By the time 11am rolls around the following would have
happened; Pre-workout drink with caffeine, glutamine, creatine, sugar. Cup of
earl grey tea. 2 pills of vitamin b-12, orange, banana, grapes, another B12
before meeting starts. At this point the body is functioning on fuel. All fuel
does to a car Is make it run, and at this juncture the body doesn’t start with
an empty fuel chamber, the mind doesn’t react. It's a necessary routine, an arbitrary necessity.
The sales cycle is like the morning routine. There is a need
to jumpstart strong to avoid ambulance chasing at the end of the quarter. You
start fully charged, ambitious for the early close, the larger booking, like
the dose of amphetamine that makes your scalp itch like lice. When the money
doesn’t come you search for blame and digression from fear only to choke on
another presentation driving nonsense to the core. But we love it! The chase,
the fight, the hunger..like the victory of a first fuck or a long drink at 7pm
in your Eames chair.
And when a quota is met or lost you take it like a a shield,
and wear it for better or worse. Since the only measure of a man or woman on
the pitch is how they do in their last ballet, their most recent quarter, a tumbling
dance for the overachiever. Numbers held over our head like a hanging kerosene
lamp, but we’re the ones that fill it up. We keep it burning since without its
glow there is no rush for the win, for when the wick disintegrates we know our
time is done.
Pass me the big one, mate, pass me the jar. Let me fill it
up with the pound notes and sterling that will make the people happy. Make the
dress shoes sharper and the blazers more fitted, until we’re wearing worn
clothes like the blind beggar of Whitechapel.
Stop the car, Im getting out – it’s a monkey factory in here and there’s
nothing you can do about it.
Enter the death of a salesman, the poetic conquest gone
wrong in a world of sharks and critics. Verbose metabolism violently fades with
age, like the vacuous attempt at learning a new trait. Bitter to the core and
unable to appease with uniformed non conformity; the younger beast emerges from
the shadow to take the lead over the formerly dapper associate. In this little microcosm,
I’m on top right now, but who is coming in next?
