now you know

Be the ball. Bounce bounce bounce.

Be the ball. Pounce pounce pounce.

Throw all your balls in the air. Grow some balls.

Be rubber. Don't let anything stick. Be flexible. Be the ball.

Today was an adventure to say the very least. Jeff calls, our new district manager wants to meet him for lunch. It could be Jeff tested his limits with an email about our quota yesterday. Our quota was raised 115 phones. Our sister stores quota was lowered. Their month, three month and year trending is substantially higher than ours. We are trending the same. The math is trucked up.

It could be that Jeff was still live on the conference call this morning when he made some comments. All true and validated, just a little more ballsy than he would have normally been.

It could be that one of our employees was to be fired. We have two out on a limb right now.

So, Kimmy dear, instead of going to lunch at 1:00, you'll go at 2:00. I can handle that. The meeting? Quota. It is what it is. It sucks. Kimmy, can you stay late? Jeff has a ton of stuff to do, will be buried in his office. No problem, I am the ball. I'm on the ball.

I got the results of the sleep test. Only 13% of my sleep is in r.e.m.. The normal is 25-30%. I was awake 65% of the monitoring. I can breathe, I can not maintain sleep. REALLY? Call your doctor back and make another appointment. It takes three phone calls to even get through. I get the appointment.

Schedule changes. Staying open until nine effective, now. Six days a week through Christmas.

Monthly reviews with employees. Feed Jeff. He is closing, if he doesn't eat, he'll kill 'em. Have long talks with the employees. You do this great, let's work on this, what can we do to help? Let's bounce the ball together.

Make a step. Call dealership. Bounce a little higher. Let's see how high I can go. Fax an application, one step closer to my dream car. On my own. bounce, bounce, bounce.

Then the email comes. Now you know. With an atatchment. In black and white, with a little color he writes to me. A very nice pdf. Dodgeball. Throw hard. Detailed is everything we owe. Insurance, cars, credit cards, house, boat, season tickets, insurance. 300,000. Not bad, eh? A 4000 sq. ft. house, a 26 foot boat, his brand new G35, my old Tahoe. Really? Only 300 thousand? Balance on one side, payments on the other. The amount he has left after net pay, bottom line. Now I know.

Do I? I guess I do. This is the first time I have seen such a comprehensive list, or a real amount. After everything, he still has money left over. WITHOUT my paycheck. Wow-

Still bouncing? Barely. I'm staying late, I'm tired and I'm hungry. On my way out, a voice from the office. "Thanks for all your help today" No problem, I am the ball.

I come home, look over the spreadsheet again. This is how it starts. Everything owed written neatly over excel. Owed to creditors, what we owed to each other doesn't fit anymore.

Tomorrow, forgiving isn't forgetting. Why I don't watch basketball.