A Nostalgic Look back at Office Work in the 1990's - Office 90s

In the spirit of a great article in the Curbed section of New York Magazine entitled “Remember the office? A look back at 150 years of cubicles, corner offices, all-nighters, and the holiday party.” I’ve written my own look back at my office from the 1990s.

The most frightening day of my life was the day I walked out of the dark stuffy graduation hall into the blinding light of an Upstate NY Spring day to realize that I had no job and home for the foreseeable future my mom’s NYC studio couch. Mid 90s NYC was a rough place, and jobs were not easy to come by.. unless of course, you were young, hungry, and naive enough to take a job selling anti-glare screens on hostile trading floors to manic head traders.

My first job (and the one I kept for the next 10 years) was for a company that made custom glare covers for computer monitors that at the time were terrible on the eyes. It was a great concept and the founder was a marketing genius. He hired blue-collar kids straight out of college and after 3 days of VHS taped training sessions and a few role-plays sent you to the salt mines. The salt mines in the mid-’90s were a sea of desks with old school phones and a Dun and Bradstreet directory. Go get ‘em, kid.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

I made 200 plus calls a day starting at 8 am (still the best time to get a decision-maker on the phone) to CEOs, head traders, EVP’s of New York's largest companies. banking, media, insurance, and fashion dominated the NYC landscape and I actually cold-called Ralph Lifshitz not knowing who the hell he was. Sweetheart of a guy from what I recall and although I couldn’t close him for a meeting he connected me to his COO and Polo ended up a client!

The sales room was out of a movie script. Banks of small laminate desks with exposed telephone cabling ran the length of the room. The sales manager sat in the back next to the owner of the company in a small glass-fronted office perfectly positioned to make sure that the phone was affixed to your ear at all times. Men (there were very few women at the time in the cold calling game) most still wet behind the ears with a few grizzled vets worked the phones like a hive of angry hornets using the latest phone script. “Hi, this is Tim Jackson from Clearview calling. We are the world’s premier designer of “eye-protective screens (we were never.. ever to call them glare screens . We were protective people from future blindness damn it!) and our screens are becoming a standard for companies like yours that care about their employees well being and productivity. In fact, I’ll be meeting with Bear Sterns right across the street at 3 pm on Thursday, can you pencil me in for 15 minutes after I’m done?” 50% of those calls were immediate hang-ups. You had to have thick skin to call strangers and ask for an in-person meeting on the first call.

“The sales room was out of a movie script

Banks of small laminate desks with exposed telephone cabling ran the length of the room. “

You did this enough times and it became second nature. You internalized the script and if you were smart, you picked up on tips from some of the old-timers. When to throw in a question, “I’m sure you can relate Mrs. Smith staring at these screens all day gives you one hell of a headache am I right?” followed by a chuckle. If the prospect chuckled back the meeting was as good as booked. Or the bulldozers that on their 5th cup of coffee by 11 am seemed to use cosmic energy to will the prospect into a meeting. Or the Good Ole Boy with the Awe shucks “I’m new to the big city” rap. Or the big city Tony Monero from Bay Ridger that went to all the best clubs and got comped wherever he goes, or the… You get it, the list goes on. You were who your persona was at the time, and you reflected what your audience was looking for. Things haven’t changed all that much.

And There were characters!

There was Brian who in current times would be the guy that wears the MAGA hat to work every day. He had an NRA button that he wore on his lapel and framed Soldier of fortune covers on his desk. Brian had a buzz cut, was just a few years out of the marines, and was 100% ‘Merica. Everything he said was like he was issuing an order, and you were inclined to follow. And not because he was a big bad ex-marine but because his name was always at the top of the sales leaderboard and he was, underneath the tough facade, a sweetheart of a guy that would go out of his way to offer the young guys pointers. He’d take an entire afternoon of his time to go out with you on an important sales call. Unlike some of the other vets in the office, he didn’t try to bully you into splitting a commission or backing off an account because it had been on his list for ages. Brian was a class act and helped me to appreciate the ability to listen instead of talk.

There was Mike. Mike was built like a linebacker, spent a significant amount of time at Rikers, and until you got to know him was a scary man. He somehow got the job through a friend and was terrible at making sales calls. He was so bad that one of the other salesmen would call into the office asking for Mike pretending to be a customer only to record the sales call and replay it on the loudspeaker in our office at random times. After a few months of this, Mike finally uncovered that the guy who was pranking him (we all knew who it was) was “farmer” Larry. Larry was a farmer from the midwest who for whatever reason got way more joy out of pranking people in the office than making actual sales calls. He was probably the only guy in the office that could get away with doing this because for whatever reason this odd couple had become tight friends.

Every sales office needs a Dr. Frasier Crane (or a Dianne) and our was a blond kid from Connecticut named Tyler. I have a clear recollection of our sales manager parading his new trophy hire fresh out of Yale (why anyone from Yale would take a job at this zoo is still a mystery) around the office. Ty got a desk right outside the boss’s office and was set up with a brand new computer and cell phone (a rarity in those days). This guy was a walking WASP stereotype. He wore a seersucker suit, openly talked about summering in Nantucket, and how this was just a temporary job learning the “sales thing” until he could take over his dad’s business. He did have a few family connections that kept him around for about a year until he was caught summering in Rhode Island by the owner of the company while he had called in sick.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

One of the greatest success stories coming out of my old company was a mild-mannered salesperson who I’ll call George. George was never much of a cold caller, was always middle of the sales board, kept his head down, and put in work. Unlike most in the office, you couldn’t really categorize him. I guess if he had a schtick he was an awe shucks type of guy that you couldn’t help but like and that played it safe both with management and with his customers. He was more inclined to mentor the new guys than to make 100s of calls. George remained with the company for many years and ultimately left to start his own furniture company which he ended up selling for over 40 million dollars! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy and proves you don’t always have to take over every room to stand out and become uber rich.

Somehow the office Sales Manager (will call him Ted) kept this ragtag group of misfits on target to hit their sales goals every month. Ted had an amazing work ethic and rode you constantly but you were a better salesperson as a result. He was old school, kept a large whiteboard in the back of the office with your sales numbers, and made you wack a large gong whenever you closed a deal. Corny as it seemed you couldn’t wait to get back to the office to hit the gong and increase your sales numbers on the board. Primitive but it worked and Id take that sales training over any of the online phonies that promote sales training nowadays.

I could go on for days about all the stories from those early days in my career or my Office 90s . Despite some of the craziness the company was an incubator for talent and has produced many amazingly successful entrepreneurs and some of the industri’s best salespeople. I often miss the simplicity and honesty of those days and the skills that I learned (and memories we created) will always be with.