Somebody please shoot me

Today I actually used the phrase "My bad!" in an email to a colleague.

I need to get out of here.

Happy Birthday Mindy June!

Happy Birthday to Mindy June!

Of course she won't have as much fun as the birthday weekend she spent with us, but this is her last hurrah in Merry Olde Engeland, or however they spell that, so I'm sure she'll tie one on and start a fight or something.

That cake is supposed to be a Union Jack. Couldn't find one with candles, sorry.

Midwesterners are Weird: Pizza

Midwesterners are Weird is a new CPW series where we will discuss why Midwesterners are weird. Just in case you couldn't figure that out from the title.

I was born an Upper-Midwesterner and remained one until I was 26. So I guess I will never escape these roots that first sprang forth in South Dakota, became cemented in Illinois and were further refined in Minnesota. And I use the term Upper-Midwesterner to clarify that I am from the aforementioned states and not from places some people like to call the "Midwest," such as Missouri (hello, were you even a free state?) or even Oklahoma. I'm sorry, Oklahoma has nothing to do with where I'm from except for the fact that my dad was born there. But that was just an unfortunate mistake.

One time I even overheard a guy from Kentucky telling someone he was from the same part of the country that I was from. I nearly slugged him, except that being Midwestern I'm simply passive-aggressive.

Anyhoo, Mindy June, who is returning to her own Midwestern roots next month after a four-year sojourn in the UK, recently posted about Midwestern pizza. I miss Midwestern pizza, even though I'm much closer to it geographically than poor Mindy June. In the Midwest we like to pound square things into round holes and things like that. One iteration of this would be in the way we cut up our round pizza pies into little squares. It makes no sense, but I like it. It's so much fun to have all those different little sizes. Cheesy treats. Yum. Just fix your eyes on the photo above for a few minutes. Don't you just want to crawl on top of that pie and make sweet love to it?

Funny thing too is that I lived in the Chicago area for 14 years, and now have been in New York for nearly 10 years. That's a combined 24 years in two of the USA's hottest pizza centers. And yet, what pizza would I make the sweetest love to, given the opportunity? What pizza keeps me up at night with my deep longing for it?

It's pizza from St. Paul, Minnesota, from a joint called Red's Savoy. Mindy is right - their pizza kicks ASS. It is perfect. And in proper Midwestern fashion, they will serve you a round pie cut up into cute little squares. It's like your whole dinner is an appetizer. There is nothing bad about Red's Savoy pizza. There is only good to be found there.

And now I am in such craving mode I may have to make a special trip there just to have it. Drool. Slurp.

G'night.

Annoying things my sales reps do and say to me - Hank

Hank is actually not one of my sales reps - he belongs to one of my fellow Strategic Sales Executives. But this is just as annoying as anything one of mine could do.

Bill, my fellow Strategic Sales Executive, is out on vacation and has an out-of-office email message directing inquiries to our boss.

The other day my boss received one such inquiry, from Hank. This is what it said:

"Bill is out on vacation so he can't attend this meeting with me next week. I need someone to come with me, someone who knows Product X very well and who can hit it out of the park. I need them to be able to discuss Product X intelligently with an accounting firm customer, and who can cover all the nuances of the product."


So essentially what he is saying is "I really need help from someone who won't get any sales credit or commission. And they better know what the fuck they are doing."


Asshole.


At first I drafted an email response to Hank as follows:

"Hank, I am available to help you next week, but only with a minimum level of competence. I most likely will not 'hit it out of the park' as you require, but if I'm lucky, may be able to get a base hit."

I did not send it. Instead, I simply replied to my boss, saying "it appears that Hank has very high standards and as such I will not have the time required next week to prepare the level of presentation that would be acceptable to him. Sorry!"




Can I just reiterate that I really, really hate sales people?

Gratuitous cat shots