The Sales meeting

To qualify as a target was not difficult. You either had to have missed an ‘easy sale' the day before, or you had to catch the eye of Big Frank. He was a brute of a man with grey angular features like the side of a battleship, with a similar impenetrable shell. I'll just call him Frank from now on though. He was the area manager and popped in from time to time and ran these meetings while the actual sales manager for the branch sat mute. Like a mouse in the presence of a cat that tolerated its existence as kong as it did not squeak. Frank was big in the stomach department and his fists. They did not have 'love' and 'hate' tattooed on the knuckles, although if there were tattoos it may well have read 'hate' and 'hate'. But it was mostly his temper that set Frank apart as a unique human being. I had wondered why all my new colleagues shuffled into the meeting like nervous sheep, heads bowed and eyes averted from looking towards the head of the table where Frank was watching the incoming team through slitted eyes. He could sniff out any weakness in a person, maybe purely on smell, but more likely something to do with very subtle, imperceptible to normal people, body language tells. The lads, my colleagues, had sort of deduced this and to throw Frank off the scent, they would keep up a rapid exchange of lads banter involving lots of swearing, boasting of manly conquests and exaggerated overly loud laughter. Some would go so far as to greet Frank by name,

‘Morning Frank.’

These brave souls were the ones that had managed to make a sale the previous day, so they felt safe. There was a clever reverse psychology. The thinking being that by deliberately drawing attention to themselves, Frank would remember the sale and therefore turn his attention to weaker prey. On the whole, this was an excellent strategy, but if the unfortunate salesman had misjudged the mood or overplayed his hand, then there would be a boomerang effect and boom! They were the target for the day. I’ll give an example later.