Every week or so, a co-worker forwards to everyone at the company an e-mail with sales tips from one of those guys who thinks he’s a selling guru. I am in no way interested in selling, and, to my mind, the e-mails offer up that same repulsive hyper-confidence and smarminess that give salespeople a bad name. I resent this guru for his attitude first, and his writing style second. Comma splices right and left, guys! C'mon. Maybe when you're God's gift to capitalism, you don't have time to punctuate thoughtfully.
Still, I read them, every time. More often than not, the golden advice is something like, "Never cold-call," or "Cold-calling is for babies," or "Cold-calling is what caused Greece's economy to collapse." Whatevs. The second most common theme is one of self-confidence and self-belief: "If you don't believe that you are the best, your company is the best, and your product is the best, how is your customer supposed to?"
The thing that always occurs to me is, "Well, what if your company or your product isn't the best?" So, yesterday, I was reading the usual drivel, snarking away in my head, and thought that maybe I was supposed to be taking this type of approach to baby-making. Heather's follicles will be bountiful. We will create the strongest, prettiest embryos of all time. Those embryos will result in one-- just one-- strong and pretty fetus.
Like in The Secret, right? Fiddy told Oprah he was reading that, and you can't tell me Fiddy doesn't know about making money. I wish he sent out weekly mass e-mails.
This morning, Heather had an appointment at the fertility office in Memphis to have lab work done. She's been on Lupron and FSH since Friday and Sunday, respectively, and now they're tracking her estradiol and running ultrasounds every few days to check how her body is reacting. Alas for my beloved night owl, the monitoring appointments are at 7:30AM so the results can be processed and sent to Nashville by the afternoon, so Heather had to be scooted out of bed, shot up, and packed off to get, literally, poked and prodded.
Because the course of reproduction never did run smooth, I got a call at 7:45 to say that the Memphis clinic didn't have the Nashville test orders. Nashville's offices don't open till 8. After several calls, I got a receptionist on the phone, badgered her twice (whilst Heather checked in anxiously from the Memphis clinic), and was granted an audience with a very pleasant nurse who said she would fax the orders. I called Heather back to tell her as much. How long should we wait?, she wanted to know. After a couple of minutes, she called back. I said to give it another five minutes and let me know if I should call them again.
Much to my delight, when I called moments ago to check with Heather, she said the orders had come through. Thank you, jesus.
Relief aside, I still wonder about what confidence is appropriate under the circumstances. Is our reproductive company the best? How certain are we that we're selling the finest product available?
I guess, though, the point of things like The Secret is that you just concentrate on something and put out good thoughts till that thing comes to you. Thoughts become things, I'm told.
And the good vibes-- today anyway-- have not been for nothing: the ultrasound technician told Heather that she had 17 eggs today, her lining looked great, and she had "a beautiful uterus." Fuck, yeah.
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