Week Prep

This week is a very important week for Joe, so how did he prepare?
He prepared by waking up late and renting Prince of Persia 4 and playing it for 7 hours on Sunday. This was probably the best way to prepare for a hardcore week ever. He stayed up later than he was expecting but he was talking to the love of his life so that's very acceptable.

Monday went slowly, and wasn't as glorious as i wanted it to be. Meetings were late or didn't even happen. And i was hit with some not so great news. I am expected to make 250 phone calls a week for the sales unit. This may not seem like a whole lot, but considering these are calls im making in addition to any calls for my own business purposes it starts to stack up. I also have the feeling that all eyes are on me, and are not being kind.
Monday night entailed a visit from Stayc, which was fun. We watched the Secret of NIMH, which was not as good as i remembered (as per usual with kids movies) but was still enjoyable. There were many bizarre plot holes and just totally unexplained occurences that i'm assuming made more sense in the book the (animated) film (from 1982) was based on.

Tuesday is here, and this morning i made 32 Unit calls with very little luck. I wanted to make more dials than that, but about 30 minutes was chewed away with one orphan MAJOR issue. The orphan (or e-lead) program is something that I am involved in that hooks me up with clients whose agents have quit/retired/been fired/died/etc. They are not necessarily CFG clients (in fact they rarely are, we're very good with our clients) but they are Metlife or New England Financial clients from other offices. Well, on client we were picking up and had a meeting with today was extemely angry. He demands that he has certain policies which we do not know of, and probably don't exist. Then he starts saying in the past New England tried to screw him over and he had to call the insurance commissioner to get it all sorted. I kept trying to tell him we'd figure it out and he kept getting angrier and angrier, then started threatening so sue new england if they had changed his policies without his permission, which didn't happen. I got in contact with my team, who contacted the head of the e-lead program and she has since told us to not contact this man any further and she'll take care of it. Disasterous.
Other than that, my day has gone well despite being boring as hell.

Worries: I feel this week and the next few following reflect heavily on my ability to stay in the business. I fear that that management is staring over my shoulder with a disapproving face. I am doing better than many of my comrades, this i know, but this doesn't mean that i am being successful. I believe the most frustrating thing is that i know the services we provide, the help we can offer, and i feel confident that i could prove to a prospective client why they need to protect their wealth and their family, i just can't get out in front of people. Phone calls aren't being picked up, answered phones are being stubborn and won't meet. There are various reasons, but the bottom line is that in the dark corners of my mind i feel as if i'm struggling to succeed through no fault of my own.


Outside of work: This week is gonna be pretty sweet. Wednesday is another episode of Lost, which makes me pumped. Friday I am seeing Timmy and the Vishers, and that night I think something else is going on, i dunno. Saturday is games night with depo and tim and flagg, which is glorious. And then sunday is the Super Bowl.


Upcoming: Prince of Persia review, maybe Friday's post, or sometime this weekend.

Also: I have found that I have very little patience for blatant hypocritical behavior, specifically in ultimate.
My winter league captain embodies the spirit of "made demands of your players which you cannot, and do not follow through upon. Then criticize the group for something you are responsible for." During our game on Sunday night he repeatedly gave us his verdict on how we were going to win the game. Specific gameplay methods he wanted us to follow so that we could move the disc better and win. The ideas he brought to the table were sound and would work well. However he followed it by yelling at everyone for not following the rules he set forth, then yelling at us when we did follow them and he didn't, thus causing flow issues. By the end of the game i could barely contain my frustration and snapped a few one-liners in his direction when he made obvious and frustrating errors or ommissions within the system he wanted us to run.

Now i'm not saying that I was perfect, or that when i captained i never asked the team to do something which I occasionally did not follow through on. However i do believe that when methods were given, i followed them, and i tried as hard as i could to stay within the rules i gave as captain. I also know that i made errors both then and now. However, this man has been doing pretty much the same thing since winter league started, and it's clear that he believes he is much better than he is. My original "off" gut feeling about him turns out to be more and more right the more bitter and negative he gets.

Proof of my feelings came on Sunday when throughout the entire second half I was praised for my cuts by another member of the team while that same member kept on our captain's back for not playing by his own rules. This member was our captains friend and the only one who has received praise thus far this winter, so it seemed especially important that he make the comments he did. I felt vindicated in my feelings after that. I only hope that we play smoother in the future and are not forced to hack our way through the bitter cold of winter league with a losing team and a bitch for a captain.


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