Does anyone remember that scene in Titanic... where the ship takes, like, FOREVER to tip up on it's side... but once it does... the whole thing goes WHOOSH! under in, like, four seconds....

Anyone? Anyone?

I'm part of a trend. One of my best friends, Schroeder (also one of Al's ushers), left the company a few weeks ago. I think it was one of the things that finally helped to push me out. He wasn't one of the managers, but he'd been there for three years, and was one of the things keeping me sane.

Well, when I told him I was leaving he said, "What kind of trend have I started?"

Ah-ha. See, the morning I quit one of the other managers confided in me that he was also leaving. THIS guy's been working with Darren for TWELVE YEARS. A mean little piece of me would LOVE to be in the room when he breaks the news.

Then last night our top trainer (there were only three left) quit.

And then there were two.

Where's James Cameron when you need him?

Happy Birthday to GClef!!!.

Things at the top of my "I Love" list:

Pink's new album.
Rain
Making a phone call in the middle of the day
My apartment at 6:00 p.m.
The Simpson's at 7:00
Meeting someone and NOT pitching them
Shutting off cell phone commercials on the radio
Job hunting out of state
Possibilty
Having my sense of purpose back
My husband.


Not necessarily in that order.

"Well I've been afraid of changes cause I,
I built my life around you.
But time makes you bolder, children get older,
I'm getting older too."

sigh

I had to do that last to "push through" Friday's post. I feel a great disturbance in the blog... as though a great many catholics brayed out (laughter) and then were silenced...

By Blog, My Blooooo-oooog... why have you abandoned me?

So it would seem that Blogger will only allow me once a month access to my blog. I posted a while back to offer my condolences to Metrocake, and UIM for their losses, but Blogger had ideas of it’s own.

Suffice it to say my prayers have been with you all.

Things have been odd here. I feel so good I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve come to a really major decision recently. A decision so large (for ME, at least) that I can’t help but feel a bit of unreality; as though I will blink my eyes a few times and realize that I was only imagining the last few days. I want to talk about it, but bear with me… only those of you who really know me well will understand the magnitude of what I’ve done.

I quit my job.

Just like that. I walked in on Monday morning and told my partner that I’d had enough, I was mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.

Wacky, huh?

See, my company does Direct Sales (business to business), and four and a half years ago I walked in to a not-quite-multi-level-marketing-type atmosphere (it’s too much to explain, we’ll just leave it at: it’s a legitimate company, and there is no financial input or personal recruiting involved for the individual) that made me feel inspired and proud. I saw the criteria for a management position, which was to successfully train seven people to do the B-to-B sales, and make them have the ability to teach it to others.

This is no small task.

However… not only did I accomplish this task, but I did it in record time, making me the fastest woman into a management position ever, and the only woman manager at the time. It took me eleven months to get promoted.

Hang tight, I’m almost done.

I remained in the “field” on and off for five months after my promotion, until a test market forced the VP to pull one of the other managers out of running the office in Hauppauge, L.I. I suddenly found myself the sole charge of 15 sales people. In the space of a month I doubled the number of people in the office, and doubled the per person sales average. I was very good at what I was doing.

And every other day the VP called my office to point out how I had done things wrong. How I was fucking up my office, how I was not properly training any of them to get promoted.

After seven months of this I was on the verge of quitting. The crap of it is, despite the fact that the numbers spoke differently, I believed him every time. I came to him to quit then, in December of 2000, exactly two years after the day I started. When I sat down to do this he apologized for how he’d been treating me even before I could say a word. So I stayed on.

Three months later our client, AT&T, pulled their contract. We took on a whole new client, the commissions were cut in half, and everyone had to relearn everything.
I didn’t lose a single person in the field.

It only took us a month to realize that this wasn’t working, and we moved on to cellular communications. We also cut ties with the parent company, making ourselves, in essence, a start-up.

I’ve sweat blood for this place. Foregone overrides, worked in the field for another year and a half, and, at many time, went without salary and worked on commission sales. This is where I am now. Through all of this the VP turned owner has become increasingly tense in his obsessive need to get this albatross off the ground. Nothing is ever done right or good enough. His intentions are good, but sullied, and he’s been more and more abusive to the managers and trainers in the company. One by one people are leaving, pushed out by his bi-polar, volatile, and hypocritical behavior. I really, really, really wanted to be a part of the success of this company. However, about a month ago, I had an off day in the field, and was treated to an hour of, “Why do I waste my time with you, you’re the laziest person I’ve ever met?”

It took me the next month to allow myself to come to the conclusion that I no longer love what I’m doing. Hell, I don’t even LIKE it. I used to be the most passionate person in the world about this company, but now I don’t even want to go in in the morning. I’ve put in my two weeks notice, and I now have my ear to the ground for new and exciting opportunities for a dynamic, mostly fearless saleswoman.

Anyone? Anyone?