Walk Softly and Carry an Armored Tank Division I Always Say

 In 2009 I was the head of marketing for a small software publishing company and together with the heads of sales and business development we had been courting, cajoling and all out begging a leading tax preparation service to let us be their partner in the software aisle.  The target of our efforts was a woman, I’ll call her Jane, who was known in our industry as a real hard ass. After months of calls, emails, networking and more begging, we got a short note from her.

“You can take me and my associate to dinner one week from today at 7PM sharp and then you have 30 minutes to pitch us the next day. In the meantime stop calling me.”  All righty then, I guess we’re getting on a plane.

We huddled and planned our attack down to the last detail even convincing the CEO of our parent company to fly to Kansas City for dinner.  As we pre-gamed at the hotel our fearless leader gave us sage direction. “Keep your shit together and close this god damned deal!” …Why didn’t I think of that?

At 6:50 we arrive at the restaurant of Jane's choosing.  It was a dark, dank, rickety joint that smelled of cigarette smoke, urine and glue. Certainly not how a midwest steakhouse should smell, but I thought maybe this is just one of those under-the-radar, crusty local joints that can get away with such things. When our targets arrive we head into the dingy, foul smelling dining room and the conversation, as my dad would put it is "flatter than a fart". 

My counterparts and I are enthusiastically volleying the conversational hot potato, acting like costumed animals in a 3 ring circus and Jane answers all our questions with pointed one word responses. Things were going nowhere fast.

With standard business protocol proving ineffective we employ our only remaining tactic, booze. We order bottle after bottle of the best wine on the limited menu and finally dragon lady starts to get loose.  In a matter of minutes she travels from barely speaking and sending looks that kill, to moderately enjoying herself, to falling off the proverbial cliff. She was pickled.  And not the let’s-have-fun-and-we’ll-laugh-about-it-tomorrow-pickled.  Nope, the Courtney Love kind of pickled.

After our meals were cleared away and after-dinner drinks are being finished I notice Jane has steak juice all down the front of her white sweater, which is certainly unfortunate, but that kind of thing happens, then much to my horror she starts dipping her napkin into her wine glass and blotting out the steak juice with her red wine.

I’m not familiar with this method of stain removal.

Her co-worker leans over and whispers something and off Jane goes in the direction of the ladies room, hopefully she’ll clean herself up, dust herself off and be blissfully unaware that we were any the wiser.  After a few minutes the check arrives and we settle up.  Then we wait, and wait some more. No one wanting to say out loud what we were each thinking. “Where the hell is the train wreck?” Tick tock, tick tock and after about 30 painful minutes, my CEO leans over and quietly says, “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to go in after her.”

Naturally.

I timidly enter the ladies room really not sure what I’ll find and that’s when I hear it, a noise behind one of the closed stall doors, it sounds like she’s on the ground rolling around in a pile of wadded up toilet seat covers.

Terrific.

I start making some noise over by the sinks hoping she’ll hear me and pull it together. No dice. Finally I say “Jane, we’re getting ready to go, shall we wait for you in the bar?” Rustle, rustle, rustle and then she emerges wild eyed and wobbly with wine, steak juice and god knows what else all over her lovely white sweater looking more like a cornered perp from the show COPS then a respected sales executive. She took one look at me and without a word or a visit to the sink hauled ass out of the restroom.

Classy.

Needless to say we never got the deal we went there to close, but in the end it didn’t matter. They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I say it’s served best in a filthy heap on the ladies room floor.