Tweet
The Judge, Cops, and a Bad Sunburn (My first post)
Hi all! Long time lurker, first time poster.
Quick background: I’m a college student doing undergrad research in the hopes of winning over some lucky professor’s heart to take me on for a research project in the hopes of getting my Master’s in Environmental Engineering. I took on an afternoon job as a salesman for a local home security company because the undergrad research is volunteer work and I need some money to pay rent, eat, and drink. So from 8am to noon I do undergrad research and from 1pm to 8pm I do door to door sales.
So, one week of training, I learned a lot and heard horror stories from the veterans: dog attacks, angry belligerent people, mostly naked obese geriatric men answering the door, etc. So I expected a certain amount of surprises. And they all have their stories about a sale going wrong that they manage to recover.
Week one:
One sale to a young couple who actually needed what I was selling. I was happy.
Week two:
Knock on the door of an older couple’s home. I manage to get invited in, and as I go through my spiel the husband says “I already got me a security system—“ to pause for a moment, everyone seems to think their schnauzer and/or WWII issue pistol is a home security system. This is neither humorous nor original, but I laugh at their jokes to make the sale. He proceeds to say, “—it’s called ‘the judge’” he then whips out a revolver chambered to hold .410 shotgun shells!!!! FULLY LOADED!
I swallow my fear, laugh at his joke, and try to proceed with my sale thinking I botched this one and if I live to tell about it, I’ll have a horror story to tell to the rest of the team. Apparently, all my talking had the wife sold on the monitored smoke and heat detector. She proceeded to do my job and CONVINCED HER HUSBAND TO BUY!!!!
So now I have a horror story and a recovered sales story. Not bad for a Wednesday! But the week is not over.
The next day, I put in my four hours of research taking topsoil samples, core samples, and plant samples. All of this takes place in the field; its all hard work practically akin to farming. I eat, shower, and change clothes to go to my sales job. I’m walking away from a door after about an hour into my assigned neighborhood, when two police cars pull up to the curb with their lights on. Cop one asks all sorts of questions about my job, employer, boss, how many people did I come with, where is my solicitation permit, etc. I answer everything to the best of my knowledge, company I work for, boss’s name, there are eight of us, the company obtains the necessary permits; he even gets my ID and DLN.
Everything seems to check out, except I can’t get a hold of my boss… there goes a lot of my credibility. Luckily I carry around a copy of the local Coupon Clipper and point to my company’s advert. The cop lets me go with an order to cease and desist. I spend the next twenty minutes trying to get through to my boss, all the while the neighborhood is crawling with police—I saw more than six cruisers at once.
Eventually I get through to my boss. He calms me down over the phone, picks me up in the van--which incidentally has tinted windows, is unmarked, and has expired plates--and takes me to a gas station to let me pee what wasn’t already in my pants. He happens to finds a cop in the neighboring parking lot and asks what's going on.
It turns out on the day before a sales scam was done in the exact same neighborhood, using the exact same pitch, for the exact same product with some minor technical differences that made us legal and them not so much. I thought we would quit for the day, as he rounded up the rest of the sales team and started heading home. But he takes a detour to a town just outside the previous city’s limits and tells us to go knock more doors! And we will be working late because we wasted an hour dealing with the cops!!!
I was wearing SPF 35 sunblock but more than eleven hours of sunlight seems to have left me with some burnt forearms and ears. I wonder how bad it would have been without the sunscreen.
Today, two and a half hours before work, the boss sends a text message to everyone telling us to be in an hour early. I arrive 10 minutes late, get scolded, but put in another long day and make my third sale.
This job is so stressful, but it pays excellent. I will see if I have the fortitude to survive the summer.
grey out!
P.S. Sorry about the length. I will try to make subsequent posts reasonable
P.P.S. I don't know if the second half of this story should go in the Morons in Management section. I hope the mods will tolerate me on my first attempt.
Quick background: I’m a college student doing undergrad research in the hopes of winning over some lucky professor’s heart to take me on for a research project in the hopes of getting my Master’s in Environmental Engineering. I took on an afternoon job as a salesman for a local home security company because the undergrad research is volunteer work and I need some money to pay rent, eat, and drink. So from 8am to noon I do undergrad research and from 1pm to 8pm I do door to door sales.
So, one week of training, I learned a lot and heard horror stories from the veterans: dog attacks, angry belligerent people, mostly naked obese geriatric men answering the door, etc. So I expected a certain amount of surprises. And they all have their stories about a sale going wrong that they manage to recover.
Week one:
One sale to a young couple who actually needed what I was selling. I was happy.
Week two:
Knock on the door of an older couple’s home. I manage to get invited in, and as I go through my spiel the husband says “I already got me a security system—“ to pause for a moment, everyone seems to think their schnauzer and/or WWII issue pistol is a home security system. This is neither humorous nor original, but I laugh at their jokes to make the sale. He proceeds to say, “—it’s called ‘the judge’” he then whips out a revolver chambered to hold .410 shotgun shells!!!! FULLY LOADED!
I swallow my fear, laugh at his joke, and try to proceed with my sale thinking I botched this one and if I live to tell about it, I’ll have a horror story to tell to the rest of the team. Apparently, all my talking had the wife sold on the monitored smoke and heat detector. She proceeded to do my job and CONVINCED HER HUSBAND TO BUY!!!!
So now I have a horror story and a recovered sales story. Not bad for a Wednesday! But the week is not over.
The next day, I put in my four hours of research taking topsoil samples, core samples, and plant samples. All of this takes place in the field; its all hard work practically akin to farming. I eat, shower, and change clothes to go to my sales job. I’m walking away from a door after about an hour into my assigned neighborhood, when two police cars pull up to the curb with their lights on. Cop one asks all sorts of questions about my job, employer, boss, how many people did I come with, where is my solicitation permit, etc. I answer everything to the best of my knowledge, company I work for, boss’s name, there are eight of us, the company obtains the necessary permits; he even gets my ID and DLN.
Everything seems to check out, except I can’t get a hold of my boss… there goes a lot of my credibility. Luckily I carry around a copy of the local Coupon Clipper and point to my company’s advert. The cop lets me go with an order to cease and desist. I spend the next twenty minutes trying to get through to my boss, all the while the neighborhood is crawling with police—I saw more than six cruisers at once.
Eventually I get through to my boss. He calms me down over the phone, picks me up in the van--which incidentally has tinted windows, is unmarked, and has expired plates--and takes me to a gas station to let me pee what wasn’t already in my pants. He happens to finds a cop in the neighboring parking lot and asks what's going on.
It turns out on the day before a sales scam was done in the exact same neighborhood, using the exact same pitch, for the exact same product with some minor technical differences that made us legal and them not so much. I thought we would quit for the day, as he rounded up the rest of the sales team and started heading home. But he takes a detour to a town just outside the previous city’s limits and tells us to go knock more doors! And we will be working late because we wasted an hour dealing with the cops!!!
I was wearing SPF 35 sunblock but more than eleven hours of sunlight seems to have left me with some burnt forearms and ears. I wonder how bad it would have been without the sunscreen.
Today, two and a half hours before work, the boss sends a text message to everyone telling us to be in an hour early. I arrive 10 minutes late, get scolded, but put in another long day and make my third sale.
This job is so stressful, but it pays excellent. I will see if I have the fortitude to survive the summer.
grey out!
P.S. Sorry about the length. I will try to make subsequent posts reasonable
P.P.S. I don't know if the second half of this story should go in the Morons in Management section. I hope the mods will tolerate me on my first attempt.
! I feel your pain, my first gig (I was 19) was doing door to door sales for a local company that did promotions for small and new businesses. I went around to plazas trying to sell these gift certificates, I remember one place I went to the secretary was almost willing to buy but had to shoo me away because of her boss' no solicitation policy. The boss (a pretty big male) comes storming out and started shouting "DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?!! GET OUT NOW!!!" etc. I was too scared to say or do anything so I got out like a bat out of hell. Needless to say that job didn't last long since I didn't make enough sales.
Comment