Well let’s keep the story thing going and in the vein of occupation, allow me to discuss one of the worst ways I’ve ever shilled for a buck.
I sold encyclopedias. Yep, I really did. And I sold them in the summer of 1997–which, if you know your history, is right around the time when the internet had really taken off. Making my product, nearly useless. But despite this knowledge (that I didn’t really have until after I took the job), I made an attempt to sell encyclopedias.
I took the job because the setup was this: if you sold X amount, you got Y commission. I had not had a commission sales job before, so I ran at the chance to do it, thinking that I could easily sell a few, and make some nice cash before the start of senior year (Boy was I wrong). After the first couple of days, I learned that you don’t even start making a commission until after you’ve sold 10 sets. Just to break it down for you, a set cost about $1500. I had to sell 10 of them. To people too dumb to realize that they could either log on to the internet, or visit a library. There aren’t that many people in Massachusetts.
The job went like this. You worked the phones during the day–the numbers having been acquired from new parents who’d recently subscribed to “Parents” magazine or some other touchy-feely rag. On the off chance you got a bite, you set up an appointment to meet up with the prospective customers, and went to their homes to do your spiel. in the 2 weeks I worked there, I set up 3 appointments. That’s after calling all day, 5 days a week. You do the math.
These three appointments went like this:
And for my final sale (and the nail in the coffin), I drove 45 minutes to a young couple who were both into purchasing an encyclopedia for their newborn baby…except I forgot to bring sales slips with me for them to actually purchase their encyclopedia. When I called my manager, he yelled, “Well, shit, get over here and bring them back some slips”, which I felt was kind of futile as this young couple was living above the garage in the husband’s mother’s house.
I quit the next day, thinking that this job was utterly pointless. But hey, I got a good story out of it.