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in It is better be single as a bad company.
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Mar 3, 2021 07:28
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 03:02 |
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Dollar Fever 1797 words It is better be single as a bad company I have a passion for selling. That's what I told the interviewers. "Selling, that's me, that's what I'm into," I said. "Some people like golf and others like to review restaurants." They do, I'd seen it on the internet, they plaster stars onto Google like a teacher on a kid's homework. "I sell," I said, "I sell even when I'm by myself. Just walk around selling. I'm a one-man sales company." I almost said: I walked fifty minutes to get here because I sold my bike. But I didn't want to overdo it. I didn't want to sell my bike either, but the landlord raised the rent and my housemate moved out with no notice, he had a mate with a cheap room he told me, sorry I'm leaving this weekend. I didn't know you were supposed to get your flatmate to sign a lease, so whey wouldn't skip out and leave you without rent money. I read that later, on the internet as well, and I understood I'd mishandled the matter. But I never claimed I was good at rental contracts, or anything like that. My message's consistent. Selling is my game. One of the interviewers was named Jake and the other didn't give her name, and didn't talk but just tapped at her mobile phone. Jake, who had a ponytail, had a mug full of pens in front of him. Cheap bics. He handed me a red one. "Sell me this pen" he said. I took the mug with the rest of the pens and put it on the floor next to my foot. "Looks like you need a pen," I said. I had to be brave, you see. I needed this job. Youth Allowance now barely covered rent and Christmas was coming up. My Dad needed a fridge. He'd needed a fridge for ages. When he called me, he sometimes said: the fridge turned off in the night again, my mince is ruined. A new second-hand fridge is like two hundred bucks. Plus delivery! I wasn't going to see Dad this year, a flight to Perth was too expensive, but I had a plan to make up for it. I'd get him a new fridge. Hence: the pen gambit. "Stop torturing the poor kid," the lady muttered. "He's like nineteen old, for god's sake." She wasn't wrong. I figured the lady and Jake were at least twenty-two. Ancient. After the interview, I caught her in the kitchen. Well, she caught me: I was making a coffee on my way out the office, I wasn't sleeping much and they had better coffee than I did at home, Nescafe Gold, I wanted some of that. The lady with her scrunched-up bun walked in. "Sorry," I said when she saw me stirring with a little plastic paddlepop. "Don't be sorry." she said, going to make a coffee for herself. "Go hog wild." "How'd I go in the interview?" "No-one ever fails them," she said. "Let me give you some advice on your first day. Don't go by the price guide. Jack the prices, pocket the difference. It's the only way you'll make any decent dough." On the walk home I called Das. "I got the job," I told him, not that I had. He was so proud. "Don't sacrifice your soul. Maintain complete honesty," he told me. "In sales, strong ethics are key. And a cool head. Don't let the dollar-fever rush your brain!" An hour later Jack called and said: "you've got the job, buster." # The job was this. You've got a backpack, it's got snowglobes and christmas pens and colouring books and magnetic screwdrivers. The backpacks's yours, the company gives you the rest. Then they drive you out to some suburb and stick you onto a street with shops and tell you: go for it. And you go from shop to shop, selling these snowglobes and screwdrivers to the people who work there. Strictly shops, not houses, the company didn't have the liencse for that. You weren't alone though, you were in pairs, but split up — each one person on their own side of the street. I got paired with Jake. "The worst thing you could do," he told me, "is cross onto your parner's turf." "Ethics," I said. Then what I'd do is go into a shop and say: "hello how are you doing? Have you sorted your Christmas gift out yet? Heres' a snowglobe! How about these colouring books?" Only a few until Christmas; people needed presents. You sold the colouring books for ten bucks each and, at the end of the day, you gave the company seven bucks for each one, kept three. That's called commission. The company gave you a sales guide which tells you how much to sell for, and how much you'll get. There was a way to make more, of course. Nothing stopped anyone from saying "these colouring books are twenty bucks," and then stashing the extra tenner in their shoe. Nothing except a cool head, and a healthy fear of the dollar-fever. I worked three days but didn't make a lot. On the first day I was awkward and made twenty bucks. On the second day I made fourty-eight but bought a coffee, so it became forty-four, and also I forgot sunscreen and had to buy some, so it was really thirty-three. Jake was upset when he saw I'd bought sunscreen. I've got some, Jake said, if you ever need help just shout. Day three was better: seventy bucks. Nice one, Jake said. You're a one-man sales company, Jake wasn't the boss, he only interviewed me to fill in for some senior who got in a car crash the previous day; these roads are madness, Jake liked to say, he was from Tasmania so real country guy. I really got to know Jake's smell. The streets we worked were real long, tonnes of concrete, and no trees, and the sun was hot hot hot: you're walking and sweating, while in your backpack the screwdrivers and snowglobes go clink-clink-clink. When Jake drove us back to the office he stank. I supposed I did too. Jake was nice. He wanted to be a nurse, he said. Jake's Dad was a nurse but died when he was little. Now he was stuck in sales. "What do you want to do when you're older?" he asked. "Sell." # I'd made one-hundred and twenty-seven dollars. I called the whitegoods store in Dad's town to ask about delivery, and it was good I did, bause they said two days wall all they could do, and what's more their cheapest fridge was gone and they didn't update the website. Two-hundred-fourty was the cheapest they could do. If I wanted it delivered by Christmas I had to order by tonight. Either made one-hundred and thirty before the bank closed — or Dad's Christmas would be ruined. Jake and I had another lovely street with lovely shops: bakereis, laptop repair places, a cupcake wholeslaler. "You okay, buster?" Jake said. "You look a bit shaky." "I could use some confidence," I admitted. My pen trick in the interview, he said, had truly impressed him. "No-one's got guts like you. That's your superpower, buster, Bold, and you'll come out on top! Really go for it!" I took his words to heart. In my first store, which was a wool shop, there was a little old lady working. I showed her the colouring books. My niece would love them, she said, how much are they? I said: twenty-five bucks, and she got three. On the way out of the wool shop, I stuck the price guide in the trashcan. Then I sold. I really sold. I sold like no-one'd ever sold. I sold screwdrivers and snowglobes, we had tiny toy pianos, I sold them too. I was sweat and sales. I ran from store to store, do I have a deal for you, I'd say. And it rained coins. Dollars. Yen, Roubles, take your pick, it was currency typhoon; all the while my mind was a calculator, whirrling and clinking. Add and subtract, carry the one. Keeping track of how much I had left to make that fridge money. When I finished my street, I was eight bucks short. I sat in the shade of a bus shelter, panting, while traffic whizzed past. I couldn't think. Sales-Frenzy. The Dollar Fever. A sales demon. I not man, but sales. But I couldn't be a failed sale. I think that's why I did what I did. Across the road I saw Jake. He gave a little wave. I tried to wave back, but a truck whizzed past and then I saw him walk into a vacuum cleaner outlet. He was only two-thirds through his lot of shops. It was abundantly clear what should be done next. At the end of Jake's lot was a mechanics. My dollar-frenzied brain immediately formed a plan. I go to the mechanic shop. They have screwdrivers; of course, they're mechanics. All I do is steal all the screwdrivers and then sell them one of mine. Just one! That'll cover the eight bucks! It's like the pen trick, but on a larger scale. The ultimate completion of a circle! I saw dollars, sales, my Dad with a fridge that kept his mince and cool. And before Jake could walk out and see me steal his turf, I dashed across the road. What I didn't see, was the speeding Mazda coming round the corner on my right. # I was still in hospital when Christmas Day came. Couple more days, doctor said. Broken neck. Dad called in the morning. The fridge failed again. He'd made Olivier salad, my favourite. He'd was going to eat it and think of me. ""What sort of present am I waiting for?" he murmured happily. "Ah! I see the postman! Could that be a delivery?" The nurse told me, the night before, I'd raved. Something about whitegoods. Bad sale, I kept on saying, according to the nurse; bad single-man company. At one stage I'd seized a nurse by the lapel and scream send a card forget the fridge just a card. But the nurse didn't know how to send my dad a card or who my dad was or even that it was my Dad I was talking about. "Hold on," he said. "The postman is passing my house. There must be a mistake!" "I'm sorry Dad" I tried to say. But only tears and snot came out, my body shook and shook, and I went to wipe my eyes but pressed disconnect by accident, and when I called back Dad didn't pick up. Ring, ring, ring went the phone. I closed my eyes, saw dollars. Mechanical screwdrivers. Outside the window, the Christmas carols started up.
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Mar 7, 2021 13:49
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