“I used to work in a furniture store. Two years without a day off. So I decided to go in business for myself. You’re never beholden to anybody. You always have a buck in your pocket. This is the easiest way, because you have no overhead. You don’t have a store, you don’t have employees. You pay no rent, no insurance . . .”
I couldn’t sell you an automobile, but just about everything else. I’ve sold diamond rings, I’ve sold mink coats. I have people with beautiful homes. Many of my customers have good incomes. Why do they buy from somebody like me? There’s a variety of reasons. A lot of them got a fart in their brain. They cannot go out shopping. They become confused by these large shopping centers. They’re confused by the multitude, the plethora of things. It just overwhelms them. It’s much easier to buy from somebody like me. If they want a coat, I bring two or three. If they want a ring, I bring one or two or three.
There’s a customer who’s shy. She would really like to tell people off, but when she goes into a large establishment, she’s shy. She’s overwhelmed by Marshall Field’s, so she tells me off in no uncertain terms what she wants, how she wants it, and don’t bring me this or that. It boosts their ego. In their house they are queen. I’m the one with the cap in the hand.
When I’m a salesman in a furniture store, I speak from a position of strength: We have this beautiful, gorgeous place that we built for you. Here is what we have. This is what they’re using. When I come in, I can’t say, “This is what
they’re
using.” I’ve been told a few times, “I don’t care what
they’re
using. It’s what I want. I want white shirts.”
It’s a dying occupation. There are older men, sixty-five, seventy, who are just dabbling. They want to get out of it, so they sell their accounts. They’re very good accounts ’cause they’ve had them twenty years. For me, it’s a bonanza.
In the old days people in ethnic neighborhoods just got off the boat. They couldn’t speak English. Young punks that were store clerks would look down upon them. The man who had a smattering of the language would go into the homes and people would welcome him with open arms. Here’s a man they could occasionally tell off.
This whole business has fallen absolutely into disuse in the past ten years. I know of no young man who’s gone into it. To them, it’s demeaning. I once asked my son to help me. His wife came over and told me she didn’t want her husband to help me exploit people. She believes I exploit people. Of course, she believes anybody who makes a profit exploits people. So you ask, “What is not exploitation? One percent? Two percent? General Motors?” I don’t feel I’m an exploiter. I’m a capitalist. I believe capitalism is the greatest economic system there is.
I’m in a hurry. I have obligations, I’m always trying to beat time. I’m dealing with people, most of them are dependent on their paycheck. It doesn’t last past Saturday. If you don’t come, you’re not gonna get it. The people will honestly tell you, “I gave it to somebody else, the insurance man.” Beating the clock. Deadbeats. There used to be a lot. Knock on the door, the flat was empty. You knock on the door, nobody answers, you know they’re there. I’d like to kill somebody. (Laughs.) It’s terrible. They have no respect. They don’t give a damn. They’re like anybody else.
(Sighs.) Yeah, I take my work home. I put in two, three hours on the phone at home. I don’t care if I’m watching TV while I make a call. I’m disinterested in the call. DB
21
calls. “Mrs. Smith, you promised to send in one on the eleventh. It’s now the eighteenth.” I’m watching Dick Cavett at the same time.
I get so angry. I’d like to—I—I—I. (Laughs.) Sometimes it’s lucky that I have an extension phone. I’d have torn it off the wall many times. You can’t help it. I’m particularly choleric. Maybe there are people who take it better than I can. This one woman was making me eat crap for four years, to make me collect my money. I brooded about it for four years. Just making me absolutely crawl. I just—I just thought I’d like to hit her one.
The stories you hear from many salesmen that go into houses are figments of their imagination. About sex. Women paying off in that way. I’ve never seen it happen personally. Your real drive is to survive—get in the house, get out.
You go in. It’s sort of a reflex action. They hear your name, go get the book and the money. I know exactly when they have the money or not. When she opens the door and turns around to go somewhere, you know she’s got the money. If she stands there, blocking your way, you know she’s broke. You say, “Oh, you have no money?” Or she tells you. You say, “Thank you very much, I’ll see you next week.” Or, “Are you short?” Some quick repartee. Then I drive elsewhere.
Saturday is the busiest day. I visit approximately seventy homes. There used to be men in the business who couldn’t sleep on a Friday night. They knew they had this terrible pace on Saturday. Most men are home on Saturday. There’s a rough and ready banter. Kidding around. I have Sunday off, unless I get very angry at a customer and go out to see her.
For a person like me who likes to talk and exchange ideas with people, it’s very difficult to break away. I’ve been guilty many times of sitting down for too many cups of coffee. It’s a question of absolutely driving yourself to get out. Collection isn’t the only thing. I’ve got this book work. It’s the most aggravating angle of the business. Keeping track of the payments, your sales tax, your income tax. I’ve got eight hours of book work ahead of me now, at home.
And you have to go out and do your shopping. On Christmas I’m shopping for a hundred people. I go to stores that are busy and wait to be waited on and am frustrated by every one of these decisions, as to what color, what size, and finding out they haven’t got it. So I’ve waited forty-five minutes for nothing.
They give me a list of things. They want me to buy gifts. They want me to buy a 15-33 shirt for a son. The husband wears a 16½-34. They want a pretty color. They give you a choice and you have to decide. They’re paying you to decide for them.
There are many people who can’t make decisions. This is the trademark of most of the people I do business with. They tell you to get a pretty shirt. You say, “Pretty? What do you mean by that?” They say, “Well, what you think would be nice.” They leave it up to you. You bring it and then they bawl the hell out of you if they don’t like it. So they can tell you off. They do. And they’re paying me for that service.
“I’ve had a duodenal ulcer. But it didn’t come from this business. I had it when I was a furniture salesman. It was schlock furniture. A bait and switch type. Advertise something at a ridiculously low rate and then expect the salesman to switch the customer to something else. It’s worked on the TO system, turnover. The first man who greets the customer warms him up a little. And then is commanded to turn him over to a man who’s introduced as the manager of the store—which makes a tremendous impression. The greatest amount of things sold in this country right now is bait and switch. Schlock.”
I’m tired. Because I’m not growing old gracefully. I resent the fact that I haven’t got the coordination that I had. I resent the fact that I can’t run as fast as I used to. I resent the fact that I get sleepy when I’m out at a night club. I resent it terribly. My wife is growing old gracefully but I’m not. I always have slept well.
There will always be room for this kind of occupation as long as people want personal contact. We’re all over the world.
ENID DU BOIS
She had been a telephone solicitor for a Chicago newspaper. She was at it for three months. “There were mostly females working there, about thirty. In one large phone room. About four of us were black.”
I needed a job. I saw this ad in the paper: Equal Opportunity. Salary plus commission. I called and spoke ever so nicely. The gentleman was pleased with the tone of my voice and I went down for an interview. My mind raced as I was on the train coming down. I’ll be working on North Michigan Avenue. It’s the greatest street. I was elated. I got the job right away. All we had to do was get orders for the newspaper.
We didn’t have to think what to say. They had it all written out. You have a card. You’d go down the list and call everyone on the card. You’d have about fifteen cards with the persons’ names, addresses, and phone numbers. “This is Mrs. Du Bois. Could I have a moment of your time? We’re wondering if you now subscribe to any newspapers? If you would
only
for three short months take this paper, it’s for a worthy cause.” To help blind children or Crusade of Mercy. We’d always have one at hand. “After the three-month period, if you no longer desire to keep it, you can cancel it. But you will have helped them. They need you.” You’d use your last name. You could alter your name, if you wanted to. You’d almost have to be an actress on the phone. (Laughs.) I was very excited about it, until I got the hang of it.
The salary was only $1.60 an hour. You’d have to get about nine or ten orders per day. If you didn’t, they’d pay you only $1.60. They call that subsidizing you. (Laughs.) If you were subsidized more than once, you were fired.
The commission depended on the territory. If it was middle class, it would be $3.50. If it was ghetto, it would be like $1.50. Because some people don’t pay their bills. A lot of papers don’t get delivered in certain areas. Kids are afraid to deliver. They’re robbed. The suburbs was the top territory.
A fair area, say, lower middle class, they’d pay you $2.50. To a lot of solicitors’ dismay they’d kill some orders at the end of the week. He’d come in and say, “You don’t get this $2.50, because they don’t want the paper.” We don’t know if it’s true or not. How do we know they canceled? But we don’t get the commission.
If you didn’t get enough orders for the week, a lot of us would work four and five hours overtime. We knew: no orders, no money. (Laughs.) We’d come down even on Saturdays.
They had some old pros, but they worked on the suburbs. I worked the ghetto areas. The old-timers really came up with some doozies. They knew how to psyche people. They were very fast talkers. If a person wanted to get off the phone they’d say, “No, they need you. They need your help. It’s only for three short months.” The person would just have to say, “Okay,” and end up taking it.
They had another gimmick. If they kept the paper they would get a free gift of a set of steak knives. If they canceled the order, they wouldn’t get anything. Everybody wants something free.
There was a chief supervisor. He would walk into the office and say, “Okay, you people, let’s get some orders! What do you think this is?” He’d come stomping in and holler, “I could pay all the bums on Madison Street to come in, you know.” He was always harassing you. He was a bully, a gorilla of a man. I didn’t like the way he treated women.
I did as well as I wanted to. But after a while, I didn’t care. Surely I could have fast-talked people. Just to continually lie to them. But it just wasn’t in me. The disgust was growing in me every minute. I would pray and pray to hold on a little longer. I really needed the money. It was getting more and more difficult for me to make these calls.
The supervisor would sometimes listen in. He had connections with all the phones. He could just click you in. If a new girl would come in, he’d have her listen to see how you were doing—to see how well this person was lying. That’s what they taught you. After a while, when I got down to work, I wanted to cry.
I talked to one girl about it. She felt the same way. But she needed the job too. The atmosphere was different here than being in a factory. Everybody wants to work on North Michigan Avenue. All the people I’ve worked with, most of them aren’t there any more. They change. Some quit, some were dismissed. The bully would say they weren’t getting enough orders. They get the best liar and the best liar stays. I observed, the older people seemed to enjoy it. You could just hear them bugging the people . . .
We’d use one charity and would change it every so often. Different papers have different ones they use. I know a girl does the same work for another paper. The phone room is in the same building as the newspaper. But our checks are paid by the Readers’ Service Agency.
When I first started I had a pretty good area. They do this just to get you conditioned. (Laughs.) This is easy. I’m talking to nice people. God, some of the others! A few obscenities. A lot of males would say things to you that weren’t so pleasant. Some were lonely. They’d tell you that. Their wives had left them . . .
At first I liked the idea of talking to people. But pretty soon, knowing the area I was calling—they couldn’t afford to eat, let alone buy a newspaper—my job was getting me down. They’d say, “Lady, I have nine to feed or I would help you.” What can you say? One woman I had called early in the morning, she had just gotten out of the hospital. She had to get up and answer the phone.
They would tell me their problems. Some of them couldn’t read, honest to God. They weren’t educated enough to read a newspaper. Know what I would say? “If you don’t read anything but the comic strips . . .” “If you got kids, they have to learn how to read the paper.” I’m so ashamed thinking cf it.
In the middle-class area, the people were busy and they couldn’t talk. But in the poor area, the people really wanted to help the charity I talked about. They said I sounded so nice, they would take it anyway. A lot of them were so happy that someone actually called. They could talk all day long to me. They told me all their problems and I’d listen.
They were so elated to hear someone nice, someone just to listen a few minutes to something that had happened to them. Somehow to show concern about them. I didn’t care if there was no order. So I’d listen. I heard a lot of their life histories on the phone. I didn’t care if the supervisor was clicked in.
People that were there a long time knew just what to do. They knew when to click ’em off and get right on to the next thing. They were just striving, striving . . . It was on my mind when I went home. Oh my God, yeah. I knew I couldn’t continue doing it much longer.