Fishpimp Out

This is my 150th post, and my last as a seafood professional. Word to my homies at the house of fish. As they say - Good luck and "Best Fishes!"

T-minus 4 hours

Today has been fun. Everyone has been very complimentary. I got a free coffee this morning, and the boss is buying lunch. We gave Simon a copy of the Simonisms this morning. He nearly had a coronary laughing at some of the things he's said over the past few years. We all had a good laugh at the Baron's expense. Little does Simon know that the Baron has a copy of the list; nearly 30% of it is about him. I told the Baron I want a commission off the proceeds from the lawsuit.

They're going to give me a proper send-off tonight as we all go bowling and drinking. Nothing like showing up at the new job hung-over and covered in stale cigarette smoke.

T-minus 24 hours

Tomorrow is my final day as a professional Fishpimp. Despite many friends here, I am quite ready to leave. The Norwegian keeps telling me what I'm going to miss about working here. "Dude, you know you're gonna miss the edge of this place. You're gonna miss the edginess." No, no I don't think I will. One thing I will miss is the informal pledging process one goes through before the sales team truly accepts a new rep into the fold. It took me a good three years. Others haven't survived the ordeal (see: the big bird). We brought a new rep on board today. He's already got one strike against him: his last position was in auto sales.

Strike two came when we noticed his immaculately trimmed eyebrows. The Fishhouse does not abide with Metrosexuals. While he's out training in the warehouse we're all sitting around, Simon included, thinking up nicknames. Seriously, it's like the Shark Tank scene from Austin Powers - one bad pun after another.

-Seriously, we've gotta use that somehow - but we have to be careful - we don't want to brow-beat him!
-Yeah, he might lash out at someone!
- Be careful - he'll f***ing wax your a**!

I bet Cat Sh*t/Chainsaw (see 9/2/04) is glad there's a new guy to pick on.

My last task is to find someone to maintain the list of Simonisms in my absence. Gotta have at least a little content on this rag of a website.

Turkey Report

Last Thanksgiving I cooked the turkey on the smoker and it was deee-leeecious. Tragically, it was too deee-leeecious: there were no leftovers. It was the source of national outrage. This year I did two smaller birds in an effort to avoid a similar crisis this year. Like last year, I brined the turkeys which not only adds flavor, it reduces cooking time: two birds, 13+ Lbs each: 3 hours exactly. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned on being done with the birds a hour and a half before dinner was scheduled. So I wrapped them in foil and placed them in a cooler with warm towels . They held nicely until we were ready to eat. Dinner was unremarkable for a Thanksgiving: lively conversation, top-notch food (including my Aunt's famous "Yam-Puff"), a little too much wine, and not enough room for dessert. The part that was remarkable is that my sister-in-law and I were on the same page left-over-wise. She had purchased a number of large tupperware containers and prepared a doggie bag for each couple with a bit of each dish, so everyone could go home happy. It turned out to be a particularly excellent idea when we didn't end up eating any of the second turkey. Instead, it was dissected and divvied up into the takeaway boxes. Everyone walked away with a veritable cornucopia in a box. It was fantastic; no one will be stuck throwing out left-overs next week and no one can complain about not getting any left-over stuffing. Marvelous!

Now I just have to keep unpacking the house in hopes of finding the large stock pot so I can make turkey and dumplings on Sunday.

Scorched Earth

We have a sales meeting every morning. It is used as a forum to discuss distressed inventory, goals, sales opportunities, etc.. Simon concludes every meeting with a bennediction of "Scorch the Earth!". A reference to how we approach our competitors.

Between increasing competetion and rising costs of doing business our margin is getting "compressed" - that's not good. So in the middle of a tirade about increasing margin Simon extorts: "The days of 'Scorch the Earth' and flame-throw anything that moves are gone!". We were all taken aback. To say the days of "Scorch the Earth" are gone is a major paradigm shift around here. Fortunatly, all was set right at the end of the meeting when Simon sent us off with a hearty "Ok, Scorch 'Em!"

He's all talk.

Odds & Ends

So I'm cleaning out my computer as I egress from the Fishhouse and I found a number of photos I've been looking to post. So here they are in no particular order:
A buddy of mine is a sales manager for Miller Beer in SF. He sent me this photo from the Super Bowl a couple years back. Bastard.
One of our drivers kept taking the key to one of my account home, making it very difficult for the next driver to deliver there. In restitution he built this attractive key rack to help remind all the drivers to put the keys back before going home.

This is a big-a** fish from the Sebastes family. I think it's commonly known as a "Shortraker" It's nearly as big as my main Philipino, O.J.



These are "The Amigos". We pay them to "make little pieces out of big pieces". Pedro, on the left, is the one who calls me "Macanudo"





Apparently, in Canada, Badgers are afforded equal rights including their own cross-walk right-of-ways.

I love The Donnas. They totally turn it up to eleven. I've got a secret crush on the guitarist.

It's been a while, but this still makes me feel good.

An Alarming Trend

One of the first things I noticed when I joined Team Dead-Fish-In-A-Box was that every man in the sales office over the age of 40 had been divorced at least once. Two or three were on their third marriage. I couldn't help but wonder if the work had anything to do with the demise of these relationships. After a while I forgot about it. About two years ago a new rep was brought onboard who was in his early 40's and still married. This fellow had been in the business since the early 80's; I thought maybe it isn't the industry, perhaps it was by chance all these men had failed in marriage. Unfortunately, on Tuesday we found out that the trend was continuing: his wife is leaving him. It's an awful thing to see happen to someone I really care about; I can't imagine the pain one goes through when a spouse of 14 years just splits.

I don't honestly think that if I were to work at the fishhouse for another 10 years Mrs. Fishpimp would leave me. On the other hand I'd rather not give it a chance to come to "fruitation" as Simon says. It turns out that the timing of the whole thing - the continuation of this trend - really helped solidify a recent decision I made:

An few minutes after hearing this awful news I gave my two weeks notice.

Part of me feels like I'm deserting a friend when he needs all the support he can get. But in the grand scheme of things, I'm glad to be moving on. It's time. So come December I'll be pimping uniform sales and rentals; but there will always be a little part of me that stays there. No matter what I do or where I go, I'll always have a little fishpimp in me.

I just hope it's not the part that smells like dead fish!

Storm Warning

The company had its leadership retreat this weekend. Simon came back all fired up. There must have been a theme for the event because we had three additions to the list that had hurricane references

· I don’t give a f*ck if there’s a Hurricane Katrina, the vendor gave us a commitment!
· There’s a farm king (salmon) Katrina storm like you’ve never seen!
· Right, wrong, or indifferent, you don’t want to get in the middle of this hurricane!

The list of Simonisms is nearing 25 pages – I really ought to write a book.

Life is pretty exciting at the Fishpimp's right now. We're closing on our new house on Tuesday. We're moving on Saturday. We're renting out our current place and the new tenants move in on Sunday. We've got a lot to get done this week - changing addresses with everybody, setting up new accounts, packing, cleaning, etc. And Mrs. Fishpimp just left for a week in London! So it's all on my shoulders! Damn! Her boss sent her off to this convention - it's supposed to be the largest travel trade show in the world, but the timing is absolute crap. I'd let him off the hook if he was going to help us move (our new place is less than a mile from his house), but he's off surfing in Honduras! Outrageous! Actually, he's a great guy, but this is America where we blame others for our problems.

In continuing the tradition of buying stuff for myself when Mrs. Fishpimp leaves the country I went out and picked up a new video card for the computer. My lovely bride got me a copy of Civilization IV for my birthday last week and it called for a hardware upgrade. Not that I'll have much time to play this week.

On a separate note, last week I went out for a drink with an old friend from my days in Skagway. I had a couple sub-par Old Fashions, then tried the house Cosmo-derivation with Grand Marnier - tasted just how an Old Fashioned should taste without the soda. So I've been looking for a similar recipe on the internet - I found some interesting looking drinks, including one that Luke would just die for.

Press Button, Receive Bacon

I thought about submitting this to the Jeff Schell Caption Contest, but there's really only one caption.

Tightfisted?

Tell me, does this this seem a little over the top? Revoking someone's credit over a nickle? Seriously.

Finding Nemo

We haven't found Nemo yet. But we found Dory. John Dory to be specefic.

What's Up With That?

Lots of my friends are having kids these days. When we get together occasionally the conversation turns to baby names. I am personally not fond of unique names; they're fine for my friends, but I would never name my kid Mortecai or Ryleigh. I certainly wouldn't name my son after a city. My buddy, Punkin, expecting a son this spring. He wants a name to honor the family's Irish heritage. That's cool, but "Dublin" is not what I would have selected. Again, it's up to him, and I won't lose any respect for him if that's the name Mini-Punky ends up with.

My real question is why are all the cities people name their kids after in Texas? Seriously: Dallas, Houston, Austin, El Paso, etc. What's up with that?