A long time ago in a IT retailer far, far, away… Well not really, it was Compustore on the longmile road. As some of you know I used to work there. It’s were I “did my time” as a retail sales person.
Some people slag me for it but when I started with Compustore there were 2 stores when I left there were 5 and about 10-12 franchises, so I like to think I played my part, and even if I didn’t I had a hell of a lot of fun and met some great people while working there.
And, if you’ll indulge me I’d like to tell you a story about one person I met there a little more than 8 years ago.
It was a Saturday afternoon and I’m pretty sure I was hung over, I was hung over a lot in those days, hell it was right in the eye of the storm that was the Celtic tiger. So life was a constant party, we liked to think we worked hard and played harder and there were times that was the only way you could stay sane 
Anyway, I digress, I was prowling the shop floor doing my best to avoid the time wasters and be available to the people that were there to spend money, hey, a good months sales made the difference between getting the bus home after work or a drink after hours and a taxi later 
Anyway, I see this group come wandering in what looked to be fairly good suits, on a Saturday afternoon, so I’m seeing a “cure” there’s 2 guys and a lady, different ages and very obviously serious business people. So I make my way across towards them doing my best to play deaf to the scumbag looking for help reading the system requirements of some piece of software and see the fantastic looking shoes the tall skinny guy is wearing.
Cha ching, I’m thinking:D
So I introduce myself and the tall guy takes the lead…
“You don’t sound terribly local?” I inquire as we start to wander toward the display of shiny new state of the art PC’s.
“naw, I’m from the U.S.” he says.
“ah ok” I say,” so your in town for business?”
“Yup, so why don’t you show us your best selling PC?”
“Ah nuts” I’m thinking cause I know our best seller is also the one I make the least commission on. So I start to nudge him a bit about what he wants the machine for etc. Trying to get a bit more info for the up sell I’m thinking of
Then without any prompting he starts talking plural and I’m all of a sudden thinking “give him exactly what he wants get the deal and if he’s looking for a few, sure that’ll make it worthwhile. Little did I know…
I’m settling into my patter now about our best seller it was a Compaq Presario If memory serves, it was definitely an AMD K6 2 powered model, a budget model with most of the bases covered.
All in all we talked for about 20 minutes a lot about business and how the different chips were sizing up against each other and so on and so forth, it was refreshing to speak to a middle aged man who actually new a fairly decent amount (As I thought) about computer technology, please don’t think I’m being patronising or ageist with that statement if you had worked there at the time you would understand what I mean, it wasn’t unheard of but it was rare.
Anyway, it was at this point, after I had pitched an AMD powered PC to him, discussed the virtues of the CPU over the Intel alternative at the time, that he introduced himself as Craig and handed me his card…
INTEL COO
And as I was apologising he asked me to stop and thanked me for being “straight and honest” with him explaining that it was rare that he got the chance to speak to people like me that new so much about “his” market.
At this point as we were saying our farewells, I’m thinking that’s a bit much “his” market, jaysus like you run one Intel factory in Ireland, get a grip mate. God I was so naive/dumb.
As soon as he had left the store our head technician, Rob, comes running out from behind the tech counter asking who the guy that I had just been talking too was. Keep in mind Rob, like myself, wasn’t the smallest lad in the world and I don’t ever remember seeing him move that fast before.
I said it was some bloke from Intel, to which Rob replied “yea he pulled up in a massive stretch limo.
Slowly the penny was starting to drop, I pulled his card out of my pocket and as Rob saw it he just looked gob smacked and goes “George you do know who he is?”
I reply “yea he’s some big cheese out in Lucan” and Rob starts shaking his head.
“no George, that’s THE big cheese in Intel”
Ker klunk finally, the penny drops. I can still hear Rob laughing when I told him that I ‘d tried to sell him an AMD PC.
I learned some very valuable lessons that day.
The value of honesty in all your dealings as you just never know exactly who you are dealing with.
The truly clever people will always listen to and value everyone else’s opinion, before forming their own.
Always remain humble, you will gain far more respect from people that way than telling them how fantastic you are
And the most important lesson?
Listen to your elders, chances are they have seen and done it before you or else they have a PHD
