I'm still in Nashville. I'm still working on getting checked out, but it is better now, because Joy is here. She got here last night around 10PM after driving for about eight hours. I really needed someone to come pick me up because I have so much stuff to take home, and there are so few people with cars going straight to Gainesville.
It's pretty cool having her here. Waiting around wasn't really a problem before because there were so many people, but it is cool having someone outside of SW to talk to too. Also, she has a car so that helped out tremendously with getting my U-Haul to the U-Haul facility.
Hopefully, I am completely checked out before the end of the day. I'd like to get to Atlanta at least before midnight tonight.
I'm in Nashville again!! I am working on doing all the paperwork that is required for check out, but I saw this computer sitting over here, thought it would be worth a try to see if it had an Internet connection, and viola! I'm online.
OK, now for the stories about getting here --
I didn't really have a way to get myself to Nashville with all of the books and stuff that I have to take along with me. This was pretty much the problem for everyone in our org, so I decided to rent a U-haul truck.
The Adventure Begins...
So, I arranged to have a 10' U-haul truck waiting for me in Scottsboro today, by calling 1-800-GO-U-HAUL. I knew ahead of time that none of the Scottsboro and vicinity U-Haul locations had any trucks that size, but hey... I know that U-Haul will hook me up, and they did. I got a 24 foot truck!
I packed that thing up as fast as I could this morning and set out for Huntsville to pick up Gali, Andrew Gordon, and a bunch of stuff for other people. Then we drove up I-65 to Nashville. Everything went smoothly, until we turned off at the wrong exit, which made me nervous. Just like in Memphis there was a Marriot hotel, an International airport and we were headed on the right road AWAY from our destination which was just a few blocks away from the turn-off.
Fortunately, we made it down "victory lane" and I dropped off Andrew and Gali to go and do something -- I can't remember because of what happened next. As I was circling the lot to come back to park at a few open parking lots. When I went down and out of the parking lot I stopped because some chick in an economy car thought she'd just race out in front of me instead of waiting for me to turn. This was bad because the U-Haul's ball hitch was essentially tilling the parking lot. When I stopped the truck the hitch anchored me (the U-Haul) into the ashpalt, and I couldn't go forward or reverse. This caused a spectacle. Eventually, I left the U-Haul to go turn in my money before they closed up shop and some guy with a Ford F-550 pulled this 24' truck that was anchored to the parking lot through the parking lot and off ot the side of Atrium Way.
All of that happened as soon as I had given up and resigned myself to the situation being solved somehow. Luckily it was solved in such a way that I was not charged anything.
Now, I've been doing paperwork for the last two hours and we've got Papa John's on the way. It should be here in about five minutes!! Woohoo! We're getting 2 two topping pizzas for $18 (after Tennessee's exorbitant sales tax of 9%.)
Well, I am nearly done with delivering now.
I was really wanting to be done after Thursday, but a number of my customers did not have the money that they were supposed to have to pay for the books this week. So, I have to wait for about 20 of them to get home from work and cash their paychecks.
Knowing this I decided that I would 'sleep in' today. I didn't actually get to sleep in because I needed some more books and I had to wake up early to go and get them this morning, but I did manage to come back and go to bed again and sleep another four hours. That was nice. Now I am taking it easy for a while.
The way I see it, I'm stuck here another three days. I have 34 more deliveries to do. Some of those actually are people who have paid in full, which is positive because it gives me some momentum. The rest are people who I have caught up with that were caught short, but still said they want the books OR people I haven't manage to catch up with just yet. Now, having three days to do 34 deliveries is pretty nice considering I have been able to attempt forty or more a day.
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On another note... I have lost a lot of weight this summer, but lately I've been so hungry (a lot of it is probably in my head at this point though due to sleep deprivation and undernourishment) that I've managed to gain a lot of that weight back by eating more and eating some 'junk' too.
I don't think I've managed to put it all back on just yet, but I know I am getting close. The funny thing is that it feels uncomfortable going back, so I feel like I am getting fat. Perhaps I was fatter before, and I really am getting fat again. Who knows? All I know is that I am going to be running more when I get home. I am going to have all kinds of energy when this is done for the next two weeks, and I want that to last. So, I am putting in the time to run and work out.
When we go door-to-door and sell books, we often get free stuff like bikes, loaner cars, free food, and tons and tons of soft drinks and bottled water. This seemed to be unusual for our group, but I got an amazing amount of fresh fruit and vegetables (I work country.)
Some people this summer have gotten pocket knives, beer, (I was actually offered tons of beer and even wine and champagne)
There are also many, many unaccepted offers for free stuff too. I have been offered dogs, cats, daughters, beverages (again), and many other weird things.
The coolest thing was just given to me last night though! I got XBOX games!! No, not just one or two XBOX games, but FOUR (4) FREE XBOX games!!
So, what games did I get? Well, nothing brand spanking new or anything, but they are still great games. Here are the titles.
EA's 2003 NCAA College Football
Sega's 2K3 NCAA College Football
EA's Madden 2003
Eidos' Mad Dash Racing
The best thing about this is that all four games are for 1 to 4 players, which is almost a requirement for me in gaming, because I don't really have time to play video games outside of social times.
This is what we've all been waiting for... delivery week!
About one more week until I am done and home.
Delivery week is another crazy Southwestern experience in the long line of crazy experiences. Fortunately this particular part of the experience is much more pleasant than the selling phase of Soutwestern. Of course, because it is more pleasant we get less sleep. I have to be out delivering from 7AM til anywhere from 10PM (like last night) 'til midnight like I'll be doing on Wednesday night.
The pleasant part of this is getting to see all the cool families again; driving from one specific, known place to another, which means more time in the car listening to whatever you like; being invited into houses all day, which means A/C all day; getting to see which of your weak orders came through and which didn't; and breaks / free time planned right into your schedule.
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Here's the Schedule:
7AM to 9AM -- Deliveries to eight familes
9AM to 11AM -- Deliveries to eight familes
11AM to 1PM -- Banking and Clean-up
1PM to 3PM -- Deliveries to eight familes
3PM to 5PM -- Deliveries to eight familes
5PM to 7PM -- Clean-up, new selling (Catch up with any families that you missed during the day)
7PM to 10PM -- Deliveries to eight familes and Clean-up
Now, that means you deliver to at least forty families a day. Yesterday I had 43 deliveries scheduled and made 27 successful deliveries. I reported 27 though, becase two that I missed were customers that paid in full. I just need to drop those books off later on this evening.
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One of the weirdest things about delivering yesterday was revisiting Sand Mountain and all the areas I worked for the first four to six weeks of my summer. I saw places where I had felt some very deep emotions. Different memories would pour back into me as I drove past areas I knew far too well. The whole thing was really surreal. It was as close to seeing your life flash before your eyes as I have gotten. Four weeks (I haven't delivered to the area of Sand Mountain that made up weeks 3 and 4) flashed before my eyes.
I drove by so many houses, and I could remember knocking on so many of their doors. I'd remember the responses, whether or not they even invited me in, I'd even remember some of their names and kid's names. The whole thing was crazy. I am kinda excited about going up there again this afternoon to see the area I covered weeks 3 and 4.
Finally! I am done with knocking on (new) doors for the summer. I still have a week or more of this Southwestern thing left, but I don't have to approach anymore strangers next week, and after next Thursday or Friday I won't have to deal with (m)any more customers either.
I would really, really like to get done with all of this delivery stuff by Thursday night so I could drive up to Nashville with Andrew and his brothers, check out Friday and be back in Florida by Saturday. That would be AWESOME!
If that doesn't happen then I won't be home until Tuesday or Wednesday, because I'll have to wait until Monday to check out and I'll have to deal with lines of people who are also wanting to check out at the same time.
In my delivery schedule I have everyone fit into four days of delivering. I don't know how realistic that is, but I will soon see. For the better part of this summer I have been asking people when they'd be home during the first week of school. The people in my org declared this quite foolish, and it may have been, but we'll see about that too.
I am almost done with my weekly, and it says that I have 195 customers as of now. I know that ten families have canceled their orders, so that brings me to 185 customers. I wanted to hit 200 customers, and it might still happen, but it seems unlikely. Luckily, the people I'll be talking to this next week will all be people who asked me to come back and check on them in August. That should help a little -- I'd think.
Well, as you might be able to tell by my writing, I am dead tired. I need to get to bed ASAP because I have delivery school tomorrow, and I need to get there ontime, which is 9AM. Also, I might be driving Karen's van, which is not something I am used to doing -- so add some time due to that too.
Dahnell started delivering books Thursday because he has tons of customers and he has to deliver for Andrew, who died earlier this summer. This is important because these last two days and tomorrow he is waking up an hour or more earlier than I am to get on the road so he can start at 7AM instead of 7:59 or earlier like the normal summer schedule.
Now, this means that he wakes up, gets ready, and goes much much earlier than I do. It also means that the alarm goes off at 6AM with me in the room all by myself. Fortunately I am on the top bunk so I do need to make a concerted effort to get out of bed and turn off the alarm. I'd also need to do more work to get back into bed afterwards. So both of those things help with the discipline to get up.
Yesterday, I got up, started my day and got to my first house by 7:51AM. That was great! I did well. I was going to rock it out on Thursday because I've been sucking all week.
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Today, I got up at 6AM, I started getting ready... then I turned on the computer. It wasn't here yesterday morning to tempt me, but today it is here and I lost. That would have only kept me from work another half an hour to an hour, because eventually I do get finished writing e-mails, blog entries and blog comments to the other blogs I read. So, I took a nice hot shower. Then I decided I should take a nap, because I was already too late to get an honest start time. The nap didn't really work. I am so used to be on an adrenaline rush in the morning that I was wired laying in bed. After 45 minutes of drifting into and out of consciousness I decided to get up again. I started getting ready and then talked to Karen for a while.
At 10AM she got a call. It was for me or Dahnell. It was the shipping company with our books. Praise God I was home. Last time this happened (the company called the HQ instead of our cell phones) Karen took the call, didn't take any notes, messed up the delivery, and didn't tell me about it for five days.
So, now I am emotionally conflicted. I know that I really, really should not have stayed home today. I also know that I was kinda doing it for several reasons -- one of which had to do with outright rebellion against the company and anger for having had such a pathetic week despite reasonably strong efforts. However, had I not done this I would have likely had to deal with a major issue with the books again, and Dahnell would have really been up a creek. So, I'm torn. Can I feel justified in my actions now that such an important thing was handled properly? Was God just using my rebellious spirit and actions to help out me and Dahnell? Can I just enjoy my time off and think nothing of it?
I don't know, but I think that enjoying my time off is all I really can do at this point. Thinking back on how many people have bought from me so far in Arab I don't really think I am missing out on much of a book selling opportunity by not being out there for half of the day today. I also still have tomorrow to clean up whatever areas I think are the best prospects.
OTHER SIDE THOUGHTS FROM THIS MORNING:
I was not able to take a nap today nor would I have been able to sleep in. This actually came as a frustrating suprise at first, but I quickly remembered that the B-Contract dealers all told me that I would not be able to sleep in when I got back home for a week or more. Spending the whole summer in an extremely consistant schedule has a huge impact on everyone's sleep schedule and body cycles.
I now know that when I get back to Florida I will very likely wake up early in the morning still, and I will be totally pumped up every day for quite some time.
Perhaps I will keep this up for a little while by working out and running everyday and continuing to wake up at the same time every day. The latter of those two would definately be easier to accomplish, but both are doable if I want them. The only issue is that I won't be running around door-to-door all day, because I will have to sit in class for part of the day. Oh well, that should just leave me with all the more energy for working out when class is over.
I have two more days of selling left. This brings me mixed feelings which are basically positive when weighed out.
I am happy to be so close to being done. Though, I am sorta dreading the week ahead because I will get even less sleep for four days (is that possible!?!) while I am doing deliveries. I may have to wake up an hour earlier like Dahnell is doing this week, and I will most certainly have to stay out much later at night Wednesday and Thursday.
I am also a little upset that my opportunity to make "crazy money" is coming to a close. It helps that I am doing so poorly this week in a way, because it makes me feel like the faucet is being turned off.
I also anticipate knowing how many of my weak orders are going to come through, and how many of my stronger orders buy more from me when I come with the books that they ordered.
Most of all I look forward to coming home, but I feel very helpless because I don't have a car. I have a lot of stuff that I brought (thinking that I would have my Jeep on my way home too,) and I am going to need to get a ride to Nashville and then to Gainesville. This need for a ride always means that I have to stay later than necessary, because when I am not ready people who could give me a ride will leave me for the others who are still not ready, and when I am ready I'll have to wait until someone who is able to give me a ride is also ready. No big deal though. I am just expecting to be in Florida by the 18th at the latest.
This summer I have intimately experienced and learned the value of persistance and faith in the daily and weekly microcosms that repeat themselves out here in the bookfield. I am psyched about translating these lessons and experiences into the macrocosm of my 'real' life.
Every day, I wake up at 6:00AM. I get up, get ready for the day, take a cold shower, get dressed and go off to breakfast. Then we eat, do execs, and drive to our sales locality. When I am knocking on doors and feel like no one is ever going to buy I can get discouraged, but today (and other days too) I realized that I always sell something eventually. Everyday someone somewhere buys some of my books. It has happened with such consistancy that I feel like I can almost take it as a given.
Now, this applies to my life in sooo many ways. To get the sale(s) that eventually come before the end of the day I have to keep working. I have to go to the next house. I have to continue smiling and greeting prospect after prospect. I have to show the books to 30+ people everyday, and after doing this I will surely make one or more sales in that day.
Writing
I want to write a book. I'd like to publish a book.
I felt this same way about poetry four or five years ago. What had to happen? Well, at that time I didn't write much or often. I'd try my best to make my poems as "perfect" as possible. After writing for a few years I had amassed several poems. Maybe close to one hundred different poems on all different topics covering a variety of themes. Finally, I had two poems published and they've been published several times in different anthologies. They are nothing serious, but I now have a few poems that people actually find interesting and enjoy.
Now I am Blogging. I write at least one entry every week and I make a concerted effort to post 15 entries a month. I do not try to make every entry perfect. I have done that, but I gave it up. Now I just try to keep writing. Every once in a while I will write one that I really like, one that will receive many comments, or one that other people like a lot. I am even willing to bet that I have an entry posted at this site that people who don't even know me would benefit from or at least enjoy. This is going to be my 226th published entry (I write some just for me that I do not publish.) So, it has taken a lot of persistance and faithfulness in my writing to get to this point where I have a few entries like I just mentioned. I even have an daily average of 60 to 70 visits to my site every month.
So, back to this book thing. I've got a few ideas for books. I don't think I want to do fiction at this point, but I do want to write books. So... time to get started. I have actually fleshed out an idea for a book this summer that I plan to write this Fall. I want it done by Christmas. This book might not be good. It could even suck, but that is not the issue. The reason I want to write this book is to get started on the path of writing books. I may have to write 30 books to finally have one that I like, one that others like, and/or one that is published -- just like out here in the bookfield.
This is a totally new paradigm in my thinking. It has come over time -- it didn't just happen this summer, but it is wildly different from my perfectionistic thinking that I'd get a masterpiece the very first time (or two.) Now, I am excited about putting it into action in the rest of my life. Anticipating that I may have to write thirty books before I have one that I love makes me more prepared for what will likely be a long journey, but I am excited about getting started and I am mentally ready for the mountains of work that I will soon need to plow through.
I am sitting in front of a computer at the public library in Arab. I decided to hop online really quickly because I haven't had much of a chance to do that lately. This week has pretty much sucked because I have been awake past 1AM every night trying to prepare my delivery schedule. I decided yesterday to stop trying, defy Dahnell's demands, and just go to bed earlier (midnight). I did this with a plan in mind.
Today, I came to the Arab library after purchasing a $105 permit and putting down a $200 Deposit on sales tax that I won't get back until January.
The plan was to bring all my stuff needed to get these green cards out to my customers and finish my delivery chart. I have succeeded! It took me an extra two and a half hours working on the sidewalk in front of the library from 9:30AM to 10:00AM when they opened.
Now I am pretty much done with using the Internet here, so I thought I'd blog. I am really sick of this job and I am very happy that it will be over and done with in roughly two weeks. Looking at my delivery schedule makes me happy, because I could finish delivering on Thursday night. Realistically though, I will either help someone else out Friday, try selling all day Friday, or try to catch up with all the people who I missed the first four days.
Clerison bought a second car last week. He told me this Sunday after asking me if I was going home to Fort Myers after Check-out. I told him that I was probably going to Gainesville, because I have no way to get to Fort Myers. Ah ha! Clerison then lets me know that he bought a car, reminds me that his twin brother is going to FGCU and is living in Ft. Myers, and then asks me if I'd be willing to make a little "delivery." Of course! This would br good for both of us. He gets the car to his brother and would, presumably, not even have to pay for gas. I get a ride home at my timing.
Two days later I get a phone call from my parents. They tell me to call them back. I do, and I find out that they bought me a car. That's for another entry though.
So, now things are really looking up, and I am psyched, but it is hard to be happy when you feel like dirt because you have a total of roughly 28 hours of sleep so far in the week, including naps taken in the car, which is verboten thus making me feel like dirt all over again.
So, after discussing my feelings of fatigue, exhaustion and guilt, my parents helped out again. They instructed me to go ahead and take the naps, go ahead with the aforementioned library plan, and do things that I need to do to stay healthy, alert and feeling reasonably good. This is my own business after all, and these people really can't make me do anything. I just choose to do it because I want to do it all "right."
So, now I am taking some time to blog, I took some time to get this schedule done so I can go to bed at 10:30 or 11:00 tonight. That should help me feel more normal again on Saturday. Dahnell, feels like dump though, and he takes that out on all who come into contact with him. Additionally, because he feels so bad his sales have plummetted. He is sold on this program more than the managers though, so he beleives that there should be no correlation there and ignores his fatigue as best he can.
Most of my life I have discounted the importance of memorizing anything. I wasn't particularly "good at it" and thus it required a lot of work for me. Now, this always strikes me as strange because I do seem to have a fairly good memory when it comes to several things, but as far as memorizing speeches, songs, bible verses, etc. I am unpracticed and thus unskilled.
Most of my life I have had a Bible readily availble, and more recently I have had the Internet at my fingertips so I could look up any verse or song that I wanted to know.
My Southwestern experience changed all of that.
My attitude toward memorization is completely different now. Suddenly I find myself wishing I had better committed myself to knowing songs that I'd like to sing while on the bookfield, Bible verses I'd like to recite, and... my sales talk, which I still don't know all that well.
Every time I sit down at a house I get all the points across, and I end up talking to the people like they are people instead of reciting the sales talk. Actually, I do end up doing a bit of both, which is good, because when you are reciting your mind is totally free to think and make observations about the customer. When you recite you are relaxed and free to listen more. It is such a great thing to have going for you.
After this summer, I intend to begin committing songs and specific Bible verses to memory every week. I think that this will be challenging for me at first, but I truly believe that it will be worthwhile the next time I don't have my Bible readily available.
One of the best things I've done to make Southwestern a great experience was getting AudioCDs of sermons and now -- books.
I have three sermons series from my chruch in Cape Coral that I've listen to many, many times now, and I now have two books on CD too. I have Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels and an abridged version of The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren.
I just can't say enough how much better it is to do this job when I have something to occupy my mind when I am out selling books. There is no time to be nervous, feel rejected, or deal with any of the other emotional issues that can come up when you are excited about getting to listen to some more interesting stuff.
I also like the idea of truly multi-tasking. This summer I have already read a book and a half, I have written out an exhaustive template for a book I'd like to write this Fall, and now I am over half way done with listening to a book that I will probably listen to a few times over. By the end of this summer I will not only have made a good deal of money, but I will have also listen to a number of books.
This makes me want to come back and do this job again another year all the more. Knowing that I will be able to make really decent money, learn a ton from the life experiences, and learn a lot from books and sermons is really exciting. I wish I had taken advantage of this further at the begining of the summer. Also, now I start to think of my car wrecj as something of a blessing, because I am now in a car with a CD player and that has made all of this possible.
It's strange how things work out.
I've had tons to write about lately, but I've been staying off of the computer most of this week. I've been busy trying to do this job as well as I can and it seems to have paid off a little bit.
Today we went to Decatur again for our weekly meeting. I was feeling kinda chill, because I didn't get enough sleep and I had also not hit any of my (extremely lofty) goals for the week. However, I found out during the course of the meeting that even though I didn't hit my goals... I should still be happy because I did have my best week in sit-downs and in customers, I hit the pacesetter for the third time, and I had the most customers in the 'org' for the week -- 28. I beat out Galen, Kevin and Ketan, who usually dominate the customers and units categories. That was a suprise to everyone in the room and quite the pleasant suprise to me.
The whole thing was actually kind of funny, because I wasn't thinking about customer numbers at all this week. Then at the recognitions I was standing up there with just two other guys, and they have this process where they narrow it down to two people and then just one person. I was shocked when I was the last person standing. Everyone was shocked when I was even standing there as one of the final too -- especially the announcer. He made a huge deal about it, which struck a balance between rude, commending, and funny.
This week has been nearly my worst week ever in terms of stats. It got off to a pretty bad start, I was sick for a day and a half of it, and I followed one of the days, so I really can't expect too much, but it was still my second or third lowest week of the summer in terms of strong units.
That doesn't really matter all that much though, because next week I plan to go out and really break some personal records. I am stepping out in faith and setting a goal to break through 250 units in a week next week. I am making it public and asking for prayer. God willing, I will break through this barrier. In the process I will be making $1,000 in one week, which will also be nice.
Every morning on the bookfield and every night during Sales School we do this little thing that we all like to call Execs, which is short for Executive Exercises.
In the morning, we will do execs at our breakfast spots out in the parking lot or in a nearby open area. We will do them in front of roads or highways, we will do them in front of the restaurant's patrons, and on Sundays when we are at a hotel we will do them in the hotel parking lot.
What are these 'execs?'
Well, they start with someone mentioning execs. That person will usually then raise his hand up in the air shout "ohhhhhhh...hhhhh... Ohhhhhh...!" indefinately while running around in a large circle. Everyone else follows this person doing the same exact thing until everyone is present in the circle.
At that point we will start skipping and singing a song. The song goes --
It's a great day to be a bookman.
It's a great day I know.
It's a great day to be a bookman everywhere I go.
Goodbye no-nevers, goodbye doubts and fears
It's a great day to be a bookman -- be of good cheer.
I feel happy. I feel terrific. I feel GREAT!
Then someone will yell out loud "UH-OH!" and we all will chime in "Book Time!" We all sing/chant this in unison four times while doing a very specific rythmic clap that took me a few tries to get down. (I still mess it up on the really sleepy mornings.) After chanting that four to five times someone makes the conductor's sign for stop and everyone goes silent.
After about three beats another iniative-taking individual will jump or dance into the center of the circle and yell/scream out, "Now let me see that funky chicken!" at the top of his voice, and everyone else will yell something like, "What's that you said!?!"
This happens three times with slight variations each time based on the whims of the person in the center of the circle. At the end He will say "I said unh..." and everyone in unison will sing "Oooo, ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo; one more time now!! Oooo, ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo." Or whatever other chant, saying, or sounds that go along with the particular thing that the initiator wanted to "see."
The variations on this are numerous and growing. We come up with new stuff from time to time. I come up with new stuff all the time, because I enjoy execs and I come up with stuff that I think will be fun all the time. Most of the time the stuff I come up with doesn't really pan out, but that is fine because every once and again I'll come up with something really fun and even "classic."
After doing that there are several other execs that we do. Some we only do in a large group on Sundays, but most of the other ones are just thrown in as people remember them. If no one remembers a particular exec it's fine -- it doesn't get done.
At the end of execs we do this thing where we all gather in a circle and get fired up and then we all run off acting like birds, ostriches, video game charaters or bookmen.
It is crazy. It was embarrassing (the first few times.) It is always fun.
I am at the end of one of the longest days of my life. I am thinking that the day is actually a day and two fifths, because it spans much more than 24 hours.
This is a fairly long story so don't start until you have a few spare minutes to keep reading.
I'd have to say that 'the day' started Saturday night after getting home from working my 7:30AM to 9:30PM border war schedule. Instead of going straight home I went to Wal-Mart, because I knew that I'd have about two hours until Dahnell would be back at the HQ and be ready to head out to Memphis, Tennessee. I also felt that I wouldn't have much time to do my Sunday Wal-Mart food and supply run on Sunday.
After I got back from Wal-Mart the adrenaline was pumping, because I had a lot to do and only an hour-plus to do it all in. Luckily, Dahnell ran a little late and I managed to unpack my rental car, turn it in, unpack my grocieries and pack them into their places, pack my day bag for the trip to Memphis, call in my stats to Mike Yandre, finish my weekly, get my remittances completely ready to submit to Southwestern, and prepare all my checks for the night depository. I had everything packed and ready to go before Dahnell was ready, and when he came home he found me working busily on my paper work, which pleased him.
Dahnell was also happy that I was doing my paperwork, because it meant that he could do his on the trip to Huntsville. He let me drive his car to Huntsville, despite the recent Jeep accident, because that is how they do things here at Southwestern. (I was actually wanting to write a seperate entry about this, but... well... you'll see.) I was doing 100MPH down this extremely empty, straight highway and made it to Huntsville HQ in 50 minutes. Thank goodness, we needed to sleep badly.
Yep, that's right. Instead of going to a hotel and sleeping "Mexican-style" for all of four hours like last time, we got to spend the night at the Huntsville HQ -- mainly because Marie wasn't there, so there was a spare room with a king size bed available.
(Aside: Marie had left Friday morning to go see some Navy people about the Nuclear Engineering position that she will likely take in the Fall of 2005 as a commissioned officer in the Navy. She had to drive from Atlanta to Huntsville Friday morning and then catch a plane to "I don't remember where.")
So, that night was pretty cool, because I got to see their awesome HQ, and I got to finally take a shower -- complete with hot water and water pressure! The showers at our HQ have been offline all week. They are working again now. Praise God!) I also got to talk with Andrew Gordan and Galileo "Gali" Solis for a while. I ended up sleeping in the same bed with Andrew and we woke up four hours later...
Yeah, so we went to sleep around 1:30 after arriving at the HQ at 12:50. We then woke up at 4:45AM and got on the road again ASAP. Yandre drove the other four of us to Memphis, and most of them went to sleep or at least tried. I tried too, but couldn't with the music and stuff, so I read this cool book that Yandre had in his car about Christian masculinity. (I'll get the title on here later, hopefully.) Anyway, Mike got tired eventually and we pulled over at a gas station. He wanted me to drive. I wasn't sure at first, but this is Southwestern. It is time to get me to regain my confidence in driving.
So, I drove as carefully as possible down the highway to Memphis. We made it to Memphis and we were making wrong turns right and left. We finally got off the Interstate though, and we were on the right road, but I immediately noticed that we were headed in the wrong direction. I was told that I should turn around right away. (We were in a hurry to get Mike and Dahnell to their student manager's meeting.) So, I got into the left turning lane at the next intersection, put on my turn signal and waited for the traffic signal. It turned green, and I took a left. Then two cars hit the passenger side of the car one after the other.
It is suprising that they both managed to hit the same spot on the car -- Mike Yandre's door (He was sitting in the back seat; passenger's side.)
Here's more detail as to what happened. I errantly took that left turn. Both cars jumped off the line at the green light. A 76 or 77 year-old woman in a white car hit us first. That stopped her car because we were in a heavily loaded Toyota 4Runner that is like a tank. We kept moving and then a Hispanic guy in an older model Toyota Supra hit the same part of the car.
No one was hurt!
Now, the events at the site of the traffic accident are many and could easily fill another entry. I may even write another entry for them, but I am going to skip to the part where N-Rod (Nick Rodriguez) comes and picks us up and Mike's car is towed, because there is so much more to this day.
OK, so Nick picks us up and we go to the meeting. We walk in very late -- at the tail-end of recognitions. We watched a presentation about the hiring environment for the 2003-2004 year, and then listened to a guest speaker. After that we had one more recognition -- Lunch of Champions -- and then we were dismissed for lunch. I didn't have a ride and knew that five more of us didn't either, so I decided to ask the District Sales Manager, Brian Ross, for one. I figured it was a ballsy move that would pay off, if for no other reason than to reward my boldness. So, Yandre and I rode with B. Ross to Neely's, which is this Nationally renowned Bar-B-Q restaurant in Memphis. SW had reserved us a huge room, and set up an all-you-can-eat catering-style buffet of this awesome Bar-B-Q -- all for $10 after tip and everything (no cost if you won lunch of champions.)
After lunch we all waddled over to this skating rink that was next door. Everyone did personal conferences and a lot of us rented skates and skated. I made telephone calls instead of skating though, because of the accident that was entirely my fault. There was no pie-ing today though. This may have had something to do with the fact that our org (finally) lost combined with the fact that our org leader's car was just in a serious accident and is now seriously messed up. It may have been that they had no pies around though. Who knows? They didn't tell me, and I even asked, of course.
After all that was done people started heading out -- except for the five of us in the car accident. We didn't have a way to head out. Yandre was working on that though and called every rental car company in town. Finally he had gotten a list of prices and availability and such and got Danny Wilkins to drive him and Yo over to the rental place.
This is where the next big frustration comes into the picture. Mike didn't have major credit card. So, he called me and asked if I did. I did so they came and picked me up. They were in a hurry and yelled at me to get in the car and we rushed back to National Rental car. I left my wallet on my bag after I had checked it to make sure I had the appropriate card. So, we drove another 20 minutes back to the skating rink and got my wallet. Then we drove back to the rental place. When we got there we found out that my credit card wouldn't work for me because it was in my mother's name. Even though I managed to rent a car with it twice already. However, the lady tells us that Budget Car Rental will take debit cards, which is what Mike Yandre had initially tried to use. Frustration!
OK, so we circle around the Memphis airport again -- twice. We did it twice, because Danny saw the spikes at the entrance to the Budget facility and refused to believe it was the entrance. At the second time around I had to get out of the car and ask someone to come tell him he could drive through. So, I do that and we go in and talk to this guy at Budget. He tries his best to help us out, but still Mike and I don't have the right combination to unlock a rental car. I have a major credit card, but it's not in my name, and I have a card with a social security number. Mike has a debit card in his name, but he has no SSN printed on any of his picture IDs. This is all OK, but Mike and I aren't 25 so, they can't help us after all. So, we go to some other rental place. Similar, but different problems. Finally, someone tells us that a passport would work and one of us realizes that Gali has a passport because he is from Panama.
They then drop me back off at the skating rink (where I manage to nap for a while, and I don't even take naps -- I'm just that tired!) and they pick up Gali to go get a one-way car rental. I am napping for a while until Dahnell notices and decides to wake me up. He always does stuff like this. I think he doesn't like me to get sleep or something. He wakes me up to ask if I am done with any and all possible work. I answer yes to most things until he thinks up something for me to do to work ahead and suggests I do that. I didn't want to, but I couldn't go back to sleep at that point so I do eventually anyway.
As we're working Andrew mentions to me that the manager and his wife/gf are grilling out in the back of the skate park and offered to give us hamburgers for free. So, we get cheeseburgers over at the snack counter and he lets us have 20oz bottles of the beverage of our choice. I choose Sprite: Berry Clear and my night is made.
Finally, Gali and Yandre come back in a rental car -- a Ford Taurus. They grab some food and we pack and leave. As all that is happening someone at the skating rink lets me borrow his Sprint picture phone and I call my Dad again. This time I get him, and I break the news to him. He was much less pleased. He had just gotten in to Indianapolis (I think) and had some travel issues too and was not happy with his thought that my insurance company might drop me now.
We then all pile into the Taurus, which is incredibly uncomfortable for the three of us in the back. That makes sleeping very difficult, but we eventually pull it off from time to time. With Yandre and Gali driving us back to Huntsville.
Wait, one more problem. We get sorta lost again, and again it is somewhat my fault and somewhat Yandre's fault. He left his Atlas in the 4Runner, so we relied on my memory. This caused us to make a loop around Memphis on I-240. Finally we got off at the right place and the rest of my memory worked well enough to get us to Huntsville.
It was well after 2AM at that point and Dahnell and I still had to drive back to Scottsboro. At first Dahnell was wanting to do it back to back, despite my thought that we should stay the night at Yandre's HQ and just do it in the morning. Dahnell is pretty stubborn though, and even after Yandre and I strongly suggested we stay the night Dahnell persisted. Finally, he found himself a way to back down though. He heard Blake would be home so he thought it would be cool to stay the night for a chance to see Blake in person. That didn't happen, but I did get some more rest.
We planned to wake up at 5AM, and Yandre and Dahnell told me not to worry about anything and to just go to sleep -- they'd wake me up. That was a laugh. Marie ends up bouncing into my room fresh out of the shower with just her towel on at 6AM sharp. "Wake up guys!" Somehow I managed to launch out of bed with tons of energy and Marie bolts to her room.
That was kinda fun, because I ended up having the chance to run into the living room / HQ office and waking up Yandre and Dahnell. I enjoyed turning the tables on them like that, but I doubt they noticed and I sure didn't rub it in any!
Next, Yandre and I sit down and exchange a bit of information and finally talk about the insurance situation while Dahnell is getting ready. We finish that. I tell him and Marie goodbye and meet Dahnell out in his car. We then drive for over an hour to Scottsboro (I got some more sleep then! woohoo!) and got to our HQ a little after 7AM. More rushing! We were a flurry of activity trying to take showers (Thanks, God! They were working again.) We also had tons of stuff to do, and by 7:44AM I was renting the car again from the lady across the street and demoing her to get my first knock in.
Now, I am still at the HQ. I was making calls to the insurance company, Mike Yandre, Southwestern, Joy, and the city of Memphis (about my ticket -- they didn't put the cost of the find on the ticket nor did they enter the ticket into the compauter. Another plus -- they put Georgia down as my licensing state.) Now I am doing laundry, still making calls, and waiting on call-backs. Soon, I'm going to have to get back out into the book field though. Again, with minimal sleep. Oh well, this week will most certainly be my best week of the summer. There's a pony out there waiting for me somewhere. I'm sure of it.
I still haven't gotten ahold of Joy. Hopefully reading this is not the first time she hears about all of this. If so -- I'm sorry! I tried to reach you a lot!
The funniest thing about all this is that I am now positive that I want to come back and do Southwestern next summer. I have definately had a great number of life experiences in an environment that was very positive and practically loving. Everyone is incredibly forgiving of everything except for laziness and apathy, and they are all out here supporting me and everyone else. So, even though I am not going to be coming home with as much of a profit as I would have liked at the end of this summer I will still be coming home with a lot more confidence about being able to handle the world and the things that it throws at us all. Finally, I will be coming home with a lot more faith, trust and reliance on God.
Today I was planning on writing a blog entry on how very much I love having my Jeep. It is so very ironic though, because less than 20 minutes after I had made the plan and set it into my memory so I wouldn't forget it I ended up flipping my Jeep on a gravel road.
The reasons I love my Jeep were growing and growing this summer. It got me out of everything, it handled (addition -- almost) all of my poor driving and kept on going, it looked good even after having been through quite a bit, and it was like a home away from home in Alabama. I loved to just turn back and look at my Jeep in all these different driveways while I'd wait for Ms. Jones or whoever to answer the door. It would make me happy to see this car that I've grown so used to seeing sitting there waiting for me no matter what happened at the door.
Now that Jeep is gone. Certainly, I might be able to have it repaired and get it back in one piece in a few weeks to a month, but I doubt it.
I remember just a few hours ago admiring how beautiful the Jeep looked even with its windshield and hood crushed on the slate gravel. I decided to go ahead and take some pictures of it in its last moments. That made me wish once again this summer that I had a better camera than I do. I am lucky to have a camera to use at all though.
Truthfully, I very well might be lucky to be alive.
Today, I stopped at a two story brick house that had a wrap-around wooden balcony on the second floor. It didn't go all the way around, but it reminded me of my parent's office building -- only smaller. Anyway, there was a section where the guard-rail was missing. Beneath that section there was a hugemongous black trampoline!
Anyway, I got to the house and it looked like there might not be anyone home, because the house looked so new and there were no cars in the driveway. There were two garage doors though, so I got out and gave the front door a knock. Two little guys came to the door and I quickly found out that their mom wasn't home, but they assured me that she'd be back soon and that I should wait. On my way out she pulled up.
I tried to help everyone bring in the grocieries and stuff, but that kinda fell through -- I did get a sit-down though. She also ordered a book with the intent to order more when I came back. (I do this from time to time. I tell my customer to go ahead and order a minimal order and get the rest when I return.)
After that I asked to jump from the balcony to the trampoline. One of her boys had done this a couple of times before, but she wasn't really sure about it. I told her that I needed to do it because I have a fear of things like that, which is true.
At some point the other brother, Matt, woke up. (The two boys at the begining of this story were the son and a friend, Hunter) He wanted to jump too, but he had never done it before. He was afraid. I was too, and I told him I was, and it was obvious that I was, but I still jumped, because I wanted to get over that.
Matt thought that was a decent enough idea, so he stood around and thought about jumping for a while. We (his mom too) were all encouraging him to do it. At one point I told him that this was so much bigger than just jumping down to the trampoline and that it would all be over in a flash so he should just do it.
In the end he made up his mind not to jump.
I was thinking about what I had said to Matt and realized it was so much truer than I had thought. Had he jumped it would have completely changed the way he felt about himself and it would have changed his identity. He would no longer have been the chubby, fearful, conservative kid that he still is. He would have instead been just like me and the other two boys. I thought that was pretty interesting. There were other interesting things I got from this, but it is way past bedtime now so I'll have to continue this later.
"When doing Southwestern, your schedule is your lifeline. If you break it, you die."
I know you don't die, but this saying of theirs is not too far off from the truth. If you alter your schedule in a significant way you suffer. You suffer badly.
Here's my lifeline to the best of my memory...
The Lifeline
Arrive at the HQ
Unpack Car
Do Weekly
Call in Stats (10:30 PM)
Fill in Selling 101
Pack Lunch
Run / Work Out
Eat Dinner / Check e-mails / blog
Shower
Go to bed
Wake up (6AM or 5:45AM)
Put bed away
Shower
Get dressed
Take stuff to car
Leave HQ
Eat Breakfast
Fill out five orders
Pay for food
Brush teeth
Execs
Drive to territory
36 Demos
12-15 sits
2-10 customers
Repeat.
Well, it's Sunday night and Marcus is kinda getting the shaft again. This is actually something that usually happens on Sunday nights and Mondays. This time he is having to move out of our HQ and into Clerison's HQ. This isn't really all that bad, and the other stuff isn't either, but I like to joke with him about it because he always takes it hard.
He is moving because he ran out of territory here in Scottsboro. He worked it all fairly quickly, I guess, but the real problem is that the walkable cities in Marshall County have very expensive transient vendor license fees or forbid our book peddling altogether. This means that he had about half of the territory that the company thought he had. So, they are having him move in with Clerison and Rasa. Those two had lived with this guy named Mike, but Mike quit early on so they have territory and living space to spare, I guess.
Farewell Marcus! I guess I'll still see him at org meetings, but he never really talked much there so this is probably for my relationship with Marcus Goynes.
This door-to-door sales stuff gets pretty boring pretty quickly if you don't do things to entertain yourself. The managers suggest things such as giving grandmas high-fives, messing with small dogs, exchanging clean jokes, inserting the word of the day into every other sentence as you talk to a non-buyer, performing slapstick comedy at the approach, etc. I'm into some of that stuff, but I have an idea of my own -- the question of the day.
So far, I've losely polled my strong customers on their astrological signs. I like to try to guess people's signs from time to time, and I now have an unending supply of people. So far I've done pretty well at guessing, but there are still a few signs that I am bad at picking out (Scorpios) and a few that I must never have as customers (Sagittarius.)
The sign thing will likely continue, but I want something that I can ask everyone -- not just my customers and their children.
So, I am leaving this open for ideas. Go ahead and post as many fun ideas as you'd like. If I like them I'll start asking people at the door, and I'll even keep track of the results.
I should probably start this off with a question or two of my own to serve as examples...
... ... ... OK, I don't have any examples. I couldn't really think of anything, which is why I am asking for help here. The question I asked an old lady that made me think of all this was, "Where do you guys party around here?" That made her laugh, because I was talking about all the old people she had just mentioned.
Dahnell's suggestion -- "Do your kids take the bus or their lunch to school?"
I don't think I'll ever use this one, because it creates too much confusion. I seek clarity and insight -- not confusion.
Note: Try to think of something that isn't open-ended if you can.
There was a Thunderstorm the other day. I think it was Monday or Tuesday. I was really excited about it at the time because I kinda missed the thunder and lighting of a "normal" SW Florida summer.
It rains rather strangely in this NE corner of Alabama. It will rain for about five to ten minutes and then drizzle for a good hour or so. It has been raining a bit harder this past week, so I decided to check weather.com and see what was in store for the next few days.
The ten day forecast shows a variety of whether. There will be thunderstorms everyday, but somedays they'll be isolated and other days they'll be scattered. Tomorrow we're just having plain old thunderstorms though. This makes me think of Huddle House and eggs.
How do you want your thunderstorm?
I am trying to figure out the best thing to eat when I am out in the book field, and I am having problems with it. First I lost a lot of weight and ended up really thin. Now I think I am gaining it all back and more in about a week and a half. I am gaining it back so quickly that I am now in pain because of it.
The only really big change I made was to stop eating Peanut Butter and Jam on whole wheat and to start eating Pop-Tarts instead. I guess I am also eating a w more free cookies, but I was eating cookies beforehand too. It's so weird. The Pop-Tarts may have to go.
One thing about Southwestern that is kinda cool is all the free stuff that we get. Not only do we get free stuff from contests that happen every week, but we also get a constant barage of free stuff from "Ms. Jones."
Today, for instance, I got a bank bag, a root beer, a bottle of gatorade, and had a lot of other stuff offered to me that I did not accept.
Draft...
I miss a lot of things out here in the bookfield. It is so strange to still be in the middle of America and yet feel so out of touch with everything. I am glad that I can still log on, but I am so busy that I still feel disconnected with almost everything. I think that this is going to be the longest period of time in my life that I have gone without watching a movie.
I've actually managed to watch bits and pieces of movies in the different hosues that I go into throughout the summer, but I never really get to sit down and watch a movie, play a video game, read a book, etc. There is no escape. I am stuck in the reality of this dream-like world of constant work. There is barely time for sleep and getting ready for the next day.
Sure, I occasionally make some time to write e-mails to people, take care of personal financial business online, and blog, but other than these things I do little else but drive from house to house knocking on doors trying to sell books.
The crazy thing is that I actually still kinda like this job. I am just convinced that it would be better if there was more down time to it. We need more than one day a week for a break and we also need more than nine to ten hours a day off for sleeping, showering, eating and getting organized for the next day.
So, I take breaks. I take a break at times to leave Joy a voicemail. I call my mom, my dad, and I even talked to Steve yesterday. I don't think that it should be bad for me to take a half an hour or so out of my day to do these things. However, they strongly advise against this sort of thing. Any time you spend taking a break could be that one extra door you could have knocked on to get one more sale. Well, I think that maybe forgoing that sale is worthwhile for my sanity. I'll still be working 13 hours of the day through everything that happens.
Honestly, I can't wait until this is over, but I also daily consider doing it again next year. This job is the most emotionally polarized thing I have ever experienced. I am always one way and then the exact opposite -- one right after the other -- sometimes simultaneously. I can't figure out for sure if it is because of my personality, my piscean nature, or if everyone feels this way. It seems as though everyone has felt a full variety of emotions this summer and summers past, but I don't see or hear of many people feeling them all at once.
When today is done I will be half way done with the time that I spend in Alabama. I am already more than halfway done with the program as a whole, and the part in which I am selling books. I've come this far, I know, so I can definately make it the rest of the way. I just pray that I can improve so that I get some money and some respect from my peers in the program.
I've learned so, so very much this summer. I really hope that I can remember at least half of all that I've learned. Luckily, Joy is taking notes for me when she gets her voicemails so we can have a collection of my thoughts and experiences at the end of this. Maybe after sifting through all that and some of these blogs I'll have a wealth of new knowledge and wisdom that I can use for the rest of my life. That can be worth much more than the money that I may or may not make this summer.
This probably seems a bit contradictory to some, but the truth is that I am being humbled and gaining great deals of confidence by doing this program with Southwestern. Along the way I am learning quite a bit about myself -- most of it is fairly negative which only adds to the humility.
I am being humbled from all sides.
I am performing below average in terms of sales. I have slightly above average work stats in a few categories, but as the stats require more and more skill to achieve and less forced work I am under-performing in comparison with my peers and years of people doing this. I am supposed to work 80 hours a week, which is no problem, in fact it is practically required. I am supposed to get 30 demos a day, which is also no problem. Unfortunately, I have not been able to sit down with 12 families in a day with the exception of one day last week -- I somehow got thirteen. The average person in Southwestern probably gets about 30 strong units a day. I don't do that either. I've been getting around 50 to 60 for three weeks now.
I am also humbled because one of my three organizational leaders -- the one I call my stats in to every night -- is frustrated with me. He feels like I am performing beneath my potential. Also, another student manager of mine has essentially stopped speaking to me. I'm not sure why. I just know that she was frustrated with me too.
Confidence is increasing constantly though. I am getting better at my job. I am getting better at dealing with people. I am becoming quicker at dealing with people's objections and quick on my feet with the jokes again now that I've figured out Alabama humor. Now I have absolutely zero reservation with talking to a complete stranger, and I have no problem with making a fool of myself in front of one either. I daily dance like a chicken in front of a Huddle House that is on the most important road in town. So, I also do this on patios and proches across Marshall County for laughs. Whatever... Why not?
I am discovering things about myself constantly. I am realizing new strengths and new weaknesses. I am realizing that being good at things only matters if you are in an enviroment where those strengths are valued. Adaptaility is so key right now, and even though I always felt adaptable I seem to be unable to don this hat or wear the clothes of a salesman.
Soon I will.
I don't really sell a lot of Southwestern books when compared to my peer group. However, I do seem to be reasonably good at transfering my ideas and ideals to people. Here are some examples from the book field --
I talked a postal worker into investing so that she'd have money to live on after her husband died, which will likely be soon. I also got her to use my brokerage -- Scottrade.
I talked one mom into using the book purchase as an opportunity to teach her children about saving up for things. I hope it works out for that family. :)
I talked two families into having their daughters pay for their books/CDs. I have suggested this at many different times to different families, but it actually worked twice this past Saturday, and both girls decided that they wanted the products enough to spend their own money. One girl, Jessica, bought a college prep CD package and a Learning Companion, which cost her in excess of $250. I was impressed. We even talked about how long it would take her to earn back the money she spent on that -- two weeks. She thought it worthwhile. She was very intelligent and wanted nothing more than to do well in school and go to college.
Man, I took this college thing for granted. Alabama is changing all of that.
I am, of course, having some insanely crazy experiences here in Alabama. I want to blog about them all, but I simply don't have time. So, what I am doing now is making little notes about them on my pre-approach pad so that I can jog my memory and maybe write about them later.
However, I am writing this now, so I think I will go ahead and write about a few of the crazy things that happened today.
I stopped for a few minutes and watched a guy bass fish out of a pond the size of three swimming pools. He caught a bass while I was there, but he hooked the thing in its belly. He cast so hard that the way too heavy lure that he was using went straight into the water and snagged a bass in the side. It was kinda funny and kinda sad all at once.
I saw a very chubby five to eight year old boy unabashedly run out of his front door butt naked and belly flop into a 3 foot diameter 3/4 feet deep plastic swimming pool.
I did a book demonstration in a moving golf cart.
I came to an intersection that was blocked by loose cows. On one side of the road they were quickly eating someone's corn field. On the other side of the road they were eating a really nice lady's garden. I stopped and took three pictures while I waited for a couple of the cows to move out of my way in the road. No one had noticed that they were missing yet!
I met the CUTEST little girl today named Courtney. She was TWO! She was sooo cute. She had a little brother that was 10 months younger than her and they got along really well, which I always like to see in siblings. She really, really liked me almost instantly. We totally hit it off in a big way so I didn't mind at all when I had to go to her house twice. When I came to the screen door the second time, she ran up to it and opened it for me.
She really liked me and she'd always look into my eyes really long and hard and then she'd climb all over me and do all this other crazy stuff.
Obviously, part of her cuteness was in the way she acted in reaction to me, but I don't care if I am biased. She was totally focused in too, the only times she wasn't focused in on me were times when she'd run off to another part of the house to grab something to show me.
OK, in case it isn't obvious, this little girl really grabbed me by the heart strings. I am torn. I'd quickly wish that I had a daughter just like her some day, but then again, I know that she'd be miserably spoiled-rotten.
Leaving the second time was really hard for both of us.
This week we didn't have recognitions the way we normally do, because of the time spent reflecting on and discussing Andrew and his recent death. However, they did take a moment to recognize me and Dhimithraq (pronounced Dmitri) and the people who won flowers for having their best week in strong units and meeting the minimum units sold.
I was recognized because I had my best week in the three major categories by which they measure our performance -- Customers, Sit-downs, and Strong units. This meant a lot to me not because of the recognition, which was quite akward after hearing about Andrew's death, but because Peter Martinello gave a speech. The gist of the speech was that not everyone who comes to Southwestern has a natural selling ability. In fact, some of us are the exact opposite -- referring to me. However, sometimes these people quit and go home or decide to just be negative the whole time. Peter and Mike wanted to recognize me though because I am not gifted at this and I am still working hard at it. I am one of the worst people in the org at selling books, but I am continuing to get better and I continue to push myself and work harder and harder. I appreciated having that be recognized even though it was used eventually as a segway into a lecture about how our org's week was better than last week in terms of money and units, but sliding in terms of work stats. Every first year had fallen in some category except Dhimitraq and I.
So, that is positive and motivational. There's really no reason that I can't repeat the growth next week too. I am looking forward to it, actually.
This morning during our organizational meeting in Decatur, Alabama our twenty person org heard that Andrew Tomkiewicz passed away Saturday morning. He was involved in an car accident at a four-way stop. I was told that he was hit on the driver's side and died on impact.
Our sales manager, Kian Ostovar, flew to Huntsville, AL to talk to all of us about the accident and help us deal with it emotionally. He said that it was the first time he had to deal with a death on the book field. In fact, he had to make a number of calls and look way back to the last time a death occured during a summer with Southwestern.
We all listened to Kian, Mike Yandre, and Peter Martinello talk about Andrew, his brother Mike who is also in our org this summer, Andrew's family, and what we need to do now that we've heard this news. Finally, Andrew's roommate, Nick "N-Rod" Rodriquez, came up and talked about Andrew for a while. He told us a few funny things that had happened during his five weeks of living with Andrew and reminded us all of the qualities that we all liked about Andrew. It was funny, because these typically unsung qualities were all mentioned. We all laughed and appreciated who Andrew was for a few minutes and then most of us broke down shortly after, because all those things that made up this great guy are gone now. Once Nick broke down into tears Kian let us all go out and spend some time alone or talking with our friends. I pretty much broke down too during this whole thing. I had never had an acquaintance, peer or a friend die before. I went for a long run to use up the rest of my fifteen minutes and when the meeting resumed it kinda went on semi-normally.
I really feel badly for his older brother, Mike. Those two guys are really close, and Mike was already going through a lot before this accident and loss. Now he is going to feel this whole in his life for the rest of his days. I actually spoke with a lady the other week who had lost her brother eight years earlier, and I was just asking her a few questions about some things and she broke down in tears all over again. It must be rough.
Since I have been doing this job, every week I have eaten at least five of my twelve book field meals at various cemeteries across Jackson county. I'd take about a half an hour off and just eat and think about things and read the names and dates. Not exactly what Southwestern people would call positive, but I found it to be soothing or something -- I don't know. I was just drawn to them. I don't know if I'll be doing that this week.
I am looking forward to being done with this internship with Southwestern. This would be considered "negative" to the Southwestern people, and I can totally understand why. This job is really emotional and mental more than anything, which hurts me because I think a lot -- "too much" according to many in this program. I am also a fairly emotional person.
I mention this, because the people are right. When I think of anything like this it does kinda mess with my mind and emotions when I am out in the "bookfield." I need to concentrate on enjoying my time out here and enjoying my job. I haven't exactly figured out how to do this just yet, but I think I may be on my way.
I am kinda seeing this as a game. I need to complete certain sections of the areas that I work, and I know that the faster I go through them the sooner I will get to people who will buy the books and the sooner I will get to "better" (there supposedly is no such thing, but that is quite obviously BS) territory.
Seeing it as a game has helped me work harder, faster, and enjoy this more. I seem to need a sense of completion to feel good about doing work. In this job there is rarely a sense of completion and never, ever a sense of accomplishment in terms of "satisfactory" or "good enough." You can always do better. You could always have done something different. (I find this incredibly negative, but apparently it doesn't meet their definition of negative, because it happens all the time.)
The next thing I am doing to enjoy my job more is figuring out what I do well when I am doing this. I seem to thrive on positive reinforcement instead of constant correction and suggestions for improvement, so I decided that I'd make a list of things I am doing right so far. I'll also make a list of the things I am doing wrong, the mistakes I make, and the suggestions that Marie, Mike Yandre, Clerison and Dahnell make for me to improve. I'm going to largely ignore the second list though. What I plan to do is to take the first list and just get enjoyment out of the fact that I am doing the things on that list well. I want to be consistant about those things so I will focus on them. Then I want to add things from the second list to the first list from time to time. Maybe I'll attempt to do this every two days or so. Finally, I am going to see the suggestions that Marie makes as assignments and just "accomplish" them every week so that I can feel a sense of accomplishment there too.
Hopefully this will all work out for me. :)
Tonight, after my last house, I noticed some lighting all across the Eastern horizon. I really miss lightning, so even though I couldn't hear it I decided to drive out to a unlighted country field area and sit on the roof of my car for a while. I looked at all the stars, watched the lightning in the distance and just enjoyed the scenery.
I don't really get why people always say that the country is more peaceful than the city. I mean, obviously, there are fewer people and such, but the people in the country can be just as obnoxious as city people. There are encredibly loud trucks, people blaring their music, cows and roosters doing their cow and chicken thing, and dogs everywhere that bark anytime you come anywhere near them, which sets off a chain of dogs parking all across the countryside -- just to name a few things.
I'd have to say that country is maybe even a little more annoying to me, because the noise and distractions aren't constant. In a town or city there is definately a constant din, but it is relatively constant so it fades into a background. In the country the din is made up of bugs and frogs and anything else that makes noise is different, new, and attention grabbing.
Oh! Another thing that is very not peaceful about the country is the nosiness of the people who live there. Nearly everyone in the area that I am working is fairly bored, and I am quite an unusual site (people constantly note that I have a Jeep (read: unFord -- fortunately it is not Japanese. They'd hold that against me here) with Florida plates.) I have been informed many times though that the people here are pretty much nosy about everything, which is funny to me because people tell me all the time that they don't really know their neighbors when I ask them if the neighbors have kids.
OK, that rant really had nothing to do with the starry night thing at all. I guess it was sort of related, because I really like the country -- I just don't really like the people that live there so much. Isolation seems to have a negative effect on people.
Dahnell's car has all kinds of issues.
This week the issue was the transmission. Arguably one of the most expensive things to replace on the car. It took three days to find a new (used) transmission and replace it for him. During that time I helped out by driving Marcus to his sales locality and then driving an hour in a different direction to drop Dahnell off at his sales locality. Today was the first day that I didn't start my day at 9:30 (as opposed to around 8AM.)
The biggest problem with this is not the morning. Doing it all again in the evening is what killed me. Add another hour and a half to the time I normally get home and you are looking at some time after 11PM, which means I didn't get to bed until midnight or later, which really kinda sucks when you are waking up at 5:45AM every morning.
I explain all this just to let everyone know why I haven't been blogging or sending many e-mails this week. This car thing is over for now, but something else will surely happen later on -- I just know it. Man, I can't wait to get to bed! Only 30 more minutes until I can call in my stats and start snoozing.
Today I got week five off to a good start and a sad start all at once. I set my goals high and finally found my motivation. Marie had tried in vain to help me figure out what motivates me during our personal conference Sunday and left it to me when the PC was over.
My motivation comes from a verse that I've been meditating on recently -- Colossians 3:23. The verse is, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as you're working for the Lord, not for men." Yeah, that solved that lack of motivation issue pretty quickly. Luckily, I had a taped sermon in my car that discussed that verse and others like it for a good 40 minutes. I played that tape over and over all day today, which was positive. I'll probably have it memorized at some point.
OK, as for my first day...
The day was great in terms of attitude and effort level. It was also fairly good (for me) in terms of customers and reaching new firsts. I didn't reach a few of my goals though. I wanted to get 25 strong units every day this week, but today I only got 5. I also wanted to get 12 sit-downs every day this week, because I haven't gotten 12 sits yet, but I only got 11 today.
My firsts were --
11 sits
Selling two handbooks at once
Selling three handbooks at once
Completely ignoring the fact that I had weak customers (meaning I was unsatisfied) and still driving forward toward the 25 strong units that I wanted.
There is definately a learning curve in the Southwestern program. Unfortunately, it is week four and I am still at the begining of the ride. I have had seven customers so far this week, which is probably still less than the lowest number of customers in one day that any student manager in my org has gotten this week. (I hope that was somewhat clear.)
Here are the things that need to happen for me to continue to ascend the learning curve --
I haven't learned my complete sales talk yet.
I am still not very assumptive at all. I don't walk into a house feeling like the people will buy the books I am about to show them.
I still don't get 12 sit-downs in a day, which is unfortunate, because I usually get a customer for every two to three sit-downs I get. That is also true for everyone else as well.
I am barely doing the 'proper' hours now, and I am still being horribly inefficient after dark, which is principally due to the fact that most homes in my rural area have their lights out shortly after dark.
My attitude is more balanced than positive. It needs to be positive they say for me to do well, but I am stuck in a non-negative realism. I know that I will find a few buyers every day, because I work the area quickly and tight, but I also know that I won't persuade anyone into buying with my underdeveloped sales skills.
Here are some things I am improving lately --
I am just now begining to smile at every door. For some reason I'd just wear whatever face that matched my inner attitude when I knocked on the door instead of wearing an enthusiastic, positive smile. Silly me.
I am just now begining to speak more naturally and less like a kid trying to recite a poorly memorized script.
I am confident when talking to people.
I have noticed that I furrow my eyebrows when I am speaking and the sun is in my eyes. This looks incredibly weird with a big grin. I am making adjustments concerning this issue, but still haven't figured it out completely.
I have great eye contact -- most of the time.
I knock loudly and clearly and place the bag and my person in the right spots in front of the door. :)
I was forewarned that it was highly likely that my car would experience some sort of problem when I was out in the book field. Saturday, my car didn't start -- twice. It took about 15 to 20 minutes for it to finally cool off or something before it would start and then -- it just did.
The second time this happened I just happened to have pulled into the driveway of the Manager of the GM dealership's service department in Fort Payne. He told me my starter needed to be replaced soon, and recommended getting one at Advanced Auto Parts and doing it myself to save money.
Problem: I have no clue as to how to go about doing the second part of that little procedure.
So, I decided that I'd take it to the Harbin Ford Dealership on Memorial Day because they were open. That took up a few hours of my time and all they did was recharge my battery -- something I could have done at my temporary home.
I decided that I'd trust these Ford Dealership people though and so I went on with my business (literally) until this morning when my car didn't start again. Once again I was in someone's driveway. Once again I had to wait for the lady to finish showering and get dressed to help me. She gave me a jump, but it didn't work. No big suprise there -- my battery is a three-year battery that I've had 14 months now and it had just been tested and charged the day before.
After some time of talking and such I tried it one last time and it started. I drove straight to the Jeep Dealership (I feel better about dealerships than mechanics when I am out of town.) in Fort Payne where the guy I had met on Saturday worked. They had the starter I needed for my Jeep and replaced it in less than an hour, but before that happened I had to wait for four other customers to get service, which took a while because there were only two guys working that day (due to a full Memorial Day.)
Needless to say I was once again off schedule and totally thrown off for the day. I got straight back to work when I arrived in my territory at 3PM, but I was way behind in terms of work stats. So, I did my best to make up for it, but still didn't hit what I am expected to hit for the day. I did, however, find two customers. That was cool.
Today was kinda rough.
I had car issues two days ago, so I took my car in to get worked on first thing this morning. I didn't leave the dealership I took my car to until a little after 10AM. Normally, I start the day before 8AM so I kinda lost two and a half hours there.
When I left that place I was kinda frazzled. I knew I had lost nearly 1/6 of my day already and had no work stats to show for it. That and the fact that I was just sitting around tiredly trying to study really started my morning off poorly. So, I had some trouble getting my head back in the ball game -- as they say. I have trouble with that normally, but this morning situation exacerbated the issue.
The second thing that got to me was doing all day "gravy" on the entire last month's area. I visited the town that I was in the first week or so of the summer, and I was haunted by all of the old emotions that I was feeling those first few days. Memories of emotions, lunches, people, calls home, the time I wanted to quit, etc. flooded back to me with the sight of certain buildings, landmarks, and geographical features.
I got through the day though, and God threw two customers my way. So, all is good now. Tomorrow will rock again. I like going through new territory.
On a more positive (in a way -- it is negative in the company's eyes) note I talked to some interesting people today. I am really not supposed to have longer conversations with people when I am working in the bookfield, but I do sometimes anyway. I find that to be one of the most rewarding parts of the job (and life) anyway, so why not?
--oh yeah, because I am supposedly here to work and make a killing -- yada yada yada.
A number of people in our Org have quit in the last three weeks. We were told that roughly 1/3 of the people we leave sales school with will quit in the first three weeks. I was nearly one of those people.
I didn't quit because Joy and my parents talked me out of it. I am now glad that they did. Even though this sucks a good deal of the time -- I am learning a lot and I will be really, really happy when it is all over. I might even come out and do it all over again next year. Also, I am really bad at nearly everything that goes into selling. This program is an intensive program that works hard with individuals to get them to succeed. I receive tons of invaluable attention from other students and managers who are working hard to make sure that I improve every week and every day. That is worth more than my time, and the fact that I will be paid in the process is just amazing.
Anyway, here are the names of the people who are still in the org. As you'll be able to see it has gotten down to about a 1:1 ratio of student managers to first year dealers. That is kinda cool in the weekly meetings because it makes personal conferencing a whole lot faster. However, we started out with around 30 people and at the Border War 20 people were still in the org. Pretty crazy stuff.
First Years
David M.
Marcus G.
Ketan G.
Andrew T.
Dhimitraq D.
Galileo
Jocelyn W.
Rasa
Kevin S.
Andrew Gordon (starting this week -- he is in High School)
Second Years
Peter Martinello
Clerison Del Castillo
Mike Yandre
Mike "TomCat"
Nick Rodriquez
Daniella M.
Jen Blanco
Marie Gilbert
Kiran G.
Dahnell Clervil
In Southwestern there are these things called Border Wars. They are basically a competition set up in such a way so that people contribute to the program and feel more like a team. This Border war was held against three different "org"s and we all drove to Memphis, TN for it. That was a four hour drive for me and my two roommates, but luckily I am a first year and I got to sleep on the way.
Our Org, Rubberband, ended up in second place -- so we didn't get pied. The first place org gets to throw a pie in the face of every member of the last place org -- regardless of whether you had your best week ever or what. There were so many people in the last place org that some people from our org got to pie people too. I threw pie! Wooo!
I ended up getting the highest number of hours worked for a first year during recognition. I was going for that, because I know that I don't really have everything in place just yet -- so I wanted to show that I am willing to put in a first-rate effort and at least give this program all that I've got.
Now that Border War is over we are going back into a more laid-back schedule again. That doesn't really mean much other than about 15 more minutes of sleep a night and normal work stats.
I think that this Border War thing was smart. It pushed us really hard to the point of nearly breaking (some people did seem to break -- quit) and then after a week when we go back to "normal" bookmen mode it actually feels like things got easier suddenly. So, now we are still going to work over 80 hours / week but it will feel suddenly easier.
I zeroed out again Thursday, so today I spent the day in Huntsville, AL following Mike Yandre. It was a pretty fun day. My first day in the rain. We only had one customer all day, which I guess should make me feel better about zeroing out.
It's midnight. I need to sleep now. I'll have to write more about this later.
UPDATE: 12/31/2004
Here it is just over seven months later and I still remember quite a bit about this day. I ran across this entry today because I am clearing comment spam out and closing comments on my entries again.
I remember running around in the rain. Letting Mike drive my Jeep for a bit. I also remember talking to a lady with this huge Box Tops for Education display that I admired. The whole day was exhausting and we stayed out for a long time trying to sell. I am thinking that this is the first time I sold with Mike, but I am not sure. Both times we nerely zeroed out when selling together, which is odd. It made me feel like I was somehow bad luck at the time, but then I later felt that Mike might have just picked a less promising area of Hunstville or had a bad day himself. I really don't know what happened though, because it is odd to sell absolutely nothing in a day.
Since this is the day that I got home around midnight, I am guessing that it is also the day that we stayed out well past 9:30PM because the last house we knocked on at 9:30 was the house of a salesman. He had a little kid and was considering buying the books. He didn't that night though, and I am betting that Mike went back to finalize the sale on another day.
I also remember going to Huntsville with Marcus on this day. The whole hour or so drive there I was wondering which one of us would be following Marie and which would follow Mike Yandre. I had reasons for wanting to follow both of them and reasons why I didn't want to follow them, so in the hour of thinking about it I got to a point where I didn't really care which person I followed for the day. Now that the summer is over I wish I had followed Marie, because I got to follow Yandre again later in the summer, but never got the chance to see how Marie sells. At the end of the day I was pretty happy that I followed Yandre though, because I got a little bit closer to him. However, any friendship that was developing there snapped when I got his truck into my second car accident.
Everyone says and thinks that salespeople are liars. They're right! Some salespeople are, indeed, liars. One crazy thing I've learned in the last few weeks of being a salesperson is that people confronted by a salesperson are often liars too.
I think I've been lied to more in this one month of May 2004 than I have in any given year of my life. I'm obviously not sure of this, but it is a strong intuition that I have that I think is worth expressing.
Friends, please -- make sure that I do not pick up on this practice.
Whenever something absolutely mind-blowing happens when I follow a student manager for the day I get a laugh or maybe even a profound dumbfounded expression followed up by the saying, "the bookfield by Southwestern."
Now I am starting to say that myself at times, because it is kind of funny.
I've been here in Alabama just over two weeks so far and I have already seen a whole new world of things that I'd never expect to see. I see poverty that is on par with the poverty I have seen in the third-world contries that I visited during my family's mission trips. I have seen trailers that run the gamut from essentially condemnable to some that are nicer than the inside of my house.
Trailers here seem to be more of a permanent thing than I'd ever think of them as being. People build wood, stone and concrete attachments to their trailers and keep them for not months or years, but decades. Trailers are often found right next to amazingly beautiful, big brick houses. Sometimes they are even in the back yard of a house -- because the family finally moved into the house stage, built a house on their property and never hauled the old trailer away. It is all surreal to me, and I think I am even getting used to it.
...to be continued.
In the main body I have clipped a large portion of an e-mail that I sent to Jessica. I think that it is worth keeping in my blog, because it conveyed some of what was going on with me earlier this week. Also, I want to keep it as a reminder of how I felt and a goal that I have.
I am doing better this week -- emotionally at least. One major
improvement for me was getting out my sermons that I had on tapes. They help me do this thing that I've been told to do over and over again -- STOP THINKING.
Now, instead of letting my mind wander all over the place I am either
working or listening to the sermons. It has really made my days a lot
better.
I think that your summer next year will not be nearly as hard as mine in
some ways, because I am going to be keeping close track of all the things
that I found difficult about the program and I plan to let people know ahead
of time about what they are. SW doesn't do this normally, because they feel
people will back out if fully informed. I think that is somewhat true, but
mostly BS. Lots of people will be more willing to do this program if they
know for sure that they've received full disclosure. I am that way. I think
you are too. So, I am planning on disclosing everything I can about this
program.
The first thing I plan to disclose is that the program likes its secrets a
lot and is often not honest when asked direct questions. Sometimes it is
even not honest when no questions are even asked. I find that sort of
dishonesty vexing, but I am getting somewhat used to it and intend on not
letting it affect my character. I'd rather do poorly in the program than let
my character change in a way that is further from God.
I followed Clerison again yesterday. The kid is weird. I have to say I liked him better before following him yesterday -- mainly because he did a few things that crossed the line with me. That situation was disussed and reconciled, but it will take some time and some more positive interaction to get it out of my head.
I also lucked into this "pony." A pony is a buyer who wants everything. That's not the exact definition -- there is no exact definition -- but this guy was a pony and he was wanting it all. This frustrated Clerison. He gave me maybe five to ten houses that day, and this was one of them. I didn't do my intro for this guy. I didn't even ask him his name. I didn't tell him I was from Florida. etc etc. I messed up in many ways and still got the sale. I am lucky, blessed, whatever you want to call it -- and that pisses people off.
I am grateful for my blessings.
Today was my second Saturday in the bookfield. Saturdays are the best days to sell a lot of books because everyone is home at some point in the day, and catching up with families is one of the trickiest parts of selling these things.
I managed to find four customers today. That is my best day in terms of customers so far. Perhaps I could have done better, but I started my day off with a two-hour long conversation with Joy. That is another absolute no-no to Southwestern people. I care, but I don't. I am really glad that I had that conversation and it put me in a great, empowered mood for most of the rest of the day. Sure, it hurt my effort to get 30 demos in today, but that doesn't really bother me so much at this point.
Next week I need to get this 30 demos a day thing down. It is difficult for me because I spend a great deal of time in conversation with the interesting and friendly people that I come across. I feel like this is worthwhile, because while I might not make the most money -- I will have a more enjoyable and interesting summer. Besides, I have managed to make many people's day throughout this process. I actually think I do more counseling and encouraging out in the book field than selling, which -- given my stats -- isn't saying all that much I guess.
Today is the second day in which I made more money in the bookfield than I did in the stock market with the money that I made during High School jobs and the returns I got throughout college. This is mainly due to the fact that the market was closed today and last Saturday too. I think things like that are funny.
Today was a lot better than the other two days spent by myself were. After following Clerison I had more of a sense of what this can be like. Clerison would rush occasionally, but he'd also stop and plan things out a bit. He had a map on him and highlight areas that he'd completed. He'd also do his preapproach in a way that makes a lot more sense to me. I intuitively wanted to do mine that way too, but was told to do it another way, which I tried for a while. I am switching to Clerison's way. (Drawing an actual map with houses instead of drawing lines down the sheet of paper and putting houses and descriptions of them on the paper.)
Tomorrow will be nice. I totally need a break from all of this. I also look forward to getting some much needed sleep.
Yesterday I followed Clerison all day long. It was a little crazy and maybe even uncomfortable at first, but we got used to each other fairly quickly and eventually it turned out to be a lot of fun.
We started out in the "PJs" of Altoona. Clerison uses a lot of slang from Miami and the rap subculture. That was an interesting place to start. We talked a fair amount and Clerison was constantly clowning with anyone and everyone. I found out fairly quickly that he likes to stay diversified in most things such as his humor, his women, and his stock portfolio.
I learned a lot from following him for the day, and I am really glad that I decided early on to ask him about taking notes. I took roughly eight pages of notes on my Ampad. He has so many lines. A lot of them I'd never use, but he has enough for me to fill up eight pages worth of things that I would like to say some time in the future.
Following Clerison was also a lot better than following Dahnell. Dahnell was overly serious most of the time and only had fun at my expense, which gets old for me almost instantly. Clerison would joke around occasionally, and 'hazed' me by getting me to carry his bag the whole day, but that was no big deal to me. Dahnell had more of a ridicule based sense of humor. He still does. It gets annoying really quickly, but I hope to just get accostomed to it, because I am in a situation where I can't change much of anything except the way I look at things.
I have like seven or eight pages of notes that I took when I followed Clerison today. I think I'd like to add them to this blog at some point later on, but I don't know when or if I'll get time. I didn't have time when I started writing this so I saved it as a draft and now I still have no time so I am just wrapping it up and publishing this, which is unfortunate because there were a lot of fun stories to include that I will forget and a few that I've probably already forgotten. That's the life of a SouthWestern salesperson. Constant memory loss. Probably due to the lack of sleep coupled with the constant inundation of new experiences.
Today was my first day selling and it was more eventful than I plan to describe here. As far as stats and sales school goes it was a dismal failure. Luckily, I made two sales though, so the day wasn't a complete waste. I just look forward to following my manager tomorrow and seeing how this stuff is really done. I think I may be a little slower than most at this sales stuff -- so I may need to follow more than once. I'm OK with that.
I want to quickly list off why this day was a 'failure' as far as stats and sales school goes so I remember this later.
--I started at 7:45AM. That was better than on the right track because I don't have to start until 7:59AM.
--I took a break around 8:15 to go to the Jackson County Courthouse. That took nearly two hours, and I just got a solicitor and peddler's permit. I also found out why I can get an Alabama ID and called my Mom and got her to send me a notorized copy of my birth certificate and my passport.
--I skipped houses, but they had large dogs so that was allowed.
--I skipped houses. No excuse.
--I roamed around just making maps during lunch time, because it seemed like everyone was off somewhere. I got tired of knocking.
--I stopped for almost 15 minutes and wrote Joy a letter in my car. I was hurting at that point and wanted a release (3:08 -- 3:22PM.)
--I didn't follow the script at all when I did my demos.
--I told people more than I was supposed to tell them. I was "too honest"
--I told a bunch of people "I'm selling something" right up front. That was fun, because I'd do it before they'd get a chance to even ask angrily. I disarmed a few people that way, and I am thinking of doing it more often. I'm probably not supposed to though.
--I told someone something that I knew would end the conversation just so I could get out of an akward situation. (A guy wearing a hand towel as if it were a bath towel and nothing more.)
--I said, "alright" and backed down when people told me they weren't interested.
--I botched about five potential sales.
--I ended early. (It was dark and I had no more appointments. I tried knocking like during the day, but that was quite unappreciated.
--I didn't do 30 demonstrations.
I'm was also unconfident and emotionally unstable between the hours of 11:30AM and 5:30PM.
That covers it pretty well I think. Now I want to talk about some of the other, more positive things that happened -- like my sales maybe.
I had two strong sales. They were nearly back to back. The first was to a lady who had actually told me she wasn't interested at first. I asked her to let me show her the books anyway, because I needed 30 demos. She consented and ended up showing her husband the books too. They both liked them and bought one. Her name was Lisa Justice. Her daughter is a cute little 2nd grade red-head named Vanessa.
My next sale was after two more interesting refusals. Her name was Lisa Drake. She has a three-year-old son named Jonah. He took to me immediately and was super hyper and stuff when I was there. He was constantly playing with me and stuff, which impressed his mom. He is supposedly shy, but he sure was hyper and into me shortly after I walked into the room and pulled out his book.
His mom was a teacher, she said she already had books like mine, Jonah even agreed with her and went and got his books, but when he saw mine... sale! It was really fun. I got to play with a fun little kid for a while and make him and his mom happy at the same time. How cool is that? I wish this whole job was like that all summer long.
I've been thinking lately... SouthWestern would make a great place for recovering addicts of all sorts.
When you join SouthWestern and go through sales school you are asked not to drink, swear, do drugs, sleep a full eight hours, engage in sexual activities, gamble, spend money on little things, etc. You are allowed to smoke, so this program obviously wouldn't work for smokers.
The program would work beautifully for anyone who really wanted to give up their problems. Obviously, it won't keep a true addict down, because these people always find a way, but willing parties would find success with SouthWestern.
Their schedule is what does it. You wake up at 6AM every day but Sunday (7AM.) Then they keep you up and active all day long until 11PM so that you don't fall asleep. Those activities are also usually sufficient to keep you from many of the other activities that feed addictions. Combine that with a fascist student manager (they all are this way -- it's in the training) and you are on your way to an addiction free summer. The final touch is the desire to succeed in this business, which gives people a new high that seems to get a good 1/3 of the people to come back for more.
Maybe this is just addiction replacement. Nah. Luckily, people seem to burn out, which doesn't end in death -- so that's positive.
Wow. I am rambling. I think prolonged sleep deprevation causes drain damage.
Today we drove back to Cullman for the last time to do our "week zero" meeting. Dahnell drove the three of us so Marcus and I actually got to get some sleep in, which was much needed.
When we got there we ate breakfast at the Omelette Shoppe and then went in to our meeting. In between those two I called Sprint's customer service and set my phone up so that it only costs me an extra $5 a month to do roaming calls. That seemed a lot better than $0.50/minute, and it gives me 1,000 minutes, because we've got a 2,000 minute plan.
The meeting was more of the same -- like sales school. We learned some new stuff though, and got all excited about our first day of selling which is either tomorrow or Wendesday for all the first years. My first day of selling will be tomorrow, because I am "following" on Wednesday.
After our "week zero" meeting we drove back to Jackson County, and went straight to Dutton, which is this small town that I'll be working in all of this week. We went into their town hall / fire station and got everything worked out so I could solicit door-to-door. Then we picked the house that would be the infamous "first house" for me. (Way to pile on the pressure and nervousness, guys...)
Then we drove over to Pisgah. We tried to do basically the same stuff we did in Dutton, but by the time we were done, we ran into a new 'adventure.' Dahnell's car wouldn't start. That was pretty nerve wracking for about two hours, until finally the town's water service guy decided to help us out. He'd walked by us a few times already doing his business, but this time he was curious. He gave us a jump and we were on our way again.
Next -- the banks. We checked out some banks and finally decided on Regions Bank. We worked on opening an account there and got all of that situated. I still need to go back at some point though, because nearly all of my picture IDs are recently expired. Luckily, one was only expired by a week though. It is a National ID given by the Uniformed Services, so they thought they could accept that. Now I just need to get an Alabama ID or Driver's License within 30 days and let them make a copy of it for their files.
After that we came back to our HQ. Dahnell left us with a few things to do. We did all of them accept going to the Sheriff's office, and now I am using my little bit of free time to blog while I can.
Tonight counts as a Sunday too, so we get to go to bed early again. That will be nice if it happens.
Last night around 7:30 in Scottsboro Alabama, Marcus, Dahnell and I secured our HQ for the summer. That basically means that we found someone to take us in for thirteen weeks. Her name is Karen Grisson. She lives on 324 Sharon Street in Scottsdale, AL ZIP: 35768-4205. Obviously, she is a really nice lady -- she took in three total strangers.
Right now we're still getting situated. We don't have a whole lot of space, but we don't really need it because we're not going to be here all that much. Work, work, work. That's is pretty much all that we're going be doing all summer long, and it pretty much sucks.
The room that we are staying in has a bunk bed, and the room is called "the dungeon" by the family, because it was a one car garage that was converted into an extra room for exercise equipment, TV, bunk beds, and a computer (with Internet! what a blessing!)
Karen has two kids. Her son is 19 years old and about to graduate from High School and attend University of Alabama. Her daughter is some younger High School age, but we don't remember what her age was. She also has tons of kids from the neighborhood coming in and out of the house all during the day. Luckily, it doesn't seem to happen all that much at night though.
There's more to tell, but I think that it will have to happen at another time.
Well, we found out today who we are going to be living with and which cities/counties we'll be living and working in for the summer.
I am going to be living in Scottsboro, Alabama with Dahnell Clervil and Marcus Goynes.
I'm pretty excxited.
It's the second-to-last day at Sales School. I really don't have much free time to blog normally, but I decided to spend my lunch today writing e-mails to people and writing an entry for the blog.
So far in Sales School I have learned a lot of stuff. The second day I was pretty grumpy for the frist part of the day because I was really sleep deprived, but now things are a lot better, because I am getting a lot more acclimated to the sleep schedule that they keep us on here.
The school is pretty cool, because they divide it up into lots of little segments. We get lots of motivational speeches, practice of our "sales talks," fun and games, entertainment and jokes, group mee