Replies

The closest I came to true desperation was selling knives for the Vector corporation (earn $15 an hour!). Even I wouldn't sink that low!

Oh man. I went to one of their 'presentations'. They refused to call it the business, or the company. It was to be referred to as 'The Opportunity'. We had a 20 year old kid with a hundred dollar haircut giving us this spiel.

I listened attentively and politely, and left at the soonest possible time. Good grief, there's a lot of this nonsense out there.

In that dry period in my life, I ended up delivering things in bobtail trucks. Even that had its cheesy moments, when they'd try to overload me and give me instructions on avoiding weigh stations. I flat-out refused to do this, and I refused to drive an overloaded rig, which made me a 'troublemaker'. Aghh.

I did some wacky stuff for work as well when things were tight financially. I remember once working with a copy machine dealership picking up and delivering copiers for them in my own car. I had a Ford Escort wagon. This dealership was too cheap to hire truckers to do it right so I'd drive all the way to Panasonic headquarters in Secaucus, NJ from Boston, stick a copy machine in the back of my wagon, and drive it all the way back to Boston and deliver it to whatever customer it was buying the machine. I'd have to get their technician to help me lift the machine out of the car. Now this was in the days before cell phones and beepers so I would have to call from a payphone to tell them when I got there and then sit there, double-parked in the streets of Boston, waiting for the tech to show up. Then we'd each grab an end of the copier and lug it into the building. It's a wonder I didn't get serious back problems. The dealership paid me in cash too. It was a totally under-the-table deal - usually an envelope with $200 in cash.

One time driving back in New Jersey, I had a problem with my wagon, it would stall out as soon as I let off on the gas pedal. So I drove all the way back from Jersey with my foot on the gas. If I had to slow down for tollbooths or whatever, I'd shift into neutral so I could keep my foot on the gas. It was a crazy ride. Then another time, the copier was too big for me to close the hatchback door. So I'm driving all the way back with a copier sticking out through the rear with the hatchback open. When I hit Connecticut, a huge downpour ensues. I had to pull off the highway and look for a place to buy some plastic or tarp to cover the damn copier. All the way back, I'm wondering if the copier was ruined and I would now have to pay the $10,000 for the copier!

But I'd rather go through all that again than to be a telemarketer.