TEMP MAN FOR SALE OR RENT

CHAPTER ONE

INITIAL THEME SONG

Temp man for sale or rent, jobs to let low percent

No phone, no food, no frets, I ain’t got no benefits

Ah, but 8 hours of punchin’ keys gets a 1st floor, 6 month lease

I’m a man of means by no means, king of the temps

Fifth ‘signment daytime shift, destination 3rd floor lift.

Old worn out suit and shoes, don’t pay no ‘surance dues.

Sup' visors I have found, think they walk on holy ground.

I'm a man of means by no means, king of the temps.

I’ve done er' temp job in every town

Whatever the job needs without a frown

'N every kind of work I’m renown

'N every one day ‘signment I am found

I sing... (first verse above)

STARTING LIFE

I was born into a dysfunctional and abusive family which led to a divorce and remarriage into yet another bad one.

Pop came to one of my swim meets one summer. I had injured my back so I was not going to swim, just coach the team. It looked like another close meet with Swarthmore Vanderbilt Country Club.

The first meet they were ahead by a few points going into the last event. I swam anchor and clearly touched first underwater. It wasn't seen that way by the judges. They ruled it a tie and Vanderbilt took home the trophy. Got to learn to touch above the water!!!!

When it came time for the return meet at their pool, my back was all plastered up from a back sprain earned at diving practice. I couldn't enter any events. Everyone pleaded with me to swim.

OK, I ripped off the mustard pack like some kind of hero and stood on the starting block wondering if I could even finish the first event.

"On your mark," said the starter.

Oof, hard to bend over.

"Bang!," went the starter's gun.

I got touched out in the 50 yard freestyle. But our second and third place kept us in the meet.

Then I turned over and won the 50 yard backstroke. I drank up half the pool. Backstroke is not my thing. Every point counted.

I didn't enter the diving because I needed to save myself for the last relay. I wondered if that might cost us the meet. Brian surprised me and took a first place. We really needed those points.

Thirty minutes later it was still nip and tuck.

It would go down to the last event: mens 200 yard freestyle relay, again!

You could hear the crowd noise all the way across the golf course.

My back was real stiff. I have to ignore it. Brian went third and was battling to lessen Vanderbilt's lead. Their anchor man had already beaten me in the 50 free.

I really needed a good start. I took a chance and leaned dangerously over the water from atop the starting block as Brian approached the end of his leg. My body was completely over the water as Brian touched. The anchor of the Vanderbilt team and I dove together.

I was so stiff. I started windmilling and got behind. I could see he was half a body length ahead of me.

I calmed down, stretched out my stroke, got my rhythm back and then sped up the tempo. We were neck and neck.

At the wall, I reached out and touched first on top of the water.

Someone lifted me out of the pool. We had won and the roar was deafening. Everyone hugged me. I was lifted up on someone's shoulders and then sent flying back into the pool. The whole team jumped in with me to celebrate.

Pop saw it all. He had no idea about my swimming. He took little interest in me. He was totally amazed and shocked at what he saw that day.

When we got home, he reached out and grabbed my upper arm. On the one hand he said he was amazed how good I was. And on the other hand, he remarked with fear in his eyes how strong my arms looked, how big I was getting. He went over to the kitchen door and opened it. He said, "Watch this!"

He slammed his fist into the center panel.

BAM!!!

The wood door shuddered violently and crashed closed.

BAM!

Mom looked on in fear.

"Just remember, the old man can still deliver a punch," he said.

Mom mumbled something I didn't understand to Pop.

One morning, several months later, Pop smashed the back of his hand across my face. It caught me completely by surprise. I forgot which color tupperware mom kept the Fleischman's in. I inadvertently used Pop's spread instead of the oleomargarine.

It didn't hurt that much physically, but the emotional pain was excruciating. I went outside and broke every window in the garage door through angry tears. Then I came in and announced that he would never touch me again like that.

Mom apologized for Pop's behavior. Then she told me that the windows would come out of my allowance.

There were new rules too: Mom said she was to ring the dinner bell once and I was to come down to get my tray and bring it up to my room. She said that she was to wait a few minutes until my presence was not evident downstairs and ring the bell twice so that the rest of the family could come down to eat together without me. I would have to eat all my meals in my room by myself from now on.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays, I was told to pack my bags for an overnight stay at a friend's house.

I hardly ever saw Pop again. He constantly complained through mom that he could hear my steps on the stairs coming down from my room in the attic. So I had to tip toe like a thief all the time.

The final step of isolation leading to banishment from the family began shortly after I turned seventeen.

GETTING A NEW FAITH

Doug and I became friends in Junior High School. I spent a great deal of time at his house with his family. Once they even took me on a vacation to Peconic Bay, Long Island.

Life at home in solitary confinement was terrible. I jumped at any invitation to spend time with them. Doug's family were all church goers. They went to the same church I did, all by myself. When I was seventeen, they invited me to a Billy Graham Crusade at the old Madison Square Garden. I said yes because I enjoyed being with Doug's family. I had no idea what it was going to be like.

Our seats were in the highest section. The podium looked tiny from there. It actually wasn't very interesting either. After we did some singing along with George Beverly Shay, a preacher named Billy Graham got up and started telling us about being sinners. We had to make a decision that night to repent of such a lifestyle and make a commitment to follow Jesus. I was shocked at what that meant. I was going to hell unless I lived better and did something about all my wrong doing in the past. I hadn't seen myself as all that bad a person who needed to be straightened out. This outing turned into something horrifying.

I told Doug that I wasn't going to go down to the arena floor to make a decision to repent. I had no confidence that I was capable of following through all my life.

Over the next five minutes, my section was completely vacated except for me in the middle - totally exposed to TV cameras and the surrounding crowds. Everybody I knew was out of sight. I quickly got up out of my seat to go with the crowd so I wouldn't look conspicuously unholy. I followed hundreds of people down the narrow steps all the way to the arena floor. We sang a few hymns and prayed. My mind wasn't on any of this. I was worried that I'd never be able to find my seat again. I couldn't find my ticket stub that located my seat, now so far away. I was virtually lost with no money in my pocket, no way to get home.

The crowd started to move. I wasn't paying attention to what was going on. I moved with it like a cow moves with the herd. There were more ramps to walk down below the arena floor.

I put a name tag on my shirt I got from a table on the left and moved forward with the rest of the crowd.

Then everyone spread out in a huge underground area with building columns all over the place. A subway appeared at the far end and rumbled on.

I looked for familiar faces amongst thousands of people. It was overwhelming. I was lost forever!

"Robert?", someone said to my right.

"Yes."

I don't recall the man's name. He said he was a school teacher.

"How am I going to get home," I said. "I can't find the people I came with?"

He tried to calm me down assuring me that I would be taken care of. Then he quietly explained how Jesus Christ died for my sins and if I trusted in Him I would have everlasting life.

All of my concerns left me. I was made to realize that I certainly did have a problem with God and could not reconcile it any other way but to trust alone in Christ to handle it for me.

That's why I didn't want to come down in the first place. I knew there was no way I could sufficiently repent of my sins for the rest of my life and make such a commitment to live every day for God in order to be saved.

The teacher explained,

"God so loved the world, Robert, that includes you and me; that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins; so that if you believe in Him you will never perish in hell but instead have everlasting life with God in heaven."

He told me from that moment on I would go to heaven. And he showed me several verses that verified this.

I forgot all about being lost in NYC.

The teacher prayed with me, thanking God for saving me and as we finished, Doug's entire family appeared and we went home a happy group.

OUT ON MY OWN

A MATTER OF TIME

From here on it was just a matter of time before I was out on my own.

I was elated about what happened at Madison Square Garden and told everyone in my family - even Pop. That just served to put another nail in my coffin that represented my being dead to my family. I went away to boarding school then college and then was finally told to stay completely away.

Mom visited me to give me birthday and Christmas presents behind Pop's back. And it was nice having her there. Sometimes I came over to do the son thing: use her laundry machines before Pop came home. Other than that, family life, what little there was of it, was over.

Mom died shortly thereafter and Pop moved to Florida to marry another caretaker.

I went through the basic bible study of the gospel of John that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association gave me and then there was nothing. So after a brief, frantic and futile search for a place to learn how to grow in my faith, I rejoined the world for 27 years. There was simply no place to go that taught anything but churchianity and sermonettes for Christianettes.

LIVING IN CUNNINGHAM HEIGHTS

My first apartment was in Cunningham Heights. The neighborhood sounded impressive. I was sandwiched between Jamaica and Bayside, Queens. A ten minute walk, one bus and two subways to work. I never saw so many cock roaches - some of them were two legged. One step above public housing, but the rent was affordable. Making ends meet compelled me to get a roommate. And that's where Bobby came in. He was in a brother squadron at the Naval Air Station in Brooklyn where I did my reserve duty.

I interviewed with Republic Steel and got the job. Bobby said, "Robert, you're too naive. You're never gonna make it big"

I also couldn't figure out why my car's gas gauge kept going down so fast. I left my car home all week. I took the bus & subway to work. One day, I came home early and found it in a different spot with the engine warm. Bobby had been using it for months. He was right, I was naive. I discovered I could pay the rent all by myself - Bobby left me hanging on the rent most of the time anyway. Some Navy buddy he was. Had to let Bobby and the car go to keep my sanity and make ends meet. You really learn a lot about people when you become roommates. But I still hung on to my dream of CEO.

CHAPTER TWO - REPUBLIC STEEL

The Green Monster

I paid my dues at the order desk for a year. It was time to be put on the road. Sales manager, Charlie added a few unfair things I had to do first: get married and pay for my own sales car until he could find a cheap one.

He said, "I gave Frank Visco a brand new sales car and he just quit on me. I can't let that happen again. And he was single like you."

I was really angry about the way I was being treated. Nevertheless, I got married to Rosemary and bought a friend's Rambler Station Wagon for $400.

The car ran well but noisily - had a cracked muffler - smoked a lot. It got the job done. I traveled the highways of New York City and Long Island as an official Manufacturer's Rep for Republic Steel Corporation. It was exhilarating; but I got in the habit of parking the green monster Rambler far away.

Rosemary and I attended our first formal dinner held by the Corporation in Manhattan, dressed in our finest. I drove the official Republic Steel Sales Car into the hotel parking garage. We were sandwiched in between two Cadillacs. When the Cadillac in front of us was driven away, the attendant's face dropped. There was the green monster. He remained professional, gave us our ticket and got in the driver's seat. The smoke from the cracked muffler settled down around us and wisped out of the garage into the night air. Rosemary and I quickly moved away so no one could identify us with the car. You could hear it circling like an old buzzard as it moved up the spiral ramp to a parking space.

I was quite impressed with the elegance of the dinner and the people I rubbed shoulders with. So this was the corporate life. I had forgotten all about my social flaw in the parking garage.

At the end of the dinner, we found ourselves amongst a group of well dressed corporate executives and their wives waiting for their chariots in the parking garage. In a cloud of smoke and a hearty "varroommph" the green monster reared it's ugly front bumper down the spiral ramp. It was the only car that announced it's arrival before you could see it.

I wanted to turn and run. We stayed way back and looked away. At the last moment, I let my wife in the passenger side, moved quickly to the driver's side and handed off the tip and ticket like a quarterback. In 18 seconds we were heading back to Auburndale, Queens. It took the whole ride to feel the corporate shame disappear.

Several months later, relief came: a second hand, Plymouth Belvedere, all white, loaded with four black walls, spare tire, steering wheel and A&M radio.

That Rambler symbolized me more than anything else.

Naive moves up

I was doing pretty well. Once I assumed the Republic Steel 'Man from Manufacturing' identity I got job offers every week. My sales went through the roof simply because I did what my distributors asked - work with them, get them leads, be there when they needed me. Jerry told me that every Friday was order day. So I sat every Friday morning with him at Equipt-All in Brooklyn and wrote up a truckload order. Brooklyn sales went geometric. I was too naive to try to out think anyone. I just responded to my customers and got orders and more orders. I made top ten in the country twice.

But disaster is never too far away.

Lee and Jimmie were the automotive reps for Republic. They decided to strike out on their own. Lee came over to me one day and made me an offer I 'shoulda' refused. He was a smooth talker and made promises he wouldn't keep. But I was naive. So I moved with them. My successor, Frank thanked me. He inherited everything I built up at Republic Steel. I flushed my own career down the toilet.

We got bills to pay, toilet paper to buy

My sales continued with Lee for a season - hardly missed a step. I brought customers over with me from Republic. When it came time for my commissions, however, Lee said he had bills to pay, toilet paper to buy and no one else did very well.

"What's that gotta do with me," I said. I left the job devastated and angry.

"On the road again"

CHAPTER THREE - SPIRAL STEEL

Musical chairs

Spiral Steel was one of my dealers at Republic. He'd offered me a job several times. I liked Herbie. Who didn't. This time, Herb said Hy, his Brooklyn sales rep, was quitting, so the territory was open. I jumped at the offer, but the music stopped and I was left standing while Hy changed his mind and sat down in my chair.

"OK, how about New Jersey", Herb said.

They didn't advertise there, no NJ phone number, no catalogs, no stock, I pay all my sales expenses, and it cost too much to deliver across the river. And worst of all, no incoming sales calls!!!! It was 100% cold calls.

I considered for two days and chose a life insurance career.

Things were desperate with Rosemary expecting. At least I got a draw. Ironically, it was all cold calls and canned sales pitches. A year of "killing people off" for commissions and I was ready for Spiral Steel in New Jersey, but maybe I could negotiate something better than cold calls.

I talked Herbie into giving me a chance to bid on subcontract work. I spent a lot of time in an Architects Plan Room in Clifton, NJ estimating job costs for anything I could get my hands on. Contracts I negotiated were real tight, but Herbie said he had competitive installers that could do the work. Herbie always seemed to have a few tricks up his sleeve.

Lesson number one: Perth Amboy High School

The company landed Medart Locker Company as a supplier. I won a big contract for lockers at the new high school in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Herbie tried to squeeze more profit out of the job with one of his tricks: using non-union labor. They only spoke Spanish, so our crew stood out like sore thumbs and we got caught. We didn't get fined, but we had to use Louie and Carmine from a Long Island union. They did a good job - but they were expensive. Years later, I found out that Herbie had accounting charge the job with dozens of phony fees for his roving installer to cover the cost of down time. I hardly made anything on the contract.

Contracts continued to come in. The profit margin was not as high as industrial sales; volume made up the difference... if Herbie didn't play games.

I tried bidding on other products. My favorite was chalk and tackboard work. Volume jumped quickly, but my income mysteriously lagged behind. Herbie's commission system was so complex that it was months behind. Another one of his tricks.

The Significance of Labor

Bill had done a few carpenter jobs for the company. He had a crew that worked with him. I went to his home in Whitestone, Queens to check him out. The house needed a coat of paint and the clothes the family wore were threadbare. I wondered, with his expertise, why they were so poor.

I sent Bill all over New Jersey and New York. Jobs were completed and I began to negotiated more contracts. We were getting into a rhythm. Bill and his family thanked me so many times for 'rescuing' them that I became embarrassed.

One day, a job superintendent called to tell me he had a problem with Bill. I went to the site that afternoon. He was singing Irish songs while taking slugs from a quart of beer he held in his hand as he worked. His kept rhythm to his singing with a huge screwdriver, punching anchor holes into the classroom wall. The holes went through to the outside hallway - hundreds of them. He was drunk and exhausted.

Shortly after this, Bill had a heart attack on the Whitestone Bridge - he wasn't even forty years old!

Without Bill the rest of the crew fell apart. I farmed the rest of the work out to competitors - tens of thousands of dollars. They made the money I might have made. I retired from the chalkboard business - one more dream shattered. Just throw it on the pile over there.

Camping out in the cafeteria

Well, there were always locker contracts to bid on. I got the job at Ocean County College in South Jersey. Herbie sent his non-union crew from the Bronx. They had no idea how far away the job was. The money he promised them was despicably low. They got there by bus with all their tools. It took the whole day. The walk from the bus stop was miles.There was no place from them to sleep on campus - that wasn't part of the deal. So they slept in the cafeteria. They used sterno stoves to heat up their food. They looked a little out of place the next morning when students started to arrive on campus. None of them spoke English. They did a good job assembling the lockers but the bench and filler work was atrocious. Needless to say I got a phone call about this. We sent our regular installers to finish the job and I lost another customer. The money Herbie tried to squeeze out of the job with these poor installers was spent double in fixing the work they messed up. Net loss to me in commissions.

One job at a time

I got a chance to negotiate the New Gouverneur Hospital job. Biggest contract the company ever won and with huge profit. All kinds of special work to do. It was fun finding all the suppliers to do the specialty work. The commision on this job was worth six months effort. Two problems on the job:

1) Job super, Al needed gas money for his Cadillac.

I couldn't get my equipment to the upper floors on the job without using the elevator. Al had his hand out all the time at the elevator door. I learned to write in "Free use of the elevator" on future contracts to avoid spending my commission before I got it. The very next week Caristo Construction made the headlines for taking elevator money. There were indictments and jail time involved. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like to go to jail just as things were starting to pick up.

2) Get paid for one job before you take on the next.

I submitted a bid on Rikers Island to the same general contractor. Contracts were sent over to sign. Something told me this was too easy. The contract dwarfed New Gouverneur Hospital. I double checked the bid and found several pages were missing in the first set of plans the GC gave me. I never thought to check this. Later on I found out that this GC did this as a matter of course and ended up owning a number of subcontract firms. We were $100,000 short on our bid. Herb kept pushing me to OK the contracts - he was anxious to get paid for the last job. I told him it didn't look good. The next week he signed them anyway in order to get prompt payment for New Gouverneur. The week after that he sent them $20,000 to get out of the Riker's Island deal. Guess who paid for that one in lost commissions?

Joe loved the races

Herbie had trouble finding good union labor. He tried short cuts that backfired and cost thousands. The company was in financial trouble once again. So Herbie took on a partner. Joe was the new foreman for union jobs. The partners would advance him money to do a job and he would man the project with a crew 'til it was finished.

One time Joe disappeared when he was advanced a large sum. We found out three things at the same time: Joe bought a race horse, he was in the hospital with two broken legs, we had partners in our business that scared me.

Another offer

I returned a phone call from one of Herbie's new partners in Brooklyn.

"Where 'r u?" Lou asked, "We gotta talk."

"I'm in the Dodge Plan room.", I said.

He said, "We gotta talk, ah come ova dere."

"They won't let you in here unless you're a member," I said, "It's over in Jersey."

"Ah know where it is. They let me in. Wait fur me.... Click."

A shiver went down my spine?

They let Lou in the private office and asked me to join him.

"Hey, Robert, I hear good thins' 'bout u. You're good salesman. Clean cut. We could use guy like youse... ta sell windows."

"Thanks, Lou. Ya know ya gotta meet city specs. They won't approve the windows 'less you meet specs. The city wants iron, no sheet metal"

"Don' worry 'bout it. Jes le' me know when ya haf problems. Give me couple days 'n u go back. You get 'proved."

".......................OK..................... Can I thin' bout it and get back to u, Lou? Gotta talk dis ova with da wife."

"OK, kid. Don' take too long."

He got up out of the chair. All 250 lbs of him disappeared quickly through the doorway. I heard the manager say, "Goodby, Mr......." as he left.

I dragged my decision out. Lou called me several times. He always seemed to know where I was. For some reason he lost interest and I started taking full breaths.

Handwriting on the wall

The company's credit was so bad it slowed down deliveries. Herbie tried too many shortcuts and it cost time, money and reputation. New Jersey was shot for me. With the slowing economy and our bad reputation, business tailed off to virtually nothing.

Two jobs were better than one

I took a second full time job selling office furniture for a local dealer in Newburgh. Herbie still owed me thousands in commissions because the system was so far behind, so I "kept" working for Spirial Steel so I could continue my draw against commission. Rosemary did her best to bid on jobs from our house. She surprised me and secured a few small ones - not enough to be really helpful. But I'm not good spy material. Herbie got wind of my two lives. I lost all the back commissions and was....

On the road again

OFFICE FURNITURE

The new boss at the office furniture dealership had issues. Mean spirited bosses are tops on my list for reasons to quit. I started to look around so I could make a quiet exit. The town was small - everyone knew everyone else's business. I was fired for looking around. When I filed for unemployment, Herbie lied and said I quit for no reason. Back in those days, there was reason for panic. I had a wife and three children to take care of. So I went further on down in the elevator in my career and took one of the world's worst jobs.

PENS AND PENCILS

I sold pens, pencils, paper clips and legal forms - 12 hours a day. I really needed a knight in shining armor.

Then one day a phone call came from Chicago.

CHAPTER FOUR - MEDART

Mike from Medart had approached me earlier to work for him. This time I took him up on it.

Training in Chicago

It lasted four days 'til my trainer was killed in a knife fight. There was no one else to train me. I hung around for the rest of the week and then picked up my brown cutlass and drove it to Newburgh, New York. Nice car. I had a big challenge: cover the nine northeastern states. I already knew most of the product line pretty well.

I had a lingering feeling of impending disaster in the back of my mind. Mike seemed distant since our last meeting. Shortly thereafter he left the company. So everyone at the company was a stranger to me. My new salesmanager traveled to my home where I had set up a regional sales office in my newly refinished basement. He made a lot of wonderful promises. I would do all the bidding out of my office with 2 staff people and a microfilm scan machine. I could bid on jobs all over the northeast without leaving my basement! One time I sat at a bid opening in south Jersey. One of my competitors came in and complained about how he bumped into my bids everywhere he went. "What's this guy got a helicopter???" I took the lion's share of business everywhere I bid.

Tony the Credenza

Tony was my second manager - they came and went like revolving doors. He wasn't into the job. Contracts weren't getting processed, paperwork got lost all the time. I could have lost a lot of business except I had learned to keep copies of everything. Several years later, I found all the missing paper work neatly stacked in credenzas in Tony's old office. Whatever Tony didn't get done that day, he locked it up in a credenza and left it there. That was his favorite piece of furniture. He just kept buying them. But he didn't micro manage me. My sales were number one in the country. I just had to make sure I followed up on everything and stayed within the rules:

Rule #1: Don't mess with iron workers

Rules said you could use whatever union made the product to install it. Those rules count for nothing in NYC.

Lesson learned at Park Central High School:

1) 100 barrels of hardware spread in chex party mix all over the floor.

2) Larry, Mo and Curley did the job in slow motion.

Estimated cost overrun: $40,000+. Commision = 0.

Rule #2: Don't mess with iron workers

From unbridled elation to terror - that's the roller coaster you get on when I outbid the 'Top Dog'. I bid on the NYC contract for lockers and came out low bidder, fully qualified to enter into contract and jump tenfold in income.

I had visions of six figure income blasted with one call. They knew all about my wife and three boys, what my house looked like, my latest landscaping project, door to door directions. Tom, my friend from Spiral, said, "It was either you or me." He spilled his guts. Couldn't blame him. I called the NY State police to see if I could get some protection. The boys from Brooklyn came to visit me in a big, black, Lincoln Towne Car. They looked like two linemen from the Chicago Bears. They dominated the doorway to the restaurant as they came in. I waited for them in a booth. The State Trooper's patrol car circled the parking lot with the bubble light flashing. Lou discussed how one hand washes the other. Then he looked outside and wondered out loud about the circling trooper. I choked on my BLT on toast. Swallowing was hard. "It's on me," Lou said. I shook hands to agree with his philosophy and went home, glad to walk upright through the door and not feet first. The big boss in Chicago told me that his people spoke to the NY people and got them to back off - so long as I backed off the bid. Miraculous that the city never penalized me one dime for reneging on my bid.

If you don't degrease the paint will slide off

The company moved to Mississippi to see if it could stay afloat with lower operating costs. Bank loans were tied to production. So my Sto Rox High job was pushed out the door without going through the degreasing line. Manager said he bypassed the line to save time.

The installer told me the paint was sliding off the locker doors in one piece - slow motion, like in a cartoon. The doors were bare steel. The corridor floor had hundreds of locker paintings all lined up in a row. Minus $20,000, $0 commission.

Surrounded by fools

Medart's lifeline was the Federal Locker contract. Every year the company suits went to DC to bid on the contract. Medart had won this contract for years. The cost of tooling and the value of experience was huge. Medart had the inside track. They took off for DC with bid in hand. Trouble was the new sales manager didn't understand the difference between due date and opening time. The bid was to be received at 9 AM then opened at 11. His mind was not on business. He had partied all night with a few "ladies of the night". He missed the deadline. The company's lifeline was severed. Exit another sales manager.

Let's make a deal

Medart was so far behind in sales car lease payments that we were told we had to pay them full price for our sales cars to keep our jobs. Mine already had thousands of miles on it. I called their bluff. That did not bode well with the next sales manager. I picked up a real nice Chevy Caprice loaded like a Cadillac.

More trouble

Rosemary decided to end our marriage right in the middle of all of this. So two things were winding down at the same time. Regional salesmanager Lew took me in like a son. He and his wife Joanne moved me into their two bedroom apartment in New Jersey - like it was second nature to do such a kind thing. Never met a couple like them. The pain of the wounds from the double barreled shotgun aimed at me from Medart and my wife was lessened by their care.

The hard part at work was to continue bidding on what I knew was a lost cause. Contractors were shying away from Medart now, with their history of late deliveries and poor quality. Nevertheless, routine in these times is good medicine.

Lew hired Huguette Corker from Canada to be my estimator/assistant. Her abilities were overestimated, her good looks and figure distracting. She was overwhelmed by the idea of learning to read Architect's plans. So I put that on the back burner. I soon discovered that she couldn't do phone work or typing either.

When I gave her bids to read over the phone she started sobbing. "Dey meek fun off me name," she said. I empathized, "Contractors can be rude."

I listened while she made a call.

"Allo, dis isse u-get cork-air...."

"Hello, who is this???"

"Allo, dis u-get cork-air."

"Look, I'm busy. Is this a crank call?"

"Me name isss u-get cork-air."

"You get what????

"Sob, sob, sob..............."

She kept pronouncing her name "u-get cork-air" with a heavy French Canadian accent.

I told her, "Say 'This is Mrs. C' that should solve the problem. We have a lot of calls to make and we don't need to create a problem with your name".

She insisted on saying, "u-get cork-air".

"Peepul shoot not meek fun off me name", she said.

I tried to console her and explained that contractors were going to have a problem understanding her name. Some might make fun of it. "So take my advice and say, 'This is Mrs. C.' "

Huguette was stubborn. Every day she would start making calls, get up from her desk, walk over to a bare corner in the office, and sit in a chair and sob for long periods.

I came in the office one day and asked Barbara where Huguette was. Barbara said she was over in her corner as usual. I'd never seen a grown woman act this way. And over something that was so easily resolved. Needless to say, I made all of the calls. After two weeks of trying to find something she could do without sobbing, I finally asked her to take two weeks off to find another job, with pay. She refused???? I had to let her go that day. She insisted I keep her on as tears fell to the floor. She finally left. Sometimes people can look so good on the outside, but they have cracks in their foundation.

Bad timing. The home office refused to hire a replacement. The Hatchetman had just entered the scene.

Bob the Hatchettman

Yet another national salesmanager on board. The ship was beginning to take on water. Bob came over from Republic Steel Corporation with a reputation for firing everything that moved. Every week someone had to go so they could meet payroll. Commissions due were used to keep the ship afloat instead of being paid out as promised. The rule of thumb was to provoke and terminate for 'incompetence', then let them come sue the company in Mississippi for back pay and commissions.

Hatchettman had reduced the staff in my regional office to zero. Even Barbara was gone. So how could I answer the phone and be out on the road at the same time?

Bob asked me, "Are you telling me you can't do both?"

Lew signaled me to back off on my answer.

I got the message. I said I would manage.

The next morning I found the door to work was locked. Lew looked apologetic as he spoke through the door. His breath appeared on the glass betraying his pain. I couldn't blame Lew. I didn't want to drag him into this too. So in effect I was locked out and laid off - their number one salesman. Lew would get the same treatment several months later.

.."I hear you knocking. But you can't come in"

Next stop, the bank with self-paying vouchers to pay for severance, unpaid commissions, salary and vacation. Now they had to come to New Jersey to sue me. "Unfair", they cried, "You're looking at jail time."

I saddled up and went .."On the road again." Never heard from the Hatchet man. He kept chopping 'til there was no company left.

CHAPTER FIVE - LAST GASP IN THE EAST

HALLOWELL

Bad karma

I interviewed with the national sales manager. He seemed impressed enough to hire me. Bud, my regional manager, met me for lunch after I was hired. He had all kinds of strange questions. When he found out we were born on the same day, the pea soup he was sipping spewed all over me. I thought he was crazy. He immediately fired me, then remembered he couldn't because I'd been hired by his boss. "It's not gonna work out," he said, "we got bad karma." He got up and left. I figured it out when I had a "reconciliation" dinner at his home in Baltimore. I kept bumping into Buddhas. Bad karma - two people working together born on the same day.

It all went down hill from there. He kept insisting on going with me all the time. Whatever I did, he undid. He stood me up not a few times, hours late most of the time. I missed some key appointments but went back without Bud and made the sale anyway.

One time I got an appointment with the CEO of Pheonix Clothing on a big project. Bud insisted on going with me as usual. He came dressed in a carnival outfit: straw hat, seersucker coat and a big wad of gum in his mouth. Bud kept telling the man we had nothing to sell him. I could see holes in his shoes as he sat lotus style in the customer's $2000 leather chair. "Please take your feet off my chair," the customer said. Bud apologized, chewed his gum and put his feet on the floor in one motion. I kept telling him to lose the gum. Needless to say, we didn't get the order. He kept chewin'.

Another time, I got a sale at a convent and Bud donated my commission to charity. At the end of the year, Bud gave his entire staff a Christmas present: termination. I was a little tougher than the rest to get rid of because my sales were 20% over quota. Everyone else in the company was below quota, Bud included. They were gentlemanly about it. I got all the commissions due me except the convent job - more than any other company did when I left. It was actually a good thing because their product was not competitive and I thrived on competition. The job was absolutely boring. Bud got the axe shortly thereafter.

BERNARD FRANKLIN COMPANY

Kathy had been contacting me for months to come on board BFC. I was always a sucker for flirty eyes. But Hallowell looked more stable until I saw what a gum chewing seer sucker looked like in a leather Eames chair.

Flirting changed to micromanagement very soon after I came on board. It was a chess game. Kathy was the queen, Bob H, a bishop and I was a checker on a checker board. Although I worked for Bob, the President, Kathy worked for Bernie, the CEO. She was national sales coordinator, I was national salesmanager. I couldn't figure out what the difference was. Kathy turned into junk yard dog from the moment I sidestepped her personal attention. She came back to my desk one time, stared me straight in the eyes and swept everything off the desk onto the floor, turned and walked away. I made lots of sales calls all over Pennsylvania and the midwest. Kathy did lots of discoordinating so no one got any literature. So no one bought anything.

I had fun though. The Mid-West and Boston were my favorite places to go.

Bernie was quite frugal on expenses - $20/night motel, $20/day meals. I spent a lot of time in Redroof Inns and MacDonalds. My feet stuck to the icy bathroom floor at the W. Toledo Motel all the time. No heat in the bathroom - only one space heater per room.

One time I brought my laundry with me when time was short. The cleaners didn't have it ready so I had them send it to the company. When I got back, the CEO asked me what my underwear was doing on his desk. The whole company got a laugh out of that one - even Bernie.

Bob tried his best to get the company geared up to national sales, but the owners were penny wise and pound foolish. They compromised on quality when an extra buck could be squeezed out of nothing. Deals were made for unusable scrap steel and useless second hand equipment. The money they spent on the antique reducer that never worked should have been targeted to a semi-auto welder. They were still in the dark ages of welding every rack joint by hand. Lack of foresight caused them to be out of stock and behind in shipments all the time. This was no way to beat the competition already entrenched in the areas I was going into.

Twenty-four hour security

I drove my brand new T-Topped Z28 into the factory parking lot for the first time. No way I was going to park my baby on the street. A short plump, red faced, raggedy old man came out of the factory bay door like a junk yard dog after fresh meat. I thought he was going to duke it out with me.

"Get that .... car outta heah!!!!"

Mitchell overheard the ruckus and yelled, "It's ok, Bob, he's one of us," just as we got nose to nose. Another Bob.

So I met BFC's 24 hour security force that cold winter morning in Philadelphia. They paid him $90 a week and didn't charge him rent to live in their tiny factory elevator. There was no heat or power, so Bob rigged up a hanging light and an ancient space heater with a long heavy duty extension cord to one of the factory outlets. The heater ran all the time. A beat up old upholstered chair, draped with numerous old blankets and a wobbly table served as all of his furniture. Although I think I saw some kind of shelving in the back that held miscellaneous essentials. Some old carpets and various artifacts that looked like they were salvaged from the garbage hung on the elevator walls. If Bob were just a little bit larger, he would not have fit inside his "home". He said he was quite comfortable there compared to the streets that he lived in for years and needed very little money. I thought of blowing the whistle on how poorly the owners treated this man, but I never had a chance to. Act one ended and Act two was about to begin.

Act 2, Scene 1

Sales area, lunchtime, Bernie, Frank and Tony out to lunch, general conversation narrowing in on the Three Stooges that ran the company.

I did my famous invitation of Bernie's penny pinching penchant. There was outright hilarity as I walked in circles in Bernie's office overlooking the general office area, one foot in a trash can, lampshade on my head, cigar like pen in my mouth, telling everyone to stop spending so much money on electricity as I flicked the lights on and off.

I was just about to go stage right. Everyone in the audience was rolling in the aisles. I bumped into Bernie in the doorway to his office, coming back from lunch. He let out a nervous laugh, said he really thought I was funny.

He got the last laugh Friday afternoon after everyone had left. I packed my things and put them in my new Honda. I rented out my house, and went west... California bound. Gave my furniture away for a song and a dance.

Good bye sweet house

I enjoyed fixing up the house in Cherry Hill. She was an old tub when I bought her. The couple that owned her was trying to cheat one another on it. The ex husband tried to sell it to his girl friend for a song so he wouldn't have to pay his ex wife so much. Then he figured he would keep the house anyway through a back door deal with his new love. I bid a few hundred dollars more in cash and the judge in the inevitable court case gave me the house deal of my life.

I transformed her into a little red, colonial doll house, cherry tree on the right, five birch trees on the left.

I used a paint chart to do the house in graduated shades of red. Doors and shutters were barn red. Frames and trim light red. The rest of the house and columns in pastel. The driveway and side walks matched the house. The new roof had reddish black tiles.

It was a show stopper. Passers by would slow down to look - especially when the cherry tree was in full bloom. Inside was sculptured carpeting and a fancy wrought iron railing up the entrance stairway to the elevated living room. A large, pink, silk screen dogwood tree reflected in the multiple square mirrors as you came in.

When I walked into the house, I was always looking for the guy who belonged there. I still had the kitchen and bedrooms to do. But I was enjoying every minute fixing her up. The Navy captain and his wife who bought it: that's whom I did all this for. It was time to move on to California.

CHAPTER SIX - W W CANNON COMPANY

A little short of the west coast.

The little red Honda was not a good long distance road car. Clothing leaked out of every window and the sun roof. When I made it to Texas, I decided to plant myself for a while. The economy was reported doing well.

A Yankee down south

I interviewed for a sales job at a personal agency. Cannon company had put in a request for someone at the same agency with my qualifications. It took them two months to match us up. They told me the requests were in the same letter tray. Fortunately, no one else was hired in the meantime.

My first month's commission was charity: Nearly $7,000 for a job that Bob Chauncy engineered and sold. I hooped and hollared in my little red Honda like a native born Texan - all the way home to my new apartment in a huge yuppie complex called the Village, on Lovers Lane. I might have said the word, 'Y'all" a couple of times. Boy that was generous of them. I never made that much money in a month. I figured I'd be living in the Taj Mahal in six months.

Ed, my sales manager, kept harping on my yankee ways. I found out later he was from Michigan! But he had mastered all that nautical talk, like Yawl and stuff.

Everyday, I was asked about being a Yankee. Every day I thanked people for thinking I was a professional baseball player.

The good ol' boys had ways to straighten out yankees. One trick was to tell me the time for sales meetings was 1/2 hour after they were to begin. Then everyone would scold me for being late.

I started getting there real early Monday mornings to be sure to be on time. Then they'd all gradually sneak back into the meeting room until I'd notice I was the only one there in the office. Then they'd wait to see how long it'd take me to realize I was late again and scold me all over again. It really got old.

Join the crowd

It just wasn't in me to say 'Y'all' and stuff.

Ed tried to get me to join the good ol' boys at the local watering hole at Bachman Lake every night. I liked to work out, so drinking right after work was not my thing. I'd come over once in a while and have an OJ on the rocks with everyone. But the cigarette smoke got to me. I would stay a short time, then it was off to Presidents' Health Spa. I never really fit in. I just had a different lifestyle.

Wow - Europe for two

I worked like a dog 9 to 5 everyday - no early days like the good 'ol boys. Borroughs had a contest that year: 1 week in Marbella, Spain. So we all tried to sell as much as we could. I sold just enough bench parts to make the wild card. It was hardly enough to pay for the cost of the trip but I wasn't going to say anything. I couldn't believe it - naive little me going to Europe!!!

I called the ex to see if I couldn't take my oldest, Timmy. He was 9 - a good companion to share our first time abroad. The two of us would be wide-eyed over there. They even had one day in North Africa. She refused to let me take him. "Take all three boys or none", she said. I didn't have the money to take the other two. My heart sank. I didn't want to go alone - should have asked one of my tennis buddies. Instead this fool asked an old girlfriend I dated in Dallas. I quickly discovered the reason why I broke up with her.

Everyone from Cannon stopped off in NYC a couple of days before the flight to Madrid to take in a few sights. The group from Houston was a spectacle - shiny grapefruit sized belt buckles, boots and one gallon hats lookin' up at all them thar skyscrapers. New Yorkers were disappointingly friendly to them. The boys sauntered down into the depths of terror: the subway. They found out that every whar they went, people smiled at them. People would ask, "Hey, who shot JR". They'd give good directions.

One time on the way to the Statue of Liberty, two guys got off the subway and walked with us, so we wouldn't get lost. It gave them all a different point of view about yankees.

That evening the boys and me were gonna take in "Annie" on broadway. I told them it was formal. So they put on their corduroy jackets.

Donna micromanaged me from the minute I picked her up in Dallas. She sensed my distancing. She demanded I hand over her plane ticket to Madrid, right on the sidewalk in front of everyone, so I wouldn't send her home. I was thinking of it.

The 747 over there was long and tiring. I couldn't sleep. When we arrived in Madrid they counted heads and couldn't fit all of us on the connecting flight to Marbella. There was a holiday going on. All the restaurants were closed. So after staying up all night on the plane, the stragglers were given a tour of the Palace and an imitation hamburger at Burger King. Someone said it was cheaper than putting us in hotel rooms. So we couldn't rest up for the connecting flight.

Security was tight everywhere. Uzzi toting, funny hats were on top of every building. I was so tired, I almost got arrested for trying to sit in a chair in the palace. The muzzle of the uzzi pointed its message: "Out of the chair, Senor!" I was reminded that the furniture had a history with royalty, not commoners. We ended the tour standing in the palace courtyard waiting for a bus. We were still not allowed to sit - not even on the ground - out of respect for the monarchy. Donna was so tired that she stopped bugging me. Finally, on the flight to Marbella, we got a chance to sit down.

Then our luggage was lost. Another three hours shot. Donna stayed in her room and waited for me to bring the luggage from another flight into Marbella. She was already fretting because she left her formal dress back in Dallas and wouldn't have anything to wear at the final dinner.

I was so exhausted that I couldn't even take a nap. So I went down to the beach and plopped down on one of the beach chairs. I saw the Mediterranean Sea for the first time! Just then, a huge boxer with a slobbering mouth came right to me. He took one look, went to the foot of my chaise lounge and deposited the biggest pile of steaming waste I'd ever seen. Welcome to Europe!!

I felt a strange isolation. Every couple had their place with certain other couples. And then there was Donna and Bob. Donna was a looker. Dinner and sleep.

We took our first bus tour the next day. Donna was all camera. She took pictures of everything - even a rose at the break station. She insisted on the window seat the whole time. If she saw something on the other side of the bus, she screamed, "Out of my way!". If I didn't jump into the aisle, she would actually step across my legs. Her heals dug into my thighs more than once.

The next day, Donna flirted continuously with the tour guide. Pepe had curly hair and a mustache that surrounded his face. He was a likable guy - 'cept he stole my girl. So I gradually faded to the back of the group as we toured here and there. They looked like a nice couple, her arm in his all the time. I became so embarrassed that I waited to see which tour bus she and Pepe would take each day, and took the other one. Donna was incensed with this. She said it looked bad. I avoided her at dinner too. She became the nagging wife the more I retreated.

Every day ended with a tour of the stores so we could have our wallets emptied. I noticed that the store owners were putting higher price tags up just before the group came by. The guide kept telling us to stay with him 'cause he held our passports. If we got lost he threatened, "We'd be in a foreign country without ID."

There was only one ferry, so I accompanied Donna to North Africa. The native Tunesians all had bad teeth, fast hands and bad breath. The water was bad so everyone drank Coca Cola. They'd come up to you and put their hands everywhere on your body, in your pockets, on your hair. They were begging for money, obviously poor. Donna panicked and moved back to where I was walking. I shielded her from everyone. I'd never seen her this vulnerable before.

After touring a couple of "interesting spots" we went to a store front restaurant. The cush cush was topped with a half cooked chicken that I wouldn't give to the boxer.

The atmosphere was exotic. An ugly belly dancer with rolls of fat bouncing around every which way entertained us. The waiter kept telling me to eat the raw chicken. I threw my dinner, piece by piece, under the table to avoid insulting him. Time to leave. The dancer seemed angry that no one put money in her outfit.

Just outside the door, "Clyde the Camel" grunted in my face as he planted a kiss on my lips before I had a chance to duck. "One dollar," his owner demanded. "For luck."

Donna went hysterical again when the natives surrounded our group. They all reached out to touch her. She was indeed beautiful, but an untouchable beauty, fragile. Our group became her shield. She walked in the middle of our circle. Tears poured down her face.

She remained hysterical all the way back to the ferry. When we boarded, she slipped through the crowd and disappeared. I looked all over for her. There were all kinds of people on that large ship. When I came to the rear I saw our group sitting together on the benches that were attached to the rounded stern of the ship. Jerry spoke over the din of the engines, "Where's Donna." I sat down next to him and yelled, "I don't know, I've looked all over."

I was about to panic, thinking she'd jumped overboard. Just then she appeared in the doorway and walked right to me. Her face was marked with fresh tears and sunburn. She was even more beautiful in her vulnerability than I'd ever seen her before. Jerry moved over to make room. She sat down and put her weary head in my lap. "I'm so sorry about everything," She said, "I have nothing to give. I feel so empty." I looked down on her beautiful face resting in my lap. My tears dropped down one by one, planting kisses on her cheek. I said, "I could really love you, if you'd only let me." Someone had really done a number on her.

That night we were scheduled to go gambling. All the good 'ol boys were a goin'. Donna had recovered and was up and ready for a night of chance. I was glad she was her usual cheer leader self again. She asked me to go with her. Perhaps I missed my last chance. I really wanted time with Donna apart from the crowds.

Jerry joined Donna and really tried hard to get me to go with them. He was already drunk. He'd been abusing Sheila the whole trip and it was getting more physical by the day. So Sheila wasn't going to come along that night either. I wasn't into gambling or dealing with Jerry's drunkeness.

Jerry went back to his room angry and beat up his wife one more time. He accused her of trying to hook up with me after everyone left. She called security on him, but he was off gambling by then.

I went to dinner next to the boxer's hangout. The waiter was arrogant when I couldn't speak Spanish. I ordered in French and he purposely brought the wrong food. I overheard him mocking my French. He spoke his ridicule in English! I wolfed the food down and left no tip. He cursed me in Spanish. I saw how long his middle finger was. I thought about going back for dessert. Naw. Let's call it a night. No point in picking a fight with the natives. I hoped Donna would come back early and we could spend our last night watching the moon over the Mediterranean together.

I reluctantly dressed up for the final formal dinner the next night. After all it wasn't Borrough's fault for my misery. I purposely arrived late. Everyone was there except Donna. I wondered if she was going to show up at all. Her formal dress was in Dallas. Ed came up to me and told me that Jerry was looking to kill me for "hooking up with his wife". He was insane and out of control. Jerry arrived and I decided to duke it out right there. His eyes widened and he became his usual charmin' self. He apologized profusely in the face of a man who had nothing to lose. Everything was cool once more. What more could happen!

Just then a vision entered the room, dressed in something wonderful. I don't know where she got the dress, but Donna looked absolutely stunning. The whole room stopped to look at this beauty. She no longer looked so vulnerable as she had on Africa day. The dinner went well and that was that. We all went back to Dallas, everyone was cordial - perhaps too tired to be otherwise. I dropped Donna off and we never saw one another again. She got her dress back. Jerry and Sheila got a messy divorce.

A new chariot

"It was about time you dump that piddly car, it's an embarrassment to everyone.", Jimbo said. He was the goodest of the good 'ol boys. I was doing pretty well now, so it was time to get an impressive car. I leased a Buick Rivera - cream colored body with gold vinyl roof and them thar spoke wheels that people like to take for souvernirs. And they did.

Trying to stay out of the cellar

We had a surprise announcement one Monday morning sales meeting. There was a contest for salesman of the year with monthly prizes, banquet dinner, formal awards ceremony with newspaper coverage. It was actually a city wide contest. Grand prize was a trip for two to Cozumel, Mexico

"Oh, no," I said to myself. I didn't want to give the good ol' boys further reason to ridicule me. I was sure they would post the scores every week and I would be holding up the cellar as usual. Most of the guys were consistently in six figures with all kinds of huge accounts like Texas Instruments, Boeing, LTV, Radio Shack, Motorola, etc. All I had in my territory was a lot of medium to small accounts that I had to work hard to land and keep.

So I kept my nose to the grind stone so I would be at least one up from the bottom.

First month's figures were in. I stacked my freezer with corn fed Iowa beef. I hadn't the slightest idea how to cook, so I gave it all away. Not being in the cellar was the reward . Being in first place after one month made me a target.

I landed a few more nice sized jobs and stayed in first place the next month. It was nice getting prizes.

Scott squeaked by me the third and fourth month. But Jerry E, the winner for the last two years came up with a couple of big months with his Texas Instruments account. When he started landing big ones, there was no stopping him, and this contest was accumulative. Then Jimbo came in with some heavy orders. So his numbers started climbing.

I went into the last month of the contest with a slim lead. I never had a bad month and kept in the top three the whole time. The good 'ol boys started talking Cozumel all the time to me, trying to rattle my confidence. I didn't want to start making plans to go to Mexico and be disappointed when I lost.

Actually, all it would take is for anyone of the top four to hit a big one the last month and it was winner take all. I had nothing big going myself. Scott said he was working on a million dollar bid for a huge warehouse in Fort Worth and it looked good. It was the largest dollar contract we'd ever gotten. That would leave everyone else in the dust. It was a matter of time if he could get the job and sneak it in under the wire. Scott was an aggressive and underhanded competitor. He always played dirty tricks on me for laughs, but what he said and did was always so funny that I actually enjoyed being fooled and made fun of all the time. He was so quick that I didn't have a chance to make good come backs. All I could do was laugh my face off.

So Scott was up to his usual tricks. He tried to shake me up so I would lose my confidence. And it worked.

I got him back in spades later on, though. I went to a novelty store and picked up an exhaust bomb whistle. I placed it in his exhaust pipe and waited in the office, pretending to do paper work, 'til he got up to leave. I walked over to the window facing the parking lot and waited and watched.

Varrommph!!! The car started up. He had a dark blue Buick Regal - nice looking car.

All of a sudden I heard what sounded like a huge bomb dropping from an overhead bomber.

Scott ran from the parking lot to the next county. The car door was left wide open and the engine running - so the "bomb" in his exhaust kept on whistling louder and louder. I couldn't stand I was laughing so hard. It took him 20 minutes to walk back into the office. I had gained my composure and pretended to be doing paper work. That's the first time I saw him at a loss for words. I think I heard him mumble, "ya got me."

Anyhow, the bad news was that Scott did get that huge order in time.

The good news was that it wasn't a genuine Cannon order. So it didn't strictly meet the contest rules. The bid was so competitive that Scott had to take a minimal finders fee to land the job and let the manufacturer take the contract instead of us. He knew this all the time but tried to get the dollar volume counted as a full Cannon order. He tried everything but the owner held firm. I was surprised because Scott was the salesmanager's son.

No one else landed a big order, but I landed a number of very profitable medium sized orders that added up to Cozumel for the yankee. Scott was really bitter about his loss, but that didn't make me enjoy Cozumel any the less. He won the next year anyway.

A gorilla mask makes a fine sales tool

I can't remember when I started buying things in novelty stores. Several of my regular customers really appreciated my humor so I started to loosen up a bit. My best prop was a gorilla mask. And my best audience was GAF off Mockingbird Lane in Irving.

Wanda had a laugh that made you fall in love with her. It matched her good looks. Shame she was married - to a really nice guy. One time I snuck into her reception area and slipped on the mask and sat down facing the window. I heard her startled laugh but then she got her composure and slid open the reception window and said, "Sir, you can come in now, who are you here to see."

I grunted.

She called my bluff and came around to the door, opened it and before I could take off the mask, she grabbed me by the hand and gave me the tour of the entire office. She left no corner unvisited and demanded I drag my knuckles and act like a monkey.

I visited people in that company that were way up on the executive level. I was deathly afraid of taking the mask off and no one asked me to.

I got one order after another from GAF. A lucrative cost plus inventory contract from them was what gave me the final push to Cozumel.

To wear or not to wear the mask

There's a time and place for everything. I think the Good Book says somewhere.

So it wasn't the time sitting on the dais, in a tuxedo, in front of Dallas' key corporate executives, with news reporters and my picture projected on the wall, with the MC giving my bio for Salesman of the year - to don my gorilla mask.

Scott came up to me just before and placed something under the table in my lap, winked and quickly went back to his seat next to his father, Ed, my salesmanager.

Ed was looking at me straight in the eye - with daggers and was motioning the guillotine sign. I pulled out what Scott put in my lap: my old friend the gorilla mask. My date Eleanor said, "Don't you dare."

Scott had egged me on before and he always got the last laugh. Guess he still remembered the car bomb and me on the dais instead of him.

I kept my sanity and Eleanor put the mask in her purse.

Cozumel for two

Tickets for two. I wasn't dating anyone seriously. The trip was only for a 3 day package via Mexicana Airlines. You left Love Field at 9 AM and were in the water at Cozumel at 12. I took a friend and that was that.

The new vice president

Jack hired old friend Lynn to be vice president, in charge of operations. Lynn didn't have a clue about the business. He came from a computer programming background. He didn't have a clue about that either. His first order of the day was to redo the restrooms. This was the last thing he did that I liked. The next thing he did was to convert everything over to legal size except the filing cabinets. The third thing he did was to convert everything back to letter size.

He spoke openly that the salesmen were making too much money. He didn't like the commission arrangement. He said that we should be on a fixed income with limited bonuses. He also said our territories were too large.

Over the next few years, Lynn succeeded in running the company into the ground. Every salesman had to give up 1/3 of his territory to provide for three new salesman. None of them lasted more than 6 months. Gary was constantly rifling through my desk to see if he could find sales he thought should be his. I guess he was desperate - his sales never supported him. He sat right next to me and was constantly asking me to help him. His questions belied the fact that he was not qualified to handle the job. There was no way I was going to spend time training him when the economy showed signs of dropping and I needed to take care of business. I had made many cold calls in the area he was given. It was just starting to grow when I had to hand all those accounts over to him. That was a bitter pill to swallow.

One time the automotive shelving salesman called Lynn to tell him that a mezzanine installation was being built backwards by the installer. Lynn said it didn't make any difference.......... until the floor collapsed! Fortunately, no one was injured.

Another time I got a cost plus contract from Irving Schools. Lynn refused to accept it because there was no dollar amount on the contract. I tried to explain that whatever our costs were we simply added the agreed upon profit percentage. We couldn't lose. He refused to honor the order. He thought it was too strange. So I put down an imaginary cost and he signed it.

I received a release order every week - mostly locker repair work. It was a win-win situation. We had no idea what each locker needed until we went on the job; and the school district had a limited budget. We could do a good job of repairing the lockers without taking shortcuts because of limited profit. The school got excellent service within their budget. The only one that wasn't happy was Lynn. He thought I was up to something. There was no convincing him. We made out very well on the contract, but Lynn was not convinced. He was glad when the contract ran out and refused to get it renewed.

Another customer bites the dust.

When the three new salesmen quit, they were never replaced and the territories were never given to anyone to cover. The salesmen were talking of breaking out on their own. Lynn never did get his fixed income program going.

Last year at Cannon

By the time I finished my fifth year in Texas, I owned 7 rent houses and ate out 21 times a week. Cooking was a mystery. I thought my stove was for decoration. I knew where every restaurant was in town. And they knew me by name, where my table was and what I would order.

In August I cleared $50,000 in commission.

Ed said, "What 're you gonna do for me next month!"

Lynn didn't want to hand me the full $50,000.

He said, "Suppose the customer doesn't pay the bill."

I said, "Don't you remember, Lynn? The company paid in advance for the job with a certified check."

He denied this.

I said, "I was the one who brought in the check."

Lynn said, "Well, we're going to have to put you in a 50% bracket and cut the amount in half."

I said, "Lynn, that's between me and the government. If there are any further problems, you can contact my attorney."

He backed down.

Life on commissions was a tread mill - largely dependent upon the economy. If the economy slid, opportunities would cease and my income would drop off a cliff. In leaner months, I made efforts to increase my customer base by knocking on doors. But the company discouraged that.

Lynn was totally against doing any marketing. But our market changed with the advent of nationwide catalog houses. Either we competed with them or lose the business. We were local and could have met them toe to toe.

But Lynn was adamant. "We are a service company. We don't need to market for new business. We have all the customers we need. Besides new customers will come to us," He said.

Cannon purchased thousands of catalogs and let them rot on the shelf. They had no mailing program. I often snuck in to the warehouse and took boxes of these valuable tools and handed them out. It started to work but as soon as I got busy answering the sales calls, I had no time to continue the cold calls.

So I hired some good ol' boy to hand them out on a regular basis. The calls came in like gang busters - but not for products. My helper enlisted a blonde in tight shorts to assist him. The company took a dim view of advertising anything else but storage equipment. Just as well, I found out that a lot of the catalogs were dumped in the trash instead of being delivered.

The down economy hit before I knew it. Lynn had already done his damage. Fortunately, it hit during the year I had the $50,000 month.

The next quarter purported to be a pretty good one too. I landed several large contracts. It still would have been a banner year. But Lynn refused to accept the validity of a letter of intent and delayed processing the biggest order. He joked about how I was trying to pull another one over on him. That caused the order to be cancelled. I lost $29,000 in commissions - the company lost a seven figure customer.

After that the next year held little promise. This Y'all went to California. Jack was surprised at my leaving. Lynn was glad. My last commission check was short. Lynn paid my replacement what Cannon owed me to get the new man started. Well, can't complain too much. Look what I got my first month.

Several years later, Cannon company went through an internal split up - five of the salesmen when out on their own. Lynn stayed on "to help the company recoup". What was left when he finished with it was sold to a competitor. Jack, the former owner, stayed on. Now they do a little more marketing for new customers.

CHAPTER SEVEN - GETTING BACK ON THE PATH 27 YEARS LATER

Thirteen months in California to come to and end of myself

I spent thirteen months living in several places south of Los Angeles and one in Santa Anna. I started working for Davis Material Handling then Engineered Storage Products. Same problem with all three, a down economy, unwillingness to provide business cards, catalogs, mailings, no hot leads nor any kind of marketing help. The territories were stone cold. The money I brought with me was running out quickly with the high cost of living. Nevertheless I paid for my draw with both companies via sales.

Getting to LA

Bill helped me pack a small U-Haul trailer. Anything I couldn't sell, give away or take I left in the dumpster. I could tell Bill was devastated at my leaving. We'd been close friends the whole time I'd been in Texas. Hard to believe a red neck from Wills Point could get along so well with a yankee from NYC. Shows you what Texas A&M can do with farm boys.

I met another guy from A & M on the job. Frank always complained about the boss sitting under the tree while we all worked so hard.

One time he went over to him and asked, "What does it take to get a job like yours?"

The boss got up and put his hand on the tree about eye level. He said, "OK, let's see if you can figure this one out. Hit my hand as hard as you can."

As Frank reared back and threw his punch, the boss pulled his hand away at the last second.

"Yeow!"

The boss said, "That's why I'm the boss and y'all's the bossee. Now get back to work, break's over."

When he came back over to our work area, I asked him what happened.

Frank said, "The boss showed me why he's the boss."

"What'd he do?" I asked.

Frank smiled kinda like he was up to something and put his hand right on the front of his face and said, "Hit my hand as hard as you can."

Bill not only helped me pack and hitch up the trailer but he decided to come along at the last minute. I hadn't realized what a good friend he was to me.

It certainly was a good thing too. We shared the driving all the way. The back seat and floor were filled with clothes and blankets laid out lengthwise so it served as a pretty good bed.

I thought we'd never get out of Texas. Far off to the north we could see one thunderstorm after another moving along with us, each threatening to cut us off. There was nothing but flat 'til we got to the Red River Valley with Mexico on the other side - all the way to El Paso.

It was night time before we got to the desert. The landscape looked eerie in the desert night with all those "men" standing there with their hands held high.

When we got into the mountainous country, the car started acting up. She barely made it up some of those hills pulling the trailer with the V-6 engine.

CLANK!!!

"What was that?", Bill asked

"I don't know."

We just made it to the top of a long hill. Red lights went on everywhere. The exit ramp to some non descript town lay right before me as the engine quit.

We coasted down that ramp like it was made to rescue as the momentum led us to the entrance of an auto repair shop, with just enough speed to park it at the front door.

I spent $800 to have the Riveria readied for the trip. They forgot to tighten the nuts on the fan. It flew off into the radiator. No damage, except a bent fan blade. We ate lunch in the best diner in town while they fixed the fan - the only diner in town.

The potential of being stranded for days in the California desert got to me. The providence of God seeing to it that that didn't happen crossed my mind.

From three it was gentle rolling hills and flats lined with palm trees. The smell of the Pacific Ocean and seagulls overhead increased our excitement as we followed all of those blue and yellow license plates to the sea. From being the only car on a two lane highway to one of thousands in eight lanes was dramatic.

Destination Manhattan Beach because it sounded like New York. My sister'd been there and liked it.

There it was!! The Pacific Ocean - as far as you could see!! Waves, surfers, everybody on some kind of wheels, nobody walking, minimal clothing.

Bill got down to business. "Let's find a place to rent."

The tiniest place went for big bucks. The closer you got to the beach the more outrageous the rent. Two blocks from the beach next to a refinery was a two BR & garage for $1000/month. Four blocks, a store front closet with stove for $750.

Bill decided to go halves with me on the two BR. He said he wanted a place to come to for quick getaways. We planned all kinds of outings, bringing old friends out here from Texas and such.

You could see the ocean from the corner of one window in the living room. It was a small patch of gray that appeared next to the telephone pole, just above the garbage cans outside of the barbed wire fence that bordered the refinery. The refinery made it's presence known in the air too. The oder mixed with the fresh ocean air to let you know why the rent was more reasonable. But the beach was only a two block walk.

Bill stayed on for several days to visit Mickey in Anaheim. We were kids again. I didn't expect his departure to be such a sad moment. It was hard to look him in the eye as we shared a manly hug and he walked down the ramp to fly back to Dallas.

The Bruce and Judy show

I picked up the yellow pages and went down the list for a job.

Bruce and Judy were two of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. They hired me and I immediately became their number two salesman. They only had two.

They had a good catalog to work with and my territory was adequate but cold. Phone leads were rare, so I spent my time on cold calls, handing out catalogs. Calls and sales starting coming in immediately. I was on a roll. Nothing like getting a good start.

Bruce and Judy were ecstatic that I was doing so well.

I came into the office to get a new supply of catalogs, anticipating even more success in the next month.

"That's all I can give you this year", Judy said. Everyone gets two cartons every year.

I tried to see if she couldn't provide more or a good substitute. She had nothing to give me to leave behind when I came calling.

My commissions covered my draw and then some.

They were two of my favorite bosses but

ya gotta eat, who do you think you are.

I led two lives

I tried taking on two full time jobs once before.

I interviewed at Engineered Storage Systems. The sales manager and I were fellow salesmen at Republic Steel. So a few minutes of reminiscing and I was on board covering parts of Orange county. Leads again were rare and the territory cold and there was nothing to hand out.

I convinced Garth, one of the owners, to make up a two page, alphabetized detailed product and line card to mail out to prospects. I had 5,000 made up for all the salesmen. It came out pretty good and the ones I hand delivered to really appreciated the piece. So I was confident it would bring in a lot of phone inquiries once it was mailed out. I got a few leads to follow up in other territories and so I covered my draw from the beginning.

By this time, Bruce had discovered my double life. He took it well.

"You are the first salesman who left without owing us a nickel. You are always welcome to come back."

I said, "I'd come back in a second if you had more catalogs or something to hand out."

Garth decided to hold up on the mailing because of the cost. It was small potatoes but he said things were tight. So I had nothing but cold calls with only a line card to hand out - a poor substitute for a catalog, so sales dropped off.

I bid on a municipal contract for equipping a fire station and got the order which would cover me for the next month. But things look bleak down the road.

So I took 11 practice California Real Estate License tests and one for real. I joined John and Maggie at the nearby Century 21. They gave me a tiny farm with no draw. It was supposed to be part time. I got a listing after several weeks but it didn't pan out, they decided not to move. As the weeks rolled by, John demanded more and more of my time, so I had less and less time for ESS.

Finally, John insisted I answer incoming phone calls each week. I messed up and ESS discovered my double life.

So I departed the real estate business because I still needed to eat and draw was better than nothing. After completing the fire station job I faced nothing. I asked Dave for more leads, he said, "Go shake the trees."

Back to Graham

I was sitting in my apartment on MacArthur boulevard with no where to go.

The Murphy bed was my desk chair as I sat at the bookcase with a pull out desk surface. The TV was going. I contemplated another dismal failure in my life. Leads had run out, cold calls were worthless without leaving something with the customer. My heart completely sank as I realized I had reached rock bottom.

I turned on the TV and flipped it around. A Billy Graham crusade in Anaheim was just beginning. I went back in time to the platform under Madison Square Garden 27 years ago when I began my walk with God with the high school teacher.

It was time to get back on that path. Tears were rare with me. The few that I shed then were sufficient to redirect my focus. I found a church in Newport Beach by random and began my attempt to find out what God wanted me to do with my life. I knew the main focus was not selling lockers and shelving. The services were the same as always, sermonettes for Christianettes. But the Wednesday night home bible study was pointing me in the right direction. The teacher was a seminary student. We were taught verse by verse to build an understanding of Revelation. That was an eye opener. You gleaned an understanding of the books of the bible by reading them... in the order they were written. I never experienced that before. There were a lot of differing opinions being thrown around but the teacher always pointed us back to the actual words on the page. Some were unhappy that they were being refuted, but the words were the words.

Back to Texas

CHAPTER EIGHT EAGLE STORAGE - NAME IT AND CLAIM IT

I interviewed with Mike and Ed of Eagle Storage Systems. Ed was a salesman. Mike the owner. They were concerned about my Christian faith.

I had to be a Christian to work with them, they said.

Mike wanted me to find a church. I visited his church and Ed's and chose Ed's. Mike seemed a bit disturbed by that. But I was no less disturbed by the uncontrolled shouting and running around by the congregation in his church during the service. Much of the shouting was nonsensical. I preferred being able to understand what was going on.

I started working for Mike. I made up my own flyers and went door to door. I collected names and addresses for a growing mailing list. We got calls every week, and from this I supported myself. I did all the work, bring in the sales, Mike would did the billing, we split the profits, Mike got 60%, I got 40%.

I managed to secure an automobile for $400 which was barely wired together. Every time it stopped, I had to open up the hood, put a spoon in the carburetor, start it up and move on. I made 60 sales calls a day and wore out my arms and several spoons. My list of contacts grew day by day.

Mike considered himself my spiritual advisor as well as my boss. He told me to stop before each company and pray out loud, "I claim this account in the name of Jesus!!!". When I didn't get certain accounts right away, he questioned my faith.

He asked, "Did you claim it out loud?"

"I don't feel comfortable doing that," I said.

That bothered Mike. He said I lacked faith.

The list of companies grew to thousands. My secret was to find out the key man who would actually do the buying and then put him on the mailing list. I kept at it, rain, cold, or heat. It didn't matter. Then Mike became afraid I was working some of his accounts. I was barely making it - so this surprised me. He admitted that no sales had come from these companies for years. But Mike claimed some sales were his because he had visited them in the past and had claimed them in the name of Jesus. He only had a few accounts and was not making any effort to expand his business. I felt bad that he took credit for some of the sales and I received nothing - espe