Doers vs. Sellers

Before I begin, let me explain what I mean by the title of this blog post. In my opinion, people can be divided into two very general groups; the doers, and the sellers. I call each group as such merely for the lack of a better term to explain the purpose.

Doers are those who possess some kind of skill, art, or otherwise some ability that allows them to earn a living. Doctors, engineers, accountants, writers, musicians, carpenters, tailors, plumbers, bricklayers, and many others of the same or similar profession are in this group. As widespread as this group is they all have one thing in common; Each individual contributes in one way or another to run and maintain this well-oiled machine called society.

Sellers are those with almost none of the above. They have no particular skills, or shall I say they are in professions that do not require any particular skills. They, however, are in positions that drive society and define the direction in which it moves. Politicians, corporate executives, individuals in the sales and marketing positions, and the like are examples of those in this group. What they all have in common is a strong and natural ability to socialize, which in turn creates and maintains relationships, which in turn creates positions of power and status in society.

What prompted me to write this article is my observations of people and behavior in my life, particularly during my career years.

You see, I’m a software engineer by education and experience, but best of all I’m an engineer at heart. I love what I do, and I’ve always enjoyed creating things, even as a child. Although, I admit that in my career of thirty-five years, I’ve held a few executive positions, not by desire but by the unfortunate fact that as a doer in today’s corporate world the proverbial ladder is always to move you up and away from what you’re passionate about, and into a “sellers” universe, to gain the status and privileges of success.

I’m also very observant. In my life, especially during my career, I’ve often noticed the inequalities, or at least the lack of true and sincere recognition and appreciation that the group of people I call “doers” often experience. I know because I’m in this group myself. To help you understand what I mean, I’ll give you one of many examples of my own experiences in the past.

Many years ago I held an executive position in the information technology department of a small company. I had many skillful individuals in my charge, and I was responsible for the overall operation and technology of this company. That is to say, I was the head of a group of “doers”. I was one myself, and even though I’d lost my “doing” opportunities in this position, I was always considered a “doer” by the corporate leadership because I grew into this position out of a group of “doers”. During this period, one of the things I’m very proud of was handling the relocation of our offices to a new building. The company had leased a new office space that had absolutely nothing other than electricity and essential utilities. So I had to design, locate vendors and contractors, and oversee the installation of all necessary data/phone lines, and office network as well as build a new data center (we called it the cold room in those days). This was a company in the information business, so uptime was critical. One time I recall the CFO asked me “so how long do you think we’ll be down for the move, a week?” And I recall saying “no sir, more like two to four hours”. Needless to say, he was very impressed by the intention and ultimately the accomplishment of such a promise. When we brought the new space to our standards, and the time came to move, we shut down our systems at 2:00 AM, managed the movers, and installed and brought everything back up including the computers in all offices by 5:00 AM same day. People essentially went home on a Tuesday evening and came back to work in their brand new offices the next morning. I remember one of the managers approached me when he came in and said “I’ve been with companies that moved offices, but what you guys did was nothing short of a miracle.” I also recall my CEO calling a meeting the same day to show his appreciation, in which he looked at me and said, “you moved mountains for us”. This was all great. I’d accomplished something very significant, and I was super proud of myself and my team. I’d also received a couple of very good compliments.

By now I’m sure you’re asking yourself “so what’s the problem? You accomplished something and got recognized for it. Why write this article?” Let me explain by telling you about what I noticed later on the same day.

First a bit of background. The space they’d leased was sublet by a large corporation that had practically abandoned their offices before their lease expired. They’d stored lots of high-quality office furniture next door and had permitted us to use them as we pleased. So the CEO allocated this office furniture to the staff. The movers brought them in and put them in offices of people as per his directions. He even went around from office to office to make sure everyone got the right pieces per their position and status in the company. I noticed him doing that, and more importantly his enthusiasm when I was passing by the office of our head of sales department. I also noticed he did the same thing in all the offices and desks of the sales and editorial departments. He assigned the best desks, credenzas, chairs and tables, wall decorations, etc. to these people. All of this was from the furniture left by the previous tenant next door. When he was done, there was still a good deal of furniture left, enough for everyone on the staff. But, what I found very hurtful, despite his praise the same morning, was that he allocated none of it to my team, or accounting, circulation, or other similar “doers”. At first, I thought that we’d used all the furniture. But I went next door and saw plenty of it still left. When I asked him about it I was taken aback when he said “oh, we’re installing cubicles for you guys”. Sure enough the next day a group of technicians showed up and crammed a set of six cubes in an office that was given to my team. I was very disappointed with this so I went to his office and asked why my team was put in cubes where we had more than enough furniture for all of them next door. It took some convincing but eventually, he relented, with a big attitude I might add. He said, “okay, but you guys have to take down the cubes and haul the furniture yourselves”. I told my team about this and they instantly sprang into action. They quickly dismantled all the cubicles, put them away, brought the nice furniture in, and set up a nice and open environment for themselves in just a couple of hours. That whole experience, by the way, included me. I had a huge office but I too didn’t even get a desk, let alone a sofa or wall decorations. I had to ask, well more like beg for it, and do the work myself. Remember, I was the same guy who’d “moved mountains” just a few hours ago.

That was some seventeen years ago. But what I noticed that day and all the years since, was that it and many more similar observations would eventually lead me to write this article today.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved my job at the time, even as an executive. He gave me a lot of room to manage the operations and enhancements to the company’s systems and services. Although, I didn’t get that because he trusted me. I had no evidence of that. I had to fight for everything that I saw necessary for the improvement and upkeep of our systems. He gave me the room because he wanted no part of it, or I should say had no interest in any of it at all. He had come up from sales and was a very sales-oriented executive, just like it is in most, if not all corporations. All he wanted was more advertisers and more subscriptions. The bottom-line.

As I said earlier, the business was all about selling information. What was published in our products and e-services was generated through software and applications that my team was developing and maintaining. He, like most executives in his position, couldn’t care less about how any of this information was generated. He just constantly pampered the sales and editorial teams. In short, he was the epidemy of the “sellers” with no interest in even acknowledging the existence of the “doers”.

Once again, and to be clear, this story isn’t about my experience with this person, not at all. It is about the kind of mentality that I’ve observed in most of my life and career that’s often, if not always exhibited by the people I call “sellers” in this blog post. The kind of mentality where the “doers” of all kinds are more or less transparent to the sellers. It is also a very sad fact of life that the individuals who practically build and run the engine that drives the society machine are always behind the curtain and at best may receive a quick mention by the person collecting all the credit at the podium.

What’s even more unfortunate is that if you, the reader of this blog post are a “seller” yourself, probably disagree with my point wholeheartedly. And that is perfectly fine, for you are not aware of your actions that are otherwise observed by the “doers” you relate to.

In conclusion, my intention for writing this blog post is by no means to offend anyone or to vent about an old personal experience. It is to simply voice my observations in life and let you read and hopefully add your own experience.

Let me know what you think. I’d love to read your stories in the comments.