First off, I got burned by a slimy salesman the other day.
The phone rings…
Salesman: “Hi [Bimmerphile], I saw your resume on Monster. It looks really good, you’ve definitely got all the qualities we’re looking for.”
Me: “Oh, great.” (I’m happily working as an independent software developer, but it never hurts to keep your options open :))
Salesman: “Our corporate overview is tomorrow night, and we’d love to have you come down here to take a look.”
Blah, blah, blah.
Long story short, I went down the following day to this “corporate overview” I was “invited to attend”.
I got scammed.
The “corporate overview” turned out to be a 1.5 hour lecture on why I should be interested in becoming a financial services salesman for a Fortune 500 company that shall remain unnamed.
It had nothing to do with software development, nothing to do with what is scribbled all over my resume that this slimy two-bit didn’t-wanna-flip-burgers-so-instead-I-swindle-people-for-a-living know-nothing apparently read, and ultimately cost me three hours of my life (I had to drive to the other end of town to get there) that I could have otherwise spent socializing, networking, swimming, biking or heck, watching an infomercial.
Even though I like referring to sales as an “intellectual Grim Reaper”, I can appreciate the allure of it. I did it myself this past winter in England after having spent the previous six months travelling all over the place and finally ending up needing some cash coming in. The limitations of my UK WH visa wouldn’t let me get paid to write code in England, so I figured I might as well try something else that’ll give me the chance to earn a lot of money.
And I did earn a fair bit of money in the couple of months I was able to tolerate it, before I returned to Canada a few months ago.
From time to time, I even tickle the idea of trying it again. It would be a “career move” for me that would allow me a lot more freedom in terms of where I want to live (e.g. I love travelling a lot. I could go back to travelling Europe, and actually be allowed to work in a sales job as that wouldn’t constitute was has – to this point – been my “career”), and provide a more direct performance vs. income relationship. At the same time, I would not be interested in a working environment composed (or decomposed, take your pick) of people like that guy who “saw my resume on Monster and really liked it”.
I acknowledge that being good at selling is definitely a skill to be mastered, but are there any salespeople in this world that aren’t slime?
Are there any salespeople in this world who are more than just soul-selling money-grubbing liars?
Are there any salespeople in this world with depth, curiousity and intellect beyond that contained in a bowl of soup?
