The Climate of Hell
Houston, 2004
As I pulled into Houston, I quickly remarked that it had the climate of hell, or at least that of the human mouth. Midnight felt like getting out of a hot shower. I had driven three days down from Utah to work for Pinnacle Security, installing security systems after door-to-door salesmen sold them.
I shared an apartment with five other technicians, and Pinnacle took around $475/month from my paycheck for it. We figured that was about $2850 a month for our apartment, although it obviously wasn't worth that much. Our day would begin, and we would drive out to whatever area the salesmen sold in and wait for them to make a sale.
Pinnacle hadn't done their homework. Houston City required a permit for each security system, to the tune of $115. That's probably why Houston was the lowest selling office that summer, although gas prices did go up, making it much more expensive for us to get to where we were going. Of course, Pinnacle was going to reimburse us for gas…at the end of the summer.
When the salesmen did sell a system, we'd leave our superheated cars and crawl around superheated attics, empty of air and full of cockroaches, mouse droppings, and the ever-present irritating insulation.
I survived a month or so of this, but then my small Saturn died completely in the center lane of the highway on the way to the sales area. I had just gotten out to push it when a Ford F-150 with a thousand pounds of rebar in the back slammed into the back of my car, ramming it into the intersection and sending me to my knees on the asphalt. The bar between windows cracked three ribs, and I was rushed to the emergency room.
I tried continuing with the attic crawl after a week off, but one excruciating attic was enough to let me know that I was done. So I took off like a bat outta...Houston. Of course, with the weird combination of Texas and Utah health insurance laws, the other driver paid nothing for the accident.
Pinnacle paid about a third of the salary I'd planned on for that summer in the bonus at the end. I asked if I would still get it, since I was medically incapacitated. They assured me I would. Well, I was reimbursed for the gas.
As I pulled into Houston, I quickly remarked that it had the climate of hell, or at least that of the human mouth. Midnight felt like getting out of a hot shower. I had driven three days down from Utah to work for Pinnacle Security, installing security systems after door-to-door salesmen sold them.
I shared an apartment with five other technicians, and Pinnacle took around $475/month from my paycheck for it. We figured that was about $2850 a month for our apartment, although it obviously wasn't worth that much. Our day would begin, and we would drive out to whatever area the salesmen sold in and wait for them to make a sale.
Pinnacle hadn't done their homework. Houston City required a permit for each security system, to the tune of $115. That's probably why Houston was the lowest selling office that summer, although gas prices did go up, making it much more expensive for us to get to where we were going. Of course, Pinnacle was going to reimburse us for gas…at the end of the summer.
When the salesmen did sell a system, we'd leave our superheated cars and crawl around superheated attics, empty of air and full of cockroaches, mouse droppings, and the ever-present irritating insulation.
I survived a month or so of this, but then my small Saturn died completely in the center lane of the highway on the way to the sales area. I had just gotten out to push it when a Ford F-150 with a thousand pounds of rebar in the back slammed into the back of my car, ramming it into the intersection and sending me to my knees on the asphalt. The bar between windows cracked three ribs, and I was rushed to the emergency room.
I tried continuing with the attic crawl after a week off, but one excruciating attic was enough to let me know that I was done. So I took off like a bat outta...Houston. Of course, with the weird combination of Texas and Utah health insurance laws, the other driver paid nothing for the accident.
Pinnacle paid about a third of the salary I'd planned on for that summer in the bonus at the end. I asked if I would still get it, since I was medically incapacitated. They assured me I would. Well, I was reimbursed for the gas.