I Could NEVER Do That!

What would I be when I grew up?  A mommy, a teacher, a nurse.  Yes.  Any of those would be fine.  Welllll, no.  As life moved on, I KNEW I did NOT want to be a teacher.  After all, my mom was a teacher and we were not at all alike.  I'd like to be a farmer or maybe a cow doctor - hmm - not girl things! 

I enrolled as a Home Ec.  major with a Religeous Education minor at a small Methodist college.  I could be a fine wife for some deserving guy and work in a church - - or purhaps change that minor.  At any rate, I would be able to get married and raise kids, etc., etc. 

OOPS!  Religious Education includes very boring biblical and historical study as well as GREEK!  Yikes.  OK, so maybe it is regular Education after all.  NEVER going to get married!  Hate math, and doing well in the general and Ed. courses.  So that was it.  I would major in Education and teach Kindergarten, which I did.

Fast forward:   Having gotten married, after all;  having taught and loved it; having great children of my own; having divorced, etc. - - - A friend called to say, "I have the perfect job for you."  It was a sales job.  SALES????  No, way.  I think of the used car guys and other sales people who give you their lines and their pressure.  Not me.  I could never do that.  However, I went on the interview. "No need to worry about your salary", they said.  "Your pay is not contingent upon your sales. All we require is that you do exactly as we say.  If we are wrong, it's OUR fault, not yours."  I thought that sounded like a great deal.  And it was. 

If you have ever purchased (for yourself or others) a pair of hose packaged in a funny looking egg, I thank you.   I was one of the first people to convince grocers and sundries managers that women would purchase hosery in a grocery or drug store, and that they would pick up those funny looking little eggs week after week after week.  They did. 

What I learned was that I could sell if I truly liked, believed, or enjoyed the product or idea.  I had to comfortable with the cost for the purchaser and comfortable with "no" for an answer.  Given those caveats, I could do it.    

Sales make much of the world go 'round.  And all of us, deep down somewhere are probably salesmen/women/people of some sort or another  - - - for something or someone, for an idea, or a cause, or a mission.     Aren't you?