Quote of the Day: Booker T Washington

"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."


I pay attention to words because I was an English major and I'm in sales. They are of the utmost importance in most areas of life.

For instance, yesterday my co-worker sent a prospect an email that said, "I know your current solution does not do X and my solution does so we should talk." The guy angrily emailed back, "How do you know we don't do X?" The guy got even madder when my co-worker replied, "Because we are the only company that does." The funniest part was the my co-worker was surprised by the whole thing. I wasn't. I told him it comes across as arrogant when you act like you know everything about someone and what's better for them. I suggested it might be better to write, "A lot of companies like yours have shown considerable uplift using our X solution." I don't think my advice was well received. Perhaps, because it was not asked for.

Stacey and I had a similar experience yesterday on the customer side. As you may know, we have decided to buy a house and the first part of the financing gauntlet we are required to run though is getting pre-approved for a loan. Since we are first time home-buyers, we are having to learn a lot in a short amount of time and can use all the help we can get. We talked to two mortgage bankers yesterday about the possibility of getting financed by them and the two calls could not have been more different.

The first guy said things like: "I might recommend.. " "A lot of first time home-buyers..." "You might want to consider..." "I am here any time if you ever have questions."

The second guy said things like, "You should..." "You need to..." "You're going to want to.." "That time does not work for me."

Guess who got our business?

Quote of the Day: Laurence Stern

"I take a simple view of life. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it."


That's all today.

Quote of the Day: Raymond Aron

"What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error."


I just admitted a hard truth to myself about myself this weekend.

I am slowly going bald. Give me ten years and I am going to have enough hair for a sweet comb-over. People have been telling me I'm going bald for the past five years but I never believed them. I just assumed they were jealous of my golden locks, especially the hair stylist who refused to continue mid-scalp massage because too much hair was coming out.

I realized the awful truth yesterday by looking in a mirror on a day when I hadn't combed my hair. Their was a lot of white naked scalp. I guess it's a good thing I got married when I did because I have enough things going against me in the looks department. (That was a joke. I actually look like a Greek god.)

Quote of the Day: F. Scott Fitzgerald

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . .”


I have no reason for posting this passage from The Great Gatsby other than the fact that it's always been one of my favorites.

Quote of the Day: Jean Jacques Rousseau

"The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."


Since I've never been a fan of Rousseau and his writings, Stacey and I have decided to purchase a house. We feel the time is right because prices are dropping, interest rates are about as low as they can go and are expected to rise soon, and we both came up with the idea independently of each other.

Although we are meeting with a realtor Monday, we have no real timeline for this other than as soon as we can find a house in the North Seattle/Shoreline area we like enough to go through the whole financing and moving hassle for. I would like to time the move so that it coincides with one of Jon Caldwell's trips to Seattle so he can move my heavy boxes of books one more time.



*
Once in college, I ran into the fairly attractive grad student helping teach my Political Theory class on the bus and tried to use my hatred of the French philosopher as an icebreaker . As you can imagine, things went downhill rather fast after that.

Quote of the Day: Laurence Stern

“'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, and of obstinacy in a bad one.”

That's all today.

Quote of the Day: Nora Ephron

"Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy."


I'm not sure which type I ran into this morning but I sure ran into something. On my way to work, a homeless women approached me and asked for a cigarette. When I told her I was sorry but I didn't have one, she looked at me with all the hate she could muster and said, "Bitch." She seriously looked like a witch casting a spell. I do have a way with people.

Also, I am pretty sure I saw a drug deal or a ransom drop-off this morning. This guy accidentally hit me with his satchel on the way of the bus and then stowed it at the bottom of a brick wall before walking away into the night.

Quote of the Day: Oscar Wilde

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."


I did something today I am not proud of. I got up from my desk to get a drink and then promptly turned around when I saw who was already standing there by the fridge. I usually don't run from trouble because I don't mind awkward confrontations - they usually make for good stories. I guess I find dealing with this guy so unpleasant that I will forgo a story chance. I was a little surprised at my strong feelings of antipathy.

I guess I hate people who consistently try to give me high-five's and ask me if I am "pumped." I hate it when people try to motivate me with slogans or the type of yelling high-school football coaches engage in. I have always been a very internally-motivated person so if I am already motivated about something all that rah-rahing is just going to annoy me and if I am not already motivated it's just going to make me dig my heels in and fight back with cynicism. I don't think anybody will be very successful at anything for very long if they require pom-poms and pep-rallies to perform their basic duties.

For the record, my motivation is not living on the street in a cardboard box.

Quote of the Day: Friedrich Nietzsche

"When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory."


I just found out a co-worker and I had the exact conversation last night with our wives about how we don't like Sandra Bullock. Weird.

Quote of the Day: William S. Burroughs

“Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.”



I don't know why but lately I've become paranoid about getting mugged*. I walk for about 45 minutes every day before work and since I work downtown sometimes that involves walking through sketchy streets among unsavory characters. I've always taken precautions to avoid being mugged because I know how often that kind of stuff happens because I read the Seattle police blotter blog every morning. I try to - avoid pulling my iPhone out of my pocket unnecessarily, avoid making eye-contact, always pay attention to my surroundings, and generally just project an air of toughness by metaphorical puffing my chest out.


Recently, I've been taking my avoidance game to a whole new level by never slowly my pace up even a little bit, not even if people flag me down. I felt bad about not being as helpful to the Russian man a few weeks ago who asked my where the Russian Embassy was. I could have used my iPhone to find out but I didn't because I was worried about it being a trap just to steal The Precious so I just kept walking after telling him I didn't know. I almost did the same thing this morning when some punk-rock-looking dude stopped me to ask what time it was. I was torn between my desire for self-preservation and my desire to by a nice guy and - to make a long story short - the nice guy won out. I stopped to tell him the time and guess what happened? Nothing other than getting a polite "Thank You." It was a much needed reminder that I live in Seattle, Washington and not Baghdad, Iraq or Bogota, Columbia.



*I was mugged once, many years ago. The whole event was so non-traumatic that it wasn't until my roommates convinced me that I'd been mugged that I realized I was more than just the victim of a particularly aggressive panhandler. I guess when people make you scared enough to part with all the money in your wallet that constitutes getting mugged.

Quote of the Day: Lord Byron

“The busy have no time for tears.”


I don't what is about St. Patrick's Day but this is going to be the busiest day I have had in a long time.

A Response

I won't post his email for privacy reasons but suffice it to say he apologized and complimented me for using the word snarky. For real.

Quote of the Day: W. Somerset Maugham

"Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit."

That describes my complicated relationship to the Manna from Heaven we mortal call Cadbury Creme Eggs.


Wow. I was just told by a company to cease my harassment campaign. They even started using very legal language to lay the groundwork for legal action. I have never experienced this in my ten years of phone sales, mostly because there is no legal statute (Federal or otherwise) creating a do-not-call registry for companies as opposed to residential homes.

I have included a sample below:
Please discontinue both calling and emailing my company. Further communication will be treated as harassment and appropriate actions will be taken.

My response:
I will take you off the list.
I am curious though why you are using the word “harassment” to describe behavior that includes and is limited to reaching out to you twice in four months. Has somebody else from my company been contacting you more often?
I am not trying to be snarky. I am just trying to decide what led to this issue being escalated so fast. No one has ever used such legalese language on me in the ten years I have been in sales.

I will keep you posted on his response.

PS
I know this will not help us make a sale but it's not like they were going to buy from us anyway. Sometimes men will die for ludicrous things like hilltops an respect.

Quote of the Day: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If you start to think about your physical or moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.”

I am off sick today.

Quote of the Day; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.”

I learned a new method of corporate assassination today: Give someone too many tasks to do so the powers-that-be take away some of their job duties when a highly visible one is not completed leaving the victim nothing but a shell of the former man he once was. By the way, I am not talking about myself. I am talking about why I still don't know what I am making this year.

Quote of the Day: Albert Camus

“I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers.”

If someone made a T-shirt with that quote on it, I would wear it everyday.


Well, I solved two mysteries today. I learned why our IT-Department is always too busy to fix my computer in a timely manner and why the police were here interrogating people a few weeks ago. Apparently, someone in IT was spending a good portion of their day pointing a laser into the building across the street. Apparently, the authority look down on that type of behavior when you work across the street from the Federal building.

No, they never found out who it was but I have my suspicions. It could be the guy who walks around with a laser pointer attached to his belt all day.

Quote of the Day: Socrates

"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers."


I daresay even old Socrates would have ended his Sunday School class early out of frustration like I did this week if he had my class. I don't what got into those kids but they were something else. They probably focused on what I was saying for a total of ten minutes all together. I have not been able to figure out why but I was able to pinpoint the exact moment when things went irrevocably wrong. It all started when a brother went beyond arguing with his sister about whether or not the window should be open by trying to will the act physically. It was swell.

My other favorite part was when one of the girls said, "So you're saying the Bible is a bunch of hyperbole?" when I cautioned them about taking the Bible too literally when she said she just couldn't believe that the Patriarchs lived as long as the Bible said they did because six hundred years was just too impossible.

I felt pretty incompetent about the whole thing so I just ended early when I realized there was no way I could stem the tide of inattention. I was gratified though to see them making puns instead of making fun of me for trying to show them that the Old Testament has a lot of puns in it if you speak Hebrew. Don't even get me started on Noah's name.

This week we will be talking about spiritual and secular knowledge. Wish me luck, because I really don't want my kids to say, "We learned the Bible's not true," when their parents ask them over Sunday dinner what they learned at Church.

Quote of the Day; Duke Ellington

"As long as something is unfinished, there's always that little feeling of insecurity. And a feeling of insecurity is absolutely necessary unless you're so rich that it doesn't matter."


The pressure has been on ever since my team found out we have a monthly quota instead of a quarterly one so I have to start all over and it's been very slow month so far.

Quote of the Day: Jonathan Swift

"No wise man ever wished to be younger."


One thing nobody tells you before you get married is how dramatically your social circle shrinks afterwards. I am not complaining because I expected something like that to naturally happen as it should but we are both surprised out how dramatic it's been. With a few notable exceptions, Stacey and I are each other's social circle so if we don't call somebody first nobody calls us at all. I swear we both used to have friends so we kept expecting to get invited to an Oscar party that we never did just like we kept expecting to get invited to a mythical Superbowl party that we never did.

I think a couple other things may be going on. I guess there is always the possibility that we are not as charming as we think, but based on past history, I think we can rule that out. (Basically, we're adorable.) Our single friends are either too busy trying to meet people or they think we are too busy doing "married people stuff" to want to hang out with them. I think we may be bad at making friends with married people for some reason. We don't quite fit in with our ward because we are older newlyweds and neither in school nor have kids so we don't have a lot in common with anyone anyway. There are a few married couples who have invited us to do things so now the ball is in our court. We do plan on doing some entertaining once we take care of the great plate shortage of 2010 so maybe that will help.

I swear this is not a desperate plea for friends, just a far from insightful commentary on a social phenomena. I'm sure something like this happens to all married people, but it think the married/single split is much pronounced in Mormon culture.


PS
I know I went on record a few weeks ago as saying that one of the best things about being married no longer having to go to social events I don't want to and I still stand by that statement because this post is referring to exclusive little gatherings not large events with open invitations. Sue me for wanting to have my cake and eat it too.


PPS
I know some of our social solitude can be attributed by my occupational need to get to bed before 9PM on most weeknights.

Quote of the Day: Dodie Smith

"And I regret to say that there were moments when my deep and loving pity for her merged into a desire to kick her fairly hard."

That's how I feel about my iPhone this morning because the iPod on it broke. Seriously, what good is a phone that can't play music?

Quote of the Day: Albert Camus

"The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits."

I am pleased to announce that as of Tuesday my blog has been officially boring readers for one year. I am proud of myself for writing something - even if it was nothing more than a transcription of the quote of the day - almost every weekday with the exception of my honeymoon.

I hope you still find it moderately entertaining after all this time.

Quote of the Day: Mel Brooks

"Good taste is the enemy of comedy."


I bought new clothes this weekend so I could actually have some that fit me. One of the places I went was the discount store Burlington Coat Factory because I hate spending money on clothes that I could be frittering away on books and iTunes instead. Burlington had the kind of every-man-for-himself, don't-even-go-in-the-bathrooms, Wild West kind of feel it always does and just like last time someone was getting irate with a clerk about the store strict return policy. Although, this time the lack of receipt had nothing to do with the problem.

"We can't take that back, Ma'am."

"Why not?"

"We can't take it back because it's a health hazard." The "it" in question turned out to be a toilet seat cover which ironically they actually could have used in their own bathroom.

"I never even used it. I tried to put it on once but it wouldn't fit."

"I can't do it Ma'am."

"It's brand new," she said as she slammed it on the counter.

"How come there is ... ... stuff on it?"

"Where?"

"There is brown stuff there and there."

Quote of the Day: Plato

"Wise men talk because they have something to say...Fools talk because they have to say something."


Like most subcultures, I have found that the business world creates their own lingo to include and exclude people from the group. In other words, you have to talk the talk to prove you can play with the big boys. If you don't use the right words it means you're a hick, a rube, definitely not somebody worth talking to about big important stuff.

For instance: you say, "Reach out to me" instead of "call me,'' "baked-in" instead of "included in the price," "take-aways" instead of "main points." When I want to ask a prospect if we can find out if they are buying what I am selling, I write,"I was wondering if we could schedule a 15-minute conference call to determine whether or not my company’s functionalities line up with any of your strategic initiatives for 2010?" No one ever tells me "no." They just tell me my "company's offerings are not a good fit."

Sometimes, the English Major in me is annoyed at these these self-important attempts at obfuscation but most the time I just amuse myself by self-righteously pointing them out in my head. Still, it was refreshing to talk to an executive at a major insurance company who didn't mince words.

He said, "You're just plain wrong."

I tried to throw some numbers at him about the issue by saying, "Most of our Fortune 1000 customers are experiencing..."

"Sounds like something marketing cooked up to justify your product."

Even though he was wrong, I did have to admire him for being a "straight-shooter." (Yes, I am using that term ironically.)

Quote of the Day: Anthony Powell

"It is a great conviction of youth from which some people never recover that everyone is having a better time than they are."



Some days I hate sitting in a cubicle because my co-workers get on my nerves just like I assume and kind of hope I get on theirs. Some days though, they provide hours of amusement and today was one of those days.

One of my co-workers spent two hours on the phone with a pharmacy and one of his doctor's offices (notice I said "one of") trying to convince them that he was not, in fact, abusing prescription pain pills. He had an amazing convoluted story about why there were multiple prescription under his name. The whole thing was just too funny to do anything but listen. He even went so far as to tell this laughter within earshot. "I've never used pain pills inappropriately in my entire life."

A few hours later, I heard the same co-worker say, "Well, she shot him twice in the head so I don't think it was really self-defense like my __(Close Relative)____ told the jury."

Based on my research, I have determined that statement one is false and statement two is true.