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Typical day at AT&T for Patsy Pritchitt starts at 7:00 a.m. I unlock the door to my office and I'm usually the first one there, so I make a pot of coffee. All of my sales executives really tease me about that because of all of the people in my group, I only have one female sales executive, and the other ones are men. So they say it's my job and my responsibility to make the coffee. That's a jab [a joke], by the way, and I make them pay for that.
I then retrieve the messages that I have received from the previous day that I did not have an opportunity to return calls to. I'm usually here from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and oddly enough, people still call you after 7:00 p.m. So if I do not have an opportunity to retrieve those messages at night at home, I do that first thing that next morning. By then my phone is already ringing. If it's not from a sales executive, it's one of the other sales managers here in our office. We have five other sales managers, and we usually work in unison because our bandwidth [time available] is a little stretched at this point. Last quarter of the year is usually very intense for AT&T, and I'm sure that's more common throughout the communications industry because most customers are gearing up for the new year and they want to make sure they spend all of their communication dollars that were allocated to them in 1998. So they find all these new applications. Price this, do that, work this, install that. So it's a very demanding quarter for us.
I'm also receiving calls simultaneously from customers either wanting to see me or they have a problem. The problems have to be resolved quickly. They are either allocated out to a sales executive with the expertise that has the knowledge base to attend to these customers, or I do them myself.
By then it's usually 10:00. There are numerous executive meetings that I have to attend throughout the day. Those that are called by our branch manager are mandatory. And we've just today had two meetings on our budget.
People are constantly knocking on my door. They either need help or guidance or they need some additional assistance on an account that they are working on.
So that brings us to mid-afternoon. I usually sit at my desk and gobble down a sandwich. I eat lots of Tums. By then I've probably received several other phone calls. I respond to those phone calls. Some of them are sales leads, so I don't want to give you the impression that my day is humdrum. It is not. I think it's very exciting. You definitely have to have a love for people to be in a sales position. I think that comes through in your voice, also, when you're on the telephone with a customer. Customers very often say, describe yourself, or come out; I want to meet you because nobody can be as happy and excited about their jobs as you sound over the telephone.
The day continues along those same lines. Constant telephone calls, customer contacts in person, some drive time. There's also time for administrative work. There are letters to be written. There are memos to be issued, and then we have a group meeting at the end of the day. It's a progress report. I want to know how well each person did, if they feel good about what they accomplished that day because I don't want my sales executives to walk out of the door feeling like they have not accomplished anything. And everybody needs a pat on the back, so I take some time out to do that as well. No matter how bad your day has gone, certainly we can find some high point in your day where you deserve some commendations.
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