A sales manger walks into the sales rep's office and states, "Experts say humor on the job relieves tension in this time of downsizing, Knock, Knock."
The sales rep replies, "Who's there?"
The sales manager answers, "Not you anymore."
Moral of the Story. Sometimes it's not opportunity knocking.
"In practice, downsizing is too often about cutting your work force while keeping your business the same, and doing so not by investments in productivity-enhancing technology, but by making people pull 80-hour weeks and bringing in temps to fill the gap."
- James Surowiecki
To be perfectly blunt, the office receptionist could be a real
witch. She'd been there over 20 years and lorded over the place like
she owned it. On the first day it snowed this season, she went as far
as to order one of the salespeople to warm up her car for her. Much to
everyone's surprise, the salesman agreed.
A few minutes later the salesman came back holding a broom. Placing
it over the heating vent, he told her loud enough for the entire sales
department to hear, "Just give it a minute and it'll be ready to go!"
Moral of the story. True sales professionals know that in order to
be successful at sales you have to be able to get along with some
pretty gruff personalities. One proven method of softening such tough
people up a bit is to use humor. If used properly, humor can deflect
others anger or rage often resulting in more appropriate interactions.
"People like to talk more than they like to act. They like to sit
there and complain and vent. Somehow they think that changes things.
Which it doesn't." - James Patterson
