I've had a few different jobs in my life. One of my favourites was my college summer job where I visited various small towns around Saskatchewan as a traveling cable TV salesman. (Yes, I know a “vacuum cleaner salesman” joke just popped in your head. Don't bother – I've heard it.)
But this job was different from being a “typical” traveling salesman. I was a huge TV fan back then (not so much vacuum cleaner fan) so I was actually selling something I enjoyed and knew about. Mini-satellite dishes like Bell and Star Choice were just coming into existence so my sales job was a lot easier as the only TV entertainment options for people were cable, a giant satellite dish that filled up your yard or the three channels that were available via what my friends and I lovingly called “FarmerVision”. (The Internet wasn't available outside of universities either at that time so no BitTorrent competition either. 
)
I was paid a decent hourly wage but also had an escalating commission structure on top of that which moved this job into the stratosphere of college summer jobs. This escalating structure meant I got a certain amount for every new cable subscription I sold, a certain amount for every package of channels (we had four) I sold to either new or existing subscribers and even a certain amount for selling extra outlets (for those who'd never heard of a splitter.) I also got a generous per diem that could be stretched quite a bit by sharing hotel rooms with two other students hired to do line work while I did sales, eating cheaply and staying with family or friends in communities where I knew people.
Once I hit various new sales thresholds – 50 subs, 100 subs, 150 subs – and so on, the amount I got for selling any one of those items I listed jumped as well. In my best summer, I sold over 300 new subscriptions, my company won a national marketing award and the escalation in commissions became so lucrative that I made more than half of what I made per year while working for literary non-profit organizations in those four months!
The whole point of this trip down memory lane is that I'm pretty excited to have been given a similar assignment for the next few months at my current job. Although there's no escalating commissions to be seen, I will be on the road pretty much every day visiting each of the 46 rural libraries that make up our region to do some one-on-one computer & Internet training with our branch librarians, holding a drop-in time when local residents can bring any technology questions to me for assistance and doing a one-hour presentation on “Everything You Wanted To Know About The Internet (But Were Afraid To Ask)”.
In fact, I'll be visiting many of the towns that I visited while working for the cable TV company all those years ago. I'll have some downtime between sessions in most communities so my blogging shouldn't fall off (it'll probably increase to be honest!)
Stay tuned… (pun fully intended)
Comments 2