6.01.2009
Back to Blogging
So yes, it has been over two months since I have posted anything. Which is not to say that I haven't been writing - Quite contrare, I have been writing more than ever recently. Just not anything particularly fun. I've spent the past several months feverishly writing business plans, policy memos, energy audit reports, statements of qualifications, project proposals and essays (yes, my favorite!). But now is time for me to get back to basics and back to blogging. After a number of rejections from Everyday Fiction, I have started writing a few new flash fiction stories and hope to have a few more ready for them soon. If anyone has a cool prompt, please send it to me. Thanks!!
3.22.2009
Oh...the horror...
Yes, yes is has been a long time since I have posted anything, which is probably not that big a deal since I am likely the only person who ever logs onto this site. I feel like a third grader who painstakingly arranges and rearranges the Star Wars action figure collection that no one comes by to admire, like the millionaire who sits on his deck overlooking his Pacific Ocean, surrounded by the toys and trinkets that no one will ever see - not that I am comparing my ramblings to treasures of the likes I have never seen. No, it's just right about now, I recognize the fact that the main point of this blog, at least for now, is for me to write write write, something that I have actually done a rather poor job at doing since nearly a month has past since my last post. One (and I don't know which one...) may infer that this lapse of writing must mean that I have once again been pulled away from my writing in some way or another. I suppose that there is some truth in this, as work and other personal responsibilities have kept me from doing too much writing. But I have acutally done quite a bit of writing. I wrote a short story entitled "Body Parts," about a man who gets a brief respite from a mysterious bartender as he sits at a tropical resort, intent on drinking himself to death. Admittedly, it is terrible so far, but then again it is still in draft form. I got the idea as I was trying to brainstorm ideas about a horror screenplay that I was challenged to write. I don't really write horror, but I saw it as a challenge - one that I was looking forward to until I really started getting into it, and was contacted by the producer asking me to be his friend on myspace. Sorta creepy. But maybe that was point...
2.27.2009
Writers Digest: Prompt of the Week - "Driven to Insanity"
Okay, so Writer's Digest posts a weekly prompt on their website, as an exercise to warm-up writers. I thought it would be fun. One writing assignment per week - how hard could it be? I recall the brief time I spent in a writing class a few years ago. At the end of each class, our instructor would give us an assignment that would be read to the class the following week. Deadlines are good.
I was excited to read the prompt of the week - You just run into an old lover - the one that got away - on Valentine's Day. What happens?
I started brainstorming, but before I had time to put a coherent story together, I realized that the prompt was for the previous week. I was too late.
Okay, I thought - what is this week's prompt?
Write a 26-line poem using all the letters of the alphabet, where the first line starts with the letter "A," the second "B," the third "C," etc., culminating with the final line starting with "Z."
I groaned. I think I've written two poems in the twenty years since I spewed countless lines of self-pity during my high school days. Oh well. A deadline is a deadline. I played around with it for about forty-five minutes.
So here goes nothing...
Driven to Insanity
And almost as quickly as it had started it had ended
Bricks from the crumbled façade fell with a thud onto the hood of my car
Cries of the fallen left in my deadly wake resonated in my head
“Damn,” I think. “Now, I’m going to be late for work.”
Eleven dead, thirty-six injured
Far from the death toll I had planned
Gunning my Chevrolet through the crowded open air marketplace
Higher, I thought. The number should be higher. Twenty-six to be exact.
I remember them falling one by one as the alphabet song played in my head
Just a few more, I thought, with my hands griped around the cold steering wheel
Killing by numbers never seemed so easy
Lives extinguished by a writer gone made
Maybe if the writer’s prompt had been more conventional
No one would have had to die on this morning
Or maybe if I had just spent more time, more effort, more tears it wouldn’t have to have been
Perhaps, instead, the fruitless years and countless rejection letters had finally taken their toll
Quincy the mailman screamed in terror as he met his fate underneath my front driver’s side tire
Rachel described the horrific scene to her best friend on her cell phone, until she too became part of the story
Samantha tried to duck to the left, but my reflexes proved better than she had expected
Thomas was oblivious, not knowing that the Miley Cyrus song blasting through his ipod would be his last
Under bright lights the doctors examined me
Volumes would be written about this in the future and I laughed at the irony
What would drive a man to such derangement? they asked each other
X-rays proved negative – oh come on, like you didn’t see that one coming?
Yes, I finally admitted, chuckling to myself– how much had been accomplished over the previous twenty-five lines?
Zero.
I was excited to read the prompt of the week - You just run into an old lover - the one that got away - on Valentine's Day. What happens?
I started brainstorming, but before I had time to put a coherent story together, I realized that the prompt was for the previous week. I was too late.
Okay, I thought - what is this week's prompt?
Write a 26-line poem using all the letters of the alphabet, where the first line starts with the letter "A," the second "B," the third "C," etc., culminating with the final line starting with "Z."
I groaned. I think I've written two poems in the twenty years since I spewed countless lines of self-pity during my high school days. Oh well. A deadline is a deadline. I played around with it for about forty-five minutes.
So here goes nothing...
Driven to Insanity
And almost as quickly as it had started it had ended
Bricks from the crumbled façade fell with a thud onto the hood of my car
Cries of the fallen left in my deadly wake resonated in my head
“Damn,” I think. “Now, I’m going to be late for work.”
Eleven dead, thirty-six injured
Far from the death toll I had planned
Gunning my Chevrolet through the crowded open air marketplace
Higher, I thought. The number should be higher. Twenty-six to be exact.
I remember them falling one by one as the alphabet song played in my head
Just a few more, I thought, with my hands griped around the cold steering wheel
Killing by numbers never seemed so easy
Lives extinguished by a writer gone made
Maybe if the writer’s prompt had been more conventional
No one would have had to die on this morning
Or maybe if I had just spent more time, more effort, more tears it wouldn’t have to have been
Perhaps, instead, the fruitless years and countless rejection letters had finally taken their toll
Quincy the mailman screamed in terror as he met his fate underneath my front driver’s side tire
Rachel described the horrific scene to her best friend on her cell phone, until she too became part of the story
Samantha tried to duck to the left, but my reflexes proved better than she had expected
Thomas was oblivious, not knowing that the Miley Cyrus song blasting through his ipod would be his last
Under bright lights the doctors examined me
Volumes would be written about this in the future and I laughed at the irony
What would drive a man to such derangement? they asked each other
X-rays proved negative – oh come on, like you didn’t see that one coming?
Yes, I finally admitted, chuckling to myself– how much had been accomplished over the previous twenty-five lines?
Zero.
2.22.2009
The Realm of the Ball
What exactly is the realm of the ball?
"No one really knows," Ana said. "She stole my purse...and now she's stealing my life..."
Lost amidst plastic toy planes, empty shoe boxes, orange monkeys, and tarantulas -like fragments from a dream, jumbled together in a way that starts to tell a story, but falls woefully short. Like a crazed madman, driving his car through a crowded marketplace. 11 dead, 36 injured.
It doesn't make any sense. Or maybe it's not supposed to...
Rewind twenty years to a cramped cabin in a small vessel floating down the Rhine River. Two boys passing time with a small rubber ball. Back and forth. Back and forth.
And then it's gone.
To that sliver of time and space, that enoz between snorkelfork and forkelsnork where mismatched socks are banished for eternity.
Lost forever.
In the realm of the ball...
"No one really knows," Ana said. "She stole my purse...and now she's stealing my life..."
Lost amidst plastic toy planes, empty shoe boxes, orange monkeys, and tarantulas -like fragments from a dream, jumbled together in a way that starts to tell a story, but falls woefully short. Like a crazed madman, driving his car through a crowded marketplace. 11 dead, 36 injured.
It doesn't make any sense. Or maybe it's not supposed to...
Rewind twenty years to a cramped cabin in a small vessel floating down the Rhine River. Two boys passing time with a small rubber ball. Back and forth. Back and forth.
And then it's gone.
To that sliver of time and space, that enoz between snorkelfork and forkelsnork where mismatched socks are banished for eternity.
Lost forever.
In the realm of the ball...
"shoedog"
As published in the 2006 Glendale Public Library Anthology "Tales from a Sweltering City"
So there I was, overdressed in my father’s best navy pinstripe and the fifty-two dollar floral silk tie which I had foolishly purchased for the occasion. Lingering in the back of my mind was the thought that if I could keep the tie in that brand-new, crisp condition for the remainder of the day, I could bring it back to the smug, commission-driven salesman at Baxter Bay, who spent forty-five minutes convincing me that I had to have it and probably went home that night with a satisfying feeling of personal victory. I'd return it, claiming that the tie was really intended as a gift for my uncle's new wife's second cousin's birthday, but that he already had that exact tie. My nicely pressed dress shirt was beginning to show wrinkles and my polished black wing tips hid behind the pointed, deliberate crease of my trousers. In front of me sat Nelson, the store manager, a man of thirty-two who looked like he could be edging fifty. His dark brown hair was in full recession, leaving only a thin U atop his head that would have looked like a nicely manicured horseshoe if viewed from above. He wore a thin white dress shirt with spots under each arm, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and an otherwise nondescript black tie, save for a mustard stain across the middle which had turned from yellow to dark orange with age.
He clicked the pen in his hand in and out, in and out, in an annoying, nervous fashion as he reviewed my application.
"So," he said," it says here that you're looking for full-time."
"That's right," I replied. Full-time. The very thought made me cringe. When I was in college, I went to class for a few hours a day, spent some time in the library, and wasted the rest of my days away, hanging out with friends, watching TV, generally enjoying the final carefree days of my youth. I was even able to squeeze in a few hours here and there at the various part-time jobs I held, jobs which did provide a little extra pizza and beer money on the side, but mainly opened up a convenient avenue for opportune meetings with unsuspecting co-eds. I didn't have to go full-time. I was a college student, and that was a good enough excuse to stay out of the forty-hour, nine-to-five grind.
But now things were completely different. This was full-time. Full-time meant: this is your life. This is your responsibility. This is what you do. It defines your place in society. It defines who you are.
That's because in our society, you always associate a person with what he or she does. There's Chris the mailman, or Mary the bankteller. There's Joe the baker, or Fred the shoe salesman. You are what you do, and that's something that you take to your grave. Remember Old Man Marley, the retired sewage disposal man who lived down the street from you when you were thirteen years old? How he used to drive that beat-up old Chevy with mismatched hubcaps and a broken tail light straight through your stickball game in the middle of the street every summer afternoon? It was he who convinced you that you had to make a life for yourself. You weren't going to be stuck in a rut your whole life. You weren't going to have to rely on a weak monthly pension to keep the heat going in the winter or to put day old bread and cold cuts on the table. You were going to get good grades, then go to college. And then you'd never have to look back at Old man Marley or Chris or Fred, because you'd have it made in the shade doing whatever your little heart desired. It was a foolproof plan.
But as luck would have it, I found myself with a bachelor’s degree and no direction. After years of going through the system, playing their game by their rules, I was out on my own. What next? My whole life I knew where I was going, but now I was lost. And now more than ever, I had to pick my next move carefully.
Nelson scanned the rest of the application, injecting an occasional, "I see," or "hmmm," to himself.
"So," he asked," you graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz? Sociology?"
"That's right," I replied," I received my bachelor's degree last spring." It was a humbling experience, downright embarrassing in fact, that after four years of solid work, I was forced to seek employment in the retail industry, at a shoe store no less. I felt angered, betrayed by a system that had lied to me, a system that told me that all I needed was a degree, any degree at all, and everything else would fall into place.
Instead, I found myself competing for servile jobs, jobs which I could have landed as a high-school drop out. It seemed almost undignified, but I needed to work. I needed to pay off the over $37,000 in student loans which I had accrued during my pursuit of higher learning. The $37,000 that had paid for the crumpled piece of parchment which hung by a thumbtack on the wall of my small studio apartment. And to do that I needed a job. A full-time job.
Coming out of the gates, I was determined to make my degree work for me. I applied at various firms, scattering my resume all over the country, only to compile a rather impressive collection of rejection notices from only the best firms in the nation. They cited my lack of experience. Experience? I had a degree. Wasn't that good enough?!
Nelson finished looking through the application and turned to me. Now came the hard part.
"So," he asked, "why do you want to sell shoes?" My reply came with well-rehearsed lightning speed.
"Well, I've always had an interest in the footwear industry, and I believe that given my previous experience, I could truly excel in this type of retail environment. I don't expect things to be easy at first.” Pause for effect. “I expect there to be challenges, but I know that I can respond to those challenges and become a valuable member of your sales team. I know that under your guidance I could become a great shoe salesman. I work well with people and learn quickly. I know how to...." Classic technique from a pamphlet I picked up from the career center at school while I was preparing for campus interviews, a pamphlet on how to answer those really tough questions interviewers have a tendency at throwing at you. All you have to do is tell them what they want to hear.
"Where do you see yourself in five years?" he asked.
"Well, as I said earlier, I don't expect things to be easy. But I hope to grow both professionally and personally. Who knows? Perhaps management opportunities may exist. But I think the important thing is that I plan to work as hard as I can, and learn as much as I can so that I can be the best salesperson on your sales floor. After all, one can't expect to run, until he has learned how to walk." I had not used that one before, but it seemed to work well. The walking-to-running metaphor seemed to be especially effective. Nelson was noticeably pleased. All I had to do was give him the correct formula, dazzle him with the magic words, and I was in. These were words of gold. "I strive for excellence, Mr. Sanders." Pure gold.
"Well," Nelson responded. “I don't know what else there is to say except, when can you start?"
In the pure exhilaration of the moment, my heart skipped a beat. I did it. After so long, I had finally landed a job. For seventeen weeks, I had hit the streets looking for employment, towards the end vowing to take whatever I could get. But after so long, I had come to accept rejection, and now that success was staring me right in the face, I didn't know how to react. Should I take this job? Would I be eternally damned to peddle footwear for the rest of my days? Was I willing to accept the brand: SHOE SALESMAN? My mind was spinning. I was going to take. I had to take it. That $37,000 made me take it. And in that single instant, I felt more angry than ever at the system that put me through four years of writing papers and taking exams, pushing myself harder than I ever thought I could, only to land a job as a shoe salesman - so that I could pay them back for the privilege.
"Now," I replied. "I can start right now."
I arrived at work more than fifteen minutes early, perhaps overly anxious at the thought of starting the new job. Despite my reservations, I was genuinely excited about this new opportunity. Sure, it wasn't the ideal position, but it was time for me to swallow my pride and accept the hand that had been dealt. Nelson had expressed some hope in me, and I didn't want to disappoint him. After all, he had given me what no other sales manager had: a chance to prove myself.
The stockroom was massive. Aisle after aisle of shoes stacked to the twelve-foot ceiling. It reminded me of the time I got lost on the fifth floor of the research library at school. It was overwhelming. As I stood admiring the stock, I heard Nelson's voice bellowing throughout the room. On the other side of the room, I heard another employee cursing at himself, moaning that he couldn't find the size he needed. Nelson ran down the aisle in front of me, pulled three boxes in a seemingly random fashion, and raced back to the sales floor. A few moments later, he stuck his head back into the stock room.
“Oh, Al. Good. Hey, don’t forget to clock in.”
I checked my watch, which I had synchronized with the time clock, and punched in at precisely 12 o'clock. There it was. I had done it. I had officially become part of the work world. No longer was I a useless dreg of society who leeched off the collective work force of middle America. Now I was a working member of society - a useful, integral part of the system, a cog in the grinding, pumping machine that was America. Now...I was a shoe salesman.
I walked cautiously onto the sales floor, hands locked behind my back, trying to find Nelson in the midst of a weekend mid-day rush. The Golden Days Festival Two-Day sale was in full swing, and it was actually a few moments before I finally spotted him, on his knees in front of a middle-aged, portly woman whose kids were chasing each other around the store, hurling display shoes at each other while her toddler grabbed at the twin towers of shoe boxes which teetered from side to side in front of Nelson. She was completely oblivious to all around, her eyes intent on Nelson, as he quickly untied the knots in her daughter's glow-in-the-dark Batman shoes. Next to this family, a young red-haired salesgirl sat in front of an older woman. A young man, who couldn't be older than eighteen, was at the cash register where a line of customers stood, waiting to be rung up. Throughout the sales floor were over a dozen others, waiting impatiently for another salesperson to come out. Another salesperson....like me.
"Young man, can you help me?" She was a large, gray-haired woman, no younger that sixty-five, with a grandmotherly look about her. She held herself up with a bamboo cane and had six or seven shoes bundled under her right arm. I didn't know what to say. "I need these in an eight-and-a-half wide.”
"I'm sorry," I replied, not knowing what else to say. "I can't right now."
"Well, don't you work here?" she asked indignantly.
"Well, yes, but..."
"Then get me my damn shoes!" she cried, throwing her bundle to the ground, her former demeanor suddenly stripped. "I've been waiting for over twenty minutes now!"
"I'll see what I can do," I replied abruptly, clumsily collecting her selections, before I scurried back to the safety of the stock room. I decided to wait for Nelson before I ventured back.
I sorted the six shoes on the work bench. There were three gaudy silver and gold sandals, two red heels and a canvas deck shoe. I turned around and looked at the aisles of shoes, not knowing where to begin, hoping that someone would come back and help me. I peered back at the sales floor, hoping that my customer had somehow left, but there she sat, waiting impatiently. Just then, another salesperson ran in and punched in at the time clock.
"Damn," he cried, "late again." He turned around and saw me. "You the new guy?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied. "My name's Al."
"I'm Tony," he said, extending his hand.
"Great," I said. He looked at the shoes on the workbench.
"Are those mis-mates?" he asked. I didn't know what he was talking about.
"Um...yeah, they sure are." Just then, Nelson stormed in from the sales floor, followed by the salesgirl.
"Tony, where the heck have you been!? We're in the middle of a rush - get out there and help someone!"
"I was helping the new guy..."
"Just get out there." Tony shrugged at me, then ran out. Nelson turned to the girl. "What's going on with the Brandorfs?"
"She's not going for the Brandorfs - she needs an 8 wide and all we've got are D's - she's slipping out of the 8-1/2's and we don't have anything in the Boras."
"Did you try the Murphy's?"
"She needs the leather upper."
"Okay - push the Crosstowns. We don't have any E's but they run a lot wider and they're a much better shoe anyway. If you need to go to the 8-1/2, slip in a heel grip and toe pad." Just then, an older salesman came in from the sales floor.
"Forget the Crosstowns. Sell the Mitchells. They cost twice as much and last half as long so they'll be back in four months wanting more."
"Mitchells are junk," she replied. "I can't believe we sell that overpriced garbage."
"Hey, if you want to increase your sales..." Before he could finish, she was already on her way back to the floor, Crosstown's in hand.
"Don't forget to push the socks.." Nelson called. "They're only twenty dollars for the 12-pack..." But she was already gone. Nelson dropped his shoes on the workbench and turned to me, smiling.
"You're here. What a relief. You can't imagine the number of no-shows we get around here. Did you punch in?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now we're a little busy right now, so what I want you to do is go out there and just observe. See how we work around here. After a while, we'll let you get a chance."
Just then the Tony ran back, a stack of shoes covering his face.
"There's an irate, bovine woman out there who said you were helping her?"
"Well, I..." I said. Nelson interrupted.
"Tony, drop the deadwood and T.O. Al's customer."
"Fine."
The place was a zoo. I was really surprised at the hustle and quick-thinking involved in something seemingly as mundane as selling shoes. I watched Nelson for the most part as he made his rounds between three different customers. One of his customers was a teenage girl, no older than sixteen, looking for a pair of penny-loafers. Another was an elderly Hispanic gentleman, trying on every style of cowboy boots we had, but never looking completely satisfied. Then there was a blond woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties looking for some good walking shoes. After helping each customer, he would run back to the stock room, making mental notes of his customers' orders, all the while making sure to greet every potential customer who walked in. He worked at a frantic pace, rotating from customer to customer, never keeping any of them waiting too long, until he had closed each sale.
The girl bought a pair of men's size six cordovan penny loafers, with a jar of shoe polish and matching socks. The woman took some tennis shoes, which weren't really the color she was looking for, but they were on sale. The cowboy, who never looked satisfied at any one particular pair ended up buying four pairs of boots, a six pack of cotton socks, and three bottles of saddle soap.
Samantha, the red-haired girl, seemed to struggle with her customer, but ended up selling her the Crosstowns with the 12-pack of socks. Tony ran between two customers with surprising quickness. He seemed to zoom right through the stock room, re-emerging with just the right shoes. The customer he had taken over from me ended up buying five pairs of shoes from him. Another salesman, Mark, looked like he was having problems. Three of his four customers walked, not buying anything, and his frustration was apparent.
After almost an hour, things started slowing down, and Nelson motioned for me to come back to the stockroom.
"I guess I better show you around the stockroom first," he said. I followed him to the back where he pointed out each section divided into different styles and sizes. I tried to make mental notes of everything he was saying, but after only a few minutes his droning speech turned into a non-stop ramble of incoherent babbles. He pointed out the new stock, which shoes run long, which shoes run small, which shoes are washable, which shoes need to be broken in, which shoes are made of leather, which shoes are dyeable, which shoes go up to a men's size 13, which women's shoes go past size 10, which shoes run in different widths, on and on, and on, and on. At the end of it all he simply said, " ...and the rest you'll pick up as time goes by." Great.
My first few days at Piedmont's Shoes were taxing; a seemingly endless series of awkward episodes, each of which convinced me that my place in the world was anywhere but this lowly establishment of second-rate footwear. I would stumble through each sale, lost at times, never quite feeling comfortable with any of the customers. It was frustrating. I thought that selling shoes would be something a drunk monkey could do. I thought that all there was to it was taking the customer's selection and fetching it from the stockroom like a dog. But in those first few weeks, I came to realize that shoe selling requires far more intelligence, quick thinking, and personality than I had thought. It wasn't easy, but I forced myself to stick with it. Because at least for time being, it kept a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and the bill collectors at bay. I also got to meet some interesting people.
There was Samantha, the nineteen year old, red-haired, All-American girl from Omaha. Samantha had been working at Piedmont's for almost a year, trying to save enough money so that she could attend South Phoenix Metro Community College, but after ten months of work, she only had enough to pay for the Blue Zone Student Parking Pass. She was hardworking and kind, sensitive and caring. She was the kind of girl who helped her nine year old brother with little league batting practice, and went to the 9:30 service with her parents on Sunday mornings. Quite honestly, she was the sweetest girl I had even known. She had deep-hazel eyes you could get lost in, and a smile that could melt the heart of the coldest Piedmont's patron. It was Sam who helped me the most during those first few weeks, probably because she was the only one in the store who couldn't say no to anyone in need.
There was Tony, the ex-football star from the local high school. Tony and I had a lot in common and he was always good for a laugh. Then there was Vern, the retired army veteran who had grown bored with the meaningless days of shuffleboard and gossip at the retirement home that his kids had dumped him off at. He was slow, but knowledgeable, and always managed to keep his sales numbers above average.
Then there was Fred. Fred was a divorced, slightly overweight, balding man of thirty-eight. He lived and breathed Piedmont's, working open-to-close on most days. The company had allowed him to work so much overtime because of the legendary Streak. When I first started at Piedmont's, the number was 92. He had a streak of 92 consecutive weeks of top sales in the district, 83 weeks higher than the second best. People in the shoe industry called him "The Master." He was honored with a "Profiles in Excellence" column in the visitor's guide at the National Footwear and Handbag Retailers Show and Exhibition in Reno the previous year. He did anything and everything each and every week to make sure his title would remain intact. It had, in fact, become an ugly obsession for him.
As the end of each week drew near, he would keep nervous watch over the district sales figures, continuously calculating his required sales per hour (SPH) to keep ahead of everyone else. It consumed him. If someone was coming to within a few hundred dollars of him on a Friday or Saturday morning, the shakes would begin. His hands would tremble nervously. His eyes would twitch. And he would pace the front of the store, poised to pounce on his next would-be customer, like a heroin junkie on a street corner waiting for his dealer.
But just as sure as the setting of the sun, when the final district sales figures came in at the close of business each Saturday night, Fred's numbers would top the list. He would breathe a sigh of relief and sometimes even crack a smile. "Keepin' the streak alive," he would say to himself.
I once watched him sell three pairs of cowboy boots, four bottles of saddle soap, two cans of polish, and six sequined purses to three nuns from Yuma who had come in to buy some socks for a pair of homeless kids in their parish.
"That was quite a sale," I remarked.
"The damn cheapskates didn't buy any shoe trees," he muttered.
Fred was ruthless and cocky, and because of this, not too many people liked him. There were times, however, when I almost felt sorry for him. At the end of the day, he would often boast about his sales, basking in the day's glory. But the look on his face betrayed a lonely man, a man who knew that all he had to look forward to was retiring to his small, stuffy one-bedroom apartment, where he had no friends or loved-ones, where dinner meant frozen boxed meals, and where the only real family he knew were Mom, Dad, Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Cindy, Bobby, and that annoying little cousin that was added in the later seasons after Cindy’s “cuteness factor” had expired. There were times when I felt like asking him if he wanted to go out for a beer after work or something. But I didn't. I couldn't, because no matter how empty his life appeared to be, there was something about him that made him totally unlikable.
I tried to ask him for help once. Once. I was having a lot of problems with a sale so I turned to Fred for some help.
"You've screwed it up pretty good so far. You might as well finish the job." He smirked at me and walked away.
As the months passed, I found myself getting more and more comfortable as a shoe salesman. My sales numbers were creeping up steadily. I was gaining confidence. There was a time early on when I didn't really care about my sales, when all I would do is count the hours and minutes to the end of the day. But all that changed. It changed the day Fred pulled a register camp on me.
I had been working with a girl for almost an hour. She was picking out matching high heels for her bridesmaids. She needed six different pairs of the same style in an assortment of sizes. After looking at five different styles, she finally decided on one and started pulling her wallet out of her purse. I gathered the six pairs and headed for the counter, relieved that I was ready to close the deal. That's when her mother-in-law-to-be opened her mouth.
"You know what," she said, "We forgot to check MacMardies for shoes. I think they're having that big sale this weekend." She girl paused, her credit card dangling in front of me.
"Oh," the girl said, obviously frustrated. "I guess we could check them out," she said, not wanting to disappointed her future mother-in-law. She turned to me, her credit card in retreat.
"I'm sorry. Um....could you hold these for twenty minutes? We need to check one more place." I didn't know what to say.
"Well, I suppose so. "
"Thanks." And with that, the two quickly turned to leave.
I waited twenty minutes, holding on to the hope that they would return. But after an hour, I realized that they wouldn't be back. It was a slow day, so I kept myself busy cleaning the stockroom. Sam was helping someone, and Fred camped out at the register, checking his figures. Then the girl came back.
"What can I sell you today?" Fred asked. The girl picked up the stack of six boxes next to the counter.
"Could you ring this up for me," she said, handing over her credit card.
"No problem," he replied. "But I think you're going to need some purses to match..."
"Just the shoes, please. I'm in a hurry."
I walked out of the stockroom just as she was leaving with her shoes.
"Hey, those were mine, " I told Fred. He looked at me indignantly.
"She didn't asked for you. I tried to help her with some purses. The sale's mine." And he walked away. I couldn't believe it. Even among the ranks of shoe salesmen, there is a clearly defined code of ethics. When a customer walks in the door and is approached by a salesperson, that customer belongs to that salesperson. Everyone knows that. The girl was mine. Fred had stolen her.
And that's when it started. Sure I wasn't the best shoe salesmen, but I was learning. I was getting better. I had developed a small, but effective repertoire of personalized sales techniques which yielded better than expected results. And even if being a shoe salesman wasn't my dream job, and even if I had my share of problems, I knew that something had to be done. The Master had to be defeated.
Breaking The Streak wasn't going to be easy, but I realized that the odds were in my favor and all the pressure was on Fred. How much longer could he keep it up? Each week I drew closer and closer, my sales stronger and stronger. I took product literature home with me. I immersed myself in the world of shoes. I read books about sales techniques. But most importantly, I learned how to talk to people. I learned about what motivated people to buy and how to best meet their needs and expectations.
It all started innocently enough. It was mid-morning on a Sunday. The mall was just getting ready to open. I hadn't had breakfast yet and the only thing open in the food court was Happy CornDog and the Pretzel Factory. I opted for Happy CornDog, where the Happy CornGirl assured me that the battered handy-meals were a mall favorite. Despite her guarantee, I found myself putting line after line of yellow mustard on it, bringing to mind Nelson's curiously branded necktie. After only a few bites however, I had to stop. I tossed it back into the grease-stained carton and discarded it on the workbench.
I came out swinging that Sunday morning, with four straight multiple pair sales. I was on a roll and Fred knew it. He kept up, but every time he countered with a big sale, I'd be right behind him with another. By early afternoon, I could see he was getting tired. By late afternoon, he had passed me up by a few hundred dollars and rested comfortably in the lead, having worked the floor straight through lunch. By early evening though, he was famished. Beads of sweat rolled down the side of his face. I thought he was going to pass out.
"You can have the rest of my corndog," I offered, jokingly. But before I knew it, he was in the back eating the cold remnants of my breakfast.
Fred didn't make it to the end of the day, the corndog obviously not agreeing with his stomach. By Sunday night, he found himself in the emergency room, contending with a nasty bout of food poisoning that kept him off the sales floor for the next two days. With Fred out, my sales skyrocketed. By midweek, I held a commanding lead over the rest of the district. There was a buzz throughout the valley that The Streak was in jeopardy.
Fred walked into the store Wednesday night, his face ashen. He walked straight to the register and pulled up the running totals for the district. He looked at my name atop the sales list and threw me a hateful glare.
"You tried to poison me," he said, "but it'll take more than that to break up The Streak."
"Fred, I..." He had lost his mind. I couldn't believe that he would think that I purposely fed him that corndog just so I could increase my sales. I tried to apologize, but he wouldn't listen. So I met his defiance with strengthened resolve and determination to end The Streak. I posted strong numbers through Wednesday. Fred was still obviously slowed by his sickness. But by Thursday night, Fred was back on top of his game. He blew me away on Thursday and beat me again on Friday, a day I worked through despite it being my day off. On Saturday morning, my once sizeable lead over Fred and the rest of the district had shrunk down to just a few hundred dollars. Now the pressure was on me. I had had a phenomenal week, but now Fred had the clear advantage.
It didn't take long for him to take command of the day, and by early afternoon, he assumed his familiar spot, back on top of the district sales numbers. I kept on fighting, countering with a handful of small, but quick sales. For the rest of the night, we battled back and forth. But with five minutes to go before closing, Fred closed his last sale, securing his spot on top.
I couldn't believe it. I had come so close, but now it seemed that The Streak would be intact. I started pulling in the displays, ready to close the store for the night. And that's when she came in.
"Can you please help me?" she asked. "I'm going out of town tomorrow and I need some shoes." Fred saw her and immediately objected.
"I'm sorry mam, we closed." Fred was only ahead of me by $36, and he knew that a single sale could push me over the top.
"Actually, I'd be more than happy to help you." I replied. Fred watched nervously from the counter as I started bringing shoes out for her. She was looking for a pair of walking shoes for a breast cancer walk-a-thon she was doing with her daughters the next day in Seattle. I showed her a variety of shoes, keeping in mind that I had to break the $36 price point to get ahead of Fred. In the end though, there were only two shoes that she really liked: The Crosstowns and the Mitchells. The Crosstowns were $29.95, and the Mitchells were $54.95. She couldn't decide between the two because they both felt very good. She would try on the Crosstowns, then the Mitchells. Over and over, back and forth. Fred's hands were trembling, the fate of his long standing streak hanging in the balance.
"I can't decide," she said. She turned to me. "You've been so helpful. What do you think I should do?"
The Streak was mine to conquer. All I had to do was push her towards the Mitchell's and the title would be mine. Fred, Nelson, Tony, and Sam all stood by the counter, watching for my next move. I looked at the Mitchells. I looked at the Crosstowns. And then I looked into the woman's eyes, ready to give her the pitch. But as I was ready to speak, I noticed something in the reflection of her glasses. I saw Fred. I saw Nelson, and Tony, and Sam. And for the first time in months, I saw myself. I saw myself and who I was and what I knew I didn’t want to become. And in that single moment, a great calm came over me, as if I suddenly knew where I was and where I belonged. I turned around and looked at Fred, winked at Sam, and gave the woman my reply.
"Actually mam, the Mitchells aren't really made as well as the Crosstowns. They may cost more, but the Crosstowns are actually a much better shoe and a much better value. I think that you're really better off going with them." Everyone was stunned.
"Well, thank you," she said. "I really appreciate your help." No one could believe what I had just done. Fred was busy doing cartwheels in the stockroom. But I knew deep inside that I did the only thing I could do. Sure, I wouldn't beat Fred, but I still posted strong numbers and had quietly become the second best salesperson in the district. More importantly, I had come to realize something - that although life doesn't always fall into place exactly the way you have it planned, life does go on. All you can ever do is make the best of it. That's exactly what I had done. I had become a shoe salesman, a good one – the kind of salesperson who cared more about doing a good job, than making the quick buck. I picked up her shoes and walked to the counter with a smile of contentment on my face.
The woman came up to the counter, handing me her credit card.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she said, as I started ringing up her sale. "I'm going to need a 12-pack of socks to go with those."
So there I was, overdressed in my father’s best navy pinstripe and the fifty-two dollar floral silk tie which I had foolishly purchased for the occasion. Lingering in the back of my mind was the thought that if I could keep the tie in that brand-new, crisp condition for the remainder of the day, I could bring it back to the smug, commission-driven salesman at Baxter Bay, who spent forty-five minutes convincing me that I had to have it and probably went home that night with a satisfying feeling of personal victory. I'd return it, claiming that the tie was really intended as a gift for my uncle's new wife's second cousin's birthday, but that he already had that exact tie. My nicely pressed dress shirt was beginning to show wrinkles and my polished black wing tips hid behind the pointed, deliberate crease of my trousers. In front of me sat Nelson, the store manager, a man of thirty-two who looked like he could be edging fifty. His dark brown hair was in full recession, leaving only a thin U atop his head that would have looked like a nicely manicured horseshoe if viewed from above. He wore a thin white dress shirt with spots under each arm, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and an otherwise nondescript black tie, save for a mustard stain across the middle which had turned from yellow to dark orange with age.
He clicked the pen in his hand in and out, in and out, in an annoying, nervous fashion as he reviewed my application.
"So," he said," it says here that you're looking for full-time."
"That's right," I replied. Full-time. The very thought made me cringe. When I was in college, I went to class for a few hours a day, spent some time in the library, and wasted the rest of my days away, hanging out with friends, watching TV, generally enjoying the final carefree days of my youth. I was even able to squeeze in a few hours here and there at the various part-time jobs I held, jobs which did provide a little extra pizza and beer money on the side, but mainly opened up a convenient avenue for opportune meetings with unsuspecting co-eds. I didn't have to go full-time. I was a college student, and that was a good enough excuse to stay out of the forty-hour, nine-to-five grind.
But now things were completely different. This was full-time. Full-time meant: this is your life. This is your responsibility. This is what you do. It defines your place in society. It defines who you are.
That's because in our society, you always associate a person with what he or she does. There's Chris the mailman, or Mary the bankteller. There's Joe the baker, or Fred the shoe salesman. You are what you do, and that's something that you take to your grave. Remember Old Man Marley, the retired sewage disposal man who lived down the street from you when you were thirteen years old? How he used to drive that beat-up old Chevy with mismatched hubcaps and a broken tail light straight through your stickball game in the middle of the street every summer afternoon? It was he who convinced you that you had to make a life for yourself. You weren't going to be stuck in a rut your whole life. You weren't going to have to rely on a weak monthly pension to keep the heat going in the winter or to put day old bread and cold cuts on the table. You were going to get good grades, then go to college. And then you'd never have to look back at Old man Marley or Chris or Fred, because you'd have it made in the shade doing whatever your little heart desired. It was a foolproof plan.
But as luck would have it, I found myself with a bachelor’s degree and no direction. After years of going through the system, playing their game by their rules, I was out on my own. What next? My whole life I knew where I was going, but now I was lost. And now more than ever, I had to pick my next move carefully.
Nelson scanned the rest of the application, injecting an occasional, "I see," or "hmmm," to himself.
"So," he asked," you graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz? Sociology?"
"That's right," I replied," I received my bachelor's degree last spring." It was a humbling experience, downright embarrassing in fact, that after four years of solid work, I was forced to seek employment in the retail industry, at a shoe store no less. I felt angered, betrayed by a system that had lied to me, a system that told me that all I needed was a degree, any degree at all, and everything else would fall into place.
Instead, I found myself competing for servile jobs, jobs which I could have landed as a high-school drop out. It seemed almost undignified, but I needed to work. I needed to pay off the over $37,000 in student loans which I had accrued during my pursuit of higher learning. The $37,000 that had paid for the crumpled piece of parchment which hung by a thumbtack on the wall of my small studio apartment. And to do that I needed a job. A full-time job.
Coming out of the gates, I was determined to make my degree work for me. I applied at various firms, scattering my resume all over the country, only to compile a rather impressive collection of rejection notices from only the best firms in the nation. They cited my lack of experience. Experience? I had a degree. Wasn't that good enough?!
Nelson finished looking through the application and turned to me. Now came the hard part.
"So," he asked, "why do you want to sell shoes?" My reply came with well-rehearsed lightning speed.
"Well, I've always had an interest in the footwear industry, and I believe that given my previous experience, I could truly excel in this type of retail environment. I don't expect things to be easy at first.” Pause for effect. “I expect there to be challenges, but I know that I can respond to those challenges and become a valuable member of your sales team. I know that under your guidance I could become a great shoe salesman. I work well with people and learn quickly. I know how to...." Classic technique from a pamphlet I picked up from the career center at school while I was preparing for campus interviews, a pamphlet on how to answer those really tough questions interviewers have a tendency at throwing at you. All you have to do is tell them what they want to hear.
"Where do you see yourself in five years?" he asked.
"Well, as I said earlier, I don't expect things to be easy. But I hope to grow both professionally and personally. Who knows? Perhaps management opportunities may exist. But I think the important thing is that I plan to work as hard as I can, and learn as much as I can so that I can be the best salesperson on your sales floor. After all, one can't expect to run, until he has learned how to walk." I had not used that one before, but it seemed to work well. The walking-to-running metaphor seemed to be especially effective. Nelson was noticeably pleased. All I had to do was give him the correct formula, dazzle him with the magic words, and I was in. These were words of gold. "I strive for excellence, Mr. Sanders." Pure gold.
"Well," Nelson responded. “I don't know what else there is to say except, when can you start?"
In the pure exhilaration of the moment, my heart skipped a beat. I did it. After so long, I had finally landed a job. For seventeen weeks, I had hit the streets looking for employment, towards the end vowing to take whatever I could get. But after so long, I had come to accept rejection, and now that success was staring me right in the face, I didn't know how to react. Should I take this job? Would I be eternally damned to peddle footwear for the rest of my days? Was I willing to accept the brand: SHOE SALESMAN? My mind was spinning. I was going to take. I had to take it. That $37,000 made me take it. And in that single instant, I felt more angry than ever at the system that put me through four years of writing papers and taking exams, pushing myself harder than I ever thought I could, only to land a job as a shoe salesman - so that I could pay them back for the privilege.
"Now," I replied. "I can start right now."
I arrived at work more than fifteen minutes early, perhaps overly anxious at the thought of starting the new job. Despite my reservations, I was genuinely excited about this new opportunity. Sure, it wasn't the ideal position, but it was time for me to swallow my pride and accept the hand that had been dealt. Nelson had expressed some hope in me, and I didn't want to disappoint him. After all, he had given me what no other sales manager had: a chance to prove myself.
The stockroom was massive. Aisle after aisle of shoes stacked to the twelve-foot ceiling. It reminded me of the time I got lost on the fifth floor of the research library at school. It was overwhelming. As I stood admiring the stock, I heard Nelson's voice bellowing throughout the room. On the other side of the room, I heard another employee cursing at himself, moaning that he couldn't find the size he needed. Nelson ran down the aisle in front of me, pulled three boxes in a seemingly random fashion, and raced back to the sales floor. A few moments later, he stuck his head back into the stock room.
“Oh, Al. Good. Hey, don’t forget to clock in.”
I checked my watch, which I had synchronized with the time clock, and punched in at precisely 12 o'clock. There it was. I had done it. I had officially become part of the work world. No longer was I a useless dreg of society who leeched off the collective work force of middle America. Now I was a working member of society - a useful, integral part of the system, a cog in the grinding, pumping machine that was America. Now...I was a shoe salesman.
I walked cautiously onto the sales floor, hands locked behind my back, trying to find Nelson in the midst of a weekend mid-day rush. The Golden Days Festival Two-Day sale was in full swing, and it was actually a few moments before I finally spotted him, on his knees in front of a middle-aged, portly woman whose kids were chasing each other around the store, hurling display shoes at each other while her toddler grabbed at the twin towers of shoe boxes which teetered from side to side in front of Nelson. She was completely oblivious to all around, her eyes intent on Nelson, as he quickly untied the knots in her daughter's glow-in-the-dark Batman shoes. Next to this family, a young red-haired salesgirl sat in front of an older woman. A young man, who couldn't be older than eighteen, was at the cash register where a line of customers stood, waiting to be rung up. Throughout the sales floor were over a dozen others, waiting impatiently for another salesperson to come out. Another salesperson....like me.
"Young man, can you help me?" She was a large, gray-haired woman, no younger that sixty-five, with a grandmotherly look about her. She held herself up with a bamboo cane and had six or seven shoes bundled under her right arm. I didn't know what to say. "I need these in an eight-and-a-half wide.”
"I'm sorry," I replied, not knowing what else to say. "I can't right now."
"Well, don't you work here?" she asked indignantly.
"Well, yes, but..."
"Then get me my damn shoes!" she cried, throwing her bundle to the ground, her former demeanor suddenly stripped. "I've been waiting for over twenty minutes now!"
"I'll see what I can do," I replied abruptly, clumsily collecting her selections, before I scurried back to the safety of the stock room. I decided to wait for Nelson before I ventured back.
I sorted the six shoes on the work bench. There were three gaudy silver and gold sandals, two red heels and a canvas deck shoe. I turned around and looked at the aisles of shoes, not knowing where to begin, hoping that someone would come back and help me. I peered back at the sales floor, hoping that my customer had somehow left, but there she sat, waiting impatiently. Just then, another salesperson ran in and punched in at the time clock.
"Damn," he cried, "late again." He turned around and saw me. "You the new guy?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied. "My name's Al."
"I'm Tony," he said, extending his hand.
"Great," I said. He looked at the shoes on the workbench.
"Are those mis-mates?" he asked. I didn't know what he was talking about.
"Um...yeah, they sure are." Just then, Nelson stormed in from the sales floor, followed by the salesgirl.
"Tony, where the heck have you been!? We're in the middle of a rush - get out there and help someone!"
"I was helping the new guy..."
"Just get out there." Tony shrugged at me, then ran out. Nelson turned to the girl. "What's going on with the Brandorfs?"
"She's not going for the Brandorfs - she needs an 8 wide and all we've got are D's - she's slipping out of the 8-1/2's and we don't have anything in the Boras."
"Did you try the Murphy's?"
"She needs the leather upper."
"Okay - push the Crosstowns. We don't have any E's but they run a lot wider and they're a much better shoe anyway. If you need to go to the 8-1/2, slip in a heel grip and toe pad." Just then, an older salesman came in from the sales floor.
"Forget the Crosstowns. Sell the Mitchells. They cost twice as much and last half as long so they'll be back in four months wanting more."
"Mitchells are junk," she replied. "I can't believe we sell that overpriced garbage."
"Hey, if you want to increase your sales..." Before he could finish, she was already on her way back to the floor, Crosstown's in hand.
"Don't forget to push the socks.." Nelson called. "They're only twenty dollars for the 12-pack..." But she was already gone. Nelson dropped his shoes on the workbench and turned to me, smiling.
"You're here. What a relief. You can't imagine the number of no-shows we get around here. Did you punch in?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now we're a little busy right now, so what I want you to do is go out there and just observe. See how we work around here. After a while, we'll let you get a chance."
Just then the Tony ran back, a stack of shoes covering his face.
"There's an irate, bovine woman out there who said you were helping her?"
"Well, I..." I said. Nelson interrupted.
"Tony, drop the deadwood and T.O. Al's customer."
"Fine."
The place was a zoo. I was really surprised at the hustle and quick-thinking involved in something seemingly as mundane as selling shoes. I watched Nelson for the most part as he made his rounds between three different customers. One of his customers was a teenage girl, no older than sixteen, looking for a pair of penny-loafers. Another was an elderly Hispanic gentleman, trying on every style of cowboy boots we had, but never looking completely satisfied. Then there was a blond woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties looking for some good walking shoes. After helping each customer, he would run back to the stock room, making mental notes of his customers' orders, all the while making sure to greet every potential customer who walked in. He worked at a frantic pace, rotating from customer to customer, never keeping any of them waiting too long, until he had closed each sale.
The girl bought a pair of men's size six cordovan penny loafers, with a jar of shoe polish and matching socks. The woman took some tennis shoes, which weren't really the color she was looking for, but they were on sale. The cowboy, who never looked satisfied at any one particular pair ended up buying four pairs of boots, a six pack of cotton socks, and three bottles of saddle soap.
Samantha, the red-haired girl, seemed to struggle with her customer, but ended up selling her the Crosstowns with the 12-pack of socks. Tony ran between two customers with surprising quickness. He seemed to zoom right through the stock room, re-emerging with just the right shoes. The customer he had taken over from me ended up buying five pairs of shoes from him. Another salesman, Mark, looked like he was having problems. Three of his four customers walked, not buying anything, and his frustration was apparent.
After almost an hour, things started slowing down, and Nelson motioned for me to come back to the stockroom.
"I guess I better show you around the stockroom first," he said. I followed him to the back where he pointed out each section divided into different styles and sizes. I tried to make mental notes of everything he was saying, but after only a few minutes his droning speech turned into a non-stop ramble of incoherent babbles. He pointed out the new stock, which shoes run long, which shoes run small, which shoes are washable, which shoes need to be broken in, which shoes are made of leather, which shoes are dyeable, which shoes go up to a men's size 13, which women's shoes go past size 10, which shoes run in different widths, on and on, and on, and on. At the end of it all he simply said, " ...and the rest you'll pick up as time goes by." Great.
My first few days at Piedmont's Shoes were taxing; a seemingly endless series of awkward episodes, each of which convinced me that my place in the world was anywhere but this lowly establishment of second-rate footwear. I would stumble through each sale, lost at times, never quite feeling comfortable with any of the customers. It was frustrating. I thought that selling shoes would be something a drunk monkey could do. I thought that all there was to it was taking the customer's selection and fetching it from the stockroom like a dog. But in those first few weeks, I came to realize that shoe selling requires far more intelligence, quick thinking, and personality than I had thought. It wasn't easy, but I forced myself to stick with it. Because at least for time being, it kept a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and the bill collectors at bay. I also got to meet some interesting people.
There was Samantha, the nineteen year old, red-haired, All-American girl from Omaha. Samantha had been working at Piedmont's for almost a year, trying to save enough money so that she could attend South Phoenix Metro Community College, but after ten months of work, she only had enough to pay for the Blue Zone Student Parking Pass. She was hardworking and kind, sensitive and caring. She was the kind of girl who helped her nine year old brother with little league batting practice, and went to the 9:30 service with her parents on Sunday mornings. Quite honestly, she was the sweetest girl I had even known. She had deep-hazel eyes you could get lost in, and a smile that could melt the heart of the coldest Piedmont's patron. It was Sam who helped me the most during those first few weeks, probably because she was the only one in the store who couldn't say no to anyone in need.
There was Tony, the ex-football star from the local high school. Tony and I had a lot in common and he was always good for a laugh. Then there was Vern, the retired army veteran who had grown bored with the meaningless days of shuffleboard and gossip at the retirement home that his kids had dumped him off at. He was slow, but knowledgeable, and always managed to keep his sales numbers above average.
Then there was Fred. Fred was a divorced, slightly overweight, balding man of thirty-eight. He lived and breathed Piedmont's, working open-to-close on most days. The company had allowed him to work so much overtime because of the legendary Streak. When I first started at Piedmont's, the number was 92. He had a streak of 92 consecutive weeks of top sales in the district, 83 weeks higher than the second best. People in the shoe industry called him "The Master." He was honored with a "Profiles in Excellence" column in the visitor's guide at the National Footwear and Handbag Retailers Show and Exhibition in Reno the previous year. He did anything and everything each and every week to make sure his title would remain intact. It had, in fact, become an ugly obsession for him.
As the end of each week drew near, he would keep nervous watch over the district sales figures, continuously calculating his required sales per hour (SPH) to keep ahead of everyone else. It consumed him. If someone was coming to within a few hundred dollars of him on a Friday or Saturday morning, the shakes would begin. His hands would tremble nervously. His eyes would twitch. And he would pace the front of the store, poised to pounce on his next would-be customer, like a heroin junkie on a street corner waiting for his dealer.
But just as sure as the setting of the sun, when the final district sales figures came in at the close of business each Saturday night, Fred's numbers would top the list. He would breathe a sigh of relief and sometimes even crack a smile. "Keepin' the streak alive," he would say to himself.
I once watched him sell three pairs of cowboy boots, four bottles of saddle soap, two cans of polish, and six sequined purses to three nuns from Yuma who had come in to buy some socks for a pair of homeless kids in their parish.
"That was quite a sale," I remarked.
"The damn cheapskates didn't buy any shoe trees," he muttered.
Fred was ruthless and cocky, and because of this, not too many people liked him. There were times, however, when I almost felt sorry for him. At the end of the day, he would often boast about his sales, basking in the day's glory. But the look on his face betrayed a lonely man, a man who knew that all he had to look forward to was retiring to his small, stuffy one-bedroom apartment, where he had no friends or loved-ones, where dinner meant frozen boxed meals, and where the only real family he knew were Mom, Dad, Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Cindy, Bobby, and that annoying little cousin that was added in the later seasons after Cindy’s “cuteness factor” had expired. There were times when I felt like asking him if he wanted to go out for a beer after work or something. But I didn't. I couldn't, because no matter how empty his life appeared to be, there was something about him that made him totally unlikable.
I tried to ask him for help once. Once. I was having a lot of problems with a sale so I turned to Fred for some help.
"You've screwed it up pretty good so far. You might as well finish the job." He smirked at me and walked away.
As the months passed, I found myself getting more and more comfortable as a shoe salesman. My sales numbers were creeping up steadily. I was gaining confidence. There was a time early on when I didn't really care about my sales, when all I would do is count the hours and minutes to the end of the day. But all that changed. It changed the day Fred pulled a register camp on me.
I had been working with a girl for almost an hour. She was picking out matching high heels for her bridesmaids. She needed six different pairs of the same style in an assortment of sizes. After looking at five different styles, she finally decided on one and started pulling her wallet out of her purse. I gathered the six pairs and headed for the counter, relieved that I was ready to close the deal. That's when her mother-in-law-to-be opened her mouth.
"You know what," she said, "We forgot to check MacMardies for shoes. I think they're having that big sale this weekend." She girl paused, her credit card dangling in front of me.
"Oh," the girl said, obviously frustrated. "I guess we could check them out," she said, not wanting to disappointed her future mother-in-law. She turned to me, her credit card in retreat.
"I'm sorry. Um....could you hold these for twenty minutes? We need to check one more place." I didn't know what to say.
"Well, I suppose so. "
"Thanks." And with that, the two quickly turned to leave.
I waited twenty minutes, holding on to the hope that they would return. But after an hour, I realized that they wouldn't be back. It was a slow day, so I kept myself busy cleaning the stockroom. Sam was helping someone, and Fred camped out at the register, checking his figures. Then the girl came back.
"What can I sell you today?" Fred asked. The girl picked up the stack of six boxes next to the counter.
"Could you ring this up for me," she said, handing over her credit card.
"No problem," he replied. "But I think you're going to need some purses to match..."
"Just the shoes, please. I'm in a hurry."
I walked out of the stockroom just as she was leaving with her shoes.
"Hey, those were mine, " I told Fred. He looked at me indignantly.
"She didn't asked for you. I tried to help her with some purses. The sale's mine." And he walked away. I couldn't believe it. Even among the ranks of shoe salesmen, there is a clearly defined code of ethics. When a customer walks in the door and is approached by a salesperson, that customer belongs to that salesperson. Everyone knows that. The girl was mine. Fred had stolen her.
And that's when it started. Sure I wasn't the best shoe salesmen, but I was learning. I was getting better. I had developed a small, but effective repertoire of personalized sales techniques which yielded better than expected results. And even if being a shoe salesman wasn't my dream job, and even if I had my share of problems, I knew that something had to be done. The Master had to be defeated.
Breaking The Streak wasn't going to be easy, but I realized that the odds were in my favor and all the pressure was on Fred. How much longer could he keep it up? Each week I drew closer and closer, my sales stronger and stronger. I took product literature home with me. I immersed myself in the world of shoes. I read books about sales techniques. But most importantly, I learned how to talk to people. I learned about what motivated people to buy and how to best meet their needs and expectations.
It all started innocently enough. It was mid-morning on a Sunday. The mall was just getting ready to open. I hadn't had breakfast yet and the only thing open in the food court was Happy CornDog and the Pretzel Factory. I opted for Happy CornDog, where the Happy CornGirl assured me that the battered handy-meals were a mall favorite. Despite her guarantee, I found myself putting line after line of yellow mustard on it, bringing to mind Nelson's curiously branded necktie. After only a few bites however, I had to stop. I tossed it back into the grease-stained carton and discarded it on the workbench.
I came out swinging that Sunday morning, with four straight multiple pair sales. I was on a roll and Fred knew it. He kept up, but every time he countered with a big sale, I'd be right behind him with another. By early afternoon, I could see he was getting tired. By late afternoon, he had passed me up by a few hundred dollars and rested comfortably in the lead, having worked the floor straight through lunch. By early evening though, he was famished. Beads of sweat rolled down the side of his face. I thought he was going to pass out.
"You can have the rest of my corndog," I offered, jokingly. But before I knew it, he was in the back eating the cold remnants of my breakfast.
Fred didn't make it to the end of the day, the corndog obviously not agreeing with his stomach. By Sunday night, he found himself in the emergency room, contending with a nasty bout of food poisoning that kept him off the sales floor for the next two days. With Fred out, my sales skyrocketed. By midweek, I held a commanding lead over the rest of the district. There was a buzz throughout the valley that The Streak was in jeopardy.
Fred walked into the store Wednesday night, his face ashen. He walked straight to the register and pulled up the running totals for the district. He looked at my name atop the sales list and threw me a hateful glare.
"You tried to poison me," he said, "but it'll take more than that to break up The Streak."
"Fred, I..." He had lost his mind. I couldn't believe that he would think that I purposely fed him that corndog just so I could increase my sales. I tried to apologize, but he wouldn't listen. So I met his defiance with strengthened resolve and determination to end The Streak. I posted strong numbers through Wednesday. Fred was still obviously slowed by his sickness. But by Thursday night, Fred was back on top of his game. He blew me away on Thursday and beat me again on Friday, a day I worked through despite it being my day off. On Saturday morning, my once sizeable lead over Fred and the rest of the district had shrunk down to just a few hundred dollars. Now the pressure was on me. I had had a phenomenal week, but now Fred had the clear advantage.
It didn't take long for him to take command of the day, and by early afternoon, he assumed his familiar spot, back on top of the district sales numbers. I kept on fighting, countering with a handful of small, but quick sales. For the rest of the night, we battled back and forth. But with five minutes to go before closing, Fred closed his last sale, securing his spot on top.
I couldn't believe it. I had come so close, but now it seemed that The Streak would be intact. I started pulling in the displays, ready to close the store for the night. And that's when she came in.
"Can you please help me?" she asked. "I'm going out of town tomorrow and I need some shoes." Fred saw her and immediately objected.
"I'm sorry mam, we closed." Fred was only ahead of me by $36, and he knew that a single sale could push me over the top.
"Actually, I'd be more than happy to help you." I replied. Fred watched nervously from the counter as I started bringing shoes out for her. She was looking for a pair of walking shoes for a breast cancer walk-a-thon she was doing with her daughters the next day in Seattle. I showed her a variety of shoes, keeping in mind that I had to break the $36 price point to get ahead of Fred. In the end though, there were only two shoes that she really liked: The Crosstowns and the Mitchells. The Crosstowns were $29.95, and the Mitchells were $54.95. She couldn't decide between the two because they both felt very good. She would try on the Crosstowns, then the Mitchells. Over and over, back and forth. Fred's hands were trembling, the fate of his long standing streak hanging in the balance.
"I can't decide," she said. She turned to me. "You've been so helpful. What do you think I should do?"
The Streak was mine to conquer. All I had to do was push her towards the Mitchell's and the title would be mine. Fred, Nelson, Tony, and Sam all stood by the counter, watching for my next move. I looked at the Mitchells. I looked at the Crosstowns. And then I looked into the woman's eyes, ready to give her the pitch. But as I was ready to speak, I noticed something in the reflection of her glasses. I saw Fred. I saw Nelson, and Tony, and Sam. And for the first time in months, I saw myself. I saw myself and who I was and what I knew I didn’t want to become. And in that single moment, a great calm came over me, as if I suddenly knew where I was and where I belonged. I turned around and looked at Fred, winked at Sam, and gave the woman my reply.
"Actually mam, the Mitchells aren't really made as well as the Crosstowns. They may cost more, but the Crosstowns are actually a much better shoe and a much better value. I think that you're really better off going with them." Everyone was stunned.
"Well, thank you," she said. "I really appreciate your help." No one could believe what I had just done. Fred was busy doing cartwheels in the stockroom. But I knew deep inside that I did the only thing I could do. Sure, I wouldn't beat Fred, but I still posted strong numbers and had quietly become the second best salesperson in the district. More importantly, I had come to realize something - that although life doesn't always fall into place exactly the way you have it planned, life does go on. All you can ever do is make the best of it. That's exactly what I had done. I had become a shoe salesman, a good one – the kind of salesperson who cared more about doing a good job, than making the quick buck. I picked up her shoes and walked to the counter with a smile of contentment on my face.
The woman came up to the counter, handing me her credit card.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she said, as I started ringing up her sale. "I'm going to need a 12-pack of socks to go with those."
2.21.2009
Why I Write
A few years ago, I picked up a collection of essays edited by Will Blythe entitled Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction. In it, writers such as Rick Bass, Elizabeth Gilbert and about two dozen other writers I had never heard of shared their ideas on writing. I found the first few essays fascinating, but after a while grew tired of reading about what motivates other writers. I found myself asking the question: Why do I write? What do I hope to get out of this? Fame? Fortune? Notoriety?
At the end of the day, I realized that while it would be nice to be recognized as the next Ernest Hemingway, or to have as much money as J.K. Rowling, I have more modest and realistic goals. I write simply because I truly enjoy the creative process and the art of story telling. I think that Stephen King, in his book On Writing did a masterful job describing how fiction allows an author to create characters, breathe life into those character, and then watch them interact as the story unfolds. That is what I strive for - to create characters that tell a story. I don't have a particular genre that I like to write in. Perhaps I just haven't found it. I don't have a hidden agenda, though many of my stories do have an underlying theme. I have come to terms with the fact that nothing I write is perfect, and therefore would likely be subject to criticism. I welcome that. At my age, I can't allow the fear of rejection or criticism to keep me from moving forward. I am reminded of Grand, a character in Albert Camus's feel-good novel The Plague who spends years painstakingly crafting the first line of his novel, with the anticipaction that the would-be publisher would read it and exclaim, "Hats off!" While such acclaim would be nice, I don't have the years left in me.
So here goes nothing. If anyone has any tips about writing or publishing or blogging or how to make the perfect cheeseburger, let me know.
Thanks!
At the end of the day, I realized that while it would be nice to be recognized as the next Ernest Hemingway, or to have as much money as J.K. Rowling, I have more modest and realistic goals. I write simply because I truly enjoy the creative process and the art of story telling. I think that Stephen King, in his book On Writing did a masterful job describing how fiction allows an author to create characters, breathe life into those character, and then watch them interact as the story unfolds. That is what I strive for - to create characters that tell a story. I don't have a particular genre that I like to write in. Perhaps I just haven't found it. I don't have a hidden agenda, though many of my stories do have an underlying theme. I have come to terms with the fact that nothing I write is perfect, and therefore would likely be subject to criticism. I welcome that. At my age, I can't allow the fear of rejection or criticism to keep me from moving forward. I am reminded of Grand, a character in Albert Camus's feel-good novel The Plague who spends years painstakingly crafting the first line of his novel, with the anticipaction that the would-be publisher would read it and exclaim, "Hats off!" While such acclaim would be nice, I don't have the years left in me.
So here goes nothing. If anyone has any tips about writing or publishing or blogging or how to make the perfect cheeseburger, let me know.
Thanks!
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