Dinnercraft helps bring your (and our) protracted adolescence to an end. Our authors cover topics ranging from cooking and eating, to home and garden, to crafting and DiY, and all the rest of the things you find yourself caring about these days.
Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Sales Reps….
Every time I pick up a phone and call a customer, I crush another tiny piece of my mother’s soul.
“Oh God. I’m so embarassed. Why is it that MY daughter – my SMART daughter – has to be the one that is out there PROSTITUTING? We did not raise YOU this way. I’m so ashamed! I don’t think I can show my face in public again.”
No, folks. I’m not a hooker. Or a stripper. Or even a lobbiest.
I’m a sales rep.
I have dishonored my family with my career choice, and they never let me forget that I didn’t ante up and produce a law degree.
Unfortunately for my family, I tend to gravitate to the “basket-weaving” side of the occupational spectrum. When applying for university in my senior year of high school, I had selected educational pursuits that interested me: journalism, broadcasting, political science, English, history, landscape architecture and funeral directing. My folks were distressed, and vetoed the lot (except the noble path of “undertaking”, which they could understand.) “What would you DO with a Political Science degree, Tia? Sit around on welfare?” or “Journalism? How are you planning on feeding yourself?!” Instead, I was prodded in the direction of more tangible pursuits: teaching, nursing, dental hygiene and teaching or nursing. Or possibly teaching or nursing, with a side of teaching. I succumbed and completed 2.5 years of Psychiatric Nursing, before quitting to work in Food & Beverage in the hotel industry. Nursing was not my calling, and I was relieved to have cut the apron strings.
From there, it all went downhill. Or so says my mother.
I started working in the corporate sales department of a large international car rental company. Later I moved on to the sales department for a large office furniture manufacturing sales group. Down, down, down into employment skid row.
Sealing my fate as the Sales Whore of Babylon, was the day I decided to sell anti-virus software from the comfort of my home at night. I was on maternity leave, and needed some extra money. A contract landed on my lap, and I jumped in…sraight commission and all.
“Oh God. I can’t believe you would do this to us! Are you giving blow jobs to people to buy software? I’m so ashamed. Do you remember Jennifer Smith? She is a DOCTOR. She lives in a PALACE. Her kids are SUPERMODELS. She was fat, and not that smart… but SHE is a DOCTOR, and MY SMART DAUGHTER….is a WHORE! At least if you were flipping burgers at Dairy Queen, it would be respectable.”
Sigh.
It’s difficult to understand if you come from an entreprenurial family who places value on business and sales. I don’t. I come from working class stock – hard working people, newish to the country, who had to labor and scrimp to earn every cent. They belong to unions, vote for left wing political groups, and just don’t understand commerce or marketing. “Real estate agents are parasites! Parasites who should be shot!” said my grandfather over dinner one night.
My husband is also a sales person, and has been for the last 20 years. He is brilliant at what he does, and now manages a large group of distributors/has a managerial role. He travels a lot, schmoozes more, and does zero physical work for a good wage (plus the spoils of incentive plans and car allowance.) He eats out more than any human has the right to, and has seen nearly every major city on the continent. When I met him, and told my family about the amazing businessman that I was dating, they were gravely concerned about the Sales Devil who sven gali’d me.
Family Member: This guy….Dick….he’s a salesman?
Me: Yes. RICK. He’s a Territory Sales Manager for a battery company.
FM: He sells batteries? In a store?
Me: No. He sells INDUSTRIAL batteries, like forklift batteries, to retailers who buy them and THEY sell them in the store.
FM: I don’t get it. Does pRick go door to door asking “Will you buy my batteries?”
Me: No. He has a group of retail stores…like UAP NAPA, and they stock industrial battries. Car batteries. Marine batteries. Rick ensures that his company provides them with the batteries so they can sell them.
FM: So, it’s like Amway?
Me: No.
FM: I just don’t know about this. I don’t appreciate you dating a man named DICK who THUMPS things. Next you’re going to tell me he’s religious!
Me: Actually, he is.
FM: I have chest pain. Is he at least Catholic? Or Jewish. Please tell me he’s Catholic or Jewish!
Me: No…he’s non-denomination, charismatic, born-again Christian.
FM: I’m dying. I can’t love you. Why ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME? Why do you want to see a man who has anal sex with people so he can get them to buy Duracell at K-Mart?
Me: This is insane. I don’t know how to explain it to you. He’s not selling Duracell at K-Mart. Or having anal sex with his customers.
FM: Please, please, just come home and marry that nice Michael Frenchlastname who works at the mill. He’s Catholic. His father is a Knights of Columbus.
Me: Holy Christ. I thought you hated him and wouldn’t let me see him. You called him “Jabba the Hut.”
FM: It’s better than a guy who’s named after a cock and thumps Amway Bibles!
13 years later….
I’m married to Dick the Bible Thumping Gypsy Who Sells Things That We Don’t Undertstand. (He works for a lifting/rigging hardware firm based in the US, and also teaches safe rigging practices. “Does he sell cranes, like a used car dealer…but for cranes?” they ask.) Burning in the Hades of Hoors, I currently sell advertising for a fantastic local e-Zine. My family prays for my depraved soul, evil ways, and hope that one day I’ll see the light and go back to school and become a teacher.
Maybe, if they’re really lucky, I’ll look into Funeral Directing again.
Up until maybe a year ago my grandmother was quite vexed that Malcolm was not a plumber, like my grandfather had been. Computers?! No union?! No pension?! No future!