why?

alas, i almost want to have a blog that is titled "why?" and just put things on it that baffle me.

today's "why?": why must people act like that?

i was at an account the other day meeting the gm (we'll call him joe) for the first time. this account is not near any other accounts of mine (it's buried in cinco ranch), so it took me a while to find it. when i finally did, i went in and introduced myself to the first person i saw who looked like he worked there (he had on a baseball cap with the name of the restaurant on it, and he just had an air about him).

he didn't tell me his name (or his job title for that matter), but he immediately (and quite rudely) asked me where i had been and why it had taken me so long to come by. he said he'd been trying to get a rep from our company out there for weeks. hmmm, funny. one of the owners of this establishment (a franchise) used to be the gm of another restaurant in that same franchise and dealt with jeff, one of my 3 co-workers. so basically they could have called jeff and asked about who their rep was for that area. and joe used to be the gm of another restaurant in houston and dealt with another one of our reps...again could have made a phone call. so at this point i'm thinking joe's clearly not the most resourceful guy on the block (especially since he was that bothered by my absence).

when i asked whom he had called to get a rep, he explained that he had run into a guy at the liquor store who said he worked for our company (he wasn't sure if it was a red bull rep, a wine rep, or a spirits rep), and that he told this phantom rep that he needed someone to come see him. seriously? i explained that there were about 300 sales reps in our company in all the divisions, and i had no idea who this person was. i apologized profusely for not being there sooner.

he proceeded to go on and on wanting to know what kind of things i could get him for free (like frozen machines, etc) and told me over and over again what the rep from our competitor had done for him. then he refused to sign something that my company requests when a new restaurant opens up (a survey saying what liquors they carry). i was really taken aback by his demands and the fact that he seemed to be completely unsatisfied with anything i had to say.

anyway, the line my manager used was that "he was just flexing his muscles". ok, let's say that was the case (and he's not just a complete jerk)...why? did he feel like he had lost the upper hand because i hadn't shown up 3 weeks earlier? did he feel like he needed to show me how tough and hard-nosed he is as a business man? was he trying to intimidate me into feeling obligated to do anything he wanted?

that last one is what i have settled on. unfortunately, i don't respond well to that kind of bullying. i am a rebel who's very independent and doesn't scare easily (if at all), and i can get major attitude when provoked like that...not exactly the attributes of a good sales person. thankfully, the Holy Spirit must have been with me, and i held my tongue (probably more out of shock that this guy was behaving like this than anything else) and walked out of there knowing that i didn't stoop to his level.

nevertheless, it should be interesting to see how this "relationship" pans out...