South Bend Revisited

While this blog is about my journey, and I do want it to be in the correct sequence, the next blog or two are a little out of order, but they are too important to hold on to.

If you go back and read the post on South Bend, the Final Frontier, you will remember that this was my last training with a very special group of people. They are the Mad Dogs and I am their Kennel Keeper. Even though I have known and have been friends with the Agency Manager for over 15 years, we didn’t really get close until I became “Corporate”. Remember, even though I am not really a Corporate kind of girl, I wouldn’t trade what I learned and gained for anything…this is one of those reasons.
Originally, I was supposed to be part of their celebration in July, rewarding the team for some amazing production. I chose to back out of that event because I had left the company and I didn’t want the day to be about me and what I was doing and was I ok etc. It needed to be about them and how they all banded together to make their production really stand out. As sad as that was for me, it was the correct decision.

I had made plans to be in Grand Rapids, MI for a very personal reason and South Bend would be the beginning of that trip. I was not going there for my old position or my new Company. I was going there to be able to officially say goodbye to my Mad Dogs, and I was told, they are indeed my Mad Dogs. Many people use that phrase but I promise you, you have to earn it and after my last visit, it was sealed in my heart.

Ok, back to the trip. I arrived in South Bend 30 minutes early. That is unheard of, especially after my last trip! My consultant and I still talk about that trip 🙂 Tom picked me up and we were going to have a nice quiet dinner and talk about how the next day was going to unfold. This was just going to be a chance to say goodbye and I was looking forward to seeing everyone. There would be a trainer for the group on a new product and then he asked me to let everyone know that there is life after leaving the company and then a tailgate party-hopefully the weather would hold out.

Of course the dress of the day would be jerseys. What else would you wear to a tailgate party?? Except that won’t work for me for two reasons 1-I don’t own a jersey and 2-I am always dressed for Selling In A Skirt….and that was what I would be wearing. Tom laughed and said he didn’t even think that dress code would apply to me…

Friday morning arrived and Tom picked me up and we headed to his office. He was wearing his jersey, and so was everyone else. The trainer did his thing and then Tom got up to speak. He was talking about this bowling shirt that was given to him and how special it was to him and then he began talking about another special person and got choked up. Was he giving me this special treasure? He was talking about me and I thought OMG please don’t make this that kind of goodbye! I don’t know if I can take it. These are my Mad Dogs and they are a major part of the reason why I took up crying as a sport.

But it was and it was so touching. I didn’t get the bowling shirt. Instead I received my own jersey that had Mad Dogs on the front and Kennel Keeper on the back AND to make it more like me, it even has puffy sleeves with pictures of dogs on the shoulders. When he presented it to me, I ripped off my jacket so fast and wore that jersey proudly. Between that and the beautiful card and the testimonials, I was a goner. I’m not even sure if what I said to all of them was audible.
Emotions ran so high that day and that was only the beginning of the weekend….