WWJD? Sell advertising space!

You may think that sitting on the floor of a cash cube, chest deep in wrinkled, fake money was the low point of my career but it doesn’t even come close. It’s like twelfth to last. Moments that rank lower include the Sonic dumpster debacle of 1995 , the whole summer of 1994 at Michael’s Arts and Crafts and trudging through mud at NASCAR to check on mini-donuts in 2002.

But the lowest of all was my first job out of college. We’ll call it the eight months of selling newspaper ads to people who had no money to buy newspaper ads. It was like trying to sell ice to Eskimos. Or shoes to Britney Spears.

Common rebuttals included, “Is it more than $50?” and “What’s the smallest ad you got? I’ll buy a 1 inch x 1 inch ad and I’ll run it one time. Then we’ll “test” it and see if a bunch of people sign up for karate classes…oh, and I want to include 200 words…”

The worst part (as is the worst part of most jobs) was my boss. We’ll call him Max. No, Max sounds too cool. He wasn’t cool. He had bright blonde hair and thought he was cool but he was the most obnoxious, slimiest, sales guy ever. We’ll call him Don.

Did I tell you that Don drove a yellow corvette?

And the worst part…he wore a WWJD bracelet. I’m not saying it’s bad to wear that bracelet but if you’re gonna wear it, you better be on your best behavior. My friend at work would say, “Does Don look at that every day and say, ‘What would Jesus do? He’d sell advertising space!’”

He gave me daily pep talks about how I could be a better salesperson. These included analogies to Xerox and Coke. “Yes, Don, I agree,” I’d say. “If I was selling copy machines or sugar drinks I’d be a great salesperson. Nobody wants your stinkin’ newspaper ads!” Okay, that’s not exactly what I said but whatever it was, Don decided that he needed to crack the whip on me.

He told me that every day I had to bring back 15 business cards from people I had visited. But these people didn’t have business cards! We were out in the country; they were lucky to have cash registers! My same friend at work who mocked the WWJD bracelet suggested that I go to a local restaurant and grab the fishbowl full of business cards from the hostess stand. We chuckled at the idea of me walking into our office with the fishbowl and plopping it on Don’s desk.

I think that may have been the only time we laughed at that job.

Since I knew nobody wanted to buy ads and I couldn’t get any business cards, I’d just spend my days at the local mall. The knick-knack-figurine store at the mall had once bought an ad from me so I figured if anybody asked, I’d say I was just visiting them. And I did visit them…but then I’d just window shop (couldn’t really shop because I didn’t make any money seeing as I didn’t sell any ads).

But then that plan backfired when a guy at the knick-knack-figurine store that I visited every day thought I liked him and asked me out. I had to get out of there. I was becoming a mall rat. And I hadn’t even snagged a fish bowl yet!

So after eight months of pep talks, scoldings, driving around aimlessly and getting doors slammed in my face, I walked into Don’s office and told him I was quitting to work at an advertising agency.

He told me I’d starve.

I said, “Well you know what? That’s what Jesus would do!”