First Thoughts

                It’s all about the people. 

                My journey into salesland began on Sunday night, and, in what has become a pattern now, it was a whirlwind of meet and greets. Meeting a new group of people is something I’m now comfortable with, a marked progression from freshman orientation at Hamilton. It was the same then as it is now: Peers working out who they will gel with and who they will need to meet halfway. 

                It’s fun. There are short people and tall people, blondes and brunettes, frat boys and hipsters. But there are not loud-mouths and shy people. There are only loud-mouths. After trying to shout over one another for an hour at the “Welcome to Minnesota” dinner, the Training Program’s director decided it would be best to sequester us in the restaurant’s vacant side room and give us each a minute to talk about how interesting, funny and clever we all were. And we all did just that.

                Sports seem to be the common bond so far (surprised?). Coming from very different locales and backgrounds, sports form the common thread. It will be interesting to see whether it remains that way for the program’s entirety, or whether more openness will eventually take place. Here, sports opinions fly around like flocks of birds, eventually separating to form two separate flocks, which in turn separate themselves, which then separate again, eventually creating an exponential increase and what feels like a never ending dispersal of opinions.

                In a situation like this, in which a group comes together for a shared experience, the first few nights tend to be spent making sure you don’t miss out on anything. A kind of Keeping up with the Joneses, you might say. We stay up too late enjoying the opportunity to meet new people in a sheltered, comfortable environment. It’s eerily similar to the first few days in college, the key difference being that most trainees feel the pressure to be in top form each day.

                Complaining about the weather is an art form here. Granted, it’s cold. Now get over it.

               

Did you know that the MLS has the third highest average attendance of any American professional sport? (NASCAR not included) With an average of just about 18,000 fans per game, soccer overtook basketball and hockey this year in average per game attendance.