Tuesday, October 31, 2006

so the tidal wave is coming... i just hope i can manage to stay above water when it rises... its the old people, the elderly, they revolt! just another day at the M; and why would i say such a thing? the normal amounts of toothless nascar "contractor" crews came in.... just the normal flow of mexicans with 5 year olds translating for them showed up... but it was the old people. the people over 68 years old, were starting the riots today. one litterally pushed and shoved, twice, someone in my department over a 2 dollar filter. another threw a fit because the store would only give her in-store-credit for a check she wrote the day before... all of them were stomping around getting pissed off about god knows what... and what surprised me was the nature of the violence... actually physically shoving someone... it was bad enough we had him walked out. then the old bat i had to deal with wasnt much better... just another typical day i suppose. somehow, this clientel we amass, just seems to find new ways to penetrate all the pores on my skin each day, making me question the true nature of people. but i have to remind myself, that when the buisness model is to deal with the bottom end, with the lowest prices, with the people that have no business buying and doing things; if that is your business... then youre bound and determined to end up with people like this in your stores. and i think, i traded in my jacket and tie for this.

exactly one year ago, i walked into RK Dixon, wide eyed, and hopeful. officially a copier rep. unofficially, i should have begun counting my days at that moment. i remember being led around, meeting nearly a hundred people in an hour, that even months later could never remember who they were; thinking, "could this be a good thing?" i remember having my hair slicked up, wearing my new suit; which was my college graduation present from my parents, sitting in my 2 week old car; with my hand on the door handle, being nervous about what i say and do. being nervous about who i was inside that car, and who was going to get out of it. that sound so sad. but at the time, i was nervous about becoming an adult. wearing adult clothes, with and adult car, and the adult job. i was nervous about having a place there in that adult kind of world. and in the end, they didnt have a place for me. and i think. i guess i still think about how it would have been if id stayed... or if i could have made it work longer... i think about how much of an adult, like them... like they wanted me to be, that i would have become by now. but in reality; i was nervous about being me. not about becoming an adult, but nervous about being me, scott; in a room full of professional adults. because, thats really what it was. the slicked up hair, the fancy suit, the shinned up shoes, the slick job... how much of that was me. how much of that was me underneath it, working for someone else, being told to not to be me, but to be a slick copier salesman, pushing boxes into offices. to be able to force the glib joke, to make 30 appointments per week, to land a million dollar sales line... i was was nervous about becoming that... when i should have been nervous about why they wanted that. looking back now, i miss wearing the jacket... the tie.... the shoes.... i miss having a reason to look nice. i miss having a job with some sort of presteige and opportunity. but. i missed being me. to do that, meant i had to be them... be like them, be with them, do for them, do as them... to be them. and i wasnt. dont get me wrong. i sold copiers in my time with them. but i wasnt one of them. and i was nervous about how i could be. but i traded it in for this... idiocy looms dark in the clouds, i should say... and the light of retrospect is bright; but a pinhole in the sky. a year ago i started my day, with my coffee in hand. on my first day as a real sales rep. as a real adult. a year later, i remember the day for what it was. i remember that i was last year, and this is now, this year. this year, i sell toilet seats. last year i sold 50,000 dollar copiers. last year, i was just begining where i thought my life was going. this year, i sit near the dead end of the life i hoped to abandon. today, but last year, i sat with a picture of a very special person on my empty desk. i had my note pad, my new company lap top, the telephone that didnt work, and my picture of her in my hand, sitting at my cube. she made me smile. it was a funny picture i took with me. almost like i knew, i was moving into a place where id need the humor in her eyes most days to make it through. this year, i look at it as a picture. i hold the same picture, thats now face down in my desk drawer. shes the same person. in the picture atleast. i want to think shes the same person a year later. but this year... i dont live with pictures. this year, shes pretty much let me know what the score is, and id rather not talk about it... just to say, this year, i look at that picture and remember what i wanted; and try to forget what i wont get. this year, isnt much like last year. last year was a picture in my hand. this year, i put it back in the drawer, facedown. this year is just another year. this year, i sit in my car, with my hair all loose and mangled... i wear rumpled jeans and tore up boots... i eat a cold lunch in a box... and somehow, with that picture in my mind, i have to realize what last year was worth before i get to next year.