Confessions of a Serial Interviewer by Steven Ra Ga

In the early 2000s I had been looking for work.

I found an ad that mentioned says so I went on the interview and got hired on the spot.

The trouble was that the job was located in the NE of the city I lived in and I was located in the SE, I didn’t drive yet so I had to take a couple buses and a train to get to work everyday.

We would all dress nice and meet in this warehouse, they would give us areas of the city to target and a duffle bag full of products you would find at the dollar store today. They were basically infomercial products and we had to try and sell them to people on the street.

One rep would say “Excuse me mister, 5 radios for $100 that’s a great deal” each radio costs $20 it’s not a deal it’s just 5 radios bought all at once. These radios came in little boxes, you put batteries in them and it had an antenna. They were like little plastic garbage items.

The other great seller was steak knives.

I recall during our training some girls we worked with who were older would drive us out to small towns to sell crap to farmers, you would hit up one town and by the time you got to the next town the same people would be at the next town bar to warn them of our approach. We even almost got stuck in the winter on some back dirt roads.

It was 100% commission and needless to say I never made a dime.

Near the end of my employment I met a guy who was a out of work brick layer, looking to improve his life. We buddy up and hit the streets downtown eventually we gave up after 100s of no’s. So we started to play catch with a box of steak knifes.

Not the smartest but it was kind fun, I recall he toss knife set and it hit the ground and slide into my shoe as one of the knives ejected and lodged itself in the heal of my shoe, no injuries thankfully.

But we both quit that day, dumping our duffle bags in a trash can then going home. What a joke of a company that was.