When I used to work in sales because I want to tell you about Stevie

Before I got this pretty normal job I used to work in sales. Mostly on the phone. I did have one of those jobs where you stood around the big box store in a branded polo shirt from the one company that makes ninety percent of them for the whole country. 

I didn't like it because I didn't like talking to people in person. Technically they're at a store where they're already getting something related to what you're selling. In this case it was some kind of dirt additive at a home improvement store. 

I tasted the dirt once, early on, but it just tasted like dirt. Rich, but that's any high quality dirt. If there was an additive it was tasteless and odorless. I think I might've tried to look it up but couldn't figure out an answer to that question. I thought if it did taste or smell like something, and I could describe it, that would make a pretty good sales pitch. 

I lasted three days at that job and wasn't allowed back to that home improvement store.

I did a lot better on the phone, where I can be whoever I need to depending on who it is I'm talking to. 

I made a few friends in sales. It's not really as competitive as you'd think. No more than in any other thing people  do. 

Some of these sales people could sell anything.

I met Stive at a call center where a few different companies shared the phone banks, and probably sometimes the leads too the way some of them would go off at me.

Stive sat next to me and he'd always get a laugh whenever I'd get into it with any of the leads on the phone. 

I didn't take it personally, I knew it was funny. I liked doing it too.

Once he grabbed the phone for me and pretended to be my supervisor. I'd been selling commemorative plates for the recent election and he sold the old woman the life insurance he'd been selling that day and then the commemorative plates. Two good investments.

I asked him if he'd give me some pointers but he said I didn't need any. I just needed to relax. So we became friends. He left that place first, to go start on his own, and I got let go I think at the end of that same week 

Stive found one thing he really liked selling. He would tell me he had taken that job specifically to find something he could do for himself.

He didn't end up taking a product directly from anything we sold there. It was a pet insurance thing. He found that it was easier to sell the thing to people with older pets.

One time a guy asked him if the insurance would cover putting his dog down. It was getting old and it wasn't something he could deal with.

Stive knew he could. He just needed someone who'd be able to put the dog down.

He started calling local vets to find out how they go about putting down dogs. Do you make an appointment? Do dog owners go to their dog's vet when it's time? Does the vet keep track of when it's time?

Stive found that there was a lot involved but it wasn't something vets were very comfortable talking about. They generally said they left it up to owners to bring up. Sometimes an owner would come in with a dog sick enough where they didn't know it was time but it certainly was. That was a best case scenario.

The first couple vets hung up on Stive but eventually he found one willing to listen. Dr. G-------, and they are doctors, I didn't believe Stive at first but he told me Dr. G made a big deal out of it. He also didn't like being called Dr. G.

But he did like the idea of not having to deal with pet owners who didn't know it was time to put their dogs down while having more of them come in. 

Stive said he'd intended to feel a few vets out first, three or four at least to find the right fit. But when Dr. G told him he'd cut his price and let Stive charge whatever he wanted for his commission, and hand over his customer list, Stive wanted to get right into it. 

Eventually he found vets in other cities and got a few of his own sales people but he liked doing it himself. 

He asked me if I wanted to work for him but I didn't like the idea.

I did go to the dog park with him sometimes. Stive said you could tell the dogs were dying when their whiskers were white. 

I asked him how it was different from people with gray hair and he supposed it didn't. Why not sell funeral services the same way? Stive supposed that was already how it was done.

I'd never been to a dog park before Stive took me. I never owned a dog so why would I have? It was loud and smelly.

I don't remember why I was telling you about Stive. I never got trespassed from the dog park but Stive did. He'd probably been thinking of what I said and told this woman with a dog she looked as old as that he could help her arrange her funeral too. 

I still go to the dog park without Stive. I have some of his business cards but I've never handed one out. I got bit once but it was fine. I've been bitten harder by humans.