my commute is 59 miles one way. on the way home it takes me about 1hr&10 minutes. on monday, tuesday and wednesday mornings, I have to drive in rush hour traffic, and it has taken as long as 2hrs+ two or three times so far. Usually, that's about 1.5 hrs. so, it sucks a little, but I listen to the traffic report/howard stern/WIP sportsradio, and let my mind wander. They've been very understanding when I've been late.
As far as the job goes.....I typed this once, but lost it......Salesmanager is more diverse than finance manager, and I interact with more people each day....when it's busy, it's a lot like a party, and I wander about chit chatting with customers while their salesperson is doing one thing or another for them. It helps when I go in later and negotiate if we have already met under less pressured terms. We give all the ladies a boquet of flowers just for coming in...great ice breaker......I like to pretend that thier husband had them sent for her.....( this is an effective means of determining whether or not a manager has greeted that customer...like a tag ...sorta.)
The down side of it is being responsible for my team of salesmen, and accountable for their missteps, or lack of productivity. Nothing I can;t handle, but it is a much different dynamic than just being in charge of me or myself and an assistant. I have two counterparts that are a bit zany. They're both strong closers, but can come off a bit....carsalesmanish..... The GSM tends to send me in to talk to customers that are 'just shopping' which makes my odds of closing them a bit lower, so I take a bit of ribbing for not being able to close customers......I can push when it is called for, but would say that the other two guys are stronger closers....sometimes, if I can't get them, I'll send one of the other two in, or the used car manager, and 3/4 of the time, they're able to close the deal. whatever it takes.
Ed likes to 'spin' people. Spinning someone goes like this: A customer that didn't, won't or can't buy, a delivery guy, a vendor, bank rep, etc.. walks by, and starts to go out the door, and Ed yells, "wait a minute!" and then looks away, or pretends to be concentrating on imaginary paperwork, and the person spins around, wondering if he was talking to them. stupid, but it gets funnier every time he does it. some times it's "did you drop this?!" or simply, "Maaaaaaam?" Most of the employees are hip to it, but if he gets you, that just makes it funnier. Once, I was closing a customer, and the used car manager went into the adjacent cubicle and starting banging into the partition really hard, and pretending that he was moving furniture on the other side....just to throw the guy off balance.....he bought. actually, he did it to me twice with 2 different customers, and they both bought....hmmmm.
So going into finance will be, comparitively, a bit boring, and I'll be in a cave of an office with no window, ...but......I'ts another large pay raise, and that is where the bulk of my expertise lies. I got the schedule worked out to where jinx is happy ( well....not pissed off, anyway) and the guy I will be partnering with is a blue chip, so it should work out really well. And most importantly, Wolf can't call me a car salesman anymore.
