A nest of vipers

There was a meeting this morning between Marketing and the Senior Sales Managers (Sales Director Neil Hancock, National Sales Manager Kevin Slattery, and Regional Sales Managers Mark Miller and Craig Wymer). The meeting was held in the Training Room (which is in a remote part of the building, opposite the canteen, so the area is usually deserted except at lunchtimes). Kevin Slattery had called the meeting to discuss “ways in which Marketing and Sales can work more closely together” (this immediately put me on my guard, since the implication was that we were not working closely).

Going into the room, I felt I was entering a nest of vipers. I made the mistake of choosing a seat directly in the path of the Fujitsu air conditioning unit (a brutal machine that pumps out cold air) and virtually shivered throughout the meeting (I could, of course, have asked for the temperature to be moderated, but that would have been showing weakness). I sat on one side of the table and the other three sat opposite, with Neil Hancock at the end.

Kevin Slattery aged in his fifties, very round stomach, jovial manner masking a carping and sneering personality. He had just bought a new pair of glasses with tortoiseshell frames, and was complaining how scratched they had already become. Craig Wymer in his twenties, slight build, short curly black hair, looking like a young Frank Sinatra but with stubble on his face. Mark Miller in his twenties, grey-brown eyes, thick light-brown eyebrows, short brown hair in a crew cut. Normal build except for very muscular arms – you could see the muscles move beneath the pale blue shirt he was wearing (this shirt was made of material that had a slight sheen to it, and a subtle stripe formed out of a different weave. The buttons were black. He was obviously proud of this new shirt).

As my immediate manager, Neil Hancock is someone I have to be very wary of, even though I disagree with about ninety per cent of what he says. Kevin Slattery is a devious person who pretends to be friendly but will suddenly turn against you without notice. I feel that both Craig Wymer and Mark Miller are basically nice people who have become corrupted by too much success (and far too much money) so that they genuinely believe their views are the only ones that matter.

Neil Hancock began the meeting, and as his style was unstructured and meandering, there didn’t seem to be any point to what he was saying. He gave a very simple overview of macro economic issues, and then used it to justify various decisions that had been made on price increases.

We then went on to “discuss” marketing projects that the sales team wanted carried out. This discussion was entirely one-sided, and consisted of a series of demands, with no attempt to consider logically what would be the outcome of these ad hoc initiatives (everything was short-term and messy – there was no attempt to organise things into proper campaigns). When discussing direct mail the meeting did become a little confrontational.

But I was out-numbered. I was out-voted. There was no alternative but to give in as gracefully as I could (which was actually not very gracefully).