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Prompt 3.) Why were you mortified? Write about a true embarrassing moment as though it was happening in slow motion.
(inspired by writingfix.com)
There’s no way to say this politely, so I’m just going to come right out and say it: the sales dude hired at my last job was a complete and total moron.
Granted, I haven’t worked in almost 5 years, but this guy was that bad that I still can’t forget him.
Or his arrogance.
Or his too-white teeth.
Or his that’s-the-funniest-thing-I’ve-ever-heard laugh.
Or his hair that he obviously spent the majority of every morning fluffing with a roller brush and blow dryer.
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In fact, the thought of anything pertaining to the sales process, negotiating or schmoozing gives me the heebie-jeebies.
The Moron is the epitome of a “sales guy,” and even worse, he was lousy at his job.
But it can take some time before guys like him are found out, especially if the sales cycle for your industry is counted in months rather than weeks.
I did project management and some analysis at my last job. The man who originally founded the company created his very own analysis model, which was the big money-making product The Moron was supposed to sell.
One morning, The Moron told me he needed me for a client conference call. No biggie as I was used to that sort of thing.
But what he failed to warn me of purposely didn’t tell me was that – at the 11th hour – he would throw me to the wolves and expect ME to SELL our analysis product to the client.
I had zero knowledge it was coming, and when the client’s conversation turned to, “Well, Moron, can you explain to me how your analysis product works and why it’s of value for our company?” and he chicken-shittedly utters his, “I’ll turn you over to Liz” line, it was like time had stopped.
I had never, ever explained something like this to a client before, and I was left with a few milliseconds to think about what I was going to say.
To make matters worse, I had no idea what kinds of projects The Moron was working to secure with this company to even have relevant examples to use in my fumbled explanation.
If he had at least told me that he was incapable of explaining the one and only thing he was paid to do, I could have asked a few questions about the company and their reason for conducting these projects AHEAD OF TIME, and put together a few thoughts to be ready to use for the conference call.
Or better yet… put them together for HIM to use.
Since selling was HIS job.
That was the first and last time I did a favor for The Moron. Thankfully for both of us he had enough sense not to ask again. Because if he had, I would have told him to where to shove that roller brush.
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