Always Be Closing

Hi, my name is Tom Jacobson. I am 23 years old 5'9" with light brown hair and a slim build. I currently work as a software engineer for a rapidly growing outsourcing company. This is my first job out of college, but I've already been promoted twice. I am now the lead engineer on my team, which means that I will have to start meeting with clients. This is the story of how my first business trip changed my life forever.

I wasn't given much notice about this trip. Tina, one of the top salespeople at the company, called me up and said that the engineer she had lined up to join her for several high profile prospective clients had to cancel due to a family emergency. She didn't understand all of the technical issues and needed an engineer with her to close the business. Being young an ambitious, I saw this as a great opportunity for me move up in the firm. I told her that I would be happy to tag along. She told me to go home and pack because our flight was leaving in 5 hours. She said that she would arrange for the airline tickets and hotel accommodations, all I had to do was show up to the airport.

I flew out of the office and got home as fast as I could. I knew the trip was only supposed to take four days but I kept thinking that I was forgetting something and since I've never really traveled very much I ended up throwing everything I had into the largest suitcase I could find.

I made it to the airport with about an hour to spare. Tina was standing outside of the security line looking very anxious. I could tell that she was visibly relieved when she finally saw me.

"Thank god you made it. Let's go, we don't have much time."

Although the security line wasn't very long I did hit a snag. I was told that my suitcase was too big to fit in the overhead and that I would have to check it. Since we didn't have much time I couldn't argue about it and handed over my bag. After making it through security we raced through the terminal and made it to the gate just as they were making their final announcements.