I'm Bad, I'm Coastwide

That's a play on a ZZ Top song in case you didn't pick up on it. Earlier this month I accepted a promotion to Business Development Executive for the healthcare market. My territory has expanded from downtown Seattle to all of Washington, Oregon, and the Bay Area. Needless to say, I'll be spending a little more time in airports in the future. I'm staged at Oakland International right now enjoying a sub-par Manhattan at Chili's Too.

I met the Bay Area service team today - they're legend in our company; best of the best. I came down for the "District Operation reviw" or "D.O.R." - where the front line service managers report on their most recent quarter's activities and events. Afterward all the senior managers get together and compare notes on how the various presenters did; it was just like Rush week back in the fraternity with all the cussing, sarcasm, and crude humor. The big exception here is that instead of guys not receiving bids they're getting fired.

Meh, they've probably got it coming, but it's amazing how glib we are about it all. Well, that's business. It makes me glad I'm in sales; I'm the only one I have to answer for. I was very close to being promoted to sales manager last year, and in retrospect, I'm really glad I didn't get the job - I'd have hated it. I mean, I like helping people and all, but I probably would have been too harsh (salespeople are tend to be pretty thin-skinned), and had too quick a trigger finger letting people go. In this role I still get to be a mentor to newer salespeople (which is important to me, and deserves its own post), but I have no actual responsibility for their performance. As a mentor of mine here in the laundry business says "It's all good!" - he is so right.

Time to down this last Manhattan and get on the flight home.