The Conference from HELL
Dear All (and anyone else for that matter)
First of all, can I say how saddened and shocked I am by the passing of Hunter S Thompson and Ossie Davis.
Two more breaths of fresh air are suffocated by the pollutant fires of this hell on earth.
Talking about hell on earth, I have recently returned from my company's annual Sales Conference. I shudder now everytime I hear those words.
It was hell. hell on a jetski. like a pineapple enema. it was not fun.
The trouble is you see, is that I am not a salesman. Sure my job requires me to sell stuff but do I care about what I am selling or who I am selling to - No, no I don't.
but there are people out there who do!!!
I WANNA SELL MORE PENS THAN THE OTHER GUY
wow what an ambition....
am I in awe of those guys.
No I'm not!
I don't care as long as I can eat, drink, smoke and buy records and films.... and make music and films as well - of course!
I work to live not live to work.
but these guys the other day at this conference, hundreds of them on their mobile phones, waltzing round this drab hotel having loud pointless conversations!
A typical overheard convo would be this :
'yeah Chad, got a mo? now keep this on the hush hush but old JB just told the V.I.P's he could get it at 20% with the lubriglide thunkhandles and matching woofers. I wanna see if we can get Geoff and Venuicia on this A.S.A.P. I don't want the CO to get wind right? we can drop as low as the index percentage data will allow. got it? good. it's in the bag'
and then there were the motivational speakers. I just didn't believe anyone ACTUALLY spoke like that. I went totally into church mode (I zoned out completely)
'You maybe a winner but you can always win more and preparation is the key! because if you fail to prepare you prepare to fail!' and so on and so on till the blood runs from my ears.
cos you know if you care about pretention, you pretend to care....
So as if this wasn't all bad enough, the guest speaker was some famous rowing guy. Well excellent I am sure for all those avid fans of rowing, but a) sportsmen are hardly known for their personalities and b) I UNDERSTOOD THE 'you have to work hard to get anywhere' SPORTS/BUSINESS METAPHOR the first fucking time it was mentioned - by about the 52nd time I was a little short tempered to say the least.
Set all this craziness in a hotel where not one member of staff spoke English (this is in England's capital city you understand), a blues brothers half-arsed tribute band and a dinner which I wouldn't feed to my enemy's pigeon and you'd almost be near to a third of how cheesed off I was on my return.
Oh yeah and I caught a cold whilst I was there too....
Anyway I am talking to you now a fresh, rehabilitated human who has filled his hump of hate (a shout out to Bill Hicks - 11 years dead on the 24th Feb and boy does it show) and is satisfied that pretty much the world holds little of interest and my head is a much better place to stay!
All the best you free thinkers and groovy practioners of free will out-there
until next time.
ps. check out Dan Bern.... some excellent music
posted by Jon Cross @ 10:56 pm
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