A Going Forward Basis

St. Herb of Tarlek, patron saint of worthless salesman.



I rolled into work at noon today. The Sea Food King, Some Guy Named Bob, Sea Food, Jr. and I played golf early this morning. It was fun. We even had time for a leisurely lunch.

Some people find me to be a critical old crank. I prefer to think of myself as an observer of human behavior. I am fascinated by pomposity and the delusions of importance some folks harbor. Among the six or so billion of us humans, very few are as important to the continuance of life as we know it, as think.

My friend Frank called it the Hand in the Bucket of Water theory. Plunge your hand into a bucket of water and look at the hole you leave when you pull it out. That is pretty much the same with life.

For sure, being the Major Account Executive at Tedious Systems ain't all that. Which brings me to my point for the day, salespeople and the aggravation they cause me.

Professional salespeople are talented, respected and among the highest paid earners in America. Regretfully, like most professions, a true professional in the field of sales is the exception, not the rule.

Ten percent of salespeople are professionals, the other ninety percent are basically goof-balls looking for an easy buck. Car sales has a turnover rate of about 33% annually. A new real estate agent stands only a 45% chance of remaining in the business for three years. Many people think they can sell effectively, but few actually can. There are a million stories in the Naked City, this is one of them.

A few weeks ago I posted about a salesman at Tedious Systems, named F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott apparently went to a meeting with a potential customer where he made some promises that our department would provide this potential customer a bunch of detailed information, based entirely on something that they might do someday. Not exactly the things we occupy our days with.

To use a football metaphor, salesmen tend to out-punt their coverage, when it comes to promising customers stuff they can't deliver. Through ignorance or zeal they manage to look like buffoons and annoy the troops.

One morning I got a voice mail from old F. Scott, in which he told me that he understood that I would be handling his ill-advised promise to his hypothetical customer. AS always, F. Scott was mistaken.

I tried the polite approach with F. Scott and told him that his request was something I could not do without way more information and that he needed to have Randall Bing's approval for me to do it anyway.

In response, F. Scott left me a message basically ordering me to snap to and to keep him up-to-speed on my progress. Since F. Scott is not my boss, I suggested that he buzz off. Undeterred, he began to bug my friend Pete, to see if he would pull a proposal out of his bu...uh, thin air.

Pete, being a more conscientious than me, actually called the potential customer to discuss his hypothetical project. According to Pete the conversation went like this.

Pete: I need some information to get your proposal together.
Guy: OK
Pete: What are you building?
Guy: Can't say, not ready to be made public.
Pete: When are you building?
Guy: Can't say.
Pete: How big.
Guy: Not final.

and on and on. Not the stuff dreams are built on.

I pretty much put the whole business out of my mind and moved on to really important stuff, like planning to be retired.

Imagine my surprise today when I received an email from Minnie Malarky who might be F. Scott Fitzgerald's boss or maybe just another blow-hard from sales. Wait, the two are not mutually exclusive. Her testy email was to both me and Pete (copied to my boss) telling us that we need to step up our efforts regarding this proposal. She said that the customer has been waiting since March, that our performance is unacceptable. She added, and I love this phrase, on a going-forward basis, we would need to keep her informed of our progress so that she can apprise the client. Going-forward basis is right out of the Empty Suit Handbook.

For about thirty seconds, I couldn't see because of the blood rushing to my eyeballs. I fired off an email to Randall Bing, my boss, asking him if we really wanted to waste our time on stupid promises made by stupid salespeople to hypothetical customers? He called me to his office to discuss my email.

Before heading over to see Randall, I fired off a reply to Minnie Malarky, telling her that I was sorry, but I wasn't really able to help her out with her problem and that on a going-forward basis I would appreciate her not sending snippy emails to my boss. I can't wait for the reply. You may recall that I am retiring so not only has Minnie picked on a guy who doesn't give a crap about her problems, she is powerless to do anything about it. If I was a religious man I would pray for her to have some actual clout which she could use to have me fired so that I don't have to wait until June 30 to retire.

Surprisingly, Randall Bing agreed with me about this exercise in ego inflation and wanted me to know that he had already called Minnie Malarky to tell her that we were occupied with approved projects. He told her that when she had an actual approved project for a genuine customer, we would be happy to snap to, provide full appraisal, go forward, etc. I was delighted. Randall stepped up.













Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky


Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor