“Sumthin’ scwewy goin’ on around here” E.Fudd
If you travel and meet enough people, as I did in my sales career, then funny things happen along the way. This is one of the funniest. And it’s true… for the most part.
My day started early with a bakery stop before boarding a Chicago bound flight for our annual sales meeting of the screw company I represented. It was expected of me to bring a couple dozen New York bagels for the office personnel. Today was no different, with one notable exception, I included onion bagels this time.
The passenger seated behind me was a businessman, too, judging by his tailored green suit and gold ‘power tie’. I observed him carefully folding the jacket and stowing it in the overhead bin. He was meticulous, and it was apparent that he cared about his appearance.
Me, I was in casual attire, sufficient for listening to speeches, looking at graphs and charts, playing golf and collecting a trophy for a successful year, actually a ‘second place’ successful year … again.
“Maybe I should wear power ties”, I thought, as I nonchalantly tossed my bag of bagels into the overhead bin where it slid to a stop against the businessman’s suit coat. Settling into my aisle seat for the routine flight to the ‘Windy City’, I nodded off by the time we reached Lake Erie.
Then, somewhere over that Great Lake it hit me, the strong and overpowering aroma of bagels, especially onions. I quickly realized, this would not be a good day for that business coat, or anything else in the overhead.
If confronted, I would offer to pay for a quick cleaning. However, I wasn’t. So, upon landing, I quickly grabbed the evidence, bee lined off the plane and never looked back, disappearing into the sea of faces that is O’Hare airport. Anyway, we wouldn’t see each other again…..or, so I thought.
What were the odds that he and I would sit beside each other on the return trip? I recognized him by his ‘green onion suit’.
Imagine my amazement when he enthusiastically told me that he was just hired as a sales manager for a major baking company in Chicago. And the interview clincher? Apparently, management was so impressed that he smelled like a product line he would represent, they hired him on-the-spot.
With a bit of bravado, he remarked, ‘You know, a salesman has to do what he has to do to make the sale’. But, hey, I knew that, I had another second place trophy in the overhead to prove it.
As they say in NY, what ‘chutzpah’!
People are fun, and a sales career provides the opportunity to meet lots of them and have lots of it. Surely, you agree.
Steve Bottcher
Srbottch.com.com
For hard-working Joe and his Bagel Land employees of Brighton, NY, where you get the best bagels in town
And for my fellow salesperson, Mike M, who doesn’t have a ‘green onion suit’, but does has the first place trophy…and ‘power ties’
S'amusing 