A Name that will make Neil smile

I’ve been thinking about my many work experiences with Neil back in “the good old days” of our fledgling careers. We all know how competitive Neil is and he brought that quality directly into his career in sales. So he savored every contract win and followed each contract loss with a “strategic plan” to win the next battle with that competitor, and to win more than we lost. He and I agree on the old adage “don’t get mad, get even”. He had more than his share of wins to celebrate, most of which I’m sure are memorable to him. But we also had a lot of fun in our jobs in those early days, much of it related to the fun and interesting people we worked with at our customers. Now I can’t say for sure, but I’m sure one of Neil’s favorite customers of all time was Jim L., the geeky, bow tie wearing, absent minded professor at Chevrolet engineering. In retrospect, I think Jim was a lot like Neil. Super intelligent, competitive and loved to have fun. Well fun in those days was lunch with the customer, where the conversations ranged from immediate business issues to politics, religion, the state of the economy, etc. But with Jim it seemed they always started with a few new jokes that he had heard that set the tone for the lunch conversations. And by the time the lunch was over, all conversations seemed to take on a humorous light due to the amount of alcohol consumed with our meals. In fact, what I remember as the most notable accomplishment of Jim L. (and I believe Neil will too) was his invention of the numerical lunch rating system. It had nothing to do with the quality of the meal or the excellence of the service. It was solely focused on the amount of alcohol consumed. On his scale, a worthy lunch was a 32. Three drinks before lunch and two after. Needless to say, we tried to get the important business issues covered in the mornings! And how we did this and then made the long drive from the east side of Detroit to Battle Creek on a regular basis escapes me. I’m sure it had something to do with our relative youth at the time!

So here’s a toast to one of our all time favorite customers and one that I’m sure will make Neil smile. Especially when contrasting with the engineers at American Motors who would call Neil on a Friday morning and demand that we meet them for lunch in Detroit, to be followed by a short meeting, then the long drive back to Battle Creek in rush hour traffic. Obviously arranged because they didn’t have any suppliers arranged for lunch on that day. Those lunches were memorable, but for entirely different reasons!



All the best to Neil and family!



Chuck M.