Blogging in Baltimore

I don't really blog that much about what I do for work since this is the Internet and nothing is really that anonymous. If you know me, you've probably figured out that I work in sales and that it's not all that exciting. What you may not know is that we partnered (the technical term) with one of our competitors, which basically quadrupled the size of my company. I've kind of been upgraded to the national product manager of one of our lines (we officially have three) and have been tasked with getting a second one off the ground.

I'm down here in the DC area meeting C-level executives to introduce my company. Because we're a start-up I am expected to get the appointments, present the company, and make a judgement call as far as compatibility. Convincing a high level executive that you are worth meeting with to introduce a company that they've never heard of is not the easiest job in the world. Therefore when I get those appointments I want to make sure that everything is 100% perfect. I qualify the hell out of them and e-mail multiple meeting reminders. I make sure that our top analysts are available during those meetings to answer questions should they arise. Most importantly, I always show up on time because I plan ambitious schedules and obviously I value everyone's time.

This time around I was joined by a colleague that did not value my time. He was so late showing up to yesterday's appointment that he didn't even make it until 10 minutes after the appointment was over. Today he was not only late for my 9:30 but he yabbered on so much that we missed our 11am completely. I. was. bullshit.

I don't fly off the handle that much but one of my biggest pet peeves is when a colleague is late to my meeting. This is America. We adhere to schedules. It's really a very simple concept to grasp. Sometimes things come up that are beyond our control (eg: multi-car pile-ups) which I completely understand. What I don't understand are people who feel that they can show up 15 minutes late to every meeting (fresh Dunkin Donuts in hand) and whine that they were late because of traffic, as if the whole traffic concept is completely new.

But hey, let's face it: every company's got at least one person like that, right?

After chewing him out to my CEO (another advantage of a start-up: you can drop f bombs to your boss and it's perfectly ok), I felt a lot better. I'm starting to realize that not everyone share my perfect world outlook and every once in a while that's ok. I can learn to bend and adapt as well as anyone - just don't be late to my meetings :).