One of my salesreps just called. He wanted to know how a particular customer was doing. It seems like a normal question, and I do appreciate it immensely when my salesreps call me BEFORE selling ten thousand dollars worth of goods to some non-paying hoser - who, given that it's a non-paying hoser who never answers my calls, I am averse to giving merchandise on net terms.
[Net terms: buy now, pay later. N30 means that you have a month from invoice-date to pay, N60 means two months. Net terms are a privilege. Net thirty is fairly normal. Net ninety is not part of my vocabulary.]
Salesreps genuinely hate it when a week after they persuaded the hoser to place a large order, the hoser calls 'em up screaming that Bucket-O-Monkeys Inc. rudely REFUSES to give them net terms, and wants a prepayment!
"A prepayment, how dare they, I am the best customer they have in Outer Sasquatch! I demand net sixty or balls!"
[Bucket-O-Monkeys is not our real name, please understand. But it could have been.]
Okay. Balls it is.
You would be surprised how many customers do not grasp the operative concept. If it is a given that I have to call them, I would much rather call them for a prepayment before the stuff leaves our warehouse, than after my boss has asked me why that hoser in Outer Sasquatch is three months past-due.
[It's also more efficient - one confident call before shipment, or half a dozen horribly frustrating ones later.]
Yes, I truly love talking to the nice young teenage girls they have hired to staff the store for the season - you would not believe how good I have gotten at talking to teenage girls on the phone - they no longer burst into tears, and some of them sound absolutely giggly afterwards - but on a scale of one to ten, as far as effective communication is concerned, it is two up from pinhead.
Same goes for monetary results - if Jennifer, Amber, or Tiffany answers, I know that I'll have to call back at least three more times before I get a human being. Let alone one who can pay an invoice.
I love my job.
Part of it is indeed the giggly teenage voices in Outer Sasquatch.
Truly.
The salesrep who called me just now was inquiring about a particular customer, and was horribly disappointed that the customer was clean & current, and that I had actually shipped merchandise recently.
See, there are TWO stores that sell our stuff in Outer Sasquatch. And he was visiting the other one.
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A LACK OF PROPELLANT
Rereading my old posts reminds me that I used to be immoderate. And at times over the top. I've calmed down and grown up since then. Now...
20 comments:
One of my clients is Sergio
he is a buyer - he is located in Brazil
It is a good account
I write e-mails in violet fonts
Sergio is gay...
I have another contact in the PRC (way up in Heilongjiang province)- he is not gay but he is the only good English speaker in his town - he likes booze and he likes phoning when well lubricated in the wee hours from the local Karaoke bar
:-o
I'd truly prefer to have to phone/mail with gormless smooth skinned Californy bimbos
HB doth seemingly not know how lucky he is.
Graham
& 4 all U Klugscheisser who wish to point out that Sasquatsch is not governed by Arnie
I know... effoff
I'll go 4 CA surf-babes any day
I'm bored - wax me
Graham
There are some benefits to never interacting with our clients directly. I suspect I drink less than the folks in tech support or billing.
Accountants don't drink. Accountants are the most temperate of beings. Several of them are responsible suburbanites, with very conservative tastes in automobiles, spouses, off-spring, and modest clothes. Accountants do not drink.
---Grant Patel
Whoever started the ugly rumour that I am an accountant was foul-canarding.
---Grant Patel
I am not a wombat.
---Grant Patel
"Conservative taste in...off-spring"?
How does that work, exactly?
Grant, you are clearly a money bags. Who ever heard of a Patel who wasn't a lentil counter?
Lev
Who ever heard of a wombat who counted lentils?
Apropos which:
QUIDADO LOS UOMBATS!!!
I am not a wombat.
I... am a gorrila!
I count banananananananananas!
---Grant Patel
Anyone else feel that Mr. Patel has flipped his wig?
I have no wig. I am a gorilla, noblest of the gibbons. I am covered with soft downy hair. I have not flipped my 'pelt' either. I am not a wombat.
---Grant Patel
You're a looney.
He is not a loony! Why should he be tarred with the epithet 'loony' merely because he has a pet wombat? I've heard tell that Sir Gerald Nabarro has a pet prawn - you wouldn't call him a loony! Furthermore Dawn Pathorpe, the lady show jumper, had a clam. And Alan Bullock has two pikes, and Marcel Proust had an 'addock! So if you're calling the author of 'A la recherche de temps perdu' a loony, I shall have to ask you to step outside!
Outside what?
The outside of a coconut.
---Grant Patel
Which, of course, begs the question: where does the monkey hide the coconuts?
In his panties! Of course there's something big and round a fibrous there - where else?
Unless he's wearing them.
---Grant Patel
Did somebody refer to Patel Sahib as a "monkey bags"?
Which, of course, begs the question: where does the monkey hide the coconuts?
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