Workplace 13 - Street Walking

If you read this blog then you'd know my opinion on those annoying people that try and sell you stuff as you walk to work. Or to get your morning coffee, or to the park, or the bank, or Centrelink. Just anywhere really. So it may surprise you that after that experience, I once again found myself with a fist full of shitty merchandise and a mind full of delusional optimism attempting to harass the good people of Brisbane with the latest thing. Please forgive me if this sounds familiar.

This time, the latest thing was a business plan for a certain popular mobile phone company (*cough*3*cough*). And, thankfully, rather than being aimed at people strolling unsuspectingly down the street; we were focused purely on businesses. This may not sound like such a big difference but professional establishments have one weapon in the line of spam marketing that mere pedestrians will never have. Unless you can buy a shirt somewhere with this on it. (If you make this shirt, you may make a KILLING by selling it. Let me know when it's ready)

It's this sign: 

Any variation of that sign is the kryptonite to all street sales-people. The preventative tonic to this scourge. So, by their own omission, any place that doesn’t have that sign WANTS us to tell them about the latest deal from a phone company they don’t use and have no interest in and probably won’t go with. Really, they’re just asking us to come in and waste 20 minutes of their lives because clearly business owners have nothing better to do.

So lets take a look at what happens in the life of a door-to-door salesperson in this day and age.

At this time I lived on the Northside of town, and had to be at the office on the Southside by 8am for our pep talk and sales area allocations. Then it was into carpools and back up to the northside where I’d been inevitably delegated. On the third day of this I told them that I’d just meet them at the business area that was 5 minutes from my house at 9.30 instead of the pointless 45min trip to the Southside and back each morning. The complete shock and incomprehension that my suggestion was greeted with had a lot to do with the brevity of this particular career.

Each day I was paired up with a different mentor to learn the particular techniques that they used to browbeat good people into new phone contracts. They’re methods ranged from “hehe I just might sleep with if you keep me here long enough” blonde-ness to straight up, old fashion lying. An inspiring collection of individuals to say the least.

Incredibly, I actually made two sales during the four days I was there! My first instructor had a policy that if a new salesperson talked to a customer at all on their first day, then that sale would be theirs, just to encourage the noobs. My second sale came about from chatting to one of the staff members at a business while my mentor harangued his boss. This was what I spent most of my days doing, chatting and trying to appear as though I wasn’t actually with the irritating person suddenly in their office. He came out escorted by the boss who was more than ready to see us both go only to be greeted by me with a half filled out contract and a confused grin.

I do remember that the managers of this fine band of well-groomed ruffians bought us all breakfast and coffees at the local café on Friday morning. What a great company policy! Everywhere should do it.

Unfortunately even weekly free breakfasts weren’t enough of a perk to make me hang around. On the morning of what would have been day five, I rang them, still in bed, at slightly past 8am, to inform them that I wouldn’t be coming in. Concerned, the voice on the other end enquired if I was sick? No, I replied, I just really don’t like this job.

To date, it is my favourite quitting of a job every. Just the golden glow of hanging up and snuggling down for a few more hours of sleep, knowing I was free.

And even though, they never did pay me the commission for those two sales, I felt it best to just leave it. I'd take not having to deal with over whatever pitiful amount it was any day.

I feel like the criteria for this job are identical for the Sydney post so I’ll try and phrase it differently.

This job would suit: *

·      Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving (ESFP) personality types

·      Motivators

·      Sanguine-ians

·      People who's dominant element is Air

·      Ares / Leo star signs

·      Star Profiles

And less appropriate for basically everyone else.

*These suggestions come from approx. 1 minute of googling and some rather foggy memories of previous personality typecasting and may actually contradict. Take absolutely everything written here with a pinch of salt. (A cup of tea and a cupcake is also strongly suggested.)