What A Difference A Season Makes

So my office is in full swing now, on what is our company's bread and butter market. We were doing our thing with this other demographic, and it went OK, but certainly not the numbers we're used to seeing around here. Now things are kind of looking like normal.

Observing the board this morning I noticed that the new kid, last month's golden boy, is nowhere to be seen in terms of productivity. This is Sales, and I know that happens, believe me. I'm not knocking the guy. The reason this is in any way interesting to me is not so much this individual's performance, but rather those numbers in contrast to my manager's accolades the month prior.

You see, all last month this guy was held up as THE model that we should all be striving to emulate. The kid had passion, our boss would tell us, that's why he was doing so well. To be fair, he did post good numbers that month (and to be doubly fair, it's only the 8th, he's got more than enough time to eclipse all of us yet again), but what irked most of us was his lack of modesty in that accomplishment not to mention just some other douche-baggy aspects of his personality. I don't want readers to think my office or I was pulling punches here, either; when it became obvious that some of us disdained him we were honest with him when he asked about it. Fair is fair, I suppose.

In addition to the lack of sales this month, it has also come to light that the retention rate for his clients has dropped to the lowest in the office. That's never a good thing. Again, I'm not harping on this individual's performance, but rather my manager's enthusiastic endorsement of him last month compared with his production this month. It almost seems that my manager has a propensity for betting on the wrong pony. I guess I like the ironic contrast between loving the kid and shouting at all of us to be more like him one month and then more or less acting like it never happened the next.