I participated in six hours of onsite customer meetings today and am completely drained. Something surprising happened today, though, when I was at a prospective meeting this afternoon with the company Tupperware. I usually do not attend prospect meetings since I work on customers post-sale, but since I was down in Orlando anyway, I offered to come with my colleague to visit this prospect to shed light on what they could expect from a post-sale enablement standpoint. One of my colleagues mentioned how she owned Tupperware products because of her sister-in-law’s Tupperware parties. I shared that my parents owned Tupperware, as well. Towards the end of our two-hour onsite meeting, one of the prospects quietly stepped out of the room. I assumed she left to use the restroom or take a call, but instead, she actually came back with multiple gift bags with Tupperware products – as gifts for us! I ended up taking home a Tupperware microwaveable container, as well as a Tupperware flask that keeps liquids hot for up to six hours. 

I am not used to customers giving gifts to me at all; as a technology company, we are used to treating customers and sending them gifts, much less having a prospect, not even a customer, give usa gift. The other funny thing about this happening was that it all reminded me of Ed. While working at Macy’s, Ed befriended one of his colleagues who hosted Tupperware parties and asked him if he would be interested in buying some. He took a look at the products when she brought them in, declared they were far superior to any of the plastic reusable containers my parents had at home, and bought three different types: black lidded, teal lidded, and dark blue-lidded. He insisted we needed to buy better quality products, and he told us these were much, much better for us to use. These Tupperware are not at all cheap; each of these pieces costs $25. Ed was always far more generous than anyone could know or ever fully appreciate. For someone who didn’t earn much money, he constantly surprised me with his level of generosity. It made me sad when I got to the airport this evening and opened the containers, wondering what Ed would have thought if I told him that I not only visited the Tupperware US offices, but that they even gave me free Tupperware. I’d imagine he would have been really excited and would have wanted to know what they looked like. I don’t know anyone who would have been as thrilled to hear about the Tupperware visit and gifts as much as he would have been. It is a depressing thought.