Rant & Raves

Beuno has been getting lucky. Besides being the dumbfuck weirdo in the company, and being isolated during the company outing (the colleagues had been ignoring him), he has been lucky in career wise. During an unofficial Company Idol survey, he was ranked last in the list, and among the colleagues, only very few people even care about him.

As of late, we all noticed that he has no personal style. None of us have a regular eating time (that’s why you can see me taking a late breakfast or early lunch somewhere nearby) and he has been the one who always stick to the fixed lunch time (and talk about being sales and yet got time to eat at fixed time). Lately he has been eating at wee hours as well and that is freakish. Besides, I had been told that his dressing sense has changed also. He used to wear one-size-too-small plain color shirt. Now? Viola! The very cool correct-size stripe shirt (yup, that’s what I usually wear).

The other day I overheard his conversation with a customer (I was unfortunate enough to have my cubicle in front of his), and it was one of the classic. The customer called, and obviously I could not hear what the customer was saying, but from what I heard from our Beuno was saying, it was enough to give me a century shock.

“Yes Mr. X?”
“Oh there are thousand of this products. Do you know which one are you talking about?”
“Mr. X, you must make sure which one it is. There are thousands of this products, so you better make clear which one you are talking about. If not I wouldn’t be able to help you.”
“Why not like this. You go make sure first, and then call me back.”

WOAH!!!! If this is not a classic sales talk, I don’t know what is. We are selling a product to a customer, and customer is telling us about their application so we should check with our products to make a proper recommendation based on the application. Yet our dear Mr. Beuno can ask the customer to make sure which product to use only then ask him. So what’s the use of him being in the sales team?

Anyway, the new higher management likes him so much that he is going to handle all the big customers of mine. In a way, his portfolio is going to grow and suddenly he is handling those key customers. Before this, he was just taking care of those tiny accounts, and watching with red-eyes about those key customers since the previous MD didn’t believe in his ability to serve. Now he has 3 key accounts that contribute to 80% of the company’s sales. Good for him, and good luck to those customers.

That’s why sometimes we have to wonder how those dumbfuck asshole like him these kind of people can get so lucky in work. He is a hardworker, on the surface only, and he doesn’t know how to communicate. I still remember the one instance where he stood in front of the admin for a full minute, like a rock. The admin asked him what was wrong, and he said, “call courier.” The admin looked at the clock and it was already 5:20pm, so she said, “Beuno, the courier service is off. Why not I call tomorrow morning?” He just stood there, and said again, “call courier.” The admin felt that she was being challenged on her patience, and she said in a controlled voice, “Beuno, as I told you just now, the courier service is off work. I will call tomorrow ok?”

Guess what? He stood there again, like a rock, for another minute, before he said, “Oh! I mean how to call international. I want to call Korea.”

Pardon his lousy English. He doesn’t understand complicated words like apologize, grateful, and such. Yet the new higher management likes him. So go figure if the world is a fair place.