It's that time...

At the beginning of every quarter there are two days in particular I dread. Dreadful Day One (DD1) is the day I have to review my division’s quarterly presentation with the EVP before our quarterly meeting. Dreadful Day Two (DD2) is the day of the meeting and I have to deliver the quarterly presentation to the company.

DD1 is the worst day because I get yelled at (read: berated, humiliated, reamed, threatened, and shamed…Japanese style) for missing my financial targets for the quarter. No matter what we do right, I always get hammered for missing the sales targets (which are unrealistic and were not set by me…or anyone who understands ecommerce) and I walk away feeling like a total failure…even though I know there is no way we could meet these goals on the budget I’ve been given. This quarter’s DD1 was yesterday and went surprisingly well (read: only slightly berated, humiliated, reamed, threatened, and shamed…Japanese style). Maybe it was because I came to the meeting prepared with an argument as to why we were meeting our goals. My number one reason focused on our lack of understanding of our target audience. I simply shared these two links (please copy and paste):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1976314898516214440&q=pokemon

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7846903799728311485&q=pokemon with Mr. EVP and stated that “we (meaning me) can’t properly market to our target audience because these folks are just too weird for any of us (me) to understand them.” He laughed so hard, I think he forgot about the yelling part.

This quarter’s DD2 is today at 3:00. It isn’t as humiliating as DD1, mainly because no one else really cares and/or listens. It just stinks because it’s a really LONG meeting and the majority of it is super boring…my part in particular. I think I rank up there right behind accounting in terms of “most boring material.” Last quarter, I was lucky enough to go first when people can find it in them to act like they are paying attention. Accounting wasn’t so lucky. During their presentation, I counted five people sleeping – including the CEO who only awakened himself to stop his own head from hitting the conference room table. I’m not even kidding! It was classic. I’m hoping for something even more spectacular today. I’ll keep you posted.