365 Pix in 365 Days for 2015: Images 026 through 032

The last week of January found me in Chicago at the beginning of the week and ended with me in Maple Grove for a volleyball tournament. As mentioned in my last post, the annual AHR Expo was held during this week. The only people who would know that would be the four who read the blog post. Let's amp up those page views, people!

The tour went off without a hitch and I was able to arrange meetings for the time slots my General Manager requested. Before the trip, he said he wanted all of us to have full days while in Chicago and go home on Wednesday completely exhausted. Mission accomplished; although my exhaustion probably wasn't in the way he intended.

As an introvert, I find constant business meetings and engagements to be mentally and physically taxing. I've grown out of my childhood shyness to a degree, but I recognize I much prefer to think through ideas quietly by myself than to discuss them with others. Also, we all met up in the late evening to early morning of Tuesday and Wednesday, which fed into my overall exhaustion. I woke up at 5 in the morning to shower, having only three hours of sleep and lingering alcohol in my system.

The understanding was Wednesday would be a travel and rest day and then we'd be right back at it on Thursday. No such luck. We arrived at the airport well ahead of our flight, so we had an impromptu meeting for almost an hour. The new expectation was for all Regional Sales Managers (RSMs) to send up follow-up emails with action items once back in Minnesota that afternoon. In a show of defiance, I sent out most of my emails on Thursday, with only one being sent on Wednesday because the GM already promised the Principal I would.

I've already spent more than enough time complaining about work, so I will leave it that the end of January was a carryover from the week prior. Oh, and my mom's birthday was on that Tuesday and I called her from a quiet spot in McCormick Place.

Image 026:  01-26-2015

A view from my room on the 30th floor of the W Chicago Lakefront.

Image 027:  01-27-2015

View of downtown Chicago from McCormick Place.

Image 028:  01-28-2015

The awesome brown liquor wall of the 
Untitled Supper Club 

Image 029:  01-29-2015

St. Paul's version of Stonehenge 

Image 030:  01-30-2015

Minneapolis from Boom Island, which is no longer an island.

Image 031:  01-31-2015

G-Bug showing one of her double threats - throwing it down!

Image 032:  02-01-2015

Her other threat - affecting the opponent's shot.

365 Pix in 365 Days for 2015: Images 019 through 025

I can only describe my fourth week of January with a term I haven't used since college. No, not "beer run."  Hell week.

The week after would be the annual AHR Expo, this year held in Chicago. Our top distributor is also in Chicago and our General Manager thought it would be a keen idea for us to sponsor a field trip with a group of other Principals and Owners who could learn the value of being in the aftermarket parts business. Since Chicago is in my territory, I was charged with teeing up the Parts Manager on a presentation and arranging for transportation from McCormick Place to the distributor location and back again. I'm also one of three Regional Sales Managers (RSMs), so I was responsible for finding at least six asses to fill the 18 available seats on the shuttle. 

We had a full month to prepare for the trip, which left plenty of time. However, these are busy professionals with very fluid schedules. If a better meeting arose, and aftermarket typically gets short shrift, more than likely a Principal would cancel. Booking people for the tour was an ever changing process. In addition, the GM also wanted all RSMs to schedule meetings throughout the time we were in Chicago so he could pick and choose what meetings to attend. We were to schedule a "beer summit" on Monday and Tuesday evening; a dinner meeting on Monday and Tuesday night; and a breakfast meeting on Tuesday morning. Over lunch on Tuesday we would take our field trip.

As luck would have it, two of the distributors I wanted to visit were only available on Sunday night. Everyone else was flying in Monday morning. but I was going to fly in a day early to meet with each of my distributors. Not surprisingly, one had another customer meeting so I wasn't able to connect with him. At any rate, the entire month of January involved some degree of event planning that lead right up to the Friday before the trip.

That week I was ambushed with a series of tasks that weren't on my calendar on Monday morning. Turns out our GM was taking a trip to Winnipeg to meet with a distributor. Although I had that distributor as part of my stable before, I transitioned the account to my fellow RSM. I was still asked to provide some detail on the distributor to prep the GM for his meeting. Once on the trip, he texted me for additional information. On Wednesday, my direct boss scheduled a pseudo quarterly review. I say 'pseudo' as the company requires only second and fourth quarter reviews, the first and third ones being a regular check-up/check-in. These still require prep work to track how I'm performing to plan. Fortunately, Q3 was pretty good for me.

I also learned on Monday I would be responsible for transporting a couple co-workers who have been testing the new e-commerce site the company is trying to release to the local Rep and company Service Office. Minnesota is part of my territory, and as the most customer facing person (I actually visit these places) I was tasked with making the introductions. My whole Thursday was shot, but there was a deadline to complete a Parts Potential Sales report by each Distributor for each region. My territory encompasses the North Central, South Central, and West regions. Thursday is also my bowling night, and since I'm the league secretary, I'm responsible for making sure everyone pays and the alley gets paid. I was able to delegate that assignment to someone else.

Finally, the GM scheduled another end-of-day meeting on Friday. The RSMs were asked to create a report of the last on-site visit we made to our distributors. I was glad to see I had been on-site with a bulk of my distributors over the last 18-20 months. The meeting was a watered down table thumper, where the GM said we needed to be tougher and more demanding of action from our distributors. The report was never reviewed.

So, this is my first true ventry of the New Year. I just need to add a signature and it could be a letter of resignation. 

How about another 7,000 words (assuming every picture is worth 1,000 - without captions)?

Image 019:  01-19-2015

I think everyone will be seen wearing white trash bags
tied at the knee.

Image 020:  01-20-2015

Just a slight dusting of snow. Those are dog toys, not kids toys.

Image 021:  01-21-2015

Wabasha Street Bridge in St. Paul

Image 022:  01-22-2015

My car is a piece of crap and this may have been only the second
or third time I've run it through a car wash, but if I was going to
have people in it, I wanted it to look decent.

Image 023:  01-23-2015

A drive by shooting (get it?  camera shot?) of the Ice Carnival.

Image 024:  01-24-2015

The St. Paul Cathedral lit up for the annual Red Bull
Crashed Ice event. We had bookended trips to
Cowboy Jacks around checking the venue, since we
thought it better to celebrate two friends' birthdays.

Image 025:  01-25-2015

My liver was well lubricated by the time I flew
to Chicago.  By the end of the night a group of
us ended up at a bar that served specialty drinks.
Not pictured:  a Bunsen burner