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Aug. 25th, 2012 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kingtycoonWhat happened was this -
basically immediately after the Best Day I had to go to work. This last week was a big company event, the annual sales meeting where all the salesmen come to town from their far off outposts for product training and team building and to generally be reminded that they are part of the team and not alone though they may be loners. In that respect I think the whole affair was a great success - as we spent a silly amount of time together accomplishing strange things that wouldn't ordinarily be accomplished.
I've been a salesman and the thing I liked about it best - if I think back to those times - was the convivial company of other salesmen. It's not that I was especially good at it, not terrible, but not the greatest. I was talking to the Great Woody Key, who once taught me everything, and he said - "you're really good to be around, you're cool, you're good looking, you're a good guy - so why don't you like it? Everyone likes you right?" Which is true, but also, I'm secretly very, very solitary. I made a terrible mistake at some point in life and learned how to do everything you might do by myself. So now I'm barely in need of company because I can be alone, really well, and have come to crave that. So I can throw charm and conviviality with the best of them, but I need an equivalent time alone to processa and recover. I'm working on it, but still. Immediately after the Best Day I was at work and we did these things: All the computers were wrangled, new computers dispensed, a wall, an actual concrete wall was built, with effort - roads were sealed and patched and paved. We trained on the products. Then there were dinners - and my favorite part of it was when the Matriarch of the company, who had hosted us at her house for steak dinners called to me and said "I want you to meet someone, my favorite person here!" It was her accountant - "Come meet Nick Fanus." So I step over and I'm like. "Of course it's Nicholas Fanous. Of course it is." And we hugged - because Nicholas Fanous is my 'cousin' in that his father is my Uncle Mike - who came over on the plane with my father, who opened their first arab-style convenience store together. It was fine seeing him again, a good person of my longstanding acquaintance.
Then I stayed at the hotel, because I don't drive and the beneficence of the Company is such that though I am new, I am valued, and though my role is limited, what I offer is respected - and so I am deemed needed and put up at the hotel in the distant suburb so that I can participate.
Participating meant carousing, aggressivley with hilarious salesmen, all in from out of town. I presented to them, persuaded others to the cause, did what I could to pitch our project of data management. Made a good impression (one hopes) and failed to win at the pool tournament.
All long days, late nights, conversation. Earnest, somewhat personal discussions with my serious, calm, excellent boss. He's a good cat, my boss. We talked and all the executives wives came out of the hotel to bum cigarettes from me "don't tell" they say, and smoke some more. It's legitimately one of the better times I've had at work - nearly reminiscent of my journeys to the North Carolina beach - something vacation-like about the whole thing, something demanding about the efforts required. I come home tired, at the end but can't sleep, stunned and feeling poory, I sit out on the big, broad porch and listen to the kids above have a party and the kids below have a party and watch everyone walk by for the party down the block. Two weeks in my new home and feeling good about it and being here.
basically immediately after the Best Day I had to go to work. This last week was a big company event, the annual sales meeting where all the salesmen come to town from their far off outposts for product training and team building and to generally be reminded that they are part of the team and not alone though they may be loners. In that respect I think the whole affair was a great success - as we spent a silly amount of time together accomplishing strange things that wouldn't ordinarily be accomplished.
I've been a salesman and the thing I liked about it best - if I think back to those times - was the convivial company of other salesmen. It's not that I was especially good at it, not terrible, but not the greatest. I was talking to the Great Woody Key, who once taught me everything, and he said - "you're really good to be around, you're cool, you're good looking, you're a good guy - so why don't you like it? Everyone likes you right?" Which is true, but also, I'm secretly very, very solitary. I made a terrible mistake at some point in life and learned how to do everything you might do by myself. So now I'm barely in need of company because I can be alone, really well, and have come to crave that. So I can throw charm and conviviality with the best of them, but I need an equivalent time alone to processa and recover. I'm working on it, but still. Immediately after the Best Day I was at work and we did these things: All the computers were wrangled, new computers dispensed, a wall, an actual concrete wall was built, with effort - roads were sealed and patched and paved. We trained on the products. Then there were dinners - and my favorite part of it was when the Matriarch of the company, who had hosted us at her house for steak dinners called to me and said "I want you to meet someone, my favorite person here!" It was her accountant - "Come meet Nick Fanus." So I step over and I'm like. "Of course it's Nicholas Fanous. Of course it is." And we hugged - because Nicholas Fanous is my 'cousin' in that his father is my Uncle Mike - who came over on the plane with my father, who opened their first arab-style convenience store together. It was fine seeing him again, a good person of my longstanding acquaintance.
Then I stayed at the hotel, because I don't drive and the beneficence of the Company is such that though I am new, I am valued, and though my role is limited, what I offer is respected - and so I am deemed needed and put up at the hotel in the distant suburb so that I can participate.
Participating meant carousing, aggressivley with hilarious salesmen, all in from out of town. I presented to them, persuaded others to the cause, did what I could to pitch our project of data management. Made a good impression (one hopes) and failed to win at the pool tournament.
All long days, late nights, conversation. Earnest, somewhat personal discussions with my serious, calm, excellent boss. He's a good cat, my boss. We talked and all the executives wives came out of the hotel to bum cigarettes from me "don't tell" they say, and smoke some more. It's legitimately one of the better times I've had at work - nearly reminiscent of my journeys to the North Carolina beach - something vacation-like about the whole thing, something demanding about the efforts required. I come home tired, at the end but can't sleep, stunned and feeling poory, I sit out on the big, broad porch and listen to the kids above have a party and the kids below have a party and watch everyone walk by for the party down the block. Two weeks in my new home and feeling good about it and being here.
