to us about when a new product or feature
would be available. I mean those engineers had no shame. “Keep those R&D dollars coming folks and
the Widget will have self wiping paper dispensed on wrinkle free rolls.”
I think that is how I knew immediately that man made global
warming was a lie.
If the economy was good we’d have’em in Chicago in January at
a Sheraton. There was one near the airport that was across from Stromberg
Carlson’s regional office. Bad news and an undoable quota?? Just stroll on over
and see what the boys from Syracuse had available. If the economy was bad we’d
have’em at a Day’s Inn in Nashville. Trust me. The Sheraton was nicer.
At one meeting we had A Professional Sales Trainer train us
on how to get a customer interested in your sales brochure.
The guy spoke fairly well but he had a cross between a nose suck
and a snort that appeared often but irregular.
This was fairly distracting and may have been a technique to
keep us awake and listening as there were continual bets on the number of
Sucksnorts with the attendant discussions, claims and disputes.
“Damn it Ray! I had the over and I counted 14, not 13.”
“Naw, Bill. That last one was a throat clearing and hacking
up a booger, not a Sucksnort.”
You can see there were many areas where a dispute could
occur. We often made Congress look good.
Anyway, the Professional Sales Trainer’s theory was that you
never handed the customer the brochure, you just extended it and then pulled it
back. He called it the tease technique
to build interest and create positive tension.
Now laying aside the fact that our customers never paid any
attention to brochures… I mean if they were thinking about dropping a few
million on a new switching system it took a bit more to get and hold their
attention.. Anyway, at some point one of the old guys who had had a knock dead
great year and thus could whip out his dick and piss on the floor and
management would pretend he was just pre
wetting the carpet for the cleaners opined, “If a salesman did that to me I’d
kick his ass out of my office.”
The Professional Sales Trainee couldn’t ignore that so a back
and forth quickly developed.
Somewhere in there I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you ever
sold anything?”
“Well,” he said, “I sold this course to your corporate.”
Ray chipped in, “That only proves they are stupid.”
We were a grumpy bunch proud of our success and we didn’t
suffer fools gladly.
An early cocktail hour was announced as it was obvious the training
was over.
It was at lunch on day at the Sheraton that we discovered the
sensitivity of some waitresses.
There were three of us and one was Dave. Now Dave was
basically a good guy but he made micro management an art form. Give him a wine
list and thirty minutes later he would be discussing the summer temperature and
rain fall on the slopes of the vineyard. Knowing this I’d just say, “Bring me a
Bud.” Plus, he called all the girls Honey, Sugar or Sweetie.
Now we know that Obama
can do that and the Lefties swoon. But this was Chicago’s northwestern burbs
and Obama was being schooled in a Muslim
school in Indonesia.
Anyway, Dave read the wine list, commented on menu,
dispatched our waitresses for fresh bread wondered if the butter was real
butter, all to the tune of “Honey, will you….” Finally the young lady had had
enough. Fixing him with a laser beam gaze that would have killed a mere mortal she intoned, “It’s honey this and honey that and honey could you…. Well honey,
kiss my ass, I ain’t waiting on you.” And stalked away in high dungeon.
The manager took her place. Dave was embarrassed and couldn’t
understand the problem. We didn't try to explain.
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper
“It’s the presumption that Obama knows how all these industries ought to be operating better than people who have spent their lives in those industries, and a general cockiness going back to before he was president, and the fact that he has no experience whatever in managing anything. Only someone who has never had the responsibility for managing anything could believe he could manage just about everything.” - Thomas Sowell in Reason Magazine
