Quote of the Day: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"


Luckily you can do that with rats. It's turns out the aptly named Roof Rat is climbing up onto our roof and crawling in through an opening in our attic that the contractor accidentally created when they put on the new roof we requested they put on before we moved in. The rats have never made it into our house because they are quite happy in the attic warming themselves and breeding. So basically, the rats are using our house as a hostel/swingers club.

We hired an exterminator to take care of them so hopefully we will be rat free in a month or so. Before I learned so much about rats I had just assumed there was someone you could call that would find and kill any unwanted pests in your house on the spot. I also assumed this person would be a very limited actor with an Austrian accent. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Like most things in life rat removal is a process with very little fireworks and much drudgery. But like life it should pay off in the end.


PS
It has been a very rough week and I am glad that our rodent problem is one problem that has an easy solution.

Quote of the Day: Jeff Giles of Newsweek

"Grunge is what happens when children of divorce get their hands on guitars."


I've been conducting a little personal grunge revival this month because there's no better tonic than a little depressing music to get you through a long gray Northwest winter without losing your sanity. If it's hard-rocking and was recorded in Seattle between 1985 and 1995 there is a good chance it's on my iPhone. I am not just talking about the old standbys like Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden but also the obscure stuff I wish I'd known about sooner like Mudhoney, Green River, the Melvins, Tad, Love Battery, Gruntruck, U-Men, and Skin Yard. I promise that's the last of the music talk today since I know it probaby interests less than one percent of my ever dwindling readership.



When I interviewed for my current job a few months ago, my CEO said, "This will be the hardest three to six months of your professional career. Are you mentally ready for that?" Of course, I said yes. Turns out he wasn't lying but neither was I. Working for a start-up in a new role is fun because you get to invent the job from scratch. Sometimes, working for a start-up in a new role is fun because you get to invent the job from scratch. It's been challenging but I have done well and I think we are turning the corner as a company even if some weeks - like the last one - make you want to jump out a window. I not only made it through, but I did it without kicking a single puppy or binge eating even once to make myself feel better. I also totally rocked a company presentation last week at our quarterly meeting.





One thing that helps get me through the day are the crazy inbound and outbound calls I deal with. Since we are too small for a receptionist every call is routed to the inside sales department which consists solely of me. This guy with a very abrasive east coast accent called up the other day and said, "Can I talk to your CEO?"


"He's not here and he is pretty busy."


"Well, I have some clients who want to use your solution and I have a question about it."


"Great, I am on the inside sales team. Why don't you tell me a little bit about it."


"No offense but you are not qualified to handle this."


"I do this every day."


"Just get me your CEO. There's a lot of money involved."


"Well if the deal warrants it I can get our EVP of Sales involved."


"Not good enough. How many people do you have there? Is your company really that big that he doesn't have the time to call me back?"


"Well, I handle the sales process for him and our EVP of Sales handles pricing for him."

"You know what, I bet you guys can't even handle my business. Either that or your CEO just doesn't care. If he did he would have called me back by now."

Guess who we are not doing business with?

I think it was a scam anyway because I looked him up on LinkedIn and he works at some rinky-dink two person company. By the way, for those of you coming here for sales tips, here's one: Insulting people is not a best practice to win their business.



I was also the annoying sales guy myself last month. I had been calling this guy at one of the largest companies in our target industry when John Doe finally said, "You know I looked at your information a little more and I think Jane Does would be your best contact. I'll give you her number and e-mail. Tell her I sent you." I did and we set up a call.

Things went downhill from there.

When I finally got her on the phone she said, "John says he doesn't know you. This sounds like a scam."

So I left a message for John and sent him an e-mail asking him to vouch for me with her CC'ed on it. He replied back a week later without CC'ing her on it and wrote, "I told you to talk to Jane, not me." I replied back that it would be helpful if he would talk to Jane again.

I talked to Jane again and she said that once again John said he had no idea who I was. I got a little frustrated so I forwarded her all our e-mail correspondence as proof and she said "all this e-mailing is making me uncomfortable" as if I was pretending to be a Nigerian prince or something. She said she would only talk to me if John was on the call too.

I emailed John once again asking for his help and this time he replied back so she could see too. He wrote, "Collin, I have already told you we are not interested in your solution."

Your guess is as good as mine.



That's it for today. I promise I will have more posts soon and they may actually be exciting next time. For instance, our bathroom remodel is almost done.