Perhaps my story will explain what others experienced. I flew out to visit a customer on my first day on the job with the most capable sales rep in the world. Well, we did great, but eventually she left, and I was working with pinch-hitter sales reps from SoCal, doing roughly twice my previous workload, and holding the fort well.
It was not easy, so when there was a division meeting in Santa Barbara, I didn't feel like going, but my wife booked a flight and a car, on the spot, and I ended up driving the 3 or 4 hours through LA to the meeting, and got an SE of the quarter award.
My sales rep's replacement was a kid with no product understanding, and who hung around his boss, learning the ropes, a lot of 880 traffic from my home and home office. We didn't coordinate sales calls and brought duplicate literature and presentations. He did manage to get one customer to go ballistic.
During all this time, even as a techie, I was bamboozled how Sun actually sold as much as it did. The sales side of the fence looked to me, as a newbie there, like a mess, so I started reading "MBA" books and that helped me personally, but no greater understanding of my organization. But what the hell did I know, being on the front lines.
I was considering shifting home base to Santa Clara but left for a startup rather than be part of a team with a minor league talent and a very large territory.
That was before our market went to hell, and before Oracle.
A shame, but I gave the job 200% or more. And wear the Java jacket proudly.
I bought it at a thrift store for real cheap.