I often think back to my college days and wonder what coursework I might have taken that would have been beneficial for a more lucrative mid-career.  I am presently over the great plains in the suborbital arc of my career- somewhere between Memphis and Kansas City, westbound to that Golden State on the horizon.  At some point in a chemists career he must mix metaphors and make a choice at the great fork in the road.  To remain in the lab or to move on to the crystal city on the hill:  Sales & marketing.  I chose sales and marketing, well, because I had to.   

Chemical sales is a odd field. One is neither a full member of the R&D tribe or the business tribe.  You become a chimera- a half man, half beast of burden that lopes through the B2B high plains sniffing for the stray morsel or rotting carcass.  In principle you are a member of an elite strike force, one in possession of the sacred knowledge of molecule marketing. On business trips you can mingle in the company of professors or supply-chain managers with equal ease. Your tongue can bend words with both the old ones- the blessed faculty- and those keepers of the elusive coin. 

But in your sterile cubicle, you are just another salesman.  Many companies have computer software that can be rigged to specifically to watch your every keystroke, even how frequently you move the mouse. This malevolent utility will time your calls, refuse to budge unless you set a deadline for a task, and collate every infraction from your self-imposed calendar into a tidy report for review by the taskmaster. Back in the dreamtime, you crafted covalent bonds and imbued molecules with chirality.  Today you fuss about “making the numbers”. 

As a sales man you take short courses on telemarketing and you learn how to deftly worm your way into the calendars of decision makers.  You develop a script for making the dreaded cold-call.  Your daytimer brims over with business cards. Early on you learn how to get past cold hearted administrative assistants who screen your calls and stonewall your well honed charms. 

You have become a road warrier, conversant in the codespeak of frequent flyer miles, airport hotels, and rental car companies. You learn to navigate in strange cities and how to find your way through the squirrel warren industrial parks. Your heart hardens in some ways and softens in others.  Welcome to the fabulous life of the sales man.