Next, please!

Today was a really bizarre day.  It started with my arrival into a lobby/waiting room at a local retailer's headquarters to sign up to see a buyer on a first come/first served basis.  I did so.  As I turned to find a seat, I looked at over two dozen men already seated, signed in, ready and waiting--all looking relatively the same in their pseudo-Brooks Brothers suits.  

A fabulous guy sitting next to me struck up a conversation, kind of like the one I'd be more used to hearing sitting on a bar stool:  "Is this your first time here?  No?  Wow, is it always this crazy?  Wow."  I truly felt like a mentor and dinosaur all in one.  

There were a minimum of three turnovers in men waiting, with a woman sprinkled in here and there.  Frankly, it was refreshing to see a little pink or blue in a sea of black, grey and brown suits.  I sat for nearly two hours before a perky, spankin' clean buyer came out to inform me that there was a reshuffling of categories going on and the meeting should end shortly with the buyers now knowing who was handling what.  No wonder folks presenting my category were waiting, waiting, waiting...

I've never competed in a tri-athalon, and those who know me are guffawing as they read this, but this buyer was buff beyond compare--and no spring chicken either--I was in submission and immediately morphed into educator/protector mode.  "I can teach you all about this category.  I've been to the plants and seen these products made..."

I didn't make the sale due to this extremely bright buyer doing the right thing, "I've got to get to know this category a little before having you come back to re-present to me, my boss and the PR and Marketing Departments."  Yowza!  I'm in love already, but, then again, I'm totally fickle.