Vegas baby
Last week was our sales kickoff in vegas. Mind you I have never attended a sales conference before and it’s been about 20 years since I’ve been to Vegas. The Vegas I remember are hotels chock full of smoke, slot machines, senior citizens gambling away their social security, people who look as though they have not had an easy life, so much so it is etched in their faces..depressing.
Fast forward to 2012, and well, Vegas now has some great restaurants, some nice shops but it is still the same. Problem for Vegas is that I don’t smoke, drink, nor gamble. And for some reason there is an enormous douche bag quotient higher in Vegas than anywhere else.
The only fun thing about sales and being around sales is that in a company they are the extroverts, the fun people, the better dressed and the better looking.
There were other functions there, human resources, finance, legal. You can tell who is not sales.
The sales folks also happen to turn out to have been your jocks in school, the popular guys, the obnoxious ones, not all but you get the stereotyping drift.
We were there for just three days. My body rebelled against the dryness, it is a desert after all, and the constant barrage of second hand smoke. Man I didn’t feel hydrated or clean until I took a shower nightly.
The food, however was great. I went to Nobu and Fogo de Chao. Nobu we went twice and Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian steakhouse where they walk around with crackling meat on blades and slice them at your table. There is one in Atlanta and that was where we held our engagement party. No vegetarians here.
The only funny thing that happened is that I met the Japanese hr director at my work who sent me a shrill email, yelling like a woose via email for something that wasn’t yell worthy. It’s one of this emails you get and then scratch your head and go huh? I had to read and reread the email because I wasn’t sure what went wrong. I realized, one, there might be a language barrier and two, I have since heard that he does it often. Fly off the handle.
The funny thing is I imagined a tall elegant man with thin bones and a thin skin, since he yelled vis email. At his level you expect calmness not shrill yelling. Even if it’s email yelling.
Who I met was a short husky Japanese man, not at all who I imagined. Lol. Your mind and what are preconceived notions bubble up. In this situation, not who I expected.
