According to a multitude of therapists, coaches and random strangers, writing can be helpful. So I'm going to make an effort to write a few times a week. My brain needs the space to work out a couple of different ideas that are rambling. But first:
Fuck George Lopez
Dude, 52 shots? And you invoke the 'Bieber Clause'? You're a grown man. With a genetic kidney condition. So bad that a couple of years ago your wife (now ex-wife) gave you one of hers. And this is how you use that gift? I have a serious issue with this guy's anger issues and comedy, but this one set me off earlier this week. Dirtbag. Ain't no other way to say it.
The Oscars? Really?
No, I don't watch that Hollywood chugfest. I don't like the holier than thou attitude. Not when they all treat their friendships and relationships like toilet paper. So they don't get my time. I see 2 movies a year, tops. I think I saw 3 last year, and one was when Ma Dukes came to visit. I'm done with Affleck and his ilk. You don't like conservatives but you like their money? Bite me. And please remember, every time you hear someone fawning over 'Brangelina' *gag*, these are two people who are celebrated after cheating on someone. You celebrate infidelity and dishonesty, I'll tout my friends that stick it out thru all sorts of crap day in and day out. Posers.
Arizona is Anti-Gay?
Uh, what? How did this narrative happen? I swear George Costanza is teaching Journalism 101 now-"It's not a lie if you don't believe it". Follow along..
Why, if you're gay, would you want someone who disagrees with your life, to bake you a cake for the most specialist day in the whole wide world? If you were white and marrying a different race (say a black person, for this instance), would you go to a KKK meeting looking for who makes the most darling cupcakes? We need a common sense judge in this country, and fast. Last example-what would you say if you heard of a story where a gay baker had a customer from that crazy-ass Westboro Baptist Church that wanted a cake with 'God Hates Fags' written on it? And they refused to service said customer?
At first, you'd probably cheer. And then I'd call you a hypocrite.
This whole thing stinks, folks. I have no care in the world which way you swing. Quite frankly, I'm a capitalist. If gay people want my cake, awesome. If my milkshake's brings all the boys to the yard, so be it. There are things I fail to comprehend. I'm not making the right/wrong judgement here. I'm asking the question. If you knew a restaurant didn't like kids running around, would you bring them there for a family dinner with a 3 year old? Not more than once you wouldn't. Quit making people believe what you believe. A long time ago the world was flat. Oops. I have no care of gay/straight/trans/bi whatever. I'm saying that if I were straight and gay don't bother me and there's a gay dude that makes the best damn wedding cake, cool. Because it doesn't bother me. If my future wife wanted a kosher cake, then off to the Jewish baker we go. If I were gay I'd probably look for the gay baker, not the stodgy 'Christian' and then force him to make me a cake. Why? Say you're that baker. What are the odds you 'accidentally' mix up sugar and salt? I'd say 100%. But only after you had the law tell me to make you the cake. Why not give the gay baker the business? I want to know what happened to freedom of choice? What happened to 'we reserve the right to refuse service'? Why does one group get preferential treatment? When did we stop being the land of the free and become the land of the 'I'm offended, sue them'? How about we all take a giant step back and think? Then maybe try and educate? Instead, bend to my will? That's not acceptance, that's forceful tolerance.
The main reason for writing-my job
What happens to the dog when they catch the car? A little over a year ago I called Ma Dukes. I was close to hysterical. I had had enough of my cubicle farm job. I had put in for 100's of jobs. Done countless interviews. Sent out resumes, had conversations, done the informal job search, countless networking events. You name it, I did it. Coaching sessions? You know it. I had to ask my own Mother, 'what in the world is wrong with me? Is my east coast attitude the thing that's preventing me from finding a fit?' That awesome lady had no answers, other than for me to keep being me and keep trying, because I'm not a quitter. That's what great Mom's do, I'm telling you. Mine, yeah, I vote her for the bestest.
Then after asking 2 very good friends for any potential leads and a few interviews, I found this job. And I though my prayers were answered. I really did. But I was the dog that caught the car. Now what? I really thought I hit the lottery. Here was a company building up a new division from the ground up, would be mine to shape, mold, direct. Oh, and there was that little thing about getting paid. On paper, everything I could ever want. I was told I'd have management support, marketing support, and most importantly-I lined up with the message given to me by upper management, the morals and values of the company.
Lies. Damn Lies. All a bunch of crap. I have asked my boss the following question on multiple occassions:
"Do you want to be successful or just have the appearance of success?"
It's a defining question. I know a ton of people who look successful. And once you get behind the curtain of illusion, they're full of crap. Sure, they may make sales, but their home life is in shambles. Or they've neglected their family. Or their health sucks. Is that really success? Well, I believe we determine our own.
My job has started to impact my health. Mostly my mental well being. There's been a long hazing period. I've put that in the past. All that support I was assured of? None of that came true. Again, another thing I put in the rear view. The constant jockeying of my role has got me twisted in knots.
Look, y'all may think none of this is a big deal. Some of you have something or someone to go home to. Me? I'm alone. I may play like I like it that way, but if you truly knew me, that's crap. I can't even bring myself to get a dog, I'm afraid I won't have the time to hang out with the pooch. That'd kill me. Even more than the job. So what is the tipping point? I'm not an inside sales rep. Let me explain:
My bosses boss has it in his head that it's 1986. That we're a big company, and by me pounding the phones we'll get that big deal. I don't know about you, but I don't know of anyone spending 50k on a phone call. And if you do, can you send them my way? Pretty please? I'll buy you a steak dinner.
Back to the story-no one knows who we are. Any of the brand recognition is based on me going out to networking event and attending conferences. I've managed to get into some very large companies based on this skillset. NOT from the phone cold-calling. I live in Denver, a small but powerful IT community. You are 2 degrees of separation, and I mean it. If you're a dogshit human being, it's known. My rep, and my soul, are intact. I don't sell out. I'm not a pushy sales manager. My job entails me to do business development, partner development, presentation building, brand recognition and some marketing. Oh yeah, and try to sell things. So the CEO has a friend that keeps telling him that cold-calling is the way. Based on what I have no idea. Oh wait-this guy's company just so happens to cold-call for companies and passes those strong leads along. What a co-in-ky-dink! As I've passed along, this guy has no stake in my division nor company. Yet because he's a friend, he gets the CEO's ear. As I told my boss, "I have friends, none are making my car payment". And you know I'm right. You read this, we're friends, right? Wanna make my car payment? Didn't think so. Know what else? I'm not really asking, I don't like charity, I give to charity. So with this background, here are my last 4 weeks:
2/7: In my monthly company meeting, I gave my big presentation to my whole company, all 3 divisions. A little background, I've been working with a presentation coach. She's awesome-even if I'm not always open to suggestion (yes, I'm stubborn at times). I killed that presentation. It could have been better, I know this, but I was psyched. My CEO even spoke to me and said 'good job'. A minor freaking miracle. And I was on cloud 9. We are a reseller, and later in the day the VP of the channel partner came in and presented. I had 3 coworkers tell me my presentation was better. I head into the weekend feeling pretty good about myself.
2/10: This 'friend of the CEO' comes up again as I'm about to leave for the day. My boss tells me we need to work on a weekly cadence. Uh, what just happened? You saw my presentation, I'm the #1 meeting setter for this product in the western half of the country. Me. Read that last line again. I didn't have a website to reference until the last week of 2013, and I'm the guy that's killing it compared to other companies who are chucking massive resources at this thing. Well apparently the CEO had a conversation with his friend and now there's talk of me making 20 calls/day. I cannot stress this enough throughout this post and in general: cold-calling is dead. It does not work. Okay, maybe it works for cable, home security and the local paper, but in major IT security? No. I've asked multiple organizations, they think this is nuts. And a huge waste of my talent. My boss and I chuckle and I think it's funny, I leave for the day.
2/11: I walk into my office and turn on my laptop. Shit just got real. The cadence changed. Overnight. Now it's a mandate. 25 calls/10 emails. Now I'm fired up. What the fuck just happened? Why is this a mandate? I admit, I sit there and wonder what I've done wrong. I'm hurt. My ego is completely bruised. I feel like a kid who was told I can't play little league. For no reason other than someone said I couldn't. I'm not an inside sales rep. That's not what I was hired for. Nowhere is it in my job description. More importantly, I had to ask, why would you put someone who isn't afraid of a soul in person on the phone which they hate? I asked my boss why the change? Why the change in the numbers from 14 hours ago? In which we both laughed at? I get no answer other than that's what someone wants. My feeling? So much for having my back. And then in my sales meeting, when I didn't agree immediately with potentially feuding with our partner I was told, "You'll care when your job is on the line". Yes, this happened.
2/12: I don't like this and I know it won't work. It starts next week, I'm not doing this mid-week.
2/17: company holiday
2/18: It starts. And I hate it. Every fiber of my being is on fire because this is so stupid and I know it won't work. Also, I'm a grown man, you got something to say, say it. Don't hide behind a title and a door. It's cowardly. One more thing-you've done nothing to open up your big bad rolodex, or introduced me to any part of your network, CEO. None. Nothing. If anything, you've made every effort to ignore me. I appreciate the check every 2 weeks, but I'm working. With none of that support I was assured of.
2/21: After getting thru 25 calls before lunch, I decide I can meet a couple of buddies to catch a few minutes of Team Canada vs. Team USA men's hockey. I tell my boss (in what I think is a tone that is self-congratulatory), "Hey, I finished all my calls, I'm heading out to lunch." The reply I got was:
'You really need to knock that shit off, it's getting fucking old.'
WHOA...."uh, what do you mean? I was just being happy to get thru it."
'Well, it's not going unnoticed that you're unhappy with this arrangement.'
"I didn't sign up for this arrangement, nor did I agree to it. I was told to do it and my job was threatened in a prior sales meeting to 'get in line' with the management."
'This is just what you need to do for right now.'
"Yup, I'm off to lunch." And what a lovely lunch it was. #sarcasm I have no idea at this point WTF is going on, or why I'm being singled out. It could be that my execs were sold a bill of goods on this product that I'm pushing, that originally they were told it's a 4 month sales cycle when really it's more like 11 months. Could be that an exec is bucking for a bonus? And squeezing his employees in the process? Hmmmmm, that's a valid question. Either way, I have no clue what I did to get that reaction.
2/24: I'm officially over this, and I spent way too much time over the weekend on this process. I averaged about 5 hours a day on this. Half of my workday? On something I hate? I know, you may think 25 calls shouldn't take that long. And you'd be right. However, I had to find the lead. Look up the lead, find any corresponding material, get a phone number and an email, then make the call. Oh, then I get to log the lead info and call info into our CRM. All me, all the time. No admin help. I've mentioned that I'm a sales manager, right? Again, I'll stress this-had this been up front when I was hired almost a year ago, I'd have no place to complain. I'd have signed up for it. And agreed to it. None of that is the case.
So on this day, I did 10 calls, and felt fine about it.
2/25-2/28: I'm off to a conference in California. Where not only is it great to be away from my office (for many reasons), but it's awesome to see what else is out there in terms of potential partnerships. It's what I like doing for my job. It was great to see a buddy from college while I was out there. Great to see some extended family, too. But to the level of work, funny for me to see how young of a company we are. And how half-assed we've been. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of my engineer who came with me to California. It was great to see how much he and I lined up. We have the same end game in mind, but different ways of getting there. And that's okay. Because we agree on a ton. And we'll question each other, but politely, constructively. Truthfully it's one of the best working relationships I've ever had. He's a good dude. This trip gave me a different perspective. Maybe I was going at my job wrong in certain ways. It hit me that maybe I should be humble and squash this thing with my boss. Maybe he's getting pressure from his boss. And maybe he's got stuff at home. What happens when you put a balloon in a vice? Well, pressure from both sides means it's going to pop, right?
I just wanted to get home and sleep in my own bed. Don't look at work for the weekend, try to absorb all the things I saw.
3/2: Of course not. You know damn good and well that I got an email asking for my call report, "for Monday and Tuesday last week". Dude, you know I was on a plane Tuesday morning and went from the airport to the hotel to the conference. Our calendars are synced up. So I spend 90 minutes pulling that thing together. And I write down some notes, after taking a deep breath. "Hat in hand. Put the past behind us. We need to move forward to a common goal, and fix what's broken. The calls don't work, and it's a time-suck." And I told myself, 'Be Humble'.
3/3: Walked into work, and my boss and I agreed that we should catch up before he has his morning catch up with his boss (see a shit pattern developing here). And I start off with, "I come hat in hand, I don't want to fight, and whatever this beef is between us I want it to go away. What we're doing collectively isn't working, and I want to make it work. We have a great opportunity here, but we need to 'crawl, walk, run', not 'birth, sprint', it is not going well." And I went into the things about how we're very young division, and our parent company seems to have the expectations of a company as old as them. That's a setup for failure. We're doing well if you look at it from a different perspective. It will come.
And then the calls came up. "I'm willing to do 10, that's a good number." My boss tells me that a new cadence was decided while I was out of the office-25 calls/25 emails a day. So let me see if I get this straight-you want me to keep doing more of the things that don't work? And you make this call while I'm nowhere near the conversation? And it's about me? You can keep pumping gas into a diesel engine, but please don't complain when the motor won't turn over. I stood firm at 10. My boss asked me, "so you're going to quit if we say it's 25?"
'No, I'm not quitting. I'm saying it doesn't work, and I have 110 phone calls in 5 days, my phone has not been called back, there are no voicemails, there are no email replies. It's not what you hired me to do. If you want an inside sales rep, you should look into that.' I wasn't a smart ass, this is business talk. I'd like to think that he was pleasantly surprised. He told me we don't have a beef, and I finally figured it out-he's being directed to tell me all this stuff.
Meanwhile, his boss is the same distance from my office. Come on over, talk to me, like grown folk do it.
My boss had his catch up with his boss, and it came down, 10 calls/10 emails. I was shocked. Pleasantly surprised. But in my gut I didn't trust it. And then I got sick, went home early. Made my 10 calls.
3/4: had a meeting that went long, went into my office, and once my boss heard me speak told me to get out of the office. "Don't get everyone sick." Mad respect for that, really.
3/5: My boss was out of town, and I was sick, so I worked from home. Sorry, but with a sinus cold, I am not making phone calls.
Yesterday: I had a potential customer meeting, that I will be quoting. Then I had a meeting at my office for 2 hours and then it was time to get ready for a huge networking event. 1300 people. This is also an event that my CEO was supposed to go with me, but after accepting my invitation, he magically declined the same meeting invite for no reason. So I ask, how's it look? Does it look like you want to help build the business when you decline an invite to go to one of the biggest IT high exec level networking events in the state? I have mentioned this before, but when he canceled on me I was extremely disappointed and took it as a sign. So, fighting a sinus cold (you know when you sound worse than you feel? Yeah, that was me) I went, with 21 business cards. Why 21? Winner in blackjack, and this is a huge gamble! You don't know who you'll meet. I just wanted to get rid of my business cards and make some contacts. And I did that. And I was told that me in that environment is way more natural than me in front of my bosses'. Telling sign (again, there's that pattern), don't you think? And I feel more natural when I know my product and can talk to people. That and since I haven't been to a bunch of events in the last 2 months, I had some folks asking me where I'd been. Apparently I've been missed, which is kinda nice.
Today: I'm trying to put together an email campaign, after being thrown under the bus during our company meeting. 'Give us a review of the conference.' Seriously? It's a conference. Big displays, and we're working on new partnerships. Believe me, this happens with no one else in the company. We're the new kids, so how about treating us like we could do something, rather than a burden? If we're a burden, shut it down, I'll find other things to do.
And then, right before I leave, my boss shows me an email from his boss: "Grow the business or fill out daily call reports" is what it said. 3 friggin' days. That's what I get.
You know when it's time to go at the bar? Or when you've been dating someone for awhile and you know in your heart of hearts that it just isn't going to happen? I've been accused in the past of pulling the ripcord too early on many a relationship opportunity, but I know. I just know it in my gut if it's going to be anything. Or quite frankly, if I see a 'win' for myself. I know, it's selfish, but it's also true. How many times in your life can you say you'd honestly look out for another person without expecting anything in return, other than the same feeling? Go'head, I'll wait. It's rare, and at times even fleeting. This job? I've known for months that it's not a good fit. I had a good friend ask me if I would ever look to emulate my executive team. If I'm being truthful with myself, the answer is, flat out, 'No'. I could go on and disparage them and paint them in a worse light, but what I've typed above is all real. Not a sense of reality. Other people have been in the room and asked me "what was that??" Which in one way is kinda nice but in another sense makes me wonder why this is accepted behavior?
I find myself questioning the reason for a lot of things. I'm involved in none of the decisions that impacts my day to day life, and I'm supposed to go along with it. I suppose if I agreed with those decisions I would go along. But when 30 year old methods have been dead and buried, my job gets threatened, and things that were promised aren't delivered, what is my alternative?
And here's the thing-I ask my friends this question:
"Is the juice worth the squeeze?" In this case, I know the answer. It's a flat 'No'. I'm not even mad right now. I'm kind of sad. I thought I had a chance to build something. The type of thing that made me excited, because I'm not money-driven. And if I were money-driven it would be to do things like help Ma Dukes move out here. And get my brother the help he needs. And buy my nieces and nephews awesome toys and big wheels. I don't really need anything. Maybe a vacation on a beach. But I'd take care of all that other stuff mentioned first, because that's who I am.
I know the answer, kids. The answer is to go find another sandbox to play in. Do this job to the best of my ability without getting into any more confrontations while updating my resume and finding a role & company that fits me in the truest sense. I have a better sense now. I caught the car. Wrong car. I thought it was a BMW and turned out to be a Daewoo. Oh well. I have a few victories. I was able to do some things-lost 30 lbs, got back on the dating horse (for better or worse), got my chair, got a car when mine crapped out and didn't have to flinch. Most importantly, I got to fly Ma Dukes out to visit for a week and hang out with her. She met most of my awesome friends out here, saw Rocky Mountain National Park, and laughed. I'll always be thankful for that chance. Now I guess it's time to go find something else.
No comments:
Post a Comment