Unfocused Content

At twenty-one my ideal career was having business lunches in open-air cafes. Some combination of innocence and laziness kept me from defining my goals more specifically than that. When I graduated with a degree in Business Management my mom said “You’re not an accountant, or a lawyer, or a veterinarian, or a lawyer. You need to be something; like a lawyer.”

Business was everywhere, and a degree in creative writing, what I would have pursued had I been smarter or less reliant upon my future earning potential, was not really an option, so I felt business was a safe degree. Besides, I’ve never had the tenacity or desire to be a lawyer.

I enjoyed the one marketing class I had in college because we got to look at advertising snafus - “Is this your butt Madame?“- and the book was really pretty. That was probably why a newspaper ad for “Marketing Manager” caught my attention. In the two months between finishing classes and graduation I got married, honeymooned, and moved in with my in-laws. It was the summer of ‘93, before Monster.com, so I was unfamiliar with employment scams.. I called about the ad, went in for an “interview” and was immediately hired, assuming of course that I wanted the job. But, I couldn’t say yes just then. The interviewer, I remember he had dark hair but that’s all I remember, wanted me to travel with one of their top sales guys visiting clients. No money, just a one day test run to see if I liked it. I’m not an idiot, so I had some reservations, but I said yes, because the more the manager talked, the more I could smell that open-air cafe, and it smelled like heaven, or at least like a nice roast beef sandwich.

We drove to Westminster, a northern suburb of Denver. I’d spent most of my time in the southern suburbs, since that is where I lived, so though I’d heard of Westminster, I knew it was much to far to actually visit. On the long drive there, Mr. Top Sales Guy, I think his name was Ernesto, said we would be visiting about 200 clients that day. Two hundred sounded insane to me, but I was ready for anything. I had on my new dark gray wool suit, the perfect first business suit according to “Dress for Success,” and my new wingtips. Ernesto was wearing sneakers and gray Dockers. Ernesto was dressed for a successful backyard picnic, and something was amiss. The one thing I was not prepared for was walking the suburbs of northern Denver in a wool suit selling Steak & Ale coupons door to door. Despite my lack of preparedness, that was the plan for the day.

Selling Steak & Ale coupons is hard. Watching a guy try without success to sell Steak & Ale coupons, repeating the same lame phrases over and over, is really unbearable. “It’s fine dining without the Tuxedo and Evening Gown,” was Ernesto’s favorite line, and he used it at every door that opened without variation. “Seriously dude,” I thought to myself about the sixty-fifth time, “where did you grow up? People don’t wear tuxedos anywhere.” I couldn’t say that out loud of course. In fact, I was not allowed to speak while the “clients” were present. I was supposed to observe because I was not a paid employee, and I had not yet mastered the art of sounding like a moron.

At noon we drove to 7-Eleven for lunch. If you’ve been in the United States long, you are aware that we were not engaged in “fine dining.” Just weeks before, I’d checked myself into an emergency room for a heart attack. Luckily my 21 year-old body was not in cardiac arrest, but was merely rebelling against a gas station burrito eaten while driving cross country with my twelve year-old brother. I’ve gotten therapy since then, so I’m all better. But, since I’d still not paid for my silly little hospital adventure, I did not think it wise to test the limits of my stomach yet again, and I did not partake of the local fare.

Hot, hungry, tired, and a little bit disappointed in a universe that would allow this to happen to me, I called my Father-In-Law from a pay phone. Not without a snicker or two, he volunteered to drive the 50 miles to pick me up. I thanked him but declined. Yes, I was miserable, but it was a long drive, and deep down I knew the experience of door-to-door sales would eventually be worth something. Even then I had visions of sharing my horrific tale with the world, I did not know it then, but that was the beginning of my new life. The life where I lived through things just so I could say I lived through them. It has not happened since then, but I know someday it will.

The afternoon was so incredibly similar to the morning that, had you been there, you would have fallen asleep, even while continuing to walk and pretending to listen to Ernesto drone on about the art of reading the customer. I did not fall asleep, but only because I had one word stuck in my head. No, not sucker, the word was “client.” How did they get away with calling these folks “clients?” If you’ve ever had a front door, you know the drill. Some one rings your door bell. When you do not answer, he knocks as though he were pounding on the castle gates from atop his perch between the wings of a silver dragon. (He knocks really hard, I mean.) When you finally open the door, and you are thinking “oh crap, how am I going to get rid of this guy,” he starts in on his “Do you eat out” line of questioning. Meanwhile, you’re not paying attention because you are praying “please God I swear I’ll never cheat on my taxes again if you’ll make the phone ring right now.” That’s not a client, that‘s a stalking victim.

I remember nothing of the drive home. I imagine it was punctuated with Ernesto’s words of wisdom. When we got back, the manager guy asked if I’d had a good day, if I liked what I’d seen, and if I was ready to go out the next day. Three yeses in a row kept him smiling long enough for me to get in to my car. Sometimes I wonder if the guy really thought I was coming back. Sometimes I wonder what I could have become if I had.

Copyright 2005, Jay Groce

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