Day CCLXXXVII

Monday's Spread

     Sidney always had a spread of bagels, doughnuts, scones, pound cake, tea, OJ, coffee, and bottled water for our Monday morning sales meetings. It’s one of the things I remember about working there. Every Monday he tried to lift up our spirits, our morale, before sending us out into the field. He always had a joke, an amusing anecdote, anything to make his point about being positive, and not letting negativity cloud our thoughts. There is a lot of negativity in sales, because peoples first reaction to a salesman, is always to most emphatically say

     “No!”

      Nobody wants to spend money, people need to be shown that they need what we’re selling. So, our attitude has to be positive. Have you ever seen a sullen, and successful customer service rep? Attitude is contagious, so you won’t run into them. If you have seen them, they aren’t doing very well. Comedians know this. I guess it’s like seeing a sad clown, he’s not going to make you laugh is he? When Sid saw how morose Henry was, he became like a dog on a bone, (Henry being the bone), until he opened up.

     “Look Hank, ya can’t go out da like dat. If you can’t lighten up, you might as well go home, man.”

     Henry lit up another butt with the one he had on his lips, and looked at Sid, but before he could say anything Sid responded:

     “First of all you need to put that butt out, man…you’re stinking up the place.”

     Sid opened a window, and started waving a newspaper around to clear the smoke out. As he did that, Henry left the room for a moment, came back with out the smoke, and his head hanging low, looking at the floor. He tried to smile but he just couldn’t, he looked like he had a tear in his eye struggling to fall.

     “Oh sheeet Hank you just can’t go out looking like that, man.”

     “Ina det boss, it’s just dat…well I figured maybe after one of ya jokes, an I would, maybe feel bettah, ya na.”