It was 2009 and I heard a call to action.
Black Jesus had spoken and it was time to get off of the couch.
By this time, the recession was in full swing. Every month, the unemployment numbers were worse.
Layoffs were detailed in headlines on every channel.
I watched my savings dwindle. I had been on a few interviews but no one was calling back. I would occasionally talk to friends who would tell me they were out of work also.
I got the New York Times and scanned the two inch by two inch classified section.
There it was.
Like a shining beacon in a sea of black and gray. I circled it with a red pen and dashed for the computer.
“Send your resume.” I chanted loudly until I was finally all ready, cover letter written, email open, resume attached. I clicked send and crossed my fingers.
The next week, the phone rang. I had landed an interview in the energy industry. I looked the company’s website up and wondered what I was in for.
Ten people sat in chairs that lined the perimeter of the wall street office of a Canadian originated energy service company. Insiders call them escos. I was basically in a cattle call interview for the next Enron.
They blew smoke up my ass about the average income of their sales representatives for the rest of the week. I was happy to bend over for it too. I knew that as much as they were speakking theoretically, that you really can capitalize on any opportunity if you bust your ass. I started to think of who I could bully and cajole into doing business with me. I had a list compiled in my head and I was ready to hit the ground running. I had learned my lesson.
Then, I hit a snag.
They pulled me aside one afternoon after the group had been dismissed from training. There was a management position they were hiring for and wanted to know if I was available and interested. My ears perked.
The recruiter was leaving. She had been the most professional person I had encountered in my short time there so far. The manager, who had been running the “training sessions”, was clearly out off his depth. The man was an idiot. So when I heard that the recruiter was leaving, I was slightly concerned that a lot of responsibility must be on her shoulders and that she was probably carrying this guy.
I had been out of work for so long, I didn’t care if I literally had to carry him around the office. I needed money.
I was interviewed, my resume scoured and then invited to dinner. The regional manager was in town from Canada. Dinner was a tradition.
Three of the top sales reps and I sat in the lobby on a bitterly cold night, waiting for a car service. After we got in the cars and drove the three blocks (not kidding) to the restaurant, I found myself sitting in front of an old haunt.
In the years between real estate and my current unemployment, I had found success selling wine in the restaurant industry. This was a restaurant that I had sold to. I knew the owner.
Unfortunately, the top sales rep for the energy company knew him also. He was already a client.
Booooooo.
I was the only woman at this soiree. We were served generously and I realized quickly that the oatmeal I had eaten more than six hours ago wasn’t absorbing the vodka I was drinking at a satisfactory rate.
I stopped. The rest of the party kept on drinking. And drinking. And drinking.
By ten, I was ready to hop on the subway home.
“You’re coming to the club with us, right?”
Suddenly, everyone was asking.
I had no idea there was an after party. I looked around at the group of men I was with. None were under forty.
Some were married and wore their rings, some were married and I only knew because someone else told me. I was younger then these men by a range of fifteen to thirty years.
I rain checked on the club offer. They wanted to go to a club I hadn’t been to in two years.
Why would I go to a club with a bunch of old, drunk, loud men who were clearly looking for action?
I was given cab fare and was happy to leave.
The next morning was an important morning. I had set my mentor up with an appointment at a restaurant. He was supposed to meet with the owner at 10 am to discuss his energy bills. They assign you a mentor so you can learn from them. Obviously.
This is how the process was supposed to go:
The first week, you make calls and set appointments for your mentor gathering as much information as you can so they can hit it out of the park.
Once the two of you collaborate to close five accounts in this manner, you start making appointments and accompanying your mentor so you can learn how it goes once you’re out in the field.
This whole time, your income is totally dependent on your mentor being successful.
It was 9:45 am and the last thing had I said to my mentor before jumping into the cab the night before was, “Don’t forget about your appointment in the morning.”
I sat anxiously hoping he would call me with good news within the next thirty minutes. I was tired of eating oatmeal.
Five minutes later, a strange commotion stirred in the office a few feet away. My attention was drawn to a sound emanating from under one of the desks.
To make a pathetic story short, my mentor, in all his infinite wisdom, had decided that it would be a better idea to come back to the office to crash for the night instead of going home to sleep.
I was mortified to find him snoring under a desk.
The next series of events will shock you further.
I promise.
The discussion over dinner that fateful night in the restaurant was in great part, about me taking over for the recruiter. When word started swirling around the office that the recruiter was leaving, I assumed no responsibility for the rumor. I hadn’t brought it up at dinner and I hadn’t told anyone in the office that hadn’t brought it up to me.
Somehow, it got back to both the recruiter and the manager that I was told I had the job already.
I scratched my head. I had asked a few people if they thought it was worth it to lose my freedom. I guess that was a little presumptuous of me. But if I’m going to take a job, I wanted to know if it was worth it. Regardless of whether I actually had it yet or not. These were all people who were sloppily discussing me taking the position over dinner the night before.
I was tremendously confused.
I was summoned to the manager’s office. Here is what this ignoramus said,
“Gabe is just a sales representative. I am the manager here.”
I shook my head in agreement.
“I don’t know where he gets off telling you that the job is yours. I make that decision.”
Ok. Now it was starting to crystallize.
The quick back story is that Gabe was meant to be in this man’s position but because he was the top earner in the nation, he could not be taken out of the field. So Gabe let his presence be known as the top rep and threatened this man’s, well… man-ness.
I was caught in the cross streams of a pissing contest of the likes I had never seen before.
“Can I say something?” I interrupted.
He obliged.
“Gabe never told me I had the position. I don’t even know who told him it was offered to me. We had a discussion about whether or not it was worth it to chain myself to a desk and possibly cap my earning potential.”
Apparently this bit of information washed right through his brain and latched on to nothing. He continued his tirade about Gabe and his lack of authority. He confirmed with me that I would be working with him, not Gabe. I sat there and listened.
The meeting capped off with him letting me know that I still had not been selected for the position.
I was astonished.
I gathered my belongings and went to the ladies room to compose myself.
It was nearing time to quit for the afternoon and not being on the clock and having little inclination to sit back down at my desk, I walked from the bathroom to the elevator bank and exited the building.
As I rounded the corner to walk to the subway, I saw the manager, holding court with a bunch of the other employees from the office.
I read his lips as I approached. My name was flying out of his face as I gained proximity. Someone alerted him to my presence and he turned to face me.
“You wonder why people are talking about this? Do you? Go on and continue your conversation. Have a good weekend.”
I walked away not caring.
The next week, I sat down in the recruiter’s office and told her what had gone down. Until this time, we had gotten along just fine. She was warm and willing to share the drama of the office outright. She told me the perks and the pitfalls in prepping me to take over for her.
Now she was scowling and seemed cold.
She then gave me a pep talk and asked me how I was doing on the phones. I said I was doing fine.
Then she dropped the bomb. She wasn’t leaving after all. I sat there awestruck and dumbfounded.
She extolled the virtues of the company and told me to concentrate on my sales. I then asked her how she could expect me to go back to scheduling appointments for a mentor who slept off benders under his desk. She had no answer for that question.
I grabbed my belongings and left the office. Never to return.
I later found out that my mentor had been the person spreading the word that Gabe told me I had the job. I also later learned that he was arrested and remanded to rehabilitation for substance abuse.
Months after that, I was working for a different energy company, a less scummy one. I tried to do business unsuccessfully with a young man who was deeply connected in the “industry”. He coincidentally, represented a hotel in Manhattan that had just signed on with my new company but through my mentor. (The industry doesn’t require fidelity or non compete clauses. Many sales representatives worked with different escos at the same time.)
“No, it’s not possible. They‘re my client and they have not signed anything.”
There was an investigation. It turns out that my mentor had been forging signatures the entire length of his six month tenure. All of his accounts were fraudulent. He is now being sued for thousands and thousands of dollars.
What... a mentor.
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