Tales From the Edge of the Earth: That Time I Got Fired

In the radio business if you say you're "on the beach" 

it means you've been fired and you have no job.

  The Lady of the House and I sat on the beach at Perdido Key looking out over the Gulf of Mexico as the October sun was getting ready to set.

  We were having a picnic, we were diggin’ our box of fried chicken.

  A couple about our age came strolling along hand-in-hand in the Florida sand.

  “Good day,” I said, giving them a slight wave with one hand while my other hand held a chicken breast.

  “Hello,” said the man.  The woman smiled and nodded.

  “Where y’all from?” I asked.

  “Atlanta,” said the man.

  “Big city,” I said.

  “Having a picnic,” said the man.

  “Yup,” I said.  “We’re celebrating.  I just got fired.”

  The man and woman stopped in their tracks.

  “You just got fired and you’re celebrating?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.  “It didn’t work out.  Good Lord don’t close one door what that he opens another, all that.  It’s on to my next adventure.  I just have to find that door.”

  “Well you certainly have a good attitude about it.”

  “It didn’t kill me, I’m sure I learned some lessons and maybe I got to teach some lessons to some fellow travelers too,” I said and had another bite of fried chicken.

  The Lady of the House and I came to Pensacola, Florida with open hearts and open minds.

  Days after our arrival it was obvious that we had moved into something that was different than our life in Clovis, New Mexico.  We had gone from living in a small town to existing in a place teeming with people:  Ma and Pa Kettle come to the big city.

  I got a job as a car salesman at the local Toyunda dealership.

  Obviously that’s a made-up car name I use to cover my ass because if it’s one thing I learned about Pensacola people like to sue each other there…you should see all the billboards, TV ads, signs on the sides of buses advertising lawyers.

  Folks who know me know me as a storyteller.  I had been paid for years to be a storyteller on the radio I thought I’d just up the ante in Pensacola by storytelling and selling cars at the same time.

  I had tried selling cars 22 years earlier in Phoenix and failed miserably selling a half-car one month and another half-car the next.  What that means is I couldn’t close the deal, the sales manager had to come in and close it for me.

  Why I thought things would be any different in 2015 Pensacola, I don’t know.  But like I said I came to Pensacola with an open mind and an open heart and the dude who interviewed me at the Toyunda place said I had what it took to  make $100,000 a year.

  Once again in life I fell for the sales pitch of a recruiter who was just looking for warm bodies to fill the floor of the dealership.

  But hey, a hundred-grand a year?  That sounded like good money to me!

  So after watching all the training films about the Toyunda and what a damn fine line of vehicles they were and on and on, after learning the rules of the lot, they threw me out on the car lot to go sell.

  And there I was.

  At any given time there were 20 of us on the lot.  Sometimes 3 of us at a time would head out toward a car that just pulled in.  In a few short seconds we worked out who’s “up” it was.  “Up” was the snazzy term for the customer.

  The managers made it very clear to each of us new salespeople that the owner of the dealership had basically invested $600 for every customer who drove on his lot…$600 in advertising, research and stuff.  And no customer could leave the lot without talking to a manager.

“So are we supposed to take their keys?” I asked.

  This was greeted with a furrowed-brow stare from the manager.

  “No,” said the manager.  “We don’t keep their keys from them.  It’s up to you to control the up.  If they buy, the last person they see on the deal is a manager.  If they don’t buy, the last person they see before they leave is a manager.  If you can’t control the customer you have no business being here.”

So lo and behold, the first two weeks on the lot I sold 5 cars…one brand spanking new Toyunda and four used cars.

  The next month began with a sales meeting with new goals.

  “You all know the rules,” said the sales manager, “You have to sell 10 cars minimum every month just to keep your job.  This month, you have to sell 5 cars by the 15^th to keep your job.

  I sold one car the first week of the month.

  And then the well ran dry.

  On the 14^th the sales manager’s second-in-command came walking briskly toward me as I stood on the sales floor.

  “Walk with me, Grant,” he said.

  We went into an office and he shut the door.  We sat.

  “We’re letting you go,” he said.  “You just don’t seem to connect with customers.”

  For just a few seconds I stared at him eye-to-eye.  Thoughts ran through my head.  No point in saying lame stuff like “give me a couple of more days,” or “what the hell do you mean ‘I don’t connect with customers’” or “Talk straight, dorkbutt, you’re firing my ass because I haven’t made goal and ‘last hired is first fired’?”

  I reached across the table and shook the man’s hand.

  “Well, tell the boss I give sincere thanks for the opportunity,” I said.

  I went home.

  It's not like I didn't see it coming. It's like the one sales manager who didn't mind throwing me "under the bus" a couple of times so succinctly said, "In this business you can go from hero to zero."

  So as I sat on the beach with my sweetheart eating fried chicken I pondered:  I had no complaint.

  The dude who was making $100,000 a year was not married and was at the dealership from open to close six days a week.  He lived and breathed Toyundas.  Sure, he ate at Pensacola’s finest restaurants, drove a top of the line Toyunda and oozed success, but that wasn’t my trip.  I value time with The Lady of the House, I value leisure time and The Lady of the House has a list of home chores she wants me to do.

  I was at that dealership to learn something or to share something enlightening with someone.  Only The Universe knows.

  Was it to finally learn that car sales wasn’t for me?  Was it to learn what I really wanted out of this life wasn’t to be like my brother who’s made a tidy living for himself in the financial world?

  Was it to rub elbows with the co-worker who was friends with the guy at the radio station in town that eventually lead to me getting a job back on the air?

  Was I there to say the words to that young man?  He was the young fellow who was trying to emulate the most successful salesman on the lot, spending time away from his new baby and wife.  That on the grand scale of life time with them was more important than chasing after a buck.

  It was the first time in my life I’d ever been fired.  A friend on the social media said that if that was the first time in my life I’d been canned he didn’t know if he could trust me.  I didn’t understand.

  So if you ever get canned, fired, let go…don’t cry, moan, tear at your clothes and skin and gnash your teeth…breathe deep, allow yourself ONE DAY to mourn the loss of your gig…take some time, have a beer…or two…or three or so.  Or have a party, or go on a picnic.  But the next day get up, update your resume’, get out there and like the old song says, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”