Death of a salesman
It must have been the summer I was 17 - or 19 - I really forget which. It wasn't the summer I was 18, that summer I spent working in a chocolate powder factory just outside of Cologne. Just because the word "chocolate" is in the description of where I was working - don't be fooled. That was Satan's old job, but as I didn't quit under interesting circumstances, it's not going into this QoTW.

Right then, I was 17 - or 19. It doesn't really matter which one I was, I was still a spotty herbert who looked far too young to be knocking on doors except during Scouting week.

But my mad friend was spending the summer holidays working as a carpet cleaning salesman. He was vague about the financial details, but I was young enough not to find this lack of hard information alarming. But commission was payable - once you had closed a sale. He suggested I joined him - I agreed, having nothing better to do.

And so it came to pass that a bunch of teenagers were dropped off somewhere in South London, armed only with leaflets and clipboards, all cheap suits and nervous smiles.

The script was simple "Hello I'm from xyz and we're in *your* area next week cleaning carpets and can offer you a..." and generally, that was as far as you got.

It's fairly terrifying knocking on stranger's doors. Even worse when your mission is to actually enter their house and close that door behind you.

Not that that happened more that once. The first time I started my sales spiel, I was distracted from the script by the fact that the door had been opened by someone who, solely in the act of opening a door and asking me what I wanted, revealed themselves to be camper than a row of tents. I stammered, stuttered, started the script and then found that I had spoonerised the company name, mentioned in the first sentence of the script. The company was called, no word of a lie, Courtney Hunt.

I realised what I had had said a second or two after saying it; I didn't think it was possible to blush any more than I was before coming out with a word which - although it described something my would-be customer might not have experienced, I'm sure he knew the meaning thereof.

I didn't get the sale.

Or the next one, or two, or seventy. My friend and I began to suspect that as the new boys, we had been given the crap leads - this was "Glen Garry Glen Ross" on the wrong side of Surbiton.

Finally, I got into someone's house - as the child on the door said "come in and talk to Mummy about it" - which I did, and then Mummy went mad at me for entering her house, and she and their dog escorted me before I could so much as measure up the hall carpet.

Giving up, I went into a pub. And did a sale to the landlord - who warned me not to phone him during working hours when confirming the quote.

My friend and I knocked off. 16 hours work between the two of us, one sale.

Went back to the office. Handed over the sale sheet. Was told "phone the customer back to confirm". Mentioned the bit about it being a pub, and better not to disturb him. Over-ruled by the "boss" whose commission was riding on the sale.

Rang up pub, got told to fuck off by the landlord.

My sales career ended that day.

Apologies for length, but as we're in the area we'll clean that for half the going rate.
( I_Was_Mordred, Thu 22 May 2008, 13:22, 1 reply)

That Chocolate Factory
..wouldn't have been in Porz, would it?

Just off Kölnerstr/Berlinerstr U-bahn stations?

If so, you have my sympathies. I worked for a miserable bunch of cunts round the corner from it, and we used to be able to use the canteen at the chocolate factory.

All the staff of that place looked extremely miserable, and if Roald Dahl had turned up there they'd have give him a bloody good kicking.
( Stevedix http://www.stevedix.de/blog, Wed 28 May 2008, 15:17, closed)