June 13, 2004
This week we didn’t have recognitions the way we normally do, because of the time spent reflecting on and discussing Andrew and his recent death. However, they did take a moment to recognize me and Dhimithraq (pronounced Dmitri) and the people who won flowers for having their best week in strong units and meeting the minimum units sold.
I was recognized because I had my best week in the three major categories by which they measure our performance — Customers, Sit-downs, and Strong units. This meant a lot to me not because of the recognition, which was quite akward after hearing about Andrew’s death, but because Peter Martinello gave a speech. The gist of the speech was that not everyone who comes to Southwestern has a natural selling ability. In fact, some of us are the exact opposite — referring to me. However, sometimes these people quit and go home or decide to just be negative the whole time. Peter and Mike wanted to recognize me though because I am not gifted at this and I am still working hard at it. I am one of the worst people in the org at selling books, but I am continuing to get better and I continue to push myself and work harder and harder. I appreciated having that be recognized even though it was used eventually as a segway into a lecture about how our org’s week was better than last week in terms of money and units, but sliding in terms of work stats. Every first year had fallen in some category except Dhimitraq and I.
So, that is positive and motivational. There’s really no reason that I can’t repeat the growth next week too. I am looking forward to it, actually.
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June 13, 2004
This morning during our organizational meeting in Decatur, Alabama our twenty person org heard that Andrew Tomkiewicz passed away Saturday morning. He was involved in an car accident at a four-way stop. I was told that he was hit on the driver’s side and died on impact.
Our sales manager, Kian Ostovar, flew to Huntsville, AL to talk to all of us about the accident and help us deal with it emotionally. He said that it was the first time he had to deal with a death on the book field. In fact, he had to make a number of calls and look way back to the last time a death occured during a summer with Southwestern.
We all listened to Kian, Mike Yandre, and Peter Martinello talk about Andrew, his brother Mike who is also in our org this summer, Andrew’s family, and what we need to do now that we’ve heard this news. Finally, Andrew’s roommate, Nick “N-Rod” Rodriquez, came up and talked about Andrew for a while. He told us a few funny things that had happened during his five weeks of living with Andrew and reminded us all of the qualities that we all liked about Andrew. It was funny, because these typically unsung qualities were all mentioned. We all laughed and appreciated who Andrew was for a few minutes and then most of us broke down shortly after, because all those things that made up this great guy are gone now. Once Nick broke down into tears Kian let us all go out and spend some time alone or talking with our friends. I pretty much broke down too during this whole thing. I had never had an acquaintance, peer or a friend die before. I went for a long run to use up the rest of my fifteen minutes and when the meeting resumed it kinda went on semi-normally.
I really feel badly for his older brother, Mike. Those two guys are really close, and Mike was already going through a lot before this accident and loss. Now he is going to feel this whole in his life for the rest of his days. I actually spoke with a lady the other week who had lost her brother eight years earlier, and I was just asking her a few questions about some things and she broke down in tears all over again. It must be rough.
Since I have been doing this job, every week I have eaten at least five of my twelve book field meals at various cemeteries across Jackson county. I’d take about a half an hour off and just eat and think about things and read the names and dates. Not exactly what Southwestern people would call positive, but I found it to be soothing or something — I don’t know. I was just drawn to them. I don’t know if I’ll be doing that this week.
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June 13, 2004
I am looking forward to being done with this internship with Southwestern. This would be considered “negative” to the Southwestern people, and I can totally understand why. This job is really emotional and mental more than anything, which hurts me because I think a lot — “too much” according to many in this program. I am also a fairly emotional person.
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June 13, 2004
Tonight, after my last house, I noticed some lighting all across the Eastern horizon. I really miss lightning, so even though I couldn’t hear it I decided to drive out to a unlighted country field area and sit on the roof of my car for a while. I looked at all the stars, watched the lightning in the distance and just enjoyed the scenery.
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