“One day, this will all be yours…”
Last week, I quit my job. Surprisingly, unemployment was shortlived - just three days (and an entire season worth of 24) later, I had a new one. If only I had known just how easy it is to find a new job (!) …as long as you lower your expectations a bit. For the past 2 months in London, I have had over 2000 doors slammed in my face; I have interrupted approximately 500 households while they ate dinner, nearly ruined two shirt tie combos on account of the rain, and have had probably a dozen people threaten to call the police because I was on their doorstep. Why? Because, frankly, nobody likes door to door salespeople.
Nearly everyone in England has a small sticker on their doorway that reads “NO DOOR TO DOOR SALES”, “We do not buy or sell at this door”, or “All callers must have identification ready”. Fine. But the product I was selling, telecommunications services, was/is a good/great/excellent one. Essentially, it was taking the exact same service the customer already had with their current service provider, reducing the price, and guaranteeing that it will stay that way for as long as they kept hte service. Truth be told, if you sat 100 people down in a room and explained what we had to offer, I'd bet no fewer than 90 would sign up. So in other words, it all comes down to presentation: direct selling.
Combined with ineffective indirect marketing campaigns on television, radio, and billboards and print, direct marketing offers a personal touch which allows customers to give the product a third dimension. Traditionally, door to door has a reputation of using sleazy, pushy, manipulative and unethical sales tactics so that most people cringe just at the idea of someone knocking at their door.
The company I was with had the main aim to change or at least give a new face to what is being aptly renamed “the human commercial”. Selling techniques are ethical; they practice proven systems and stick to them; and repetition is the key to success. Most of them have it nailed. People progress through a 5 stage program(me) in business development, starting out, obviously, with getting good at sales, moving on to teaching, leading, and ultimately, in as little as 6 months to a year, running their own offices. Right from day one, it is very transparent how much money the owner makes and even more, how everyone is given the same resources and equal opportunity. Though everyone is working in the same organization, everyone is there for themselves and, to a certain degree, in the early stages of running their own businesses. So, pay is 100% commission-based.
Ideally, the harder you work and the longer you keep a positive attitude, the more you get paid. So for many people commission is great. When you’re up, you’re flying. I remember in my first week of work, my leader made over £300 (approx 700 CAD) in one day. But on the flipside, commission can be a drag. When you’re down, you’re really down. You can run around all day, talk to 120 people and when they all say no, you could have made more money working at McDonalds or panhandling for that matter. I DO understand why people like commission sales, but for me, I prefer some level of stability, a regular income. For the longest while, I held onto the belief that “next week will be better”. But in the end, twelve hour, unpaid workdays just don’t do it for me.
At work, there was a hugely positive vibe in the office, everyone works toward self improvement, helps each other and wants everyone else to do well. Sadly, when people are dismissed or quit, no one actually acknowledged their having left. People who I’ve been friends with for the past two months will not have even asked were I was when the next day came. The worst part about this is that because of the nature of the work (and hours), nearly everything I had – from meals, to jokes, to friends – was lost when I quit the job.
Of course, promoting positives makes for a positive work environment. But, since quitting is a negative, it’s not even addressed. The problem with this attitude is that a positive workplace isn’t a place where everyone tells you to be positive; a positive workplace just actually IS. To be positive, you have to be able to address negatives and it isn’t until you receive constructive criticism that you know where to improve. I DID really like the people I worked with; they were my friends. It’s just that, unlike them, I was never in it for the long haul. At this point in my life, I’m just looking to meet some people, have a good time and hopefully break-even financially in the process. Hopefully they can understand that it has nothing to do with me being of weak character or lacking in something. I’m simply not ready yet.
Do I regret having done that job? No. But in that line of work, if you’re not with them, you’re against them. The people who I thought were my best friends in the office have turned up to give me the cold shoulder since I’ve quit. It’s unfortunate, but c’est la vie. Friendships I invested months in turned out to be no more than business relationships or worse, facades. What many of these people have probably yet to realize is that building a successful business is much more than selling a product and creating some kind of fake rapport: it has to do with developing partnerships and creating a mutual need.
When I started writing, I was going to give this post a much more sarcastic feel, in an actual attempt to make fun of the past two months of work I’ve done, but it just doesn’t feel right. I’m not necessarily put-off by the line of work (though I will not choose to do it again), or what it has done to my overall sentiment about the people of Greater London (who are not quite as nice when you're knocking away), or even the people I worked with (though it would be nice if they returned my calls and/or texts). It's been fun. I’ve seen places in greater London I never thought I would see, learned things I’ll keep for years, met characters I never could have even dreamt up, and had laughs with people I will always remember as my friends.
Many of my coworkers will become very wealthy and to them, I wish the best of luck. The system they live by is that of the law of averages, where all you have to do is “find the aces”. They continue to do their job because ownership promises them that they too can one day be successful as long as they work hard and stay positive. The reason I moved to London was to get away from the normal. For me, the job became too routine and presented no opportunity for adventure. So ironically, the same principles, promises, and systems that keep them going, were the ones that drove me away. But after all, if I've learned anything from that job, it's that in undertaking adventures, you never know what might be behind that next door…
So, each year, Australians in London flock in hoards to the number of Aussie bars scattered throughout the city. The best parties, allegedly, are at the Walkabout, a popular chain where Australian people can hang out with other Australian people and can talk about Australian things and dance to Australian music like ACDC, Men at Work, or worst comes to worse, INXS. For us, the walkabout in Angel was pretty lame – apparently it was much better on Shaftsbury Avenue or Hammersmith. At the moment, so I hear, the biggest song in Australian bars is one called Rainbow Stylin by a group called Royksopp. We also heard it at our Walkabout.
Strangely enough, because of the time difference, by the time the London-Aussies actually get around to celebrating, a true Australia day will actually be over. I celebrated with my flatmates and Shayan, who was in London for the weekend, direct from Canada. In the spirit of the day (and only the second time since being in London) I wore my cowboy hat, like a good western Canadian would. The queuing for the bar was the highlight of the night and as WE finally got in, everyone ELSE left – but clearing a room HAS always been my forte. I think most Australians in England had a pretty good night. 
