“Now you try it.”
Phil Kennedy thrusts the shoulder bag towards me and I take it.
“Can you show me just one more time?” I ask, realising that Phil Kennedy and I will never be friends.
“No,” says Phil. “It’s your turn to pitch me.”
Apparently I need retraining and it’s even more soul destroying than doing it for real. He takes a few steps back in the crowded meeting room at Chariot and looks at me with fake enthusiasm. I hold the big bag of crap compact discs and take a tentative step forward.
“Good morning,” I say with the dodgy smile I smile when I don’t have a genuine smile on me.
“Good morning,” replies Phil, doing a strange twisting movement with his hands.
“Sorry,” I say, “but why are you pretending to wring a chicken’s neck?”
“I’m not,” says Phil, “I’m cleaning a pint glass. We’re in an East End boozer.”
“Right,” I say. “I’m from a company called Chariot.”
“Who?”
“Chariot. We’re a marketing company and we’re doing a promotion in the area today.”
“Get out of my pub.”
“Righto.”
“No, no,no…” sighs Phil Kennedy. “Remember what I said about turning negatives?”
“…Yessss…”
“No you don’t,” says Phil as he scratches his head. He’s right, I don’t. I silently ask myself for the hundred millionth time what the hell I think I’m doing working for a Direct Sales Company.
“Look,” I say. “I’m sure I’ll be fine once we’re out on the street again–”
“It’s field,” says Phil. “Not street.”
“Well, whatever,” I say impatiently, “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t say I didn’t try to educate you,” says Phil Kennedy, wagging his finger at me.
“I won’t Phil,” I say. Knob.
“GOOD MORNING BOYS AND GIRLS!” shouts Pat Burridge suddenly from the centre of the meeting room. The forty-strong gathering of sales people immediately whips into a frenzy and assembles itself in a crowd before him. I get wedged between Habib and Selena as Pat Burridge strides back and forth like a television evangelist.
“JUICY!” yells Pat Burridge. “What I want to talk about is attitude. Now that’s a word that in my dictionary is spelt with a capital A and ends with a kick up the arse. Juicy?”
“JUICY!” everyone yells back. I mime it.
“Attitude is what’s going to make sales at the end of the day. And what do sales make?”
He suddenly points directly at my face. I swallow, “Prizes?”
“MONEY!” yells Pat Burridge and holds his hands up.
“MONEY!” yells everyone else. I mime it.
“Juicy,” says Pat Burridge. “Because when you’re in the field, nine out of ten people you pitch are going to be negative. But every one in ten is going to be a positive. And that’s a scientifically proven law of averages. Juicy?”
“JUICY!” yells everyone. I’m up to a whisper.
“Now, I’m going to demonstrate, by way of a little role playing, how you can turn those negatives.”
Ohh, not again…
“So, I need two faces. Habib and you.”
He nods at me and I follow Habib into the centre of the room.
“Right,” says Pat Burridge, “you be a negative and Habib will demonstrate how easy it is to turn you into a positive.”
Habib gets his merchandise bag and approaches me.
“Good morning,” he says, flashing the ivories.
“Morning,” I say lazily.
“I’m from a company called Chariot.”
“Are you selling stuff?”
”Well, we are doing a one-off promotion in the area today–”
“So, you’re selling stuff.”
“Yes, but–”
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SHOP BEFORE I CUT YOUR NUTS OFF AND TURN THEM INTO CUFFLINKS YOU LOW LIFE PIECE OF SHIT.”
Habib stops in his tracks, stunned by my negative response. The room is silent. Pat Burridge is looking around his nose at me. I turn to face the crowd and support from my pal Phil Kennedy but he simply stands there with a hand over his face.
“Juicy?” I say.
Apparently not.
