It is time for a quick break and the family and I are looking forward to a trip to New York!  The kids are about to start a week long break so the timing could not be better. 

This is the first time the girls have been to the “big city” and they are looking forward to it.  I must say that I can not wait to go as well as it has been a long, long, time since my last visit.  We do not have family, or any other personal tie to the city, but a desire to see the sites.

In the wonderful world of IT, sales must seriously be slowing if the volume of sales calls I am receiving is any indication.  Talk about the desperate calling…and calling. If it is not someone calling to sell me something, it is a recruiter calling, near begging, me to interview their candidate.  I am not currently hiring, or considering hiring, but that does not seem to matter that much to the callers.  I guess they need to show some sort of action to their clients and any interview, even an unproductive one, is action.

<<A bit of a rant>>
I think what is bugging me the most is the attitude that I get from sales people that I owe them a return call, or 5 minutes of my time.  I love the calls that start out with “I am not calling to sell you anything, but I just want to get an understanding of your internal structure to see if we have a possible fit.”  Let me see, I do not know you from Adam, and you want to me to go into detail about my internal operations and configuration…ya, I will get right on that.  Wait, how about I just send you all of our internal documentation as well.  They just want to understand my operation so they can determine if they can sell me something later…hmmm.

I understand they have a job to do, and are stressed about their own sales quotas, but I have a job to do as well and can not do it if I spend all day chatting with sales people. I am not sure that the average sales person realizes that they are one of many people who call each day trying to get me to “setup a time” to chat with an account manager about xyz product or service.  It has got to the point that the phone is clutter, and the communication is noise most of the time.  Sales people do not spend 5 minutes pre-screening targets, and all that does is waist time.

OK, I am done ranting about something I can not change…