Hmmm

In 2003 I was stressed.

I was in software sales, selling to the State of Alaska, and 600-employee company I worked for was largely dependent on our client (State of Alaska) signing our new sales contract to meet our numbers for the month.

The sales organization I was working for, like most sales organizations, was not a tolerant organization. They needed me to bring in the new contract and by gosh if I didn’t bring it in then quite possibly I was going to be fired. So I felt a lot of pressure.

A wrinkle was, I’m ethical. I refuse to lie, cheat, bully or bullshit to get a contract signed, so I was essentially relying on good old fashioned pleading (“please can you sign this by the 31st??”) and client relationship (if a client likes me they’re more likely to try to get it signed on time) to get this thing signed on time, but the reality is I didn’t know if my client could get approval from the state to sign it by the end of the month.

It was evening of the second to last day of the month, and the next day would determine whether or not the contract would be signed on time, and my boss (who was under the same pressure I was) and I flew up to Alaska to try to nudge this contract along, partially because it’s true the squeaky wheel gets the oil. That night, after spending an afternoon with the client, we went out to a dinner, had a few more glasses of wine than we should have, then joined some other associates at a local bar for another beer or two, mostly to drown out the stress we were feeling over getting the contract signed.

I wasn’t obnoxiously drunk, but I was pretty tipsy by the time I left the bar and walked the few blocks to my hotel.

Little did I know that I’d broken the law that night.

According to several online sources, Alaska has a state law prohibiting being intoxicated at a bar. When that law was signed, and why it was signed, I don’t know, but it does appear to be a law all the same. And I definitely had had a glass of wine or two too many that night.

Thankfully the contract was signed the next day, so the deal was signed and my job was secure for at least a day until the next morning when it was the first of the month and the rat race started all over again. But best of all, I didn’t get fined or jailed for unintentionally breaking a law that evening 🙂