The Marketing Job by Phil Keeling

 

She assures us that she makes a whole lot more than her roommates, and that she wouldn’t have it any other way.  If you know me, you know that this is the part in the story that I’m supposed to start waving my arms and pointing a finger in her face and scream “Bullshit!  Bullshit!”  And perhaps that’s why this story is so shameful for me to tell sometimes; because I simply sit in the backseat and silently nod my head all the way to the neighborhood she’s currently working.

This is how it goes: the marketing firm is not a marketing firm.  Well, it is in the same sense that telemarketing is marketing.  Except telemarketing is high-tech compared to what we’re expected to do.  Hell, telemarketing might be more polite.  Essentially, we go to each small business we find, and harass business owners in person.  We’re trying to get them to switch to our credit card service.  For each person who says yes, Sarah gets $100.  She says that she makes usually 300 to 400 a week.  This is not a great deal, considering Sarah works from 9 until 6 or 7, and as I look over to the other prospective employee beside me, I see that I’m not alone in this opinion.  This other girl at least lives in the area- her name’s Mary and she’s a photography major, ready to graduate at around the same time as me.  She gets the bright idea to tell Sarah that she was wrongly told that she only had to stay until noon.

“Oh, well that’s not true,” says Sarah.  “Do you have to go at noon?”

“I have class.”

Clever little bitch.  Wish I’d thought of that ruse. 

“Well,” says Sarah, eyeing me in the rearview mirror.  “I’ve got you until five!”

Shit.

“Now, this job is not for everyone,” says Sarah to us both at one point.  I nod in agreement, finally sensing a bit of sanity in this woman.  Yes, some people wanted money that they knew would be there week after week.  Some people wanted to know exactly what they were getting.  Some people wanted base pay.

“Some people,” says Sarah, “Aren’t willing to do the work that it takes.  Some people want stuff handed to them on a silver platter.  We don’t support that here.”

The idea that I’m being lazy for wanting a steady paycheck is enough to make me want to force us all over a cliff. 

After we’ve harassed thirty businesses, Sarah totes us back to the corporate park so that Mary can go to “class”.  I’m sitting in the lobby, dreading the next five hours, when Sarah asks if I’d like to go, too. 

“I noticed that you’re from Pennsylvania- are you leaving today?”

I lie and say yes.

“That’s a really long trip- you’ve got a good idea of what we do here, right?”

A little too much, in fact.

Sarah tells me that she thinks I could really do well with their company.  I thank her.

I call Robin on the way back to the hotel room.  She’s exactly what I need, her voice bright and optimistic as she asks how the interview went. 

“Do you think you got the job?”

I tell her about the day, and she continues to be exactly what I need, telling me not to worry- we’ll get lunch when I come back, and try to forget about the day. 

Over sushi and General Tso’s, a thought strikes Robin.

“Oh my god- that’s probably what my interview tomorrow’s going to be.”

We groan and try to figure out how to get out of it.  In the end, she decides to go anyhow- we might be wrong- it might be the opportunity that she’s looking for.  Still holding onto to the dream, we get up good and early for our trip to Mineola. 

The trip takes a little over half an hour, and on the way, I tell Robin that if it turns out to be the same thing, to get the hell out of there. 

“Try telling them you have class,” I say.

The area this marketing firm is located in is less opulent than my own was.  My marketing firm was part of a large corporate area in a beautiful area.  Mineola looks like suburban Pennsylvania, and her office is situated beside a Blimpie’s.  I wish Robin luck and watch her leave for the interview.  I park on the street around the corner, and crack into a fresh book I recently bought, not sure when to expect her back.  I’ve relocated to inside the Blimpie’s by the time she calls me.  It’s been eight hours, and I’m almost done with my book.  Her voice is cheerful, though, and for a moment I’m really excited.  I ask her how it went.

“Good!” she says.

I hear someone in the background and groan inwardly.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“I’m on my way back to the office.”

“Was it the exact same thing as my interview was?”

“Yep!” she says in the same cheery tone. 

On our way home, she recounts the horrible day.  She shadowed a sleazy part-time actor who mumbled, asked what religion she was, and used her cell phone four times.  The job offered nothing but commission, but at least had benefits. 

“I’m fucking hungry.” She said.  “Let’s get out of here and buy some chicken nuggets- I deserve to eat whatever I want after this crap.”

I agree, and we make our way through Manhattan on our way to Jersey.  Driving in Manhattan is a nightmare, as many people know, but I was actually grateful to do it.  We hadn’t seen the city together in almost a year, and it was fun to take a quick tour through the city we both so dearly loved. 

We both hungry and pissed off by the time we fly out of the tunnel and get onto the Jersey Turnpike.  Robin and tired and freshly frightened by the prospects of finding work in New York- I’m just plain tired.  We snap at each other a bit, a common side effect of being hungry and in a relationship.  We want to put some miles between the city and us before we stop to eat, so we keep our eyes open for fast food through the early stages of New Jersey.  The problem with that is the area of Jersey that surrounds New York City is rural at best.  We’re almost an hour into the worst state in the Union by the time we finally see a little civilization.  After taking several back roads and cursing the state three times for each one, we stretch our legs and order as much greasy food as we think we can handle.  In the florescent glow of the lights above, Robin and I bitch about our adventure to each other, repeating the same complaints we’ve issued a dozen times already.  And in the heated facilities of that food chain, we laugh at it all like it means nothing.  The wasted money, our impending graduation and undeniable need for work is forgotten in those moments.  Putting food and physical miles between our tormentors and ourselves soothes our fears for now, and the rest of the trip feels like we could be coming home from doing anything at all.