Graham was a salesman of specialty products with a proven record of success. His many years of experience had yielded a high degree of confidence in himself and the products he sold, and an advanced level of competence in his craft as a personable, trust-inspiring, responsible salesman.

The retail company for which he worked was one of the many big-box stores that now dominate the marketplace in North America. The management structure of the one he worked for was a little murky. According to the organizational chart, his supervisor was the sales manager of the entire store. But that position was eliminated, and his new supervisor became an assistant manager who was over that area of the store. Then each department had a manager whose job it was to maintain control over the inventory, to solve whatever customer service or contractual problems that might arise, and to complete the large volume of reports mandated by the suits at the corporate office.

At some point in this chronology, those suits reorganized the management structure again and added another responsibility to department managers, that of managing the sales staff.

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