Bob

Batz

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October 8, 2007

Door-to-Door Sales and Loan Collecting Were Not For Me

I did a bad thing the other day.

I heard a knock at the front door and when I looked out the window to see who it was, I spotted what I was sure was a door-to-door salesman standing on my porch. I didn’t want to be bothered by a door-to-door salesman at the time, so I didn’t go to the door.

But as I stood there gazing at the man through a small opening in the window curtains I saw myself 45 years ago.

It was 1964, and my wife Sally and I had a baby on the way and no money in the bank. I was working at the daily newspaper in our town, but my weekly salary was something like $50, so I decided to supplement my income by taking a job as a door-to-door salesman.

The product I sold came in a can and if you had a flat tire, all you had to do was vigorously shake the can, then squirt the contents into your tire and the tire would immediately inflate.

The stuff really worked and I was pretty sure I’d make at least a gazillion dollars as a salesman and Sally and I would be rich.

I’d never been a door-to-door salesman, but I figured with my good looks and charming personality, it would be a piece of cake.

So there I was on my first day on the job all decked out in a new $50 discount clothing store suit and wearing a Willy Loman shoeshine and smile as I hit the streets of Flint, Mich. to make my fortune.

I didn’t call on houses, but I did visit service stations with my product.

A typical call went something like this: I’d drive my seven-year-old car into a service station, grab my leather bag that was filled with cans of the tire inflator and seek out the station owner or manager.

After delivering my well-rehearsed sales pitch that was always accompanied by a huge smile, it was up to the station manager to decide whether he wanted to stock any of the product.

Unfortunately for me, hardly any service station managers wanted to stock it even after I showed them that it would actually inflate a flat tire.

However, quite a few of them offered to take a free can and tell others about it, but I wasn’t allowed to give away cans of the stuff, so time after time I’d thank them for their time and trudge back to my car to go to the next station.

After my first day as a door-to-door salesman I came home totally depressed. Sally did her best to raise my spirits.

“Don’t worry,” she said, giving me a big hug. “Things will get better.”

Sadly, however, things never got better.

After three weeks of beating the pavement, I’d sold only two cans of the product.

My first paycheck was $3.50. Before taxes.

Then, a week or so later, I spotted a classified ad in the local daily newspaper for a loan collector. I quickly resigned my position as an unsuccessful door-to-door salesman to be what would become an unsuccessful loan collector.

The loan company for whom I worked made it clear from the start that there were two things I wasn’t allowed to do in the performance of my duties: I wasn’t allowed to go into bars to collect loan payments, or hassle pregnant women when I went looking for people who were behind on their payments.

So, once again, buoyed by my enthusiasm, I donned my cheap suit and hit the streets to make my fortune. But, alas, once again my hopes were dashed on the jagged rocks of life when I suddenly realized that if people didn’t have any money when they took out the loans, they probably didn’t have any money when it came time to make payments on those loans.

During the next three weeks, I heard enough hard-luck stories to fill a book.

I found myself feeling sorry for the people from whom I was supposed to collect money.

Then, one rainy Tuesday afternoon, after listening to a particularly heart-tugging story from a man who owed the loan company money, I pulled $20 from my wallet, handed it to the man and told him “Here, make your loan payment. Pay me back when you can.”

I quit the job the next day.

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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