I just got off the phone with a sales manager who got my resume from LinkedIn. I am not interested in working for anyone right now but I took the call to keep my chops up in case the IRS ever wants to talk to me.

That 30 minute interaction brought up a whole host of negative feelings from my sales days. I had the Arizona, New Mexico and Las Vegas territory during my 13 years, in which I was very successful. Which, trust me, was not a result of my knowledge of radioisotopes.

But I got a lot of extra veins in my legs from walking to that stage to pick up my sales awards.

After eight years of knockin’ ‘em down and bringin’ ‘em in, I grew weary. I got tired of airports, diners in Roswell, and burly female techs with facial hair grabbing my ass and asking me how bad I wanted the business. I’m still twitching.

My manager thought I was the second coming and told me I should be a district manager. I thought it was my only option out so I started applying for open positions. The things that were said to me during that process still bother me.

Here’s my theory: They don’t want superstars (which is what I was considered) in management. They want them out hustling. They tried to be artful in their dissuasion but it got messy.

They told me I was too funny. People wouldn’t take me serious. There were more than a few left hand insults. They told me things to make the job sound like hell. They told me my party would soon be over. My parties never end, so they really underestimated me. 🙂

At some point I stopped rattling my cage and started selling and marketing my products with video production. My numbers really jumped then. Fuck ‘em.

After the call this afternoon with that doofus, I remembered all the managers I had experienced back then and they all had one thing in common…nothing. They had nothing. There was nothing remarkable about their careers in any way. They never stood out. They never shook anything up.

They always stood at the back of the room and you could barely remember their names unless they got drunk and fell in the pool at a sales meeting.

They didn’t want no superstars for managers. They wanted administrative assistants, tattle tales, bean counters, fax machine operators and forensic accountants. They were place holders that could be switched out in a heart beat,

They never won anything. Ever. My boss was passed over so many times at award night we had to carry her out of the room on a stretcher. Poor thing.

So I’m talking to this jerk off this afternoon who is in love with the sound of his business vocabulary and I feel my lunch moving in the wrong direction. I realize I was so lucky to get passed over back then.

They would have found me dead by a fax machine pushing out meaningless spreadsheets to no one in particular.

Middle management don’t want no superstars. I get it now. Thank God.