just like i said i would. i was giving my two week notice today at work. turns out, i no longer have a job.

i walked in the door. got settled. started going through the normal routine. everyone was happy and talking to me. then the boss starts in. my last words to any employees were helping one of the water guys format a word document, and telling the secretary id be over in a second to schedule an istallation. the boss had other plans. he started right in on the same old shit.

at 8:35 he told me that i should "write 6 or 8 things that you need to do to be successful in the business on the board" puzzled for why, or what to write; i took a few minutes. then wrote some of the phrases - better than ___, knowledgeable, selective, convincing, honest, prepaired, faster than __. he made me explain everything behind them, and acted like every idea i had was a foreign subject to him. to be better than my competition since we all sell and service the same stuff; to be knowledgeable about what im dealing with that i dont have to make second trips or second guess information; to be convincing to the utmost to make customers see why they buy from us, to be honest with deals and integrity, to be prepaired to make a deal whenever i can, and be ready for anything; and to be faster at anything and everything than the competition was. the last phrase, selective. pissed him off. i explained it as... in 4 months youve had me spend 95% of my time prospecting, from that i have zero sales, and zero leads. // i write a big 0 on the board // then i said, from doing things with my approach in 5% of my time dealing with customers i have 4 sales. // i write 4 on the board, then drew a pie chart to match and connected the numbers // so, i need to be more selective. my time is worth my sales and my customers benefit. if i take 95% of my time to produce nothing, i wont be successful, so i need to be much more selective with prospecting and focus on customers.

he stood there. then boiled over. blah blah something about im not in a position to dictate things like that, that in my position i cant rule out anything. i need to be making 50 cold calls per day. i need to prospect my ass off constantly to find deals. i stop him. no, i said. i sought advice from people whove been in sales 20 years to 2 years, and everyone of them laugh at this model you want. they all agree, if i can get success with my way, stick with it. he shakes his head, folds his arms and stares at me. i again state more loudly, before i sit down, i will not loose 95% of my time to prospecting worthless accounts, for the company im a walking newspaper ad, and thats not selling anything in my territories. he sits down. "in this business, not everyone can make it. you need to realize not everyone will, and maybe this isnt for you. we want you to be successful and making cold calls and getting to cust---"

hes burning up now, because i cut him off as i reply dryly. "i hear this everytime, and you know what, frankly im sick of it. maybe its not, would you be more happy if we talked about this then?" and i pulled out my notice and dropped it on his desk. he stops. reads it quickly. never looks up at me. and says "fine. but i dont need this, youre done."

so pretty much like that, i wagered my job for the first time in my career. and i lost. i wagered that being successful said, your model sucks, its outdated, its defunct, and even the competition who is desparate, avoids it. and in all seriousness thats the truth about it. no one goes door to door. no one wastes time like that. except us. and im not getting sales from it. so the two cowpoke stand in the street. in my mind, i threw the first insult, and opened the jacket to show i was ready to draw. he paces me. says "fine" then cheap shots me in the guts. he never wanted to kill me out right. because if he took the time to draw a bead, i had him dead to rights all day long. i could go around and around about the feasability of going door to door in a 4 county area, and be right. but thats just not what he wants to hear. so he takes a low, quick shot, to put me down on the ground. what kind of man does that? the one that told me on my first week, he was going to be my role model, as a sales man and as i became a man. i laughed at him then. and walking out the door, clutching my guts, i laugh at him now.

did i ever want to own RK Dixon? hell no. did i ever want to be the best sales man in the company? fuck no. did i want to make money? yes. was prospecting at $1500, minus 500 per month in gas, and 300 in car insurance going to make me money? nope. but thats all they want. so he tried to dry me out and stick in bfe, to see if id break. instead, i bent around it; and managed to make sales my way. he couldnt take it. so thats why i forced the showdown. had he understood that, or consented that it could be a viable way to grow the market, id have never put down my cards. but he started right in on the same lines of shit again. and i dont need that. and obviously, i was no loss on his conscious.

the next 5 minutes saw me bring in my files, dump them all over his desk, drop my laptop onto that pile at chest height, and flip my key card on top of all of it. i signed 4 pages of rules, then flipped my pen on the desk muttered "keep the change" under my breath, and clarified "thats it?" .... "thats it." he said. and i walked out.

so like that i was fired. by 9:05am, i was in the driveway at home again. lost. worried. upset. but proud. in a shifty way, i won that gunfight. he will forever say to his deathbed that i lost it. but i know i won, because i walked away. somewhat damaged. but i walked away. and now he has 4 counties of horseshit to prospect with his time. in an office of 6 sales reps, he has 3 now. youll never find a horse to run that circuit by yourself. and all he had to do was listen to someone. listen to reason. sure. im the punk calling you out in the street mr big bad boss man. but im calling you out because everyone knows im in the right. business dies if it cant adapt or accept ideas. their days are numbered. and so was mine. so to romanticize it all makes me feel better about it. but really in the end, im better off for this. ill be poor. ill be jobless. ill be the "looser" for them. like everything else in my life, ill be the looser. ill be the guy that cant get dates. ill be the guy who every woman finds it ok to break my heart. ill be the guy that goes into work on pain meds to make it in because you dont want to. im the guy that stops and changes tires in the mud so some so-ho wont get wet. ill be the one that gets beat up for what he thinks is right everytime. ill be the one that deals with the shit-eating jobs because someone, somewhere thinks thats all im worth. but ill be damned if i ever roll over to someone like that, even if it costs me my job. and this time it did.

like i said. in some shifty way, i won that gun fight.


{{by the way, the scene is a screen capture from For A Few Dollars More }}

so tomorrow i give my notice. im sick of the crap. im sick of the attitudes. im sick of how they treat me. im sick of working a job thats never going to make me money until 18 months from now. im fucking tired of being in a position where its not working out, and it aggrivates me more every day i go in. so. im cutting the cord. they get me until next friday. if they want, ill leave this friday. or tomorrow afternoon. but fuck it all. im done being a bitch for this place.

ive now been upgraded to narcotics to deal with this back problem. its not necessarily that it hurts so much in constant pain, its that it hurts so strongly when its agitated. like when i sit, or when i lift. or yes, when they repack the hole. so. its scary. i might brag abit about getting moved up, but in reality when i went to pick up the medication, i was a bit apprehensive. i just wish they made something like vicodin for my life.

im getting dug into that ditch at work, where they are starting to expect me to be just like the other reps with 6 years of tenure... and im not. im in the point of my life where id very much like to earn my age in salary, at a minimum. and im not. id like to be independent again. but i cant be. and i really want whats in my dreams every night to actually happen for me once. sometimes its a struggle to make ends meet. sometimes its difficult to put over the top at your job. its not always easy to get the respect you deserve in your life. and chasing your dreams, is really just that... a chase. but why does it feel like nothing can line up right for me now. i get the analogy about throwing dice someone sent me. that when you crap out, you should throw the dice one more time, when its for no money, to see that its just luck, and to see that luck can change. its just hard to follow that when you see the same things on the dice each time.

i guess i should be lucky that im as healthy as a im right now. or that i have a place to sleep. or that i even have a job, and arent still unemployed. but. god damnit none of that cures lonliness. none of that makes it ok, when your dreams come to realize they just dont want you dreaming about them. i guess maybe thats why they give me stronger drugs. to make the pain go away.