January 27, 2009. Bethesda, Md. Snow.

You will not believe it, but in the Washington area, when snow is forecast, all scheduled events are cancelled. Monday, the weather man told us that a snow storm was coming on Wednesday, so immediately, most events were cancelled for Wednesday. The reality is that most forecasts for snow are wrong, so mostly the snow does not come, but in the Washington area, when it snows, everyone stays home, except for those hardy Canadians who get to work in any weather. Also those folks from Buffalo. They think it is ridiculous to cancel. Today, schools were cancelled at five o'clock a.m., even though it stopped snowing at nine. In the office, when the schools are cancelled by inclement weather, we cancel all scheduled meetings, so today we had no sales meeting. The reason people stay home when it snows is interesting. Many people have moved here from the South, so drivers have no clue while driving on ice and snow. The hills are many and high. The equipment for removing and plowing snow is too few in number. And everyone knows that if you wait, the snow will melt. Sometimes the snow does not melt, so eventually the snow must be shovelled and the streets plowed, but in the meantime, everyone stays home.

Years ago, we had a really big snow and of course, only four or five agents were able to get into the office to help out with the phones. To say thank you to those few folks, I ordered Chinese food for lunch, as a way to say thank you. I continued that policy, without saying anything to anyone, but bit by bit the rumor got out, and soon calls come into the office to ask if we are serving Chinese food today. So the agents will come into the office just to each lunch with us. It is a lot of fun, and from a practical standpoint, once the staff and agent gets to the office, work is what they do. We get a lot of work out of the agents and staff, just because I set out to reward the good behaviour of those few agents. But Thursday is our all office seminar, and our event goes on despite the snow or the schools. We are a hardy group of rugged individuals, and we stop at nothing...except two inches of snow.