AMUSINGS

In one of my mid-life incarnations I worked as an outside sales representative for a small business.  It was not unusual for the owner of the business to appear in the morning with an announcement that would knock our socks off.  One day the word was that the expectations for sales calls had increased from the usual 30 per day to 100.  Just a wee bit unrealistic, we thought, and probably not very effective.  Once my sales manager and I had recovered from our mutual attack of hysteria, we launched ourselves into “We’ll show her!” mode.  We made a pact and set about the business of running around town darting in and out of doors all day, hurling business cards at whoever was sitting there to catch them.  Given the circumstances we felt that it was about the best we could do.

We worked ourselves into frenzy.  We nearly killed ourselves trying to prove the boss wrong and it worked.  After three weeks of intensive card hurling neither of us had opened one new account.  The harder we worked, the more the business owner harangued us about what we were doing all day and why there were no new accounts.  It was vicious.

We cracked under the stress and couldn’t take it any more.  We were exhausted, burned out and the pressure was still on.  We finally rebelled and gave into the temptation to indulge ourselves in a little dose of mutual rest and relaxation.  We planned a surreptitious meeting at a local bagel shop where we sat for an entire morning enjoying our bagels and coffee, laughing, shedding our mutual woes and feeling just slightly guilty about our delicious dalliance.  We felt like a couple of gleeful kids giddy at the notion of being let out after three solid weeks of detention.  The only damper to our temporary euphoria was that we had to return to the office and face the perpetual grilling about why there were still no new accounts.

Well, the piper had to be paid, and so shored up with our bagels, coffee and our own good company we went in separate directions and returned to the office to face the music.  When we returned we found the band marching to a different drummer.  We were amazed to discover that we were greeted with new respect, big smiles and congratulations.  It seems that while we were gone nine new accounts had called in orders.  Go figure.

We took it as a sign.  When things aren’t working out well, go find a place to sit down, relax, enjoy yourself and eat something round.  You might be surprised at the results.