Man, I've seen pictures of WW1 veterans looking less scarred than this guy... I think that's what Churchill had in mind when he said that one of his "secrets" for a long and healthy life was "no sport"!
By the way, I've got something to vent out as well. I work in a logistics company. Basically, we're shipping train/boatloads of food, steel, wood, finished products between producers, supermarkets, factories etc. Since not anyone can use your services, you have to develop good relations with powerful, influent potential clients ; CEOs and other high ranking officials of the companies that may need your services, mostly. So, courting them is half of the job.
How do you court a CEO from a multi-million transnational company? You invite them to a lavish reception with French champagne, Russian caviar and all of that jazz. And where do you invite them? To the most expensive piece of real estate you can find, of course!
Last time we tried, one of our managers rented a chalet in Courchevelles, but it didn't bring the expected results as some of the potential clients felt it was too cold, or didn't like winter sports. One of the ones who did like them had already booked the exact same chalet a couple years ago and snickered a little at our attempt.
Comes in our boss. He says "you know what? Mountains suck, let's find ourselves something under the sun. And let's BUY it, so that we don't get ridiculed.". Cue the boss telling us to find where to buy a seaside villa. We all bring a couple links, exchange info with the sellers, everything's going fine. The boss says "Let's go for Greece, it's cheap". No contestations from the accounting department, of course. Cheap wasn't the first adjective that came to my mind when looking at
these, but apparently it's cheaper than in other places. Go figure.
So, comes the time to send someone there to visit the things, because who buys a house without looking at it first? The boss had to choose one person, and he could pick from someone who IS Greek, someone who knows a lot about real estate and related legal procedures, yours truly, who speaks different foreign languages and has led successfully quite a couple important business meetings, and some guy from the accounting department who may be good at his job, but speaks basic English and has the social skills of a boot sole.
Who was picked to go for a paid holid... I mean, to go choose what's best for the company's development? The accountant guy, of course!
I didn't want to complain about it at work because it's a douchey thing to do, and didn't want to complain in front of my wife who has it harder than I am, but it has been pissing me off for the last couple of days. I already didn't think too highly of accountants, but now...