See, we're not the only ones with a culture gap

Pilot fish who works for a big software vendor is hunting for one of the company's sales reps, and tracks him down outside a conference room -- in the middle of an argument.

"He was participating in an executive breakfast for a long-dormant customer account, in an attempt to jump-start new business," fish says.

"I found him outside the conference room, engaged in a low-volume but obviously heated discussion with a product manager."

Once they separate, fish asks the sales rep his business question. Then, his curiosity piqued, he asks the rep what he and the product manager were arguing about.

Turns out that a vice president at the customer company had sent an e-mail to everyone on his staff, telling them about the breakfast meeting and asking for any questions, problems or suggestions anyone had about the software.

And they had responded. In fact, the VP announced at the breakfast meeting, he received responses from 100 product users.

The problem? That customer only had 50 licenses for the software.

"The VP had just confessed to owing us quite a large sum of money," says fish. "Which the product manager was arguing should be brought to their attention, while the sales rep countered it should be mentioned only if the customer didn't want to buy additional new product.

"I wished him good luck. I never did learn if we ever got new business or the license revenue we were owed."

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