Fly #1: Money, it's a gas...and an electricity upgrade

Reflecting on a gap years is often a gush over what knowledge one has attained of the “real world” via overseas expeditions. I have had my fair share of these. I travelled to South America for two months, as well as a rowing trip in New Zealand. The most impressionable lesson I would take from my debut to adulthood, however, came from an unexpected encounter during my very first job as a sales representative.

Fed by the line that if I signed over a mere five people a day, I would earn one thousand dollars per week (not true), I was first in line to door knock house after house all over Melbourne’s outer suburbs. The residents of Rowville, Sydenham and Frankston, were graced with the pleasure of my presence, cued in with a cheery knock and pre-rehearsed “I’m here about power discounts, won’t take a minute”.

The job was terrible. The hours were absurd, door knocking from 11am, and picked up by 9pm. It was only commission based and I most certainly did not get five sales a day. My only buyers were single men, mothers who took pity and very old people who thought I was from the government. I knew that at some point, I needed to quit. Even someone as lowly qualified as me could find better work, as what I was told by many people answering the door. The unexpected encounter and “life lesson” came when I knocked on the door of a man who answered stark naked. True to the honour of the sales representative, and my frightening penchant for confrontation, I spat out my sales pitch, “Your house is on our list for an upgrade!” To add to the hilarity, he responded, “Yep ok I’ll buy it”.

I’ll buy it? No! I went on to fill out his contract anyway. I was, only one year out of childhood, already obsessed with profit. A sale is a sale, I reasoned. This man wants to buy his electricity from us, and I want my money. What he chooses to wear, or not wear is irrelevant. Dollar signs in my eyes had blinded rational thought. I acted like answering the door naked to a stranger was perfectly normal. Under the opportunism and faux-confidence I was terrified.

Why did he not realise that this was a bizarre and wildly inappropriate situation? I was in denial about taking my financial ambitions out of control, so I settled on moronic curiosity as reason to continue the sale.

“So, what do you do?” Every sale had to be verified to the proverbial call centre in the Philippines. While calls to the crackly voice on the other end were usually a speedy affair, this time they had put me on hold for ten minutes. This does not sound long until you are stuck with a very old fat naked man at the doorstep and nothing between you but a clipboard.

“I’m unemployed”. Really? I picked UN diplomat.

“Yeah” He looked sheepish, and for some reason, it seemed rude asking him to put clothes on. It was his house after all. I was on his front step pushing this silly contract on him. He was surely doing me a favour, buying from a sales representative.

“Do you want to come inside?” Oh god.

“Ahhh no, I better not, it is against company policy”.

He gives me an incredulous look. Excuse me? You have been naked, visible to the public eye from your front door for the last fifteen minutes, and I am apparently the one with the problem. The naked man situation was now no longer funny, it was unsafe. I should have seen this and either assertively demand he put some pants on, please sir, or walk away. But I didn’t. I wanted that forty dollars.

“I know. It’s ridiculous” I say. I was trying to be on the same thought wavelengths so as not to create an awkward tension and potentially lose the sale. My job was to be their best friend for five minutes, convince them to buy the electricity and never see them again. What difference did it make if they were naked?

My saviour from the Philippines call centre confirmed the sale and I was off the hook. I made a beeline for no place in particular and called a co-worker, who, door knocking away in a happy place where people answered fully clothed, suggested that I “just have a ciggie” and “chill out”. At the 9pm pick up I couldn’t wait for the dramatic reaction that would surely amount from such gross employee mistreatment. Would there be a law suit? A 60 Minutes documentary? The possibilities were endless.

“But did you get the sale? Good.”

I quit the week after.

For the weeks and months that followed I told this story to anyone who would listen, whether or not it fitted into conversation. I thought it was a entertainment piece, an ode to the plight of the sales representative. I stopped, however, when most were shocked and even disappointed that I pushed the sale. Even though nothing technically dangerous happened, I finally understood that money is not high on the priority list when values, and more importantly, safety are at stake. Forty dollars should not have been justification to converse with a nude stranger. This lesson, while learnt in a disturbing way, has guided me through many orthodox financial decisions, such as finding a new job and picking out degree majors. I wish I could have learnt the insignificance of money without compromising basic morals or common sense, but I suppose, in the spirit of the gap year, it was a life lesson that could only be learnt in the real world.