I sign the lease on Saturday

I sign the lease on Saturday. 12 months. Move in on June 11th. Oh man that's crazy. So far all my apartments have been like month to month deals. No real commitments there. Now this one is basically a year deal. And if its good who knows, might be my place for a few years. We'll see. I'm a block away from this really nice park, and all the houses around are these huge Victorian houses. So its a nice neighborhood. But I hear if I head East on my street for about 10 miles, I can run into prostitutes. Good to know, good to know. Drove out to the ghetto part of town. Wasn't so Ghetto though, woodhaven was probably the same id say.

Walked a good amount of time today around campus, Univ. Of Illinois. Was really nice. I have never walked around Brooklyn College's campus, but I guess it must be pretty amazing if it beat out this one. (voted #1 campus a year or two back)

Been studying up on my car parts. Don't know what a differential really does or what the crank case does, but I know they exist and I know where to put them.

Had my first product meeting today and my first sales team meeting. Was interesting. Stuff I saw in those boring business videos during class, now I'm actually attending them. You know, wasn't so boring. Rather interesting. I don't have my accounts yet, but when I do, I'm going to sell the heck out of them. Going to have to read up on my text books about incentives and retail store ownership. My degree is actually going to come in handy. How about that?

1 week from tomorrow and I can move my stuff out of the Roach Motel. Cant wait. I'm wondering if I should go ahead and order the futon now and just have it delivered on the same day I move in or what. Well we will see. I have one week to think about it.

About a month ago I was all set on buying myself a new computer. A nice 2.x or 3.x P4. or AMD 64. Now though all that is on the back burner. My First payment for my joint is Rent + Security + Deposit and some stuff, gonna cost as much as that computer did. But oh well. I'll just start saving up on my paychecks and hopefully can afford the comp eventually.

If I haven't said so about my job, I am really excited about it. You see the people in my sales team right now are really good. But from what I hear around the office, hardly any of them think much of the internet. I am going to bring customization to the next level. When I start getting my accounts I'm going to do crazy research on them. Going to find out what the weather is like in their areas. Going to see if there is a parade or event going on in their city, going to go crazy and totally take it to the next level. When someone tells me "business is slow" I'm going to come right back and tell them what to do to rev it up. Probably going to hook up my laptop with mad research at home and then take it to work and do it up nice. Hopefully upper management wont care about me doing the extra effort and taking stuff home. Just got to assure them that I'm not taking home any secrets. Heheh company secrets and financial information. The business subject of the beginning of the 21st century, Corporate Ethics. And the ethics of the individual. Who would thunk id be near stuff like that. Well I guess it was inevitable, I mean I did get a BBA.

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I'm just glad I haven't heard any talk about Six Sigma or any one of those crazy Strategies that corporate offices seem to eat up and devour every time some one comes up with some idea to revolutionize Office politics or the "team" Strategy. Of course I'm not saying they don't work, I'm just saying I'm glad I'm not hearing about them. I always thought it to be lame when offices took the new business catch phrase or fad and play it to death until the original policies and components of the strat are completely lost and the employees forget what their original jobs were because they were too focused on something else.

Speaking of the word Team. I find it strange. Now if there is anyone from my job reading this, the following is just an opinion and I don't mean anything negative towards the company or how management runs it. ~~~~ Now my job, when I finally finish training and actually do what I am going to be doing for the next few years of my life, is going to be part of a "Sales Team". This sales team, as I understand it, has these goals to reach each month. Basically increasing percentages from previous quarters and years. Now within this "team" though there are other percentages to think of, the individuals percentages. Of course those are then computed to give the percentages, realized and ideal, for the specific department. But within the team there are contests. And people's percentages are actually posted. Winners or top players are of course rewarded, as they should be. But you see I have to wonder how this effects the "team". What I mean is, you see there are contests that go on from time to time. There will be a new product or new manufacturer, and the rep to sell the most of that item or product can win the contest. Easy enough right? And sure from a management point of view this sort of device helps create enthusiasm and drive to sell more and do better. But what else can it do? Well in a conversation with one of my co-workers (I shall refer to this person as Nohbody), I kinda saw the negative side of it. You see when you have any type of contest there is always that Darwinian aspect to it. The fittest, or best survive. So the players who are at the top, are usually the same from week to week or month to month or year to year. The people who aren't as good as the best but hold their own in their own right are sometimes right behind the leaders. But then you have the stragglers, who aspire to be great but for the most part cant reach the heights of their peers. And just like those thoroughbred winners at the top of the ranks every week, there are the few who are always at the bottom of the list each week, every week, every time. (now maybe those names aren't always printed, but the individual will always know who they are because they can see their own numbers and they can see the numbers of the winners) This co-worker I talked to, although maybe didn't have much confidence in his/her own abilities to start with, confided in me the fact that NohBody has come to feel like he/she would never be able to reach that high level of productivity. That Nohbody could never be "as good" as those top players. This of course is that negative side. The low ranks become followers and tend to do their job feeling less of their own abilities. You can hear it in their voice when they talk to their clients. In today's sales meeting one of the reps mentioned the high level of his/her performance. Was about a half million dollars for one month. At the exact moment after this person mentioned that, I glanced over at someone else and saw an expression on this person's face which was that of amazement. Like "wow that's high!" this expression was then followed by another expression, a saddened look. I took this one to mean "I could never reach that level" or to put it even more bluntly "wow I suck". Now I'm mentioning all this as purely observation. I'm not proposing any fixes or changes that need to be made. If anyone in the office is reading this, and think they may know the people I'm talking about, I'm not trying to point fingers. I'm not trying to demean or berate anyone. I'm just wondering at what point is the "team" a team. And at what point is the "team" conflicting with its own efforts of unification?


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