Jake had the Right Idea

Ok, so I went to the on-the-job interview. Everyone I know, online and otherwise, has been like "this job thing sounds fishy, girl." (except for Jake, who said "f*cking forget those f*ckers") and I completely agree. But I'm very curious, and pretty stubborn. I wanted to know what the job was, and I wanted them to offer me the job.

Every job interview is a challenge, and whether I take a job or not, I want them to offer it to me. I want to wow them. My lack of any real skills makes this tricky. One thing that helps is, I'm very laid back during the interview itself. I'm good at speaking in front of people, and usually come across sounding decently lucid.

I walked into the interview office yesterday at about 10am, right on time. (I only arrive early for a first interview, to essay the layout). They let me wait about 20 minutes, it seems the people I was going to be on-the-jobbing with were in a meeting.

I debated walking to the corner to get something from Starbucks, but decided not to. My luck, I'd spill on my new suit (this had better be worth it) and ruin the outfit and the interview.

So I start eavesdropping on the meeting-in-progress. It's not hard, because there is a lot of enthusiastic cheering and whooping. Sounds like an all-guy group. Are they watching sports in there? Porn? SportsPorn?

Finally they all come out. Everyone's in a suit, and not the bargain basement version like mine (I bought it new, but I WAS NOT going to spend $500 of borrowed money on a suit) but, you know, classy. I looked damn good, don't get me wrong. My suit just wasn't made out of the world's most exquisite baby llama belly fur, is all.

It's mostly guys, with a few pretty sexy but hard-nosed women who look like they just gnawed their way through the glass ceiling and watch out bitch, I'll gnaw through you too.

They were very charged up and upbeat. Clearly these empowerment meetings happened pretty often, and it was the way they started their day.

I'm assigned these two guys to work with, James and Roberto. Roberto, as you may have guessed - is of Latino descent, about 25, clean cut, clearly has a lot of muscle under his suit and I wanted to unwrap him like a present.

James looked like a 40ish divorcee who works out to keep his gut to a minimum. Not a minute after we met, we were in James' car, a beat up Honda station wagon (I didn't know they made those) .

To my disappointment, Roberto sat in the back seat, leaving me up front with James.

"Ok, Litany - I know they don't tell you people what's really going on here." James said quickly.

"Uh - your nose is bleeding." I interrupted. A long trickle of blood was snaking quickly down his face.

So he mops up the blood and tilts his head back. The first thing I thought of was that James was a probably not a morning person, probably was a coke-head, and needed a lift to be energetic in the mornings. Great start to the day. Or maybe it was just a garden variety nosebleed.

So James stuffs a Kleenex up his nostril and drives off.

"Where was I?" James asks me.

"They don't tell us what's really going on here." I reminded him. Organ Thievery? Kiddy Porn? Coed Panty Pilfering?

"OK, this is a sales job, and we're on commission." James said, pulling over. we were still in the parking lot. "We're given a few cases of some random product every week, and we go door to door to sell it."

He gave me a long look. "So you want to get out of the car right now, or do you want to stay?" He was trying to be blunt and serious, but it was hard not to grin at him with the bloody Kleenex hanging out of his nostril.

Did I want to wear a suit every day, daily empowerment meeting, cocaine-aplenty, hawking random stuff door to door? It might make a good sitcom, but it's not a way I'd want to live my life.

But they hadn't offered me the job yet. I couldn't say no until it was mine to refuse.

"What's the product?" I asked.

Roberto spoke up from the back seat. "Last week we had these MP3 Player flashlights."

"OK. What about this week?" I asked.

"It's a kids toy. So are you staying or going?" James asked.

I stayed.

The first thing we did was drive about fifteen minutes to the Redondo Beach area, and parked in a shopping center. We all got out, and James and Roberto changed from their dress shoes to black tennis shoes.

"You never saw this." James said, teasing.

"Saw what." I tossed back the expected reply.

Then we started going door to door, walking right past the NO SOLICITING signs as if they weren't there.

These guys had their patter down, I'll give them that. They went into each and every place. Dozens of places. A Korean manicure place, a Wienerschnitzel, even the bank. I thought the bank would throw us out instantly. Instead, we sold toys to two of the tellers!

Oh, the toy was always the same - it was this cheap preschool cash register. The only real function it had was a little bell when you hit the button to open the drawer. They were selling it for $9.99, and people were actually buying it.

Only one place threw us out - it was this family owned legal firm. Everyone else seemed more uneasy that their boss would yell at them, than they were with our presence.

I felt really uneasy going in to all these places, but for the most part, people were pretty friendly. It seems that cheap preschool toys cranked out of a sweatshop in Indonesia are a popular summer item.

At lunch time, my feet were killing me (I thought this was going to be an office job) and I wished they'd told me to bring sneakers too. Of course, management couldn't condone comfortable footwear.

Eventually we went to Burger King and James bought me lunch. It seems that if I were hired, I'd be working under him in a pyramid setup of sorts.

I gotta tell you, that chicken sandwich did a lot to convince me that this was a top rated job, and I'd be silly not to take it. By the end of the day, they'd sold thirty-three toy cash registers, making $329.67, more than half of which was profit.

I was back in the office with the short short man, and he asked me about my day. I wanted to go off on him for wasting my time, but it was clear that if you were willing to go door to door selling crap, you could make money. Their system did work.

What was keeping me from selling my own crap door to door, and forget the commission BS? Because selling crap door to door sucks. You're outside a lot, it's damned hot, you're invading people's space and are unwelcome everywhere you go. Not for me.

So instead of going off about being duped, I gushed about how surprised I was that people were willing to buy, and there was real money to be made and yadda yadda.

I got the job, of course. I'm sure everyone who still wants the job once they know what it is will get the job.

I called this morning and told them I was "sorry, but I'd accepted another opportunity". Interesting day, though.

Litany Webb, signing off

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