In Admiration

So human psychology is my purpose in life, right, but currently, Im in sales and business development for a pretty large communications company, with a nation-wide presence. My conversations get pretty technical - probably more technical than most of the people in my same position (just because I have had a little more exposure to certain technologies and protocols in my previous positions than most of them) but we have actual engineers who are paid to develop solutions based on the needs of the business, so when we go out to see our clients, and are developing a solution, we have to take one of them with us, so they can sign off on the provisioning, saying, yes, this is indeed what the business needs, and I have surveyed the location, and "this" is how it needs to be configured.

So there is one engineer in particular that I use for most of my appointments. She and I get along really well, she is very knowledgeable, and she doesnt keep me waiting for the documents I need to get things rolling. She and I went to survey a location one of my accounts is moving into, and the owner of the building was there, still getting the place together. She and I got into a conversation about something being amiss with the setup, as it relates to what the customer was going to need, and the worker we were talking to didnt really have the answers we needed, so we had him call the owner up.

The owner comes in and from the time he enters the room, he has this demeanor that tells you the next ten minutes of your life are going to be interesting, so I fell back and let my engineer do her job. He realizes what we are there for, and his whole attitude goes to shit. Now he is all cocky and arrogant, like oh they sent YOU??? Like because we were women, we couldnt possibly know what the hell we were talking about, and his every response to every question my engineer asked him was given in a condescending tone, like talking to us was a waste of his time. He said pretty clearly at one point that he felt like he was talking to the wrong person. This man was rolling his eyes, cutting her off, and being totally rude to her, to the point that she started putting long pauses between statements. I could see it all in her face that she felt disrespected and disregarded, so I felt really bad for her. The customer was looking at us like she gets the same shit from him, and the worker was looking like he just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

Now I have to give it to my engineer, because it was very obvious, initially, that this man was getting under her skin, but she took some deep breaths and handled it very professionally, which, as professional as I am, I dont think I could have done. He wasnt even talking to me and I wanted to smack him. I felt my face tense up a couple of different times like um... who the fuck you think you talkin to? LOL She kept that mask on though - good job.

So we walked back to the building my customer is currently occupying and the woman told us that she was embarrassed by this guy's behavior, but he talks to her the same way. So, we go back into the suite and look at some things, when a question was posed to my customer that she couldnt answer. Strangely enough, the owner is in this building now too. The engineer asked the customer to get him. All of a sudden, he wants to act like he has some sense. He is still answering with a bit of a tone, but nowhere near how he was in the other building. When he left, the customer (who is the admin at the business) said it was because her bosses were within earshot and the guy wouldnt want them to hear him talking down to us, or they would have laid into him.

I am still trying to understand why she hasnt told them about this, but I digress.

So I am still in such awe at this man, when my engineer and I are walking back to my car, I dont say a word. I can only imagine what is going through her mind, and I didnt want to add anything to it. We get back to my car and get in, and she breaks the silence: "What a ...DINK!" LMAOOOOO! She said she wanted to say something else, and I knew exactly what word she was looking for! I let her rant and rave about the situation, and all I could do was laugh. Here is this relatively tiny woman, probably 45 or so (she has a 14 yr old son, so Im guessing she isnt much older than that) who had just exhibited so much restraint and poise, sitting in my passenger seat KIRKING OUT! LOL It was just hysterical.

I have to admit, she was my hero today, because I dont know if I could have done it. But when I thought about it, it wasnt just about this man needing to be cut down to size. Our customer was present. The building owner's workers were present. And when we are out in the field, we represent our company at all times. The worst thing she could have done was to spaz out on this guy and then have people talking about it, or have that guy go back to the owners of the business we were there surveying for, persuading them to do business with somebody else.

I guess the moral to this story is that you never know who's watching. In this case, we were well aware, but the ramifications of a misstep could have been a lot bigger than that moment, and there are a lot of incidents in life that are much the same. We have to learn to control our emotions so we dont end up doing something that we will later regret. I've gotten very good at that over the years, but it appears I still have some work to do, because I am telling yall, I just dont know if I could have done it LOL.

So Karen, this one's for you, hun. Kudos.