You know what really grinds my gears?!

[WRXtranceformed]

When you find out the old company you left bought the company you currently work at. Will be an interesting day.

Did you leave on good terms?

Nothing bad but never had plans to go back. They just got a huge cash infusion and went public again so it's an entirely new company. We will see what happens. Focusing on keeping my job which is looking good and then looking for other options if needed.

Good man!  Sales is always in demand and you've got a good network here and probably from your own industry in case you start looking

Another gear grinder:  People who steamroll conversations.  In other words, they use "and" or "then" to string together completely unrelated or unnecessarily detailed descriptions of what they are trying to say.  I don't know if it's a byproduct of our ADD generation or what but I feel like a lot of people have lost the art of "listening" in conversation (and just conversation skills in general).  

Yesterday I was on a client call (who I had not met before) and I was back to back so I really didn't have more than half an hour to speak with him.  He steamrolled the entire conversation for 27 minutes (yes I counted).  I maybe got two opportunities to steer him back to the purpose of the call but he bounced off both times to tell me about something completely irrelevant and unrelated.  Unfortunately for him he has to wait another day or two to get what he needed, but that's not my problem.  You need to learn how to carry productive conversations if you want to get things done.