Lex had shared:
>Many moons ago I worked briefly as a car salesman. Horrible occupation for
> those of you considering a career change. Our sales manager was a big
> fellow with a handlebar mustache. Appropriately enough his name was Biff.
> At least that's the only name I ever heard him called.
Oh man..sometimes our similarities amaze me...
In '94 I realized that my lifestyle travelling as regional sales manager for
a Japanese manufacturer (eyeglass frames) was making my Crohn's Disease
progress faster and that changes would have to be made, but making
significant money in this moo-cow country I'm from can be hard for a female,
so I finally succumbed to an old high-school beau who inherited his Dad's car
dealership...he had been trying to recruit me as his "first female rep" for
years. I made him draw up a contract guaranteeing $65K the first year, and
plunged in. Not so bad initially as he sent me to Flint, MI for three weeks
to become an "Aurora" specialist (for those of you overseas, that's the
Oldsmobile top-of-the-line). I've thought of Flint a lot this past week after
hearing of the demise of Oldsmobile...
Anyway, as Lex shared...this was a lousy career change...I also had a cousin
of the owner for a sales manager named "Junior"...replete with dribble of
tobacco juice on his chin, spitting into a styrofoam coffee cup every 3
minutes, swigging out of a hip flask and periodically running outside to puke
on the boxwoods..no joke. He had some sort of garbled Appalachian accent that
even I (a native) could NOT understand...
I was miffed that the old boyfriend was rarely around to contain this
creature and seemed to be avoiding work, until one day when the FBI came in
and took me into the conference room for a three-hour interview. It seems my
old boyfriend had been funding the importation of cocaine and pot into our
fair county and had been watched for three years....to cap it up: he was
indicted (BIG front page headlines), our business went AWAY (13 contracts on
cars were cancelled on me that week..can't say I blame 'em),I went from
selling 22-25 cars a month to 3-4 and I had a good reason to get the heck
out. I left three months later...we had sold only 4 autos that month, 3 of
them by me... He sang for the FBI and got off with only 1 year, but the BIG
guy got three life terms and has sworn that Old Beau will be dead before
long.I suspect he wiull make good the promise.
So I guess I could say that I was extrememly "chuffed" to get the heck outta
there...only benefit was that I took all the pictures of the cars for our
newspaper advertising with my trusty OM-2 (Oly content). At the risk of
sounding a trifle indelicate: Selling cars SUCKS.
Susan
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