Monday, January 15, 2007

Playing the Ambassador

Last week I had a very pleasant triathlon-related experience that was completely unexpected. I work in a very large Fortune 500 company. The nature of my current job assignment allows me to interact with lots of different people from around the company. I’ve recently had reason to interact with two young men (both in mid-20s) on two completely separate projects. One of them had heard that I am an avid cyclist and participate in triathlons and, during a time when we were together on project work last week, mentioned to me that he had participated in his first tri last summer and was anxious to do more.

I always get very excited whenever someone wants to discuss this subject, especially someone who wants to get below the surface level of “gee, how can you possibly run after riding that much??!!” This young man was a Division I collegiate swimmer and also has a background in running. He told me that he had had to borrow a bike to participate in the race last summer and needed some advice about buying one. I was thrilled to be sought out in this way and very willing to pass on the myriad of little things that those of us who’ve been through a few seasons of triathlon can share with newbies.

I e-mailed him several links to sites that I thought would be helpful to him. About an hour after sending that e-mail, a really cool thing happened. My phone rang and it was another young man that I know from a completely separate area of my work. The first young man had forwarded him my e-mail (without knowing that I already knew him) and he had called to tell me that he also wants to start doing triathlons. How cool is that!! It’s like I’ve sort of become “the ambassador” of our sport within my company.

2 comments:

Bullet said...

That's a pretty cool feeling. I never get the same response at work. No one's interested. They're missing out.

Born To Endure said...

I had an ambassador of the sport at one time too..it's been 7 years now and I'm so glad that person talked me into doing a tri!!