some new sales tricks. And let's face it, I'm only a cuntsultant, what do I know about sales, so maybe they could.
Max is on the same course and I know he's looking forward to the event as much as I am...which is about fuckall. We have lives outside the company and this course is an(other) inconvenience in our lives.
I'm actually on the "standby list", which means that if some of the "real" salespeople can't/won't/don't want to make it, I'll get an email that says I'm a valued part of the sales force and the course will reinforce old principles. Aye, awright then...
So I get the email and confirm my place and, purely by chance, although one of our shared managers probably had something to do with it, Max and I end up sharing a bungalow. Excellent...someone I know and trust that will flush the loo after he leaves a big chonky in the pan.
I arrive at
Lesedi Cultural Village (click on the links on the right of the linked page for more views - we had one of the "Xhosa" guestrooms) at about 2h30pm, a half hour later than we're supposed to be there, true to IBM form and fashionably late. We were told to be there by that time so that they could get the sales reviews out of the way at the lodge rather than doing them back at the office which is the norm for a Monday afternoon.
I get seated and end up listening to a pitch by our Business Controls people who are basically the internal policemen of the company. In other words, they assist management in making our lives difficult. By about 4pm the talk is over, or at least it ends due to mass boredom by the attendees (only about 12 of us, instead of the 24 that were expected). We have a coffee and settle back in for the reviews. I have no input to any of them, so again I'm wasting my time. Max arrives a little later so we end up chatting about how much of our time is being wasted and by about 5h30pm they're ready for our business unit reviews. The lodge staff are ready to throw us out by then as they want to set up for the following day, so we rush through the opportunities and head off for our "guestrooms" to freshen up.
The "guide" who takes us there must have taken the long way round, cos Max and I cut the time in half when we come back down to the bar. Mind you, it was downhill to the bar, so that might be another reason it was shorter. Anyway, we get to the guestroom and discover it's a quaint little rondavel decorated in the traditional sense as you will see by the
links on the website, as above. We drop off our unnecessary stuff and head back with camera and jackets, as there's bound to be some photo opportunities and it's still winter here. We order a beer and I discover that I only have R30 on me, which, as we find out is not even enough to buy two Millers Drafts which turn out to be R17.50 apiece. Fuckin' ripoff, and Max starts throwing his toys out the proverbial cot. So would I have if I'd had to pay for it, but he has all the money and graciously not only pays for the beers but loans me a hundred bucks too (which I've only just remembered to go and give back to him...thanks, Max). Once we pick ourselves up off the floor after finding out the price and paying, we hear that our management has opened a tab at the bar. The barman tells us that he'll try and get Max's money back, but to no avail. His manageress tells us it's paid for already and can't be reversed. More likely, it got reversed and ended up in their pockets.
We have a couple of beers and stand around the log fire, keeping warm, having a laugh with some new and old acquaintances. Dinner is plain old 3-star hotel kind of fare, nothing great, but set in a Turkish-styled room (in an African cultural village, go figure) complete with hookahs on the tables that, although stoked, remained unsmoked for the night. What made the evening memorable though was the copious amounts of alcohol drunk by the majority of attendees. Max, on the other hand, only had two beers and two dozen cokes due to an old war wound (he can elaborate). By the time we toddled off to bed it was (I think) somewhere after midnight. Needless to say, after the grub and drink, we're ready to blow off some steam...literally. I go for a pee and Max drops a fart, second in impact only to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs. Fuckin' hell...imagine a green cloud, sort of like mist, that you walk into like hitting a brick wall at pace and that's what it was like walking back into the room. Not to be outdone, I reciprocate, and drop one of my own...score: one all.
We finish up on the ablutions and climb into our respective single beds (just thought I'd make that clear) and crash for the night, tired but content. Not that I slept much that first night, despite the booze. I can tell you that the first airplane left Lanseria Airport (about 20km away) at 05h45am, the traffic from commuters to Joburg started at around 05h00, and the first cockrel started crowing at about 02h00. It's quieter in the middle of Joburg, for fuck sakes. Anyway, the alarm goes off (as if I needed it) at around 06h25 (Max's) and 06h30 (mine) and we laze about a bit, not wanting to brave the cold floor and preferring to stay under warm blankets. Eventually I decide to get up and showered, only to discover there's no hot water in the taps and worse, there's no fuckin' water at all! So it was time for a canned shower, a quick brush of the teeth and off for breakfast. Max looked resplendent in his cap, worried that he would look like he was having a bad hair day. Me, I don't have much hair to write home about, so I didn't care less what it looked like. Turns out there was a broken reservoir on the water system which caused the shortage. Due to water pressure problems, the lodge fills large plastic tanks situated higher than the camp so that gravity pulls the water down to the rooms and so gives pressure to the taps. No rocket science there, but a simple, cheap solution to a problem.
Breakfast is the usual buffet, helping yourself to toast, eggs, bacon, sausages, french toast, beans, and so on. The coffee is great so there's a couple of gallons drunk between us. And so, on to the first day of the course. Most of the other attendees have either arrived during the night or early that morning and we now number the expected 24 people.
Yaawwwnnnnnn.....A quick lecture and introduction as to how the course will run and there's a short break for another coffee. The course is to be run by making a series of "calls" on hypothetical clients and colleagues, the roles played by a number of managers within various business units. Some do a great job, others who shall remain nameless, don't do as well and make it quite clear that they'll make it difficult for their callers.
Lunch is no different to the day before, again typical 3-star fare, meats and salads, though set in a "shebeen" (as Max says, "look it up" - oh, okay, it's an informal and often illegal pub) sort of surrounding. We end the day's work off by preparing for the following day's "calls" and head off to the log fire after dropping our laptops in the rooms. Max has a shower and professes to be "clean again" but I decide to leave it until before I go to bed. Fuckit, they've put up with my stink for the day, they can endure a few more hours of it. Anyway, we're having a "bush braai" for dinner, so there's going to be a bonfire in the middle of the "boma" (look it up) and typically everyone will smell of fire smoke so I'm not going to bother showering just yet.
Dinner is tasty enough, like having a braai in the middle of the bush, a bit chilly due to the wind but warm enough around the roaring bonfire. Plenty of drinks flow again and, as per the previous night, the evening ends with a few Scotches (Johnnie Walker Black Label to be exact). Just before Max and I head for bed, Angie (our guest facilitator from England) asks me how long I've been in the country as I still have my accent and, like
Jenny May a while back, asks why I stay here. I tell her to come with me and I take her out of the boma into the dark (don't go there...that wasn't the reason). I then tell her to wait a couple of seconds and then look up. Splashed over the sky above us was a million stars and the Milky Way and I tell her there's one of the reasons. The sky, out of the effect Joburg's lights, is second only to the night sky in Mozambique (ask Ross)...brilliant. Angie says the only other time she saw a sky like that was in New Zealand. I don't know much about that, so I'll take her word for it.
Max and I head for bed and I have one of the best showers I'd had in a long time. Hot, and with plenty of pressure in the water, they must have sorted out their reservoir problem. Talking of which, the management of the lodge had decided that, to reduce our "discomfort" a little they would be sponsoring R1,500 worth of booze bill that night...good of them, that was. Mind you, at their prices, it probably didn't go far. I was trying to think what we could do to ensure they gave us double that for the following night, but sanity (or was that sanitation) prevailed and I let it go. That night was Max's turn to toss and turn, but I slept like a log waking just before the alarm went off.
Up again early for breakfast, same as the previous morning's, and back into the course. Lunch was set under some trees in the compound, meats and salads the same as the day before. Talk about lack of imagination...
PHOTO752 At about 6pm we get herded together to go and watch a "Zulu dance". Typical IBMers, we arrive late and miss the start, but it goes on for about another half hour, three drummers giving the leather hell, female dancers doing the jiggly bit, male dancers doing the war dance stuff. Very impressive, even if you have been here 37 years. In the room was also a crowd of kids on tour from Scotland and they loved it.
The whole thing ended with the dancers calling everybody into the middle of the room with them and all dancing together. Me, I'm not much of a dancer to begin with (even after a few drinks) so I sat and watched, and took some photos.
From there, it was back to the log fire where we had a tasting of traditional "Mahewu", a beer drunk by the blacks and generally thought to be made of anything from maize, to tree bark, dregs from old beer and wine, as well as the occasional dose of battery acid. I thought it was like tasting the dregs of a wine barrel that had been left formenting for about 20 years, pleasant but with a nasty aftertaste.
And so it was on to dinner, the usual 3-star stuff, but this time served in the same area as we had had breakfast until now. I sat down, looking at a plate of food in front of me, ready to dive into it right up until after the first mouthful when I suddenly felt very "naar" (nauseous). I waited a couple of seconds to see if it would go away, but it got worse and I ended up leaving and sitting my arse on the toilet for ten or so minutes, unsure which end my lunch was going to come out of. In the end, nothing happened and I went back to the table, but I couldn't face the meal and even the sight of it made me queasy. I explained to the waitress that it had nothing to do with the food, that it was me that was the problem.
We had more course work to do that evening and at about 10pm we decided to call it a night. This time though, it wasn't just a short walk to bed. Due to a booking problem (read incompetence by a secretary) we were to spend our last night in a different venue, about 600m away on the main road running past the village. A short drive away, barely enough time for the engine to warm up and we were in our new digs for the night. This time, Max had his own room and just as well as the rooms had double beds and I didn't want to be the one to tell Princess that I'd slept with her hubbie. The new place was in the process of being renovated and the smell of paint hung fresh as hemorrhoids, smelly and pervasive. The sheets on the bed looked like they'd been bought in a garage sale and had little baubles of cotton all over them. The entire place smelled of raw sewage, which didn't endear it any more, but luckily there was the smell of paint to keep that at bay.
After a good night's sleep, considering the new bed and bedding, and a shower we were back at Lesedi for breakfast just after 7am. This time I managed to keep a full plate down, though I didn't feel any less nauseous than the previous night.
We started the last of the "calls" at 7h45am and I begged off the course after the last one, so I don't know what the eventual outcome was, though Max should have something on his blog.
A quick visit to the chemist later and I found out that it was probably a mild form of food poisoning that I had (remember the Mahewu?) coupled with slight dehydration (remember the Johnnie Walker?) so I got some stuff and went home for a couple of hours sleep and recuperation (remember the late nights?). I woke up feeling a bit better, but a little drained.
Friday morning, back into the office and the usual drudgery.
So...did I learn anything on the course? Let's put it this way, His Royal Black Highness (read manager) phoned me yesterday to discuss an opportunity I've been working on and he asked me if I'd discovered the "client's compelling reason to act" and "key pain points" and "key decision advisors", to which I almost told him to fuckrightoff cos he'd obviously just heard the terms for the first time too, so I guess I did learn something. I also learned that the selling method and tools they use are just more "compelling reasons" to never go into sales in this company...
We have a couple of beers and stand around the log fire, keeping warm, having a laugh with some new and old acquaintances. Dinner is plain old 3-star hotel kind of fare, nothing great, but set in a Turkish-styled room (in an African cultural village, go figure) complete with hookahs on the tables that, although stoked, remained unsmoked for the night. What made the evening memorable though was the copious amounts of alcohol drunk by the majority of attendees. Max, on the other hand, only had two beers and two dozen cokes due to an old war wound (he can elaborate). By the time we toddled off to bed it was (I think) somewhere after midnight. Needless to say, after the grub and drink, we're ready to blow off some steam...literally. I go for a pee and Max drops a fart, second in impact only to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs. Fuckin' hell...imagine a green cloud, sort of like mist, that you walk into like hitting a brick wall at pace and that's what it was like walking back into the room. Not to be outdone, I reciprocate, and drop one of my own...score: one all.
We finish up on the ablutions and climb into our respective single beds (just thought I'd make that clear) and crash for the night, tired but content. Not that I slept much that first night, despite the booze. I can tell you that the first airplane left Lanseria Airport (about 20km away) at 05h45am, the traffic from commuters to Joburg started at around 05h00, and the first cockrel started crowing at about 02h00. It's quieter in the middle of Joburg, for fuck sakes. Anyway, the alarm goes off (as if I needed it) at around 06h25 (Max's) and 06h30 (mine) and we laze about a bit, not wanting to brave the cold floor and preferring to stay under warm blankets. Eventually I decide to get up and showered, only to discover there's no hot water in the taps and worse, there's no fuckin' water at all! So it was time for a canned shower, a quick brush of the teeth and off for breakfast. Max looked resplendent in his cap, worried that he would look like he was having a bad hair day. Me, I don't have much hair to write home about, so I didn't care less what it looked like. Turns out there was a broken reservoir on the water system which caused the shortage. Due to water pressure problems, the lodge fills large plastic tanks situated higher than the camp so that gravity pulls the water down to the rooms and so gives pressure to the taps. No rocket science there, but a simple, cheap solution to a problem.
Breakfast is the usual buffet, helping yourself to toast, eggs, bacon, sausages, french toast, beans, and so on. The coffee is great so there's a couple of gallons drunk between us. And so, on to the first day of the course. Most of the other attendees have either arrived during the night or early that morning and we now number the expected 24 people.
Yaawwwnnnnnn.....A quick lecture and introduction as to how the course will run and there's a short break for another coffee. The course is to be run by making a series of "calls" on hypothetical clients and colleagues, the roles played by a number of managers within various business units. Some do a great job, others who shall remain nameless, don't do as well and make it quite clear that they'll make it difficult for their callers.
Lunch is no different to the day before, again typical 3-star fare, meats and salads, though set in a "shebeen" (as Max says, "look it up" - oh, okay, it's an informal and often illegal pub) sort of surrounding. We end the day's work off by preparing for the following day's "calls" and head off to the log fire after dropping our laptops in the rooms. Max has a shower and professes to be "clean again" but I decide to leave it until before I go to bed. Fuckit, they've put up with my stink for the day, they can endure a few more hours of it. Anyway, we're having a "bush braai" for dinner, so there's going to be a bonfire in the middle of the "boma" (look it up) and typically everyone will smell of fire smoke so I'm not going to bother showering just yet.
Dinner is tasty enough, like having a braai in the middle of the bush, a bit chilly due to the wind but warm enough around the roaring bonfire. Plenty of drinks flow again and, as per the previous night, the evening ends with a few Scotches (Johnnie Walker Black Label to be exact). Just before Max and I head for bed, Angie (our guest facilitator from England) asks me how long I've been in the country as I still have my accent and, like Jenny May a while back, asks why I stay here. I tell her to come with me and I take her out of the boma into the dark (don't go there...that wasn't the reason). I then tell her to wait a couple of seconds and then look up. Splashed over the sky above us was a million stars and the Milky Way and I tell her there's one of the reasons. The sky, out of the effect Joburg's lights, is second only to the night sky in Mozambique (ask Ross)...brilliant. Angie says the only other time she saw a sky like that was in New Zealand. I don't know much about that, so I'll take her word for it.
Max and I head for bed and I have one of the best showers I'd had in a long time. Hot, and with plenty of pressure in the water, they must have sorted out their reservoir problem. Talking of which, the management of the lodge had decided that, to reduce our "discomfort" a little they would be sponsoring R1,500 worth of booze bill that night...good of them, that was. Mind you, at their prices, it probably didn't go far. I was trying to think what we could do to ensure they gave us double that for the following night, but sanity (or was that sanitation) prevailed and I let it go. That night was Max's turn to toss and turn, but I slept like a log waking just before the alarm went off.
Up again early for breakfast, same as the previous morning's, and back into the course. Lunch was set under some trees in the compound, meats and salads the same as the day before. Talk about lack of imagination...
PHOTO752 At about 6pm we get herded together to go and watch a "Zulu dance". Typical IBMers, we arrive late and miss the start, but it goes on for about another half hour, three drummers giving the leather hell, female dancers doing the jiggly bit, male dancers doing the war dance stuff. Very impressive, even if you have been here 37 years. In the room was also a crowd of kids on tour from Scotland and they loved it.
The whole thing ended with the dancers calling everybody into the middle of the room with them and all dancing together. Me, I'm not much of a dancer to begin with (even after a few drinks) so I sat and watched, and took some photos.
From there, it was back to the log fire where we had a tasting of traditional "Mahewu", a beer drunk by the blacks and generally thought to be made of anything from maize, to tree bark, dregs from old beer and wine, as well as the occasional dose of battery acid. I thought it was like tasting the dregs of a wine barrel that had been left formenting for about 20 years, pleasant but with a nasty aftertaste.
And so it was on to dinner, the usual 3-star stuff, but this time served in the same area as we had had breakfast until now. I sat down, looking at a plate of food in front of me, ready to dive into it right up until after the first mouthful when I suddenly felt very "naar" (nauseous). I waited a couple of seconds to see if it would go away, but it got worse and I ended up leaving and sitting my arse on the toilet for ten or so minutes, unsure which end my lunch was going to come out of. In the end, nothing happened and I went back to the table, but I couldn't face the meal and even the sight of it made me queasy. I explained to the waitress that it had nothing to do with the food, that it was me that was the problem.
We had more course work to do that evening and at about 10pm we decided to call it a night. This time though, it wasn't just a short walk to bed. Due to a booking problem (read incompetence by a secretary) we were to spend our last night in a different venue, about 600m away on the main road running past the village. A short drive away, barely enough time for the engine to warm up and we were in our new digs for the night. This time, Max had his own room and just as well as the rooms had double beds and I didn't want to be the one to tell Princess that I'd slept with her hubbie. The new place was in the process of being renovated and the smell of paint hung fresh as hemorrhoids, smelly and pervasive. The sheets on the bed looked like they'd been bought in a garage sale and had little baubles of cotton all over them. The entire place smelled of raw sewage, which didn't endear it any more, but luckily there was the smell of paint to keep that at bay.
After a good night's sleep, considering the new bed and bedding, and a shower we were back at Lesedi for breakfast just after 7am. This time I managed to keep a full plate down, though I didn't feel any less nauseous than the previous night.
We started the last of the "calls" at 7h45am and I begged off the course after the last one, so I don't know what the eventual outcome was, though Max should have something on his blog.
A quick visit to the chemist later and I found out that it was probably a mild form of food poisoning that I had (remember the Mahewu?) coupled with slight dehydration (remember the Johnnie Walker?) so I got some stuff and went home for a couple of hours sleep and recuperation (remember the late nights?). I woke up feeling a bit better, but a little drained.
Friday morning, back into the office and the usual drudgery.
So...did I learn anything on the course? Let's put it this way, His Royal Black Highness (read manager) phoned me yesterday to discuss an opportunity I've been working on and he asked me if I'd discovered the "client's compelling reason to act" and "key pain points" and "key decision advisors", to which I almost told him to fuckrightoff cos he'd obviously just heard the terms for the first time too, so I guess I did learn something. I also learned that the selling method and tools they use are just more "compelling reasons" to never go into sales in this company...
1 comment:
10/10! Great. I couldn't have written it any better.
Rip roaring stuff!!! Gotta luv this guy!!
Salagatle! (Look it up!)
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