Seattle Market Visit for Sparks

When I worked in the office furniture market and you traveled to different cities, your days were spent in showrooms, dealer offices and customer sites. Now I get to have some customer experiences that could not be more different. I recently spent a few days in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest visiting multiple customers and wanted to share.

First stop was a chocolate factory - minus Charlie - that had a wonderful smell (that will become relevant later). I got to see how multiple chocolate candies and bars are made and it would be hard to work there all day without snatching a few treats.

My next stops took us to fish processing plants. Needless to say that the smells there were much different. There's nothing like walking into a lobby and getting punched in the nose with the smell of raw fish. To go in you get all dolled up with hairnets, goggles and white or blue smocks...

And even rubber booties for your shoes so you don't get fish guts on them. That was a first.

I got to see slicing of salmon and what happens to the remnants, which ironically they sell to cat and dog food manufacturers and make more money on that than the fish. I saw how fish sticks are made and learned about how this industry operates.

For me, getting to see our product in use first-hand, meeting the wide variety of customers we serve and getting to spend some time with our sales team is a great experience and one of the favorite parts of my job.