Spotted on the Selling Floor: Shannan from The Biggest Loser

Today I would like to give an example of how people should deal with “famous” people (I use that term dubiously).

Going over my past Spotted entries, I noticed a trend of me hyperventilating on sight and becoming lost for words. In my defence, the people that cause me to react in this manner are generally career crushes or amazing like Quentin. As a journalist however, I feel it is my duty to act more professionally around these types. I can handle musicians and the like when I have to conduct interviews, and need to transfer that ability to remain composed to the other types of people I will encounter in my life.

One of my neighbouring employees has the skill to remain calm, and retain basic human functions in such situations.

Let me take you back…it was late last year...let’s call it September. Gaga had (shamefully in my opinion) graced the cover of Vanity Fair, Spring was in the air and Shannan from The Biggest Loser was on the selling floor.

I spotted him walking off the escalators and got a little bit excited (I love The Biggest Loser). I wanted to thank him for training those people and helping them gain their lives back, which in turn made me cry along with their journey.

Before I could come up with a plan of attack for our encounter he turned away from me and in the direction of my aforementioned colleague. As he walked past, my colleague looked up from the computer screen in front of him and simply said,

“Hey Shannon. How are you going?”

Shannon responded with, “good thanks buddy, how are you?”

“Yeah good thanks!”

And with that, I was witness to a coherent conversation with a celebrity on my selling floor.

Now to gain that skill for use in my imminent (?) career.