Frank Rich explains it very well...
In my sales career, I’ve a met a lot of men whose success depends on quarantining anything like a conscience from their careers. (Much like politicians.)
And this has always been one of the reasons I never really fit into the top-level sales culture: I would bring up what I felt were relevant moral questions, and no one wanted to hear it. Oh well.
Far too many businesses operate without a moral compass, and it always perplexed me. This is still America, you don’t have to lie and cheat to get ahead. The thing that makes you lie and cheat is often just sheer greed.
I have worked with some wonderful, ethical sales men and women who wanted nothing more than to make their customers happy, earn an honest day’s pay, and go home to their families.
Unfortunately, those aren’t usually the ones who end up in the Fortune 500.
I'll never make it to the fortune 500, either, but I'll always be one of those who enjoys sales and helping people have the best vacations ever. May we all have a positive, productive, and successful 2010!