THOUGHT YOU MIGHT RELATE,
THE PRICE OF A WEEK’S VACATION, BEEPERLESS!
I was up at 6 A.M. By 6:45, I was in my car moving toward our NJ
office. I was right on time—if I didn’t make any stops. Could I risk
driving all the way from Long Island to New Jersey with the amber light
blinking on my car’s gas gauge? Could I risk caffeine withdrawal, and
possibly falling asleep at the wheel, if I didn’t stop at Starbucks? Would my
central nervous system even permit me to drive right past Starbucks? I didn’t
think so.
I got the gas and the coffee and still managed to arrive forty-five
seconds early for my first appointment. I saw a client, saw another client;
waited for the third, waited some more.
I had a marketing call to make. The third client was threatening to make
me late for this important meeting. It was my second marketing effort of
1998. As it was December 22nd, it was probably going to be my last marketing
effort of 1998.
I finished seeing the third client and sped to the marketing call. I
arrived on time. The doctor I had arranged to call on surprised me: he did
not keep me waiting.
“Do you go to client’s homes?” the doctor asked.
“No, I try not to,” I replied. The meeting continued for about another
three minutes.
In parting, I offered the doctor a promotional “giveaway.” It was a
letter opener, with the name and telephone number of our company printed on
it. He liked the letter opener and suggested that his secretaries might
appreciate one or two of them.
“I said: “Your secretary disagrees with you on that score. She didn’t
want any of the letter openers. She took a few pens, but the letter openers
she absolutely refused.”
He smiled: “Likes things to never change!”
After that marketing call, I felt like buying myself something. I needed
to reward myself with a present. I stopped at a Burlington Coat Factory
outlet. I found a leather bomber jacket, similar to the one that had been my
favorite, before it was stolen at a mall in Buffalo, NY(back in 1987).
This Burlington Coat factory bomber jacket had a lot of
superfluous illustrations on the back, but it looked good, (from the front),
and it fit well. When it was on, I couldn’t see how ridiculous the back
looked; so I took it.
I got in the end of a long line that meandered through the store. Three
registers were open to ring up purchases.
My beeper went off twice while I waited in line. Luckily, my neighbors
were kind enough to hold my spot in line, while I ran outside to use the pay-
phone. The
pay-phone was outside in front of the store. The wind-chill made it feel like
17 degrees F. out there.
The Jacket was a bargain. It was marked (regularly) $500.00–sure! It
was marked down once to $279.00, and now it was only $229.00. I, momentarily,
considered paying with some cash I had in my pocket, but came to my senses in
time to put in on the VISA card.
I ate lunch at a nearby Blimpies. I ordered the #4 special: a 6” turkey
hero, which came with a drink and a bag of chips. “I’ll have the hero with
lettuce, tomato, salt, pepper, and about one tenth of the mayonnaise that you
just put on that woman’s sandwich, please.” I said. It took me about five
minutes to finish eating.
I had another client to see, and I had just enough time to get back to my
office. Impulsively, I pulled off the highway into a 100% brushless car wash.
Was this another one of the hidden costs of marketing? The interior/exterior
wash was a special at $10.50. The deluxe wheel treatment was another $4.50.
I went for both. When the car was done, I noticed that the rims looked like
they were crying tears of brake soot.
Since I had deliberately handed the freezing employees five times the
customary tip(I was in the x-mas spirit), I felt justified in pointing out the
still weeping hub caps. They, to their credit, recleaned the wheels.
I got back to my office two minutes before my next client. My car looked
beautiful. I saw six more clients. It was now around 7:00 P.M.
I needed to be home before 8:30 in order to have time to change and make
my tennis league match. I stopped only for Burger King, where I ordered, and
made short work of, two double cheese burgers and a diet(?) coke.
I had only fifteen minutes to change and leave again for the tennis club.
I played against a guy who was 56 years old, 13 years my senior. He had no
great technique, no serve to speak of, but he still beat me, 6-1, 6-2.
“What do you do when you’re not playing tennis?” he asked, as we switched
sides of the court(1-0, his favor).
“I design and fit braces and artificial limbs,” I said.
“That sounds interesting.” he said, as he hurried away to his side of the
court.
“What about you?” I asked, addressing his now retreating back.
“What about you?” I repeated, slightly louder.
“What about you?” I called out, one last time–in vain!
“Oh, forget it,” I muttered to myself.
I served and lost, and lost, and lost, and won a game, and lost
again–6:1. He was moving through our match like he had somewhere else to go
and he was already late.
“How long have you been playing tennis?” I asked, as we switched sides of
the court for the umpteenth time.
“A year,” he said grinning slyly. “I’m kidding,” he said–”about five
years. How long have you been playing?” he asked.
“About two years,” I said, honestly.
We finished the second set(6:2, his favor). I guess he really didn’t have
anywhere else to go because we both agreed to play for fun the remaining 1/2
hour of our court time. Now that the game was over, I started to win a few
points.
For the fourth time, I returned to my original question: “What kind of
work do you do?”
“I’m an investment banker.” he said.
‘Where do you work?” I asked, innocently.
“I’m with a company called Lerner and associates.” He said.
“That’s the company that is always advertising on the radio.” I said
enthusiastically.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s my brother. He does all the commercials
himself!”
Then it dawned on me–his name was Marty Lerner. I had seen his name on
the slip of paper the league attached to the can of fresh tennis balls that
they provided.
I was so thirsty toward the end of the match, I would have paid twenty
dollars for a glass of water. I felt like Lawrence of Arabia. Now that the
match was over, I went to the water fountain. I guzzled five cups of water,
directly from the fountain(despite the high incidence of cancer on Long
Island).
At 11:15 P.M., I drove to my partner’s house. I had to pass the symbolic
“baton”–my beeper, that is! He would now adorn his belt with two beepers,
mine and his!
I also had a full day’s worth of paperwork and staff instructions to pass
along to him. The “debriefing” took two hours and fifteen minutes. My
partner had a boxing match on the TV, serving as background noise. It was the
second time that night that the fight was being broadcast. My partner had
seen it earlier and so he was aware of the improbable outcome.
“I won’t tell you who wins.” he said, which led me to surmise that the
less skilled boxer would ultimately lose, which is exactly how it turned out.
I drank orange juice. My partner had me laughing so hard at his day with
our clients that I felt like I was having mild heart attacks from laughing!
By 1:45 A.M., I was back home, and I still hadn’t packed. My wife was
still up packing too! We finished at around 2:45 A.M.
She asked: “When do you think we should get up?”
“What time is the taxi coming to take us to the airport?” I asked.
“5:00 A.M.”
“Then, I guess,” I said, “we should set the alarm for 4:00.”
“Let’s get up at 4:15,” she corrected.
“Okay.”
I set the alarm and then took a shower. I finally slipped into bed
around 3:15 A.M. At 4:20, I awoke, and could barely move toward the alarm
clock.
“Oh my god” my wife said, startled by the time. “Get up! Time to go!”
ERIC TOSKY, C.O.
