A First Friday

As mentioned in yesterday's ramblings, I'm unemployed....was RIF'd back in July.
Here's a cute little throw back in case we wanna reminisce.

There's a funny thing about being in sales.
It's called a 'sales cycle'.
Everything is measured on a quarterly basis and due to this, for some odd reason (*cough* quotas) everyone decides to wait until the last month of every quarter (or every third month, for you yearly calendar folks) to push mega hard, and give discounts, and draw-up endless revisions of contracts & spreadsheets, and have war room concalls, and wait around for signatures in the lobbies of corporate offices, and do everything they frantically can to pull in at the very last minute whatever big elephant deal they might be working on....

And usually all of this is going on within the last 2-3 weeks of that magical beast of a third month.
As if that magical beast of a third month were somehow unexpectedly sneaking up on everyone.

And all the field reps you support are doing all the same cram-it-in things all at the same time.
And your regular 40-50hr work week turns into an 80hr work week for at least 2 weeks in a row.
Every. Third. Month.

And on the last Friday of each quarter....
It's like Christmas with none of the fun stuff.
Because we'd all be staying up late, glued to our laptops til 2 or 3 or 4a.m. babysitting those big elephant deals because they'd just come in that afternoon and they're complex in backend paperwork and everything has to match up just so for processing....
And there'd be emergency fire drill concalls with teams of management at 1a.m. and additional confirmations needed via email or someone forgot to click a checkbox in some system and everyone that's ever been associated with the big elephant deal is asking you if it's booked yet....
"Is there an SO#?"
"Is there an SO#?"
"Is there an SO#?"
"Is there an SO#?"

And in the past 10yrs, this is the first Friday at the End of The Quarter that I don't have to do ANY of that.

Tonight, I'm pouring one out for my corporate homies that kick so much ass.

______________________

PS. If you're reading this and you know who I'm talking about when I say "Sales Associate", hug them, send them flowers, liquor, beer, strippers, buy them a car. They take really good care of you and do their best for you and, at times, get little in return.