Welcome to my blog which this week would like to offer a dose of optimism to the world…would like to being the operative words. My own mood is unoptimistic. Not pessimistic, unoptimistic. Of course I mean my mood about me. This isn’t weltscherz, merely peevishness at not making any progress in my authorial life. I made the mistake of trying to remind my once enthusiastic potential publisher of the minor fact he’d forgotten to read the book which he’d been so keen for me to finish. Worse, my first witty sally, ‘When is Soon where you live? Here we had it ages ago,’ passed him by and I had to send a second email explaining myself. He then promised to read it. Soon.
Meanwhile I’ve almost created two websites. While the kind man was here explaining everything to me I had a surge of confidence. Without him I am flummoxed and as nice as the sites look, the content is meaningless and in fact show a picture of my web designer’s child.
On Thursday I had a visit from a double-glazing company who quoted me £1700 for two doors and a window (thereby exceeding my budget by about £2000). The man who cam was very pleasant though he couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen his company’s ads on the telly. Two minutes after he went I received a call from his boss who wanted to know every detail of our conversation. I rang off on him. And then remembered my own days as a salesman, some twenty years ago.
DOORKNOCKING
I don't want your love when I come knocking and I don't need your respect. I don't mind it you don't smile and I don't want to be invited in. 1 don’t care who you are or whether you sleep with your dog's best friend. I'm not looking to rape you or rob you. You're totally safe with me. All I want from you is an agreement and statistics show that there is a one in four hundred and eleven chance of my getting it.
“Will you or won't you agree to see our sales representative so that he may kindly, with no obligation to you, give a highly reasonable quotation regarding such items as doors and windows, not forgetting our speciality, maintenance free fascia boards, soffits and gutters?’
That's it. That's all I want to know. You don't even have to buy anything, certainly not from me. Personally if I had a thousand quid to spare I wouldn’t buy windows with it. But there again, I've never bought a house either. Just see the sales rep with a look of interest and I get a £5 bonus for creating the lead. This justifies my job for another day and there with it the £4 an hour I receive for canvassing this and many many other streets.
Despite my total indifference to you I'm not unfriendly. I’m told I have a nice smile. Have a look at it while I'm here. It won’t go away until I jump back in the car, never mind I'm cold and depressed, that these smart shoes are at war with my red raw big toes and I’ m dying for a piss. But I won't lay this on you. After all you never asked me to come knocking, did you?
Sometimes I think you're an illicit lover, on the job so to speak, suddenly interrupted by my knock on the door. I'm surprised you don't swear at me more often. If I could I’d shout out, 'Don't bother. I'll just stick a leaflet in." But it’s too late, there you are and here am I, speaking already.
"Good morning. I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you." I'm telling you the truth now. I'd much rather not be doing this. When you hear what I've got to say next you'll definitely be disappointed. Even if you are at all interested, which as I daily prove is unlikely, you're going to be disappointed because no way on earth, whoever you are, will you have been upstairs saying to yourself, ‘I do hope a double-glazing salesman will call and tell me, untruthfully as it happens, that his company are offering special pre-winter prices on windows, patio doors and conservatories.’
Anyway I say my little piece as quickly and effectively as I can. Well, usually I do. Sometimes if you're pretty or if you shake your head pityingly before I've finished the second sentence or if you're patently terrified or if you slam the door in my face, then I stumble in my words, blush a bit, wave a leaflet at you and disappear back up the path.
Having pitched I stop speaking. If you say nothing I'll say, "Are you planning any home maintenance?” I won't say this if your house and garden look like mine, derelict. I sometimes wish I hadn't said it, especially when I see a look of hurt on your face. I realIy have no opinion about your house; if I wasn't doing this job I wouldn't even have noticed the bedroom window that isn't double-glazed or the guttering that will fal1 away from the wall if it snows this winter. But if you are thinking about it, why not say so? And why not see our salesman and have my paymasters pleased with me and my self-confidence boosted.
In theory I don’t take any of this personaIly. It's all fluke; statistics as I said. After all it counts as a lead if you ring in from the leaflet without even talking to me. I know it isn't me that you reject. My being isn't at your mercy. On the other hand when my girlfriend makes more leads than me I begin to think such things as "It's because she's a woman, because she's friendlier than me, because she's luckier than me, because she's… better… than me.’
My smile becomes a grimace and then a dog tries to savage my fingers as I force a leaflet into one of those peculiar letter-boxes that are actually trying to eject what you put in. At the same time someone answers the door, the smile returns and my words start speaking because you never know which will be the one and if I don't ask who can say yes?
I don’t hate the job. I like walking. I like being places I haven't been before. I like my boss being twenty miles away in an office not knowing what I'm doing or, more pertinently, not doing. Damned if I'm going to do this five hours a day, three is quite enough. And I like sitting in cafes, sipping tea, reading the newspaper and being paid for it. Oddly enough, I even like wearing this unaccustomed suit which my mother bought me some years ago when she got it into her head that I was, at last, going to be a professional something, a someone. If she could see me now. Still, I never asked her to dream for me.
This wasn't in my dreams either, actually. Yet I must admit I've often said to myself things like, "Well, if you really wanted to get out of this financial mess you'd do anything. You'd put yourself out there, you'd even doorknock." That was the lowest thing I could imagine. I'm supposed to be a hippy after all. Whoever heard of a hippy sel1ing double-glazing?
I don't blame anyone for the situation I'm in. Except myself of course. Who knows, with hindsight I might be saying this is the best thing I ever did. I hope not. My new age spiritual friends approve of what I' m doing, taking action, exposing my personality to rejection, open, to whatever life brings me. My old age spiritual friends think I'm a greedy fool, selling my soul for money. Mind you, you can have my soul for a damn sight less than £4 an hour and a monthly bonus. You can have my soul for love.
I think I've been standing here too long. You’re not going to answer are you? I know you are in because I can hear the stereo blaring and a kettle whistling. If I just stick a leaflet through the letter-box we need trouble one another no further. Remember though, I get £5 extra even if you just ring in. Maybe you would like a bit more time to think it over…
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