Boski's Blogopoluza!

It appears that I missed another NCAA Championship game. I looks like I did not miss much last night. Florida beating up Ohio State and it's 45 year old Center. Come on when LeBron James thinks you are older than 18 then you are not telling the truth.

Missing the game seems to be pattern for me.

This year I was working till about 7:00 PM and got home after 8:00 PM.

Last year I was in Northern Ireland.

Year before that stuck at the office again.

So where am I going with this?

Let me tell you a story about a man trying to find work a couple years ago who stumbled into pyramid scheme.

It was the Spring of 2002 and I was looking for a job. I had been beating the pavement since December. The job market sucked a lot of ass. I was ran across an ad for marketing position. I had been very interested to get into marketing and media. I have always been fascinated with the work the Better Half did. So I ran across an ad for a entry position. I sent them my resume and I heard back from them. I was so geeked at the possibility of a full time job, I actually faked being sick at a temp assignment to go to the interview. A temp assignment that I got dumped from 2 days later. They thought I was too quiet for the position so I got the boot. Jerks!

The initial interview went well enough that they called me back. If I only known, I would have come into the interview drunk. Wait looking back on it if I did they would have hired me on the spot.

So Boski what's the deal then?

I am getting to that. About a week later I get a call telling me about coming down for a full day of unpaid "training". Being the sharp bulb I am, I bit. So on April Fool's Day 2002 I became the biggest fool by going on this interview. I get to a place in Anaheim, it actually a stones throw from the Big A. It is about 10:00 and I show up in my suit ready to learn and see if this is the career for me. I walk into the office and I notice a ton of people going in and out. I should have seen this during the interview but I did not care I was just in dire need of a j. o. b. At first I was okay with it being frantic, hey I worked at Disney I could handle this. I should have know from all those days playing Oregon Trail and that if you do not have a good oxen you are going to die on the Plains. Well by being on this interview I cheaped out on the oxen.

My trainer shows up and starts asking me some questions about marketing, and I am answering like a champ. We do not talk about what we are "marketing" and I should have asked. Big mistake. As we get into his car I have a sinking feeling and then


hits me with a trash can lid and steals my wallet.


Not really.

I wished that had happened, it would have been more productive and I would have felt less shame. That sinking feeling was probably the best that I felt about the whole ordeal.I was confused about what was going to be done. I held out some hope that it would not be something too embarrassing. Maybe part of this position is about going to merchants and so on and maybe the product we are marketing would be something I could handle like Angel tickets. That hope would soon be crushed like the media on Anna Nicoles funeral. We drive to another section of Anaheim where we meet another "rep" and we are going to canvass a neighborhood to see if people want to have an ADT sign on their lawns to advertise and if they wanted to they could purchase an ADT system. Great I am in a F%$#ing pyramid scheme selling! This crap is a step above the magazine kids you hear about on the news. Except I could do this only here in the O.C., and with a lot less drugs and crime. Oh wait, since I did such a great job walking around and answering a couple questions that I became a candidate for the management training program. Wow that was some great vetting done there. The trainer sat down with me and discussed that if I showed the gumption that in a couple of months I could be running a crew in exotic places like Fresneck or Stockton. Oh boy sleeping at a Red Roof Inn with 8 other dudes. Hell where do I sign?

I was told this at our lunch at the Carl's Jr. where I use to go and pound my head on the table when I had my most embarrassing job I may ever hold, selling kids clothes. Which I did as a senior in high school. Kids nothing boost your self esteem like being a bench-warmer on a team that would end up being the worst in school history (0-10) and selling kids clothes. Yes, the women do flock to that. I still find it a shock that along with the above mentioned along with my lack of looks, social graces (folks I was a couple of links away from the missing link), and the 79 Toyota Corolla (which was a fly ride) that I did not go to prom.

So now I have spent eight plus hours walking around knocking on doors and feeling like a grade A jackass. The day would have been seriously more productive if stayed home and watched that episode of Quincy. Hey when did the Q not give you a nugget of truth to live by. By the very end when we actually got a bite, instead of listening intently of what was being said, I had tuned it out. I was sitting in some one's home try to see what was on the TV. Now the guys I was with were not awful, I hated what they do for a profession, but hey god bless you if want to do this and you make a career. I just ask that you don't come to my house please, or you get the hose. But we did waste some of the time talking sports and I learned how to better dig a trench.

Now it is dark and I am tired from walking around for eight hours. We are heading the the Valley of Kings. On route my trainer went over the important item that I needed to know and that I was going to be quizzed on, during my interview. Huh ????

I needed to know about the "law of averages". That in one day a marketer should be able the canvass 100 homes, and you should get at least 3 or 3%, to be technical, to talk to you about purchasing a Home Security Package (which is probably as worthless as our current Homeland Security). It was stressed to me that I need to know this. If I didn't I would blow the interview, and a chance at this sweet gig. I also think the fate of the free world depended on it.

Now here is where it got weird. We get back to the office and when I walked in it looked like a cross between a dorm party and office holiday party. A lot of college age people standing around. They had a boom box blaring, I was waiting for the keg stands. This is really not the atmosphere to conduct an interview, but reality and this day had long ceased to communicate with one another. So I took a seat and began to fill out a questionnaire as I waited to be spoken too. I was scared, confused, and I felt clammy, even more so then when I hear anything sung by Fergie. As I sat there just wanting this to end, somebody walks up and sits down next to me and makes chit-chat. How's it going? Who are you? How was it out there? The usual conversation so I thought. After about a couple of minutes they get up and walk away. Then someone else comes over and is doing the same thing, but at this point I feel that they are not doing this to be polite more that this was the interview. Halfway through my second chit-char session I hear a group across the room from us run a ring a bell and cheer. What I do not know, it may have been "ask me about Herbalife". I would hear the room erupt into this cheer three more times before I left.

WTF is going on here? By this point I was so ashamed of myself for getting sucked into this and wasting a day. Then a third person came a long and did the same drill, but it was more about about the job. If this was a job interview then this was one honked up one. I was just waiting for someone to hand me a tracksuit and some Nike's.

After the third and thankfully final drive-by interview they took my questionnaire and I sat there. I sat there for about 20 minutes waiting to be interview and watching the machinations of this pyramid scheme, when my trainer came by and walked me out. He told me the job was mine and I just had to say yes. I was getting the hard sell. I told him, thank you but I need to talk with the wife about this since this is a big decision and I would call them the next day. Which I never did. I walked out into the pleasant April evening and I felt like Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr did in Go when William Fincher and Jane Krakowski tried to sell them Confederated Products. I felt so so dirty.

Thankfully the pyramid scheme never came after me, but I did have to go to everyone I listed as reference and tell them, if they were to call that they were to say I was dead.

So please learn from your Uncle Boski, if you or any one you know ever thinks about applying for a job that looks like this you are to run away, or punch the sense back into that person. So please learn and grow from my shame, it is my gift to you.