I wrote this while working for an internet provider in a local mall.
I spoke with a man today that left a huge impression on me. Sitting at work, bored as usual and waiting for someone to enquire about my shotty product, I was approached by an old man. He looked to be easily past his seventieth year and I thought maybe he might like to know about the service I was selling. when I asked what I could do for him he said that he saw that my company was looking for sales associates. He said that he, himself, was a salesman. Automatically I felt a kind of weird sentimentality standing in the prescences of an old, american salesman. I wondered if he’d started off selling vacuums door-to-door or possibly new-fangled laundry machines. My mind was flooded with images of sexist, animated advertisments of once new household conviniences that would make any housewife grin with subserviant pleasure. I imagined the man standing before me as a young buck with a fat neck tie and lint free fedora. Smiling and giving a very romantic spiel about the wonders of modern technology. Of course, I saw it all in black and white.
As we spoke about who he could give his resume to and why his previous employer had gone under I began to get the sense that he had no idea what it was he was enquiring about besides a job. He kept glancing at the booth and trying to appear sharp, as if wireless internet was old hat to the likes of a seasoned salesman like himself. He awkwardly mentioned “his computer” and how he checked things on it quite often, as if convincing me that he was competant would get him the job. every inch of me wanted to level with the old guy and tell him that this may not be the area for him, that everyone who worked as salesmen had other things going on like school and upstart businesses. But he pressed on and asked me to write down some contact information of someone in HR he could talk to. I did because I didn’t have the heart to lie to him nor did I have the heart to tell him the truth.
Just a few minutes after we had spoken, as I was thinking to myself his old job probably fired him for being out-dated, I turned to see the old man standing there again. He began to probe deeper about outside sales, asked me questions that once applied to all products but now applied to few.
“What is the target market?”
“Do we gear toward homeowners or small businesses?”
With each question his tone became more and more desperate. He was clearly searching for some foothold so that he could relate his past expirience with the modern job. I began to feel like I was talking to Willy Lohman, had he lived to see 70. When he asked how he could put his resume in the e-mail my heart couldn’t bare him any longer. I told him I didn’t know much about the hiring processes and sent him on his way, with little hope and no reconciliation of the times in which he lived. I can honestly say I’ll never forget that old man, that real life Willy Lohman. A true American salesman, left with nothing and betrayed by the profession he’d so devoted himself to.
As we spoke about who he could give his resume to and why his previous employer had gone under I began to get the sense that he had no idea what it was he was enquiring about besides a job. He kept glancing at the booth and trying to appear sharp, as if wireless internet was old hat to the likes of a seasoned salesman like himself. He awkwardly mentioned “his computer” and how he checked things on it quite often, as if convincing me that he was competant would get him the job. every inch of me wanted to level with the old guy and tell him that this may not be the area for him, that everyone who worked as salesmen had other things going on like school and upstart businesses. But he pressed on and asked me to write down some contact information of someone in HR he could talk to. I did because I didn’t have the heart to lie to him nor did I have the heart to tell him the truth.
Just a few minutes after we had spoken, as I was thinking to myself his old job probably fired him for being out-dated, I turned to see the old man standing there again. He began to probe deeper about outside sales, asked me questions that once applied to all products but now applied to few.
“What is the target market?”
“Do we gear toward homeowners or small businesses?”
With each question his tone became more and more desperate. He was clearly searching for some foothold so that he could relate his past expirience with the modern job. I began to feel like I was talking to Willy Lohman, had he lived to see 70. When he asked how he could put his resume in the e-mail my heart couldn’t bare him any longer. I told him I didn’t know much about the hiring processes and sent him on his way, with little hope and no reconciliation of the times in which he lived. I can honestly say I’ll never forget that old man, that real life Willy Lohman. A true American salesman, left with nothing and betrayed by the profession he’d so devoted himself to.
The worst part about this observation is that it doesn’t make me strive to be joyful or idyllic, it just fuckin pisses me off. It makes me want to punch a hole in something that doesn’t exist, my sense of self. The only way out of this whole idea of perpetuating nihilism and misery is to hate my way out because satisfaction seems so far away that it’s not even an option. It’s either join the ranks of nay-sayers walking up the hill, spitting on Jesus, or pull out my sword and start cutting off ears. Either way, I’m not happy, so I can either be unhappy with myself, or angry at everyone else for not parenting happiness in their own lives.