Is Door to Door Salesman a Dead Job?

[CanSocDem]

19. My "door" to enlightenment.

It was 1966. I was new to Los Angeles with no discernible job skills. I answered an ad for "canvassers" for a photography company and because of the times,(I needed a job, they needed white male workers) I ended up on a 'door-to-door' sales crew selling appointments for a photographer to come in and take family pictures.

They gave us a 'canned pitch' and the freedom to collect soap box tops as a ruse for "winning something...". I needed all this because I had no sales experience from my adolescence. I didn't even 'like' people that much but that job turned out to be the most important job I ever had.

The crew I worked with everyday were an eclectic mix of student deferrments, foreigners and borderline hippies (the clean-cut ones) and they taught me an important lesson:

ALL jobs are based in SALES. You either sell a service or you sell a product. For the rest of my life I bounced between the two. And yes, at 70 years old I'm a shallow, shallow man.


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