2003-09-30 - 11:14 p.m.
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First Day at the Races Part 1
So I got a job.
I am starting tomorrow at the Mortgage Press in Wantagh, doing ad sales and also writing write ups for the Mortgage Press about the multitude of conventions that happen across the country in almost every single state of America. Not every one, but I do know one that I will be writing up. And it happens tomorrow.
I don't know what the hell it is with me. I usually have crazy first days whenever I start a job. With Cherry Lane, it was tame, but I got to meet people whose articles I had been reading for years in Guitar One magazine as well as got to take home 3 CDs that I have refused to part with ever since then as well as got to work with my cousin Bridget as well as got my own desk for the first time ever in my life. That desk was taken away from me constantly and I was moved around the office a ridiculously unneccesary amount of times...
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I believe the end result was 5 different desks, including getting to work at my boss' desk, complete with leather seating, a cushy loveseat, a kick ass computer, a nice stereo with record player and absolute silence compared to working with 5 other people who liked to play games with each other a lot and goof off and then I'd end up cleaning up whatever was done. As a matter of fact, fuck those guys. I had just come to the conclusion that I did too much for people who didn't give a shit. Note to self: don't do that again.
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...but it was a huge step up from my other jobs. I had been a surveyor, which ended sadly because I had to go to school. I had actually had fun with that job, despite it being nothing more than holding a pole so that a machine could get a reading or holding a piece of paper for someone. In the end of it all, I had been all over New York City, on top of the Hilton, sat in the chair of the man who runs At&T, walked through Bedford-Stuyvesant alone and been told I was going to die by people walking past me, run across the rooftops of Harlem, seen the sides of New York you barely ever get to see and I got paid for it all. Come to think of it, that job was really fun.
I worked for Dairy Barn. The first day there, I ended up fucking myself over for the rest of my stay. I inadvertantly snitched on someone who was leaving early despite me not knowing it. She didn't know it was my first day and she didn't care. I think her name was Nicole. Anyway, she left and told me what I would need to do and I did it all right and didn't fuck anything up, but then Sally the supervisor for the area came in and didn't recognize me and asked who else was on. I told her I was training, the girl had left (not knowing who Sally was) and Sally added another thing to hate Nicole for. She already hated her apparently and I didn't make things better. She stayed for another month and then she pulled something like that again, only this time she brought this kid in who had asked for the day off and had not switched the hours worked, so she got paid for the hours and he didn't. It became this whole big fiasco and Dan, the morning guy...
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Let me also mark the long history of Dan that I have. I have worked for a bunch of Dan's in my life. Dan the morning guy at Dairy Barn. Dan at Cherry Lane. Dan at Horizon Foods. Dan, my senior counselor at the South Shore Y JCC. I generally don't have a problem with this, and I didn't have any problems with any of these Dans. I'm just tired of taking orders from a guy named Dan. I thank god Russ is named Russ.
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...who also hated Nicole fired Nicole. The way you heard it, you would have thought that everyone in the Dairy Barn corporation knew who Nicole was and has been trying to get rid of her in some way or another. I had some kind of hand in this, because I had given them the original infraction and because of that, the original night manager Allison (good friend of Nicole) hated me a little, but tolerated me because I did my job better than most people there.
When Joe took Allison's place, it was fucking awesome because Joe was, well, fucking awesome. We played handball off the plastic doors when there was no cars (and that happened a hell of a lot) and got into general mischeif every night and never got caught. There was a lot that went down that I will never forget and will never repeat. That sounded kind of perverted right there, so let me take this opportunity to state that nothing of a sexual nature happened there, but plenty of illegal things did.
The crackhouse across the street, the rotten camel smell in the freezer, the constant Wendy's, the visits from every person I had ever known for beer that I could never sell them - it all was a ridiculous job. But it was a crappy job and I busted my ass for no reason, pulling home less in a week that most people make in a day.
Then there was the two electrician jobs and I already discussed the first day of the most recent electrician job a few entries back, at great length. Fat ladies and tigers. The oddest day of my life as well as the oddest first day of work of my life. The first job wasn't that crazy, but I've never been yelled at by someone more in an 8 hour period in my entire life. Thanks Kenny. You made me slightly deaf and I took years off your life. Hope it was a fair trade.
Then there's the odd jobs here and there - the helping out my dad jobs, the Queensboro Bridge one alone putting me on top of the Queensboro Bridge to see what it's like, at the bottom of the Queensboro Bridge waiving flags at people for 30 bucks an hour and wandering around the Queensboro Bridge Queens side for 15 blocks so that I can buy 4 White Castle hamburgers for lunch. There's also the helping out my mom jobs, which include the South Shore Y JCC list
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karate instructor helper, basketball coach, arts and crafts instructor and the almighty camp counselor job, where I was beaten up daily by Jewish kids for $150 - $200 for the entire summer. For 4 years.
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...as well as the jobs at Horizon Foods. I've boxed food and wrapped it for Christmas time, created an entire filing room for them, destroyed old (moldy) business files that were useless then and, most recently, driven out to Hackensack to drive a truck back for $250. There's also the helping out relatives jobs. There's the helping out a friend job.
With this long winded summary of my working life being said, let me now explain tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will be heading out to Atlantic City to run around in a sea of mortgage brokering.
For those unfamiliar with Atlantic City, imagine a dumbed down version of Las Vegas. No, even dumber.
There, I will be set up in the newest and nicest hotel, where I will be required to report on every thing I can find about this event. I get money for spending and the room is paid for.
This is the first day of my job.
I was interested in this job from the start and that was yesterday. Before I was told about mini-Vegas. Before I was told I was going to be sent on the road and thrown head first into an aspect of my job I was told was going to take at least 2 months to get to.
I wanted this job badly.
It is basically a sales job. I know, I know, I had just made this big rant about sales and how bad they are and whatever.
But that's SELLING.
This is AD SELLING.
See, the difference is simple. Selling things (not services) to people (toothbrushes, sports watches, condoms, apple pies, small children and so on) without them asking for it is sleazy. You're pushing things on people that they probably didn't want because they would have it already and if they did want it, there's a perfectly good reason they didn't already get it. Maybe they didn't know it existed, but they were doing fine without it. It may be a way to make a buck, it may be a living. But, it's sleazy to me.
Selling AT&T service or any other kind of service is sleazy, but less so. You are offering something to someone to change the way they do things and you might even be doing it to help them out. But, chances are, you're selling these services for commission.
I do not work for commission. I come in at 8:30 AM and I leave at 5:30 PM and I get paid an hourly rate and at the end of the day, I was paid for every second of work I did. Not a fucking huge amount of money, but I am fairly paid for my time. In Commission World, I get paid all of fucking nothing if I can't sell whatever worthless trinket I'm selling.
Another thing that separates these two sides of sales is that I'll be directly talking with people who are supposed to be dealing with just this kind of thing. Not some lady in curlers with a baby in her arm I'm trying to hock tickets to. Not some small business owner who is trying desperately to do his job and make money for the day that I am persuading to talk on the phone differently. I don't have a metaphorical breifcase (or trenchcoat) of watches or the big signs poster boarded to my chest that say "We're cheaper! Use US!"
I'm calling marketing people and talking marketing. And although I don't enjoy it as much as, say, incredibly amazing sex for hours and hours and hours, I can at least go home at the end of the day and not worry about whether I ripped someone off or if tomrorow, I have to push myself even harder than I possibly can. I will still work to the fullest potential I have and I will do everything that I can to make myself better at my job, but I know that I'm only going to do as well as I can and I don't have to worry about being Super Salesman just to keep my job.
Also, I get some editorial experience and that's a keeper. That's just what I need. I never had a chance to get into the school paper or intern at some local or regional paper. I haven't freelanced ever. I haven't done much as far as experience is concerned with my major. Now is the time to shine and grab every ounce of help and experience I can grab while I can grab it. Now is the time to take a firm grasp of some down to earth work and shake the shit out of it and take everything that falls out of it.
Now is time I kick a lot of ass and go play blackjack in a casino to wash it all down with.
To be continued....when I get back.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
