soliciting

So on my quest to find a new part time job, I came across a posting on Craigslist which was titled "LOVE YOUR JOB AGAIN!" Wow. It looked very intriguing. It was posted by a chiropractic firm that was looking for more customers. Basically the job description was noted as a marketing job where you would go out to places around Irvine and get people to fill out surveys and give them a coupon for a free session and massage or something. Anyways, I went to the interview which pretty much was just me sitting there with 3 or 4 other young people and one really annoying old woman listening to the doctor give us a deeper description of the job. As he described it further (with many many suck-up comment interruptions from the old woman) the job sounded more and more like soliciting. At the end of his speech, the doctor basically said that it was actually a working interview, and now he wanted us to all go out and solicit for an hour and he will pay us for the hour when we return. Then the old woman asked some more ass kissing questions and we each got a stack of gift certificates and left. The gift certificates have a tear off section where the person is suppose to write down their name and number so I can call them later and harass them to come in for the free session.

Anyways, the whole time I was listening to this job description I was thinking to myself "Wow, I'm probably going to be really good at this" and "Wow, I am probably going to get hired and that old lady isn't" and "Wow, this lady is really fucking old." I based these thoughts on the fact that I have spent my last three years in college rushing people for LTD's and I have gotten pretty damn good at it. I have also mastered the art of flyering and faking interest in people I talk to. This job is going to be pretty much the same thing.

After I got the gift certificates and left the chiropractic office, I debated on whether or not I should do this job legitimately. I figured since I almost never do anything legitimately, I would try it for once. So I went over to The District in my dress shirt and tie and stood outside Target holding large neon green coupons. Immediately I realized I had a problem. Talking to Asian kids about joining a fraternity is nothing like talking to middle age white women about getting a free chiropractic massage. I'm not even that great at talking to white people my age, let alone old white people.

So I was standing awkwardly outside Target in my shirt and tie (while sweating), trying to convince people to give me their phone number in return for a free massage coupon. Needless to say, I was very nervous. I probably let a pretty good amount of people pass by before I was able to even open my mouth, and all I was able to say to these two older women was "Hello! How are you!" They said hello back and walked past. YES! Improvement! After about 15 more minutes of letting people pass by me without talking to them, I concluded that this is a really stupid job and went home. During that time span, I was able to give out one coupon without getting her number and got rejected once. On the drive home I was feeling kind of down because I realized I actually suck at talking to strangers which was something I thought I was relatively good at. I didn't even go back to the chiropractic office to get my money since I was embarrassed I didn't get any numbers. So I only slept for 4 hours that night, wasted about 2 hours on the interview and sweated a lot in my only good dress shirt (which I don't wash often), just so I could find out that I suck at talking to strangers. Not the best morning to have.

But then I took a nap realized I will probably never have to get a stranger's number in exchange for a free chiropractic message coupon ever in my life again. So its cool.

HAGS