GETTING FIRED VS QUITTING
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My specialties in life are great and many, but none more fabulous than the talent I've possessed for getting fired and/or quitting a job.
How many jobs and careers I blazed through would spin your head! Suffice it to say, more than you've time or patience to hear.
There is something in my psychology and verbal arsenal too prone toward candid criticism! I find myself blurting out what I really think before even I can stop myself.
I worked for an Art Gallery owner once who had everything going for him except good sense. He drove a Mercedes, lived on the beach, belonged to the Young Millionaire's Club (yes, there was such an enterprise) and he even read self-improvement books, and yet he lacked "common sense" to the extent I got sideways with him over and over again.
For example...
This boss of mine, let's call him "Charles" (because that was his name, although everybody called him Chuck) had contacted a client who was in charge of purchasing Art for the regional headquarters of AAA Auto Association. In the course of wooing this potential client Chuck had over-extended the generosity of the discount.
Charles foolishly promised the man a 50% discount on a purchase of 300 or more pieces of Art. The next day, Charles called all Art Associates into his office to break the big news.
I entered the office and sat down.
I was wearing a name tag which I had concocted. It read:
T.E.Walstrom and underneath I had printed neatly and professionally, "Art Ass."
Just to the left of that, in a teeny font, I had included (sm).
Charles didn't find this amusing and told me so.
This was said while everybody else in the room cracked up.
After the laughter died down, Charles took a deep breath and commenced his wonderful news announcement with these words.
"I have an idea..."
I immediately interjected: "Beginner's Luck!"
So you see, we were off to a rocky start.
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Charles told us we had to pull down every piece of art in the Gallery and reframe everything with cheaper materials ASAP because his new client was coming in the next day to select Art for the AAA regional headquarters. The promise of 50% discount would destroy our profit margin unless we acted post haste!
The crowd of us groaned. Pulling down hundreds of pieces of Art, dismantling them, rechoosing, cutting and fitting mattes and frames? It was insane!
I blurted, "That's incredibly stupid. Let's just change the price tags instead. We'll double all the prices. There we go, problem solved. Next order of business!"
Charles and the others were stunned. The Boss's mouth worked like a goldfish, soundlessly opening and closing without even a bubble of comment.
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Although I didn't get fired (my solution was brilliant because it was moronically simple) I was on Chuck's shit-list for awhile.
What ended my (sm) ART ASS. job for Creative Galleries was this.
Charles decided to have a sales contest.
The sole purpose of this contest was to humiliate me.
Chuck's best friend (and roommate at the beach) was named Mike. Mike was always the top salesman at the Gallery. Mike was a god. He was German Master Race blonde, with curly hair, sharp handsome features, a baritone voice, blinding smile, and a line of bullshit that could keep a field of alfalfa green all summer.
Mike and I were sales rivals. Nobody could beat Mike. Mike was the Terminator; a juggernaut of salesmanship. Of course, there were reasons for this unbroken record of achievement. Charles let him cheat! Charles didn't care how Mike made a sale as long as the sale was made. The rest of us? We had to obey the rules.
For instance, (sm) ART ASS. salesmen had a rule about alternating who approached walk-in customers. It was called the UP system.
If 3 of us were on the sales floor, we took turns. Next UP was not the same salesman twice in a row.
Simple?
Hell no.
Mike would speak to three or four people simultaneously and pretend "he thought" they were in a group together. Like a Disney Tour guide, Mike stopped the crowd in their tracks and "briefed them".
He had a canned speech. The upshot of this speech ended with the command, "Just come to me and I'll see that you get the best price and personal service." Flashing a neon smile and jutting out his manly chin, he was the neighborhood dog peeing on every tree, marking his territory.
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In the weeks leading up to the Big Contest, Charles had gone out of his way to compare Mike's winning sales totals to my sales totals. This wasn't to encourage competition--it was to incite me to embarrassment in front of the others. BIG MISTAKE.
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The Big Contest would last one month. Whichever person collected the most $$ would get a special Bonus, $1000 in cash!
I don't know if you've ever seen Alec Baldwin in David Mamet's film, Glengarry Glen Ross. In the film, there is a sales contest for 4 worn out Real Estate agents. Baldwin is a genuine asshole from Corporate headquarters brought in to fire up the crew. He gives a speech which is cold as ice and sharp as razor blades.
The speech Baldwin gives could have come right out of Chuck MItchell's script of sales cliche's.
"ABC.
A, Always,
B, Be,
C, Closing.
Always be closing.
Always be closing.
AIDA. Attention. Interest. Decision. Action...
Attention. Do I have your attention?
Interest. Are you interested? I know you are 'cause it's fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks.
Decision. Have you made your decision for Christ?
And action. AIDA. Get out there. You got the prospects coming in, you think they came in to get out of the rain? A guy don't walk on the lot lest he wants to buy. They're sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you going to take it? Are you man enough to take it?"
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Chuck closed his Contest speech with this gem.
"First prize, as I said, is a thousand bucks. There is no 2nd, 3rd. or 4th place prize. Winner takes all."
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Mike was a terrific fellow with a big heart. He was a loyal person. He and Chuck had met in the Air Force in Taipei. They were both hustlers when it came to life; especially with women! Mike could "Get any girl" he wanted. Just ask him, he would tell you. Chuck was always interested in business. He wanted to be a millionaire before the age of 30. (Spoiler alert: he succeeded.) But Chuck and Mike had a touch of larceny in their friendship and their bone marrow.
The idea behind Creative Galleries was simple. Chuck bought five hundred very cheap oil paintings in Taipei from a slave shop. He paid two bits apiece for small ones, half a buck for medium sizes, and a full dollar for large paintings. These were paintings on canvas.
Have you ever heard of "STARVING ARTISTS"? This was Chuck's dream. Except, the artists were anonymous sweatshop victims of greed and exploitation.
Chuck and Mike got out of the Air Force and moved to Southern California, in Manhattan Beach. Chuck found an abandoned Bakery complex and set up his gallery right across from the Antique Guild.
This was a prime location.
Why?
It was half a mile from MGM STUDIOS.
The Antique Guild sold fake antique clones of real antiques and movie stars, actors, and upwardly mobile customers couldn't get enough.
If you walk in or out of the Antique Guild, there was CREATIVE GALLERIES with a large banner, two brightly colored posters on easels just outside, and an eager and smiling Mike Kisgyn standing like a Carnival barker at a fairground hustling Rubes into the Funhouse to be fleeced!
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Mike and Chuck had parlayed those cheap oil paintings into real money.
How?
They bought a large van and approached the aerospace and credit industry office buildings to set up a special and exclusive STARVING ARTIST sale on weekends.
These employees made a lot of money and were only too happy to buy genuine oil paintings with fascinating biographies of the wannabe artists (which were fictional concoctions) and a piece of worthless paper in the form of a Certificate of Authenticity. (Confederate money was worth more.)
This went on for a year or so until the oil painting market dried up and Chuck and MIke decided to go Legit. They would buy and sell REAL Art. This meant the gallery transitioned from schlocky framed oil paintings to colorful posters in metal frames and limited editon lithographs, etchings, silkscreen works, etc.
Since I had a background as an Artist in an atelier (etching studio) I was hired. That's how this saga had come together.
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The Big Contest had begun and I had been set up to be trampled into a humble also-ran status. Mike would fatefully grind me into a paste and I would have to learn humility. That was the gist of Chuck's scheme.
I knew going in, Mike would cheat.
I worked at Creative Galleries for a year. I knew all of Mike's shady ways, scumbag moves, tawdry double-dealing, finesse tactics, and I was inclined to make counter moves with countermeasures.
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Are you curious how an Art salesperson earns a living?
If you sold a piece of Art for full price, you earned a 15% commission, unless you extend a discount, then your commission dropped to 10%.
Simple enough?
No.
Mike was Sales Manager and he had the discretionary power to adjust the amount of discount by a margin greater than the rest of us were allowed.
For example.
If a piece of Art sold for $400 and an interested customer was hesitating and about to walk, we had options to sweeten the deal.
"Did I mention you can take this Art home and hang it on your wall for a full month and live with it, see how it goes with your decor, invite your friends' comments, see how it works in your everyday environment--and if it doesn't please you fully--RETURN IT for refund without hassle, no questions asked."
If the customer still hesitated, we could add another incentive.
"I'm authorized to deduct ten percent of the sale for special customers. We get many celebrities in here from the studio down the street. I could extend to you the V.I.P. discount IF you make your decision right now. I'll write up this transaction, wrap the piece and deliver it to your home and hang it for you. How's that for service?"
Yes. We actually did that!
Except--MIke was empowered as Sales Manager to offer up to a 50% discount at his discretion.
Half off would remove the profit from the sale--but--the idea was that sometimes snagging a high-profile client (a CEO or person of influence) would lead to future sales.
Mike would surely go crazy with his tremendous advantage! Chuck would let him.
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I knew all this and so did everybody else.
Mike and I had been pitted against each other on purpose by Charles. Mike was Chuck's henchman.
Chuck had told me in confidence one day, "You can think of it as a footrace at a track. The starting gun goes off and the runners run as fast as they can. But Mike, he's going to win even if he has to trip you at the start. He'll do anything to win. He hates losing. Losing is impossible to accept for him. That's why he'll always be my number one salesman. I have seen others try who were smarter and smoother, but they all went down in flames."
Yeah yeah. I get it. I get it.
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At the end of 30 days, all the sales slips were totaled by the office accountant. A sale was only counted as a true sale IF the money had been collected in full. Because of the 30-day return policy, no sale was counted as final unless a full month had passed from the date of the sale itself.
Consequently, the Big Contest wouldn't be final until another full month went by.
Mike had tallied invoices each day keeping a running total so he knew where he stood. In the last few days of that Contest month, Mike had tried every trick. He offered to give me extra days off "for a job well done." No thanks. He promised if any of my customers came in on my actual days off, he would put my name on any sales which occurred.
I checked the next day.
He always put HIS NAME down and I always protested and he always played dumb and apologized!
I got a phone call at the gallery toward the middle of that month from one of Mike's special clients. She was very nice. She had worked with him for several years. She worked for a design firm called DESIGN ONE which was all women. They did interior decoration for businesses. Selecting Art was part of their service. Mike had charmed the owner at first, but over time she had seen through his not-so-subtle larceny. She became fed up with him. Why?
She explained.
"Mike has slept with every one of my employees. He makes promises he never keeps and he's got them all fighting among themselves. I'm sick of it. I want you to be my contact from now on. You have always been professional and give excellent advice. Mike pretends to know what he's doing and yet he doesn't have a clue. We want to continue working with Creative Galleries because the prices and service are better than any other place we've found. Any suggestions?"
She told me one other bit of and I did have a suggestion.
In fact, I had a great suggesting.
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In the last few days of the Big Contest, Mike and I were neck and neck and he was terrified! He was in a panic! He went so far as to intrude on my sales presentations and try to butt in and take over while I was speaking to customers!! Embarrassing himself came easily. I didn't get angry--I just called him out in front of the customer with a jovial tone.
"Oh, don't mind Mike--we're having a sales contest and he's doing so badly I don't blame him for losing his sense of professional courtesy since his reputation is on the line."
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By the end of the last day, somehow or other, Mike had bested my sales figures by $123. His grin made the moon look dim. He was in a GREAT MOOD strutting around slapping the other employees on the back.
The sales accountant reminded Mike, "It's not over until all the money is final. Don't forget the returns figure into this!"
Mike scoffed. He was So-o-o-o-o-o confident of success!
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In our previous conversation, DESIGN ONE had broken the news to me Mike had not spent any time at all following up on a big job. His selection of art for a prepaid installation did NOT meet with the approval of the Project Manager! The art was rejected.
I had explained to the owner of Design One why Mike didn't want to spend any time outside the gallery while the contest was running. Winning mattered more than customer service.
I made a suggestion.
Can you guess what it was?
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Two vans pulled up in front of Creative Galleries. A load of framed art was being returned. The owner asked for me personally to assist in choosing NEW art for the installation.
I humbly complied.
The owner spent an hour in owner Chuck Mitchell's office giving him an earful. She smiled as she left. Her two vans were filled with replacement art. She signed the invoice and paid the difference between the refund and the upsell I had concocted.
The difference?
$124.
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After I quit Creative Galleries, I became an independent agent for Design One and several other galleries and decorating businesses. Life became less stressful without the onus of competition at uneven odds.
Being freelance had one huge advantage.
YOU CAN"T BE FIRED and you don't need to quit!