Chicago and Sales Meetings

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

More hotel and motels

Well, I've never posted a cat picture before...

Department of Useless Information and other wanderings of the mind.

I keep lists. One of the lists I started keeping years ago is the name and location of the motels/hotels I have stayed at over the years. The current number is 731 and I am sure I have missed some. And that is separate hotels, not stays. Nights are probably in the 2500 plus range since I traveled like crazy for over 47 years.

                           

I don’t know why I started the list. Seems like I was on a flight from SeaTac to Honolulu around mid ’84 when boredom set in and I started writing. Later on I transferred them to my computer. The files survived being moved from Apple to PC, Ashton Tate to Windows and numerous computer crashes. One of which involved the computer smoking up the First Class cabin on an UAL flight between Chicago and Denver. Electrical smoke/smell on board an in flight airplane will always get a lot of attention. In today’s world I probably would have been tasered, thrown to the floor and held down by a couple of 200 ponders until they could get the aircraft on the ground and turned me over to TSA.



From time to time I click through the list. It’s a wonderful way to bring back memories, mostly good.



I sometimes get asked what my favorite hotel is. It actually should be, “was” because hotels and motels tend to wear out quickly and it is always the staff that makes the average good and the good the best. I’ve stayed in 5 star’s in which the staff made me want to post a “Do Not Stay Here” sign out front to Mom and Pop’s with a bad bed and only three channels of snowy TV in which the staff made up for the lousy room and I left with a smile. People are the difference.



But not always.



I use to stay at a road side Holiday Inn, this was 30 plus years ago, that was near a customer that I called on regularly. My routine was to pick up messages late afternoon the day before and return the calls first thing the next morning. This one particular motel didn’t have the capability to allow a guest to dial “8” and be connected to an operator for a credit card call. It wasn’t unusual for me to have 6 or so messages so it was a real pain to have to call the front desk, wait for the clerk to answer, plug me into a outside line and dial 0 for me.



After one particular morning of delays and frustration as I was checking out I said, “It’s a real problem for me to have to call you every time I want to make a long distance call. I may have to start staying someplace else.”



“It’s up to you,” was the immediate response.



Needless to say I found a Mom and Pop up the road a bit that seemed to appreciate my business.



Reading back I see I called it a “a road side” Holiday Inn. Back then that meant it was beside a road and not in a town. They were often near interstate exits and maybe there would a gas station there. They weren’t all Holiday Inns and for the most part there wasn’t but one. Also back then the deal was a room “downstairs and out.” That meant a room that was downstairs and outside so you could park directly in front of the room, open the door and walk in versus a room inside that made you walk around the side and then through a passage way, etc.



Now days you see three or so motels, two or more gas stations and couple of restaurants. The country has grown.



And yeah, many motels and hotels, didn’t have direct dialing. You called the front desk, gave them the number, they made the call, connected you and when completed the operator would call them back and give them the charge which the marked up (surcharge) and added it to your bill.



Local calls were dial “9” plus the number. The typical charge was .25 cents.



Later direct lines, called “trunks” were added. Then you could dial, in most cases, “8” and you would be connected an operator for a credit card or collect call. Then, as technology improved, you could dial 8 + 0 + 555 666 7777 and the operator would come on, get your telephone company issued credit card number and release the call.



Yes, Virginia. There was a time in which cell phones did not exist.



One hot summer day I arrived at a customer’s office only to find out that the engineers, who I wanted to see, were on strike duty and doing repair and installation work at not too distant town.



So I called the motel where they were staying, made a res and left a message that help was on its way. (The town was dry.) On the drive over I stopped at a hardware store, bought a small wash tub, put it in my trunk, dropped in a couple of cases of beer, covered it with ice and drove to the motel.



I backed the car up towards the walk in front of the rooms and we proceeded to pop a top. I was a much appreciated man. After a beer or too one of the guys said, “You know there is a perv here?”



“What?” I replied, being the possessor of quick wit and sharp interrogation techniques. “How’d ya know?”



“Come on,” he said walking away.



Now the motel was a two storey in an L shape. Rooms were on both sides with a service hall running the length of the building for space to provide water, sewer and telephone connections.



“The lock on the entrance door is broke,” he said as he opened the entrance door to the service hall.



“Look,” he said pointing down the hall



The hall was dark and every so often you could see a light shining through a hole.



He closed the door and then led me to his room; another guy’s and then mine. Each room had small hole located in such a way the bath area could be viewed.



“What you gonna do,” I asked. “Call the police?”



“Nope,” he said. “We’re gonna be here for at least a month. I’m gonna wait til some real big guy shows up with his wife and I’m gonna show it to him the first morning.”

"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

A Leftie debating

Hat tip to Tom H!

"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

Obama is not the problem

QUOTE OF THE DECADE:

This quote was translated into English from an article appearing in the Czech Republic as published in the Prager Zeitung of 28 April 2011.

... "The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of Idiots such as those who made him their president."

Hat tip to Jimmy M!


"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

Will Texas secede if Obama wins?

The Lone Stranger and Tontoette

Please note that Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede from
the Union . (Reference the Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848.)

We Texans love y'all, but we'll probably have to take action if Barack Obama
wins the election. We'll miss you too.

Here is what can happen:

1: Barack Hussein Obama is President of the United States, and Texas secedes
from the Union in summer of 2013.

2: George W. Bush will become the President of the Republic of Texas . You
might not think that he talks too pretty, but we haven't had another
terrorist attack, and the economy was fine until the effects of the
Democrats lowering the qualifications for home loans came to roost.

So what does Texas have to do to survive as a Republic?

1. NASA is just south of Houston , Texas . We will control the space
industry.

2. We refine over 85% of the gasoline in the United States .

3. Defense Industry--we have over 65% of it. The term "Don't mess with
Texas," will take on a whole new meaning.

4. Oil - we can supply all the oil that the Republic of Texas will need for
the next 300 years. What will the other states do? Gee, we don't know. Why
not ask Obama?

5. Natural Gas - again we have all we need, and it's too bad about those
Northern States. John Kerry and Al Gore will have to figure out a way to
keep them warm....

6. Computer Industry - we lead the nation in producing computer chips and
communications equipment -small companies like Texas Instruments, Dell
Computer, EDS, Raytheon, National Semiconductor,Motorola, Intel, AMD, Atmel,
Applied Materials, Ball Microconductor, Dallas Semiconductor, Nortel,
Alcatel, etc, etc. The list goes on and on.

7. Medical Care - We have the research centers for cancer research, the best
burn centers and the top trauma units in the world, as well as other large
health centers. The Houston Medical Center alone employees over 65,000
people.

8. We have enough colleges to keep us getting smarter: University of
Texas , Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas Christian, Rice, SMU, University
of Dallas , University of Houston , Baylor, UNT ( University of North
Texas ), Texas Women's University, etc. Ivy grows better in the South
anyway.

9. We have an intelligent and energetic work force, and it isn't restricted
by a bunch of unions. Here in Texas , it's a Right to Work State and,
therefore, it's every man and women for themselves. We just go out and get
the job done. And if we don't like the way one company operates, we get a
job somewhere else.

10. We have essential control of the paper, plastics, and insurance
industries, etc.

11. In case of a foreign invasion, we have the Texas National Guard, the
Texas Air National Guard, and several military bases. We don't have an Army,
but since everybody down here has at least six rifles and a pile of ammo, we
can raise an Army in 24 hours if we need one. If the situation really gets
bad, we can always call the Department of Public Safety and ask them to send
over the Texas Rangers.

12. We are totally self-sufficient in beef, poultry, hogs, and several types
of grain, fruit and vegetables, and let's not forget seafood from the Gulf.
Also, everybody down here knows how to cook them so that they taste good.
Don't need any food.

13. Three of the ten largest cities in the United States , and twenty- three
of the 100 largest cities in the United States , are located inTexas. And
Texas also has more land than California , New York , New Jersey ,
Connecticut , Delaware , Hawaii , Massachusetts , Maryland , Rhode Island
and Vermont combined.

14. Trade: Three of the ten largest ports in the United States are located
in Texas .

15. We also manufacture cars down here, but we don't need to. You see,
nothing rusts in Texas, so our vehicles stay beautiful and run well for decades.

This just names a few of the items that will keep the Republic of Texas in
good shape. There isn't a thing out there that we need and don't have.

Now to the rest of the United States under President Obama: Since you won't
have the refineries to get gas for your cars, only President Obama will be
able to drive around in his big 5 mpg SUV.The rest of the United States will
have to walk or ride bikes.

You won't have any TV as the Space Center in Houston will cut off satellite
communications. You won't have any natural gas to heat your homes, but since
Mr. Obama has predicted global warming, you will not need the gas as long as
you survive the 2000 years it will take to get enough heat from Global Warming.

Signed,
The People of Texas

P.S. This is not a threatening letter - just a note to give you something to
think about!

SLEEP WELL TONIGHT - THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU!!

Hat tip to Jim M!

Hey Jimmy! When you moving?

"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

A simple test

When a young person intended to go to medical school, they had to pass an exam.

One of the questions was "Rearrange the letters P N E S I to spell out an important part of the human body that is more useful when erect."

Those who spelled SPINE became Doctors. The rest ended up in Congress.

Hat tip to Bill T!

"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

How liberals argue

Actually it's how Lefties and so-called Progressives argue since they are the ones that tarnished many good positions held by Liberals.

Click here for the video.



"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