True Tales

Nearly 30 Yet Naive About Basic Business Term

Our contributor was lucky not to do a spit-take.

Published

5 months ago

December 12, 2023

Signs of the Times Staff Signs of the Times December 2023 Issue

Networking Question

We had hired a girl in her late 20’s to work in the front office: answer phones, put quick quotes together, quality control, things of that nature. I was sitting in the office when she was having a hard time getting ahold of a sales rep; a customer had questions about their quote. She was getting pretty worked up about it and I told her, “Look, the rep is at this event, probably in the middle of networking. Send her an email and she will get back to the customer as soon as she can.” The gal looks me dead in the eye and goes, “What is networking?” Had I been drinking coffee, I would’ve done a spit-take. It befuddled me that someone closer to 30 than 20 years old had never heard the term “networking.” Another office employee kindly answered her question as I’m sure I was in shock.

Source: Mallory Lynn, Signarama Brighton, Brighton, CO

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