Friday – The Coffins
Jul. 24th, 2009 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
I spent most of yesterday stuck in a room with 8 levitating coffins.
We had the training room reserved for the sales presentation class Dixie was teaching. The coffins were from the day before and had nothing to do with us. Marlene, in charge of facilities in our building, called me the afternoon before, semi-hysterical.
"I know you're supposed to be in both rooms downstairs, but we're going to have to put you in the north end and partition it off because there are still eight (unintelligible screech) in there!"
I guess she was calling me because she couldn't get hold of Dixie. Dixie was teaching the class and in charge of it; I was only in the class, not to be certified to present seminars but so I could get a better understanding of the program so I can assist the presenters in my market areas. I had only a moderate interest in things going smoothly. In fact, from my point of view, glitches such as this made things more interesting.
"I didn't understand you. What's in the other end of the room?"
"Caskets!" she squealed, "There are 8 caskets in there! They were supposed to pick them up this afternoon but they're still in there! There's no telling when someone's going to show up to get them!"
"So long as they're empty, I don't think they're going to bother anyone," I said, "These are people coming in from the field locations. They see caskets all the time."
At corporate we don't see them so often, though I have seen the odd shipping crate with a casket in it sitting the parking garage a time or two. Vendors like to bring in their wares to show the corporate office, and a photo of an expensive hardwood coffin with a luxurious satin lining doesn't have the impact of bringing in a full-size sample for people to inspect up close. I've always wanted to climb inside one to see if they really are as comfortable as they look, or if it's just nice satin over cheap batting made to look all fluffy and soft. It's really a moot point, since the end user of the product is not likely to care one way or the other.
I sent Dixie and email warning her about the coffins, and considered my duty done.
The next morning I saw the offending coffins, all covered in specially sewn blue coffin-tarps and floating in mid air. Actually, they were sitting atop clear, acrylic stands to create the effect that they were floating. The vendor wanted people to notice the goods, not the stands holding them up. I work with a few marketing people and I know how marketing people think. The partition wasn't closed, probably because that would have made the room even more claustraphobic than sharing it with a bunch of empty coffins did. We had enough coffins for the number of students in the class, at least if we made a few of the skinnier students double up.
"If I catch you falling asleep in my class, I've got some beds to put you in," Dixie joked with the class. Everyone chuckled politely. The coffins seemed to annoy her, which made me enjoy having them in the room. During one of the breaks in the training class I lifted a few of the tarps to inspect them. The tarps had labels and barcodes on them to easily identify the consumer commodity within the packaging. They were from a large coffin maker in the mid-west, and the corporation I work for sells a lot of these elaborate boxes.
I have to admit, they are very nice, well crafted boxes, with the kind of intricate detailing you find in the woodwork of Victorian houses. They cost as much as a nice set of dining room furniture, and some of them cost as much as a very nice set of dining room furniture. Instead of enjoying them for years, though, people see them once, then put in the ground never to look at again.
I've lived it this world for 40 years now, and so matter how much time passes, it doesn't seem any less strange to me.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
I spent most of yesterday stuck in a room with 8 levitating coffins.
We had the training room reserved for the sales presentation class Dixie was teaching. The coffins were from the day before and had nothing to do with us. Marlene, in charge of facilities in our building, called me the afternoon before, semi-hysterical.
"I know you're supposed to be in both rooms downstairs, but we're going to have to put you in the north end and partition it off because there are still eight (unintelligible screech) in there!"
I guess she was calling me because she couldn't get hold of Dixie. Dixie was teaching the class and in charge of it; I was only in the class, not to be certified to present seminars but so I could get a better understanding of the program so I can assist the presenters in my market areas. I had only a moderate interest in things going smoothly. In fact, from my point of view, glitches such as this made things more interesting.
"I didn't understand you. What's in the other end of the room?"
"Caskets!" she squealed, "There are 8 caskets in there! They were supposed to pick them up this afternoon but they're still in there! There's no telling when someone's going to show up to get them!"
"So long as they're empty, I don't think they're going to bother anyone," I said, "These are people coming in from the field locations. They see caskets all the time."
At corporate we don't see them so often, though I have seen the odd shipping crate with a casket in it sitting the parking garage a time or two. Vendors like to bring in their wares to show the corporate office, and a photo of an expensive hardwood coffin with a luxurious satin lining doesn't have the impact of bringing in a full-size sample for people to inspect up close. I've always wanted to climb inside one to see if they really are as comfortable as they look, or if it's just nice satin over cheap batting made to look all fluffy and soft. It's really a moot point, since the end user of the product is not likely to care one way or the other.
I sent Dixie and email warning her about the coffins, and considered my duty done.
The next morning I saw the offending coffins, all covered in specially sewn blue coffin-tarps and floating in mid air. Actually, they were sitting atop clear, acrylic stands to create the effect that they were floating. The vendor wanted people to notice the goods, not the stands holding them up. I work with a few marketing people and I know how marketing people think. The partition wasn't closed, probably because that would have made the room even more claustraphobic than sharing it with a bunch of empty coffins did. We had enough coffins for the number of students in the class, at least if we made a few of the skinnier students double up.
"If I catch you falling asleep in my class, I've got some beds to put you in," Dixie joked with the class. Everyone chuckled politely. The coffins seemed to annoy her, which made me enjoy having them in the room. During one of the breaks in the training class I lifted a few of the tarps to inspect them. The tarps had labels and barcodes on them to easily identify the consumer commodity within the packaging. They were from a large coffin maker in the mid-west, and the corporation I work for sells a lot of these elaborate boxes.
I have to admit, they are very nice, well crafted boxes, with the kind of intricate detailing you find in the woodwork of Victorian houses. They cost as much as a nice set of dining room furniture, and some of them cost as much as a very nice set of dining room furniture. Instead of enjoying them for years, though, people see them once, then put in the ground never to look at again.
I've lived it this world for 40 years now, and so matter how much time passes, it doesn't seem any less strange to me.
