The Job Read Online Free PDF Page A

into the St. Regis Hotel and headed across a plushly carpeted lobby. At the cloakroom I handed over my overcoat and proceeded to the men’s room, where an elderly attendant with hunched shoulders turned on the sink taps while I emptied my bladder. After I finished rinsing my hands, he ceremoniously handed me a towel. There was a tray of aftershaves and colognes between two sinks. I splashed on some Armani Pour Homme. I read somewhere once (probably GQ) that this aftershave “exudes an aura of sophisticated power.” I know, I know-it’s a real smarmy kind of sales Ditch. But Ditches like that move product. Especially if you’re aiming at the aspiring-young-executive end of the marketin other words, guys like me.
    The elderly attendant, an Italian immigrant with permanently rheumy eyes and a tiny turtlelike head tucked down between his shoulders, handed me a comb and a brush. I ran the comb through my hair (still damp from the melting snow), then turned around and craned my head in an attempt to inspect a tiny patch of thinning hair at the top of my skull. When I say tiny, I mean tiny-the bald patch is no bigger than a dime. Still, it serves as a reminder that I am beginning that ever-rapid descent toward middle age. Everybody tells me that I still look like a kid in his mid-twenties- possibly because I’m built like a reasonably healthy scarecrow (six foot two, 166 pounds, a thirty-four-inch waist). So far, I’ve displayed no visible signs of aging (except that minuscule patch of thinning hair). Compared to just about every other guy I know in sales, I’m a walking advertisement for clean living. Anytime the national CompuWorld sales team gets together for its biannual conference-or I attend one of the big international computer exhibitions that the Getz-Braun group stages-I am amazed at just how toxic and hyper-tense everyone else looks. The outside sales rep guys are inevitably thirty pounds overweight (from an on-the-road diet of fast food… and the discovery that a double-dip milkshake or a half dozen beers can provide temporary high-carbohydrate relief whenever you fail to make a deal). The Telesales women, on the other hand, appear to be dabbling in anorexia, or are the sort of fanatical keep-fit junkies who work off all their stress and disappointment in the health club-they sport biceps that would shame G.I. Joe. And the regional sales managers are either dedicated nicotine fiends, or compulsive pencil chewers, or PWNs (People Without Nails).
    No doubt about it, the sales game can have a nasty impact on your health, unless you work out a strategy for coping with its burdens. Like playing tennis twice a week. And maintaining a low-fat, low-sodium diet. And never drinking during lunch (unless, of course, you’re with one of several clients who will only throw six figures’ worth of business your way if you get smashed with them. And learning how to shrug off stress-that “convert-it-into-positive-energy you always read about in assorted “business management books… which essentially means landing a new deal whenever you’re feeling excessively anxious.
    In fact, I had most of the “excesses” in my life under control-with one big exception: I’d yet to figure out how to stop spending excessive amounts of money.
    The bathroom attendant pulled out a little wooden box from beneath the sink. Sliding it next to me, he stepped on top and began to de-lint my pinstriped shoulders with a brush.
    “Nice suit, sir,” he said.
    It certainly should be-considering that it’s a $1,200 Cerutti. If you peeked into my closet, you’d assume that suits are a weakness of mine. I own close to a dozen-and they’re all designer. I also buy top-of-the-line English shoes and the usual expensive accessories. But I’m not a style junkie, or the sort of go-getting executive who actually believes that an expensive suit turns you into a corporate warrior. To me, looking sharp is simply an intrinsic part of the sales game. It