mymatelookslikephilstamp
Active member
I did exactly that same job in Australia for 8 weeks whilst I was backpacking. Totally commission only and I was terrible at it, so often worked 12-hour days for zero cash. My mate who was backpacking with had the gift of the gab and raked it in! Same scenario, company song and clapping every day before heading out into the 'field', then gong smashing in a circle end of day for those that had made the most sales. Some people really got into it, it felt like a bit of a cult to be honest - Cobra I think the company was called. We ended up in some town in the middle of nowhere one day, knocked on the door and this older couple answered, they recognised by my accent and we started chatting and ended up that they'd live on the same road as my Nana in the 70s in Priestfields - mad!I don't start threads very often but I was thinking about this today and I'd be interested to hear about other FMTTM members experiences. I've mentioned my student job in a campus bookshop on here before and how awful it was. But I think that it was the direct sales door knocking job that I had in the holidays between sixth form and going to Uni that was the worst one for me. Spending ten hours a day in unfamiliar parts of Teesside knocking on strangers doors and trying to sell them worthless crap. You got paid a tenner a day basic and the rest was commission on the stuff that you sold. I was pretty good at it because I'm good at bullsh*tting people but I really hated doing it. And I hated having to look smart and wear a tie every day too. And you had to sing the company song every morning at the staff meeting and pretend to be be all enthusiastic. The whole thing was just a pyramid scheme and an absolute nightmare. It was horrific. NSFW Derek and Clive video attached:
On that same backpacking trip ended up picking peppers on a farm for while, 10 hours of utterly back breaking work bent over double all day, not easy for someone at 6 ft 4. We had this crazy Austrian boss who just told everyone 'ze pain is in ze mind' whenever anyone complained. Didn't stick around too long on that job!