Song of the day: “The Banana boat song” by Harry Belafonte, last night (yes, it was a working day for me) and this morning, “Hit the road Jack” by James Brown.
Okay, let’s just get straight to the issue of the day, because, let’s face it, as doozies go, my first official “thing” as a sales rep, it went wonderfully wrong. I mean it, if I was even remotely inclined to take this thing absolutely personal, I would quit right this instant and give up on Sales repping. Hah.
Let me explain what happened, because I am really not making a lot of sense, am I?
So, this week I lined up three potential clients, and when I finally got the list of prices, I naturally proceeded to send them out to those who had requested them. Oh dear, I bet you’re seeing this one coming…if not, well, no matter, I’m going to tell it anyway, hah.
The prices were the wrong ones, of course. Yes, wonderful first experience into the Sales bit, isn’t it? But the way I figure, having to set this right, and going back to those stores that have the wrong prices, will be good practice. I mean really, if the first possible client get either won or lost by this debacle, not much more disastrous can happen in the future, can it?
I have decided against taking it personally. This was human error after all, and stuff is bound to go wrong at some point anyway. Might as well have it on the first run. It’ll teach me getting a thick skin, won’t it. It was, in hindsight, funny to see John Doe flinch a bit when he saw the list. It’s bad of me, I know, but seriously, I know didly squat about advertising prices, so if they send me a list that is almost half the real price, I won’t question it. My only thought about the matter was that the pricing wasn’t as bad as I feared. Hah.
But anyway, I went over to the possibly lost client this morning to bring him the bad news. He wasn’t actually there, but his assistant was and she fully understood what had happened. Let’s hope she can explain it to him proper, because what I understood yesterday, he’s a mite particular, and doesn’t like to be foiled. Ah well, we’ll see how it goes, I guess. I for one am most curious to see where all this leads, in particular since I have an appointment with a rather large club along the coast. Yes, I am focussing on the positive, rather than the negative, such as needing to go past the stores that have the wrong lists, aaaargh.
I am totally throwing this recount out of sync, which is bad because that means I’ll blank even more. Okay, let me start over.
Saturday evening, the day that came after the last blog, yeah. Well, there was yard stuff, of course, seeing as we’re turning earth for winter veggies. Wonderful occupation, by the way, turning earth. It lubricates the joints and muscles and when I set out for my exercises in the evening (kick boxing, yay!) it went splendidly. Did a solid forty minutes of pounding the bag, and felt great afterwards. I did find out that I could not take my doctor’s advise and work out with the insoles, ‘cause I had to throw the shoes off after the fourth kick, because it was killing me. Once I was on my bare feet again the problem was solved…
Sorry, I had to pet Tadaika for a bit, the darling was curling in front of me like a pretzel and needed a good rubbing, hah. Where was I…
Oh yeah, work out. Wonderful. Slept like a baby, and woke up like an old woman. Seriously, I was sore all over, but it was okay. I kind of like that after a work out, since that means I used those muscles well. Hah.
Sunday was spent doing more in the yard, turning more earth, taking out young eucalypti that sprung forth from the ground this summer: I put eight of them in pots, as well as three mimosas.
Stuff we sowed was winter spinach, carrots and onions. I am definitely in the mood to head out again, so let’s hurry this up.
Prior to the route yesterday I headed out into the village to speak with the potential client (this was before I knew about the wrong pricing, mind you), and had an hour-long conversation with him. Though particular and a little, hmmm, I don’t know, boisterous? he was nice enough to basically give me a nice basis of drop points further land inward. Considering that would be my next route at some time in the future, having a basis to work from would be wonderful.
Let’s see if the guy will agree to the correction John Doe offered for the mistake made. If not, well, I guess I’ll have to start over and find another client. I could wallow in it for a bit, maybe even regret it, but then, that is not going to help me or, John Doe, so I’m letting it go and will double check in the future. Hah.
The route itself went well. Got it all done within the usual time limit, dropping everything off, talking with the Punjabi restaurant. He tentatively asked me about the stand, and whether I had one for him, and we laughed together while I went back to the car. Seriously, I always feared that some of the characters I create for my book are unrealistic in their behavior, but can rest assured that this is not the case. Even Paddy, and old jolly musician in one of my books, does not compare with reality.
Oh, John Doe did remember to bring the stands for the two big stores, by the way…did I mention the hassle with the big store that suddenly changed its mind about taking the papers and then me spending the past three weeks trying to get it all back in the store. Managed it last week, so we put a stand in there yesterday. It looked rather nice right there in the entrance of the store, if I do say so.
The other one ended up in the big supermarket, so I will see next week if I made the right choice with that one. Considering foreigners mostly frequent it, I would think that it will do well, but you just never know.
There were the chats, the smiles…oh, lots of cute guys this week, for some peculiar reason, by the way…I don’t know whether I first noticed it this week, or if the cute ones decided to come out of the woodworks, but I can assure you my eyes feasted this week. Hah. I saw a Sawyer (Lost) look alike…well, from his early Lost days anyway. Hah.
Along with smiles there was the talk, the networking and leaving my card at several more locations throughout the route. You do realize that soon I’ll be known as the paper girl who dabbles in sales, don’t you. Hah.
What else? Well, I was daring and told John Doe that if ever looks for a columnist or some such, I would gladly try it out. To which he promptly answered that if I have something interesting I am free to send it to the editorial department. Who knows, I just might…just as soon as this idea in my head takes shape. Hehehe.
The dogs were petulant for a change, not liking our absence at all, but also slowly starting to resign in the matter, poor darlings. Mosha and Chaos insisted on lying on top of me during the night.
Well, the last of the route was done this morning (together with the correction) and it was noon when we finally got home. There was a slight detour on the way home, by the way, seeing as grandpa has been hearing a rather ferocious growling during his walks these past few weeks. So big brother and I went to check it out and ascertained that on the spot in question, some sort of animal has been rutting around. There might be wild boar looking for roots and such over there, so we’re gonna wait until it rains and see if we can find tracks, or something.
Time for me to wrap this up. I am going to do m some gardening, yay.
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