I sold pleather. Check that. I tried to sell pleather. For three days. I never convinced anyone to hand me cash in exchange for the plastic purses, vests, jackets, wallets and briefcases I hauled around office buildings in the Loop and Chicago's surrounding suburban strip malls. But I tried.

     The ad in the paper said salesmen earned $300 to $400 a day. I showed up at 7 a.m., and we had a really upbeat pep talk. Then I tossed a bunch of this genuine imitation crap in my car and went off to sell, sell, sell.

     If you work in an office building, you've seen us. We barge in the door carrying all this stuff and announce that someone upstairs made a mistake on their order. Since we don't want to incur the expense of shipping it back, we will sell it to you BELOW COST!!! This $250 purse? Eighty bucks! Do I hear $70?

     I went with a Trainer my first day. The pitch was just the pitch, he explained. The trick was to rack up knock numbers. A good salesman will get a sale at one out of 20 pitches. Say, $100. Make 40 pitches an hour. That's $200 in sales. You get to keep half. So this is a $100 an hour job.

     A key here was to recognize no-sell knocks. Don't waste time on them. Customers were enthusiastically helpful in this regard.

     "Get the fuck out of here!"

     "How many times do we have to tell you guys?"

     "Call security!"

     "It's the pleather man again."

     Pay them no mind, Trainer told me. Go, go, go. Knock, knock, knock. Sell, sell, sell. Sure enough, we did encounter a stop in the first half hour at which no one hurled curses at us. The pitch was made and someone actually came up with $50 for a jacket that that kinda' looked like leather.

     "This is easy money," Trainer said. "We're on track to make $500 today." He sent me down hallways by myself with the promise that he would split the profits on my sales, even though he was training me. What a guy! I sold nothing. He watched me make a few pitches and recommended I listen to Norman Vincent Peale motivational tapes in my car on the way home.

     Despite not having any sales my first day I was deemed ready to go out myself on Day Two. My heart wasn't in it. I sold nothing and took a two- hour lunch. Trainer hadn't required food to knock on 350 office doors on Day One. He made $300.

     "I succeed every day because I know I will succeed every day."

     On Day Three I told myself I would succeed. I would succeed because success was successful. I would be like Trainer. I would not eat. I would sell.

     I started to get the hang of it. My knock- per-hour rate increased. Knock and rock. When someone looks interested, it is good to act like you are in a hurry. Remember the pitch. My boss, Murray, is downstairs in the dock and has told me to GIVE THIS STUFF AWAY in 15 minutes otherwise we'll just send it back. We really don't care. Do you want the purse or the vest? This is taught on the motivational tapes. Change the question from "Do you want to buy this shit?" to "are you buying this piece of shit or that piece of shit?" Then people give you their money! 

     I promised myself I would not eat on Day Three until I sold something. And there she was. New on the job, no doubt. Clearly hadn't heard the pleather pitch before. Liked the look of a purse. I agreed to $30. She pulled out her wallet. Someone popped her head in the door.

     "Is that that leather stuff?"

     She no doubt had heard of our fine products before.

     "I've sold most of it, " I nonchalanted. "But I've got a nice jacket left and a vest. Which one do you want?"

     This was getting easy!

     "Pam wanted to talk to you."

     "I dunno...Murray's got the truck running down in the dock."  I fixed my sell-stare on Victim Number One thinking all the while of Trainer's admonition to CLOSE THE DEAL.  GET THE MONEY.

     This is another psychological advantage I was about to use. When someone actually HANDS YOU MONEY everyone else in eyesight will want to GIVE YOU THEIR MONEY, TOO!  Really. They can't help themselves. She took out the money. A twenty and a ten.

     In came Pam. I cleverly left THE MONEY on the desk so Pam would see it, turn into a zombie and give me HER MONEY, TOO.

    "Yeah, you're not the same guy, but I got this last week. And look it ripped. It was supposed to be guaranteed, right? I paid $60 for it and here's the receipt."

      Clearly this was purchased from one of those disreputable companies we've all heard about. We never left receipts. But the damage was done. Victim Number One picked up the money I had so cleverly left on the desk. I exchanged the jacket for Intended Victim Number Two. Which means I would have to pay the company at least $30 for it. I knew better than to ask about their return policy.

     "Thanks so much," Pam cood. "That other guy seemed shady but I guess you guys are alright."

     I left and decided I had to settle up my accounts and see where this was all getting me, successwise. I had managed by this, the third day, to rack up negative commissions. Plus gas in my car. Plus yesterday's two-hour lunch. Plus a parking ticket. I had succeeded to the tune of  minus $100.

     I headed back to the office. I wasn't a very good salesman. I would return their goods, thank them for their time and be on my way. But the office door was locked. I recalled something from the pep talk that morning about a new motivational tool the company had devised. No one was allowed back in the office until 6 p.m.

     I thought momentarily of throwing this plastic  leather genuine imitation crap in the nearest dumpster and heading to my favorite bar while I still had drinking money in my pocket.

     That would be unprofessional. And not very successful. So I found a bar near the office and drank for five hours. Then went back to return the crap. The boss asked me to sit in her office and wait.

     "I don't want to waste your time," I said as successfully as I could. "I can't do this. Here's your stuff back."

      I had made a management decision while waiting in the bar. Seems I got down to my last $30, but had to wait two more hours to quit. I was contractually obligated to reimburse the company $30 for the jacket I had given away on an unauthorized exchange. A more proper use of said funds, I determined, was for me to drink it.

     So now I had cleverly inserted the damaged pleather jacket on the bottom of the pile so they wouldn't know it was damaged. When the boss lady insisted I wait in her office, I assumed this was the reason. They would conduct an inventory of their fine products, as would any successful company, and determine something was amiss. They would then turn me upside down and shake.

     She came in beaming the angelic smile so common to Norman Vincent Peale devotees.

     "I'm guessing you talked yourself out of your success today." She looked at my inventory report on her desk . "Jim."

     God these people were good.

     "Jim, we don't use the 'Q' word around here. I know you are going to get back out there and succeed because you are a winner. Trainer was very high on your personality skills. I was so sure of your success, I cut you loose too soon. Tomorrow you go back out with Trainer. You are going to have phenomenal success."

     She turned on her heels and looked back to give me a wink.

     "See you in the morning."

     I lost money not selling anything and drank for five hours, but she didn't want me to quit. I stumbled out to my car and never returned. Some people just aren't cut out for success.