A Training Course - More Than I Bargained For

A few months ago, I was asked to attend a training session for one of my biggest customers. I do contract work for them. The training was one week long and fully paid by the corporation.

My field is programming and if you know anything about software guys it's that many don't have the most outgoing personalities. I apologize to anyone I’m offending by saying this, I’m just going by my own experience.

Suffice it to say, I'm not that confident, I'm shy, and most times I'm unsure of myself. This has been my basic personality for the past 30 odd years, so I don't anticipate changing that much.

Anyway, when I get to the training session, I realize that it's also very sales oriented and, hence, there are a lot of salespeople in attendance - male and female. They were all your typical sales types - good-looking, cocky, and very outgoing.

One of the first things I noticed was how gorgeous most of the female sales reps were. Now, I'm not naïve enough to think that I'm even in the same league, but they certainly were nice to look at.

Once training got underway, I noticed something very peculiar. It seemed that the male sales reps picked up on my personality in two seconds flat and used it as some sort of pawn in their attempt to impress the female reps. Yes, I was the butt of a few jokes and a couple putdowns.

Strangely enough, although they were in competition with each other for the attention of the beautiful women, I felt no competition at all between myself and them. I suppose in their mind they didn't even consider me a contender.

It was at that very moment that I realized there's not a whole lot of difference between the human race and the animal kingdom. Here you have a group of Alpha males jockeying for position while average males stand by and watch. It was a little humiliating, but also an interesting experience.

What I took away from all this was that people are certainly in different classes and each person has his/her place in the grand scheme of things. These beautiful female sales reps were nice enough to me on the surface, but deep down they knew, and I knew, that there wasn't a hope in hell that I'd have a chance to be with them romantically.

Isn't it funny how we are still governed by nature in our ultra-civilized world?