Totally Random BS that isn't House Related
I don't normally post random stuff, but I'm having some issues right now. I work in sales, so you can probably imagine that we're entering a fairly hectic part of the year. It actually began the week before Thanksgiving. I sell fitness equipment and Lawn and Garden implements (mostly what we're after are tractors and tractor accessories because they have the highest commission percentage). I've worked in sales for about 2 years now, my other job is cooking which I actually love to do but I only make minimum wage at that job and this time of year, I can make my whole cooking pay check at the hotel in a couple of days at my sales job. My father was a car salesman, for a lot that my uncle owned, so I've been around sales all of my life and I sold cars for my Uncle before college and during breaks in college.
Sales is good money, especially because I don't have kids or any realy adult responsibilities, but I hate it. At my cooking job, I'm covered in grease, sweating, cutting myself, my back aches after a long night, but I go home happy. At my sales job I stand around, go out and smoke cigarettes, try to get leads, try to make sales, try to convince people to buy protection agreements (if you ever wonder why people push those so hard, it is because often out hours depend on them, so we sometimes get a little desperate if we're 2500 PA dollars in the hole at the end of the month). I actually do well there, I have friends with college degrees who aren't doing as well as I am right now. This will change when the economy turns around, and my job is far from safe, we constantly hear rumors of how we're about to go under. I live in an older, Rust Belt area where the concept of the Internet hasn't completely taken over everything, so I still have to work up a rapport with customers, do the old fashion sales pitch. With the economy more difficult right now, I think it actually is an opportunity to get someone to trust you, to convince someone that your particular outfit will best meet their needs. The convienience of the internet is up against some other pressures during a recession, I think, and being able to put peoples' fears at ease, and show them why my particular product is the best bet is easier, because are willing to listen in order to get something of a little bit better value.
There is only one caveat to all of this, I'm a horrible salesperson. I remember watching my dad at work and everyone he dealt with was his best friend. I can work hard, I can put myself out there, I can explain things, I understand the products, but I can't engender that connection with people, that connection you have to have to get people to do what you want them to do. I think much of it has to do with experience and I also think that sales is in many ways an art, it takes practice and experience to control a conversation the way you need to control it to get the best possible outcome for you.
Tonight at my job, someone picked up a 250 piece tool set and threw it across the floor. His shop vac broke and he didn't have the reciept for it so we couldn't just give him a new one because we didn't know how long he'd had it. Everyone just stood there. We shrugged it off. I deal with people screaming at me all the time. Many of their issues are justified, in the sense that we do our best but policy is policy and you have to do certain things in order for us to deal with something after you take it out of the store. Sometimes we don't have another item, sometimes the money goes back into your checking account and you don't get cash. I realized tongiht that something in me has changed. All of that screaming and getting into my face would have mortified me several years, and it honestly didn't bother me tonight. If you want a cheap Chinese made shop vac for 75 dollars, you're going to have to reconcile with the fact that it isn't going to be as sturdy as one made 20 years ago in America, that cost per capita and sometimes in real money over twice as much. I feel like I'm sometimes on the front lines, I'm seeing our faithful consumers happily buying crap every two or three years instead of making one major purchase and having it last for 10.
I took the LSAT (the Law School Admissions Test) yesterday. I feel like I did ok on it, I don't know my score yet of course. I plan to try to get into OSU (Ohio State) and if I do, I'll have 3 years of poverty and compounding debt but I'll also have a career. A job, where I put on a work outfit and go into work everyday. No more weird split shifts, no more midnight to eight thirty. I still don't know what I want and I hate that because it seems so childish and emo not to know what you really want to do. The thing is, I know so many people in adequate jobs that don't either. I'm worried if I don't do something, I'll just be hustling and living comfortably but not coming home feeling like I did something important. I just don't know if law is going to do that for me. I love really seeing people, really seeing things. I've always been interested in government and I've always loved PI movies. Conspiracies really interest me, especially the mechanics, the relationships that get utilized to keep them going. I could never be a police officer, I couldn't deal with being a private eye, but I think law would afford me the ability to examine situation and look at peoples' and group's relationships with the law. At the same time, I could get out of law school and end up in corporate law, which would mean that I wouldn't get a chance to do what I wanted to do.
I've been hiding out for a couple years. I had some issues with drugs. I'm worried that maybe I can't hack it anymore. I'm worried that maybe I waited to long, maybe I'm destined to live a life of quiet desparation.
Sales is good money, especially because I don't have kids or any realy adult responsibilities, but I hate it. At my cooking job, I'm covered in grease, sweating, cutting myself, my back aches after a long night, but I go home happy. At my sales job I stand around, go out and smoke cigarettes, try to get leads, try to make sales, try to convince people to buy protection agreements (if you ever wonder why people push those so hard, it is because often out hours depend on them, so we sometimes get a little desperate if we're 2500 PA dollars in the hole at the end of the month). I actually do well there, I have friends with college degrees who aren't doing as well as I am right now. This will change when the economy turns around, and my job is far from safe, we constantly hear rumors of how we're about to go under. I live in an older, Rust Belt area where the concept of the Internet hasn't completely taken over everything, so I still have to work up a rapport with customers, do the old fashion sales pitch. With the economy more difficult right now, I think it actually is an opportunity to get someone to trust you, to convince someone that your particular outfit will best meet their needs. The convienience of the internet is up against some other pressures during a recession, I think, and being able to put peoples' fears at ease, and show them why my particular product is the best bet is easier, because are willing to listen in order to get something of a little bit better value.
There is only one caveat to all of this, I'm a horrible salesperson. I remember watching my dad at work and everyone he dealt with was his best friend. I can work hard, I can put myself out there, I can explain things, I understand the products, but I can't engender that connection with people, that connection you have to have to get people to do what you want them to do. I think much of it has to do with experience and I also think that sales is in many ways an art, it takes practice and experience to control a conversation the way you need to control it to get the best possible outcome for you.
Tonight at my job, someone picked up a 250 piece tool set and threw it across the floor. His shop vac broke and he didn't have the reciept for it so we couldn't just give him a new one because we didn't know how long he'd had it. Everyone just stood there. We shrugged it off. I deal with people screaming at me all the time. Many of their issues are justified, in the sense that we do our best but policy is policy and you have to do certain things in order for us to deal with something after you take it out of the store. Sometimes we don't have another item, sometimes the money goes back into your checking account and you don't get cash. I realized tongiht that something in me has changed. All of that screaming and getting into my face would have mortified me several years, and it honestly didn't bother me tonight. If you want a cheap Chinese made shop vac for 75 dollars, you're going to have to reconcile with the fact that it isn't going to be as sturdy as one made 20 years ago in America, that cost per capita and sometimes in real money over twice as much. I feel like I'm sometimes on the front lines, I'm seeing our faithful consumers happily buying crap every two or three years instead of making one major purchase and having it last for 10.
I took the LSAT (the Law School Admissions Test) yesterday. I feel like I did ok on it, I don't know my score yet of course. I plan to try to get into OSU (Ohio State) and if I do, I'll have 3 years of poverty and compounding debt but I'll also have a career. A job, where I put on a work outfit and go into work everyday. No more weird split shifts, no more midnight to eight thirty. I still don't know what I want and I hate that because it seems so childish and emo not to know what you really want to do. The thing is, I know so many people in adequate jobs that don't either. I'm worried if I don't do something, I'll just be hustling and living comfortably but not coming home feeling like I did something important. I just don't know if law is going to do that for me. I love really seeing people, really seeing things. I've always been interested in government and I've always loved PI movies. Conspiracies really interest me, especially the mechanics, the relationships that get utilized to keep them going. I could never be a police officer, I couldn't deal with being a private eye, but I think law would afford me the ability to examine situation and look at peoples' and group's relationships with the law. At the same time, I could get out of law school and end up in corporate law, which would mean that I wouldn't get a chance to do what I wanted to do.
I've been hiding out for a couple years. I had some issues with drugs. I'm worried that maybe I can't hack it anymore. I'm worried that maybe I waited to long, maybe I'm destined to live a life of quiet desparation.