Not even in a post, but in comments in a post, and I was amazed at the knickers it twisted. The post and the comments specifically referred to the heavy industry in which I work, but everyone’s dog felt as if it got kicked. Reading comprehension fail.

Anyway, I am lucky that I work with sales people of the very highest level of integrity, though for most of them, that ain’t saying much. Especially in an industry where many distributors keep a “Closer” on staff- a woman who will do whatever it takes to get someone to sign on the bottom line. Use your imagination. Where multiple companies who displayed their wares at multiple machine shows around the world fill their booths with Czech mail order brides who pour Chivas and rub up against potential customers, and where special areas are set aside for foreign visitors and their eccentric tastes. A smarmier, filthier, sleazier group of people you just don’t want to meet. At IMTS, for instance, it’s been damped down- but it only moved behind closed doors; the girls are at a remote location where shuttles and livery bring men (and women!) back and forth between the show and “Private events”. Emo, in Hanover Germany, has no such illusions, they have the crap right out in the open. One of the people we were associated with many years back had a “Stable” of booth babes he hired out for special occasions, and they ran in several categories- “Clean” which were strictly hands- off and were groomed for marrying off to potential clients, “Healthy” who were hands on if you were in the clique, and “Condoms only” who worked things like the appliance and electronics shows. All the big money shows got the big money girls, and they are not there by accident.

Anyway, I consider this behavior to be unacceptable and I disdain people who don’t, but those are the salesmen I deal with all the time. And these issues aren’t even the most egregious; cooking books, kicking back, using every conceivable kind of insider information they can lay their hands on, and generally making a mess that the technical people have to clean up is the tip of the iceberg. Your mileage may vary, but I only wish mine did. Lets not even talk about the companies who have more former CEO’s doing time than Illinois has former governers.