I remember being in elementary school and, once a year, going to giant school fundraiser assemblies where us young and impressionable "youth of tomorrow" were presented with slide shows about selling wrapping paper, tubs of cookie dough, magazine subscriptions, or something equally innocuous. These fundraiser assemblies were filled with laser shows, music, repeat-after-me style audience participation, and guys in their thirties shouting things like, "BUT WAIT! If you sell twenty FIVE tubs of cookie dough, you will be sent a NEON BLUE INFLATABLE ARMCHAIR!" The myriads of prizes would be announced and flashed on a projector screen. And I was positively SINGED by the fire of competition. Yes, I truly have marched around my childhood neighborhood, knocking doors, trying to sell those very things-- to suburban people, who make their own cookie dough, already own wrapping paper, and buy magazines when they want them. I also remember breaking down and crying one night because I didn't get 75 magazine subscriptions sold, and I would be one of the only people I knew who DIDN'T get that grand prize-- a limousine ride to lunch at Carl's Jr. Yes, all this is real.
And don't even get me STARTED on my Girl Scout Cookie days.
Unfortunately, I can't sell. Anything. I couldn't sell a pepperoni pizza to a Ninja Turtle. I bet Donatello would just look at me sadly, shake his head, and walk away.
I did however earn that inflatable armchair. It had a hole in it. And much like that armchair, my salesman (saleswoman?)-ship has always remained very much... deflated.
Today, a very kind salesman wandered into the office.
I politely listened as he tried to sell me on his company's services. I felt bad for him, because the only answers I could give him were "Yes, I can take your card, but unfortunately we already have a vendor for that right now." The situation was not improved by the fact that a particularly large something was sticking out of his nose, and made a grand exit when he was mid-sentence.
I just wanted to give him a pat on the back (out of encouragement, and also because it's out of range of his schnoz) and say, "Hey, man. I'm sorry this pitch just isn't going your way. But hey, you tried, and I bet you were the type of kid who got to ride in a limo to Carl's. Props."
I took his business card.
Better luck next time, guy. I feel your pain.
1 comment:
How DID they make it look so easy in the assemblies?? I left that first one in 7th grade thinking "they'll be lining up outside MY front door begging me to buy some stuff, yo!" by 8th grade I was on to the reality, but man alive I almost got suckered in agin.
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