Right Place, Right Time

There are many times in life when we feel like our house of cards is falling apart. Nothing seems to be going our way and the struggles continue to mount.

During my first few weeks in this new career, I was doing well, but I was questioning my every move.

The training for this job was two weeks long. Then, I was out in the field on my own: sink or swim.

There is no safety net (except for my wife’s career and income of course). No salary, just me, and my ability to mask how nervous and new I really was at the time.

Though this does make the job exhilarating, it also keeps the questions pouring in:

• What am I doing?
• Was this the right choice?
• Should I have left a successful career in education with a guaranteed salary, healthcare, and retirement?
• Am I having a midlife crisis in my 30’s?

Sometimes in life, though, we get to be in the right place at the right time.

As I left a call in which I actually made the sale, I was feeling pretty good about myself and my shotgun launch into this new career.

There was a good song on the radio. I rolled down the windows and enjoyed the breeze even though it was a sweltering July morning in central Florida.

As I cruised down the streets of an Orlando suburb, I heard a panicked scream. Not the frantic yell of someone being attacked, but the yell of someone who witnessed something bad.

I looked to the left and slammed on my brakes. An elderly woman had fallen down on the sidewalk. She was lying there, face down.

As I left my car running in the middle of the street, two other people were also approaching. The frantic woman who’s scream I heard, and another man who was walking down the street, alerted by the same scream I heard.

The elderly lady was in shock. She did not seem to be badly injured but her face was cut and her nose was bleeding.

The other man and I helped her to her feet, as the woman cursed and complained about how they never watch her.

I asked if she knew her. She said it was her mother, who lived next door and was not supposed to be out of the house without supervision.

From what I gathered, the mother lived in her own house with family members who were supposed to serve as caregivers, but who apparently did not live up to the job, at least not this morning.

As I stood holding the confused, old lady, who was now coming out of her initial shock and beginning to cry, I noticed a chair in the nearby yard and asked the other man to go get it while I held her.

The man did not speak English, but he understood and went to get the chair.

I looked to the panicked daughter and told her to call 911. She ran inside to get her cell phone and quickly returned to be with her mother as she made the call.

Strangely, as I left the daughter and her mother, I could not help but think this was a sign from God.

I was thankful to have been put in the right place, at the right time, and be of some small assistance to that family. And, if I was in the right place, at the right time, I must be doing the right thing with my life...at least for now.

I have been holding on to this story for months, wondering how to tell it. It was such a sad event, but it had a positive impact for me at a time when I had a lot of questions.

I cannot help but think Thanksgiving is a perfect time for this story. We all have many things in our lives to be thankful for even when we are struggling to find our purpose or debating our future.

It is those things we need to think back upon and maintain a positive attitude in questioning times.

I Can Read

There are occasional times on sales calls in which I often wonder how one spouse is able to tolerate the other.

I am sure no one has ever thought this when in the company of my wife and I, or any of you reading this, but believe it or not, I have encountered some of these couples.

Usually, I don’t know how the wife tolerates the husband. On one call, the husband, who was hard of hearing, actually yelled at his wife for answering his question because, unbeknownst to her, the operator had come back on the line and was also talking to him.

He snapped at her loudly, and cursed, while I tried not to laugh aloud and pretended nothing happened, just three people sitting in the dining room.

Even this was not such a big deal. They were about to spend thousands of dollars, and he was applying for the loan. It was a bit of a high pressure moment, and he snapped.

Tempers flare. Things happen.

The other day though, I could not wait to exit the house. The wife was unbearable. I actually felt bad for the husband - legitimate pity.

She was overbearing and obnoxious. She continually cut off her husband and myself while we were trying to answer the questions she asked. Apparently, we were meant to be her minions. She actually asked the questions just to hear her own voice answer herself.

I would try and politely explain to her, her answers to her own questions were not actually correct, but she knew better. She had her phone and the internet in front of her. She spent at least 30% of the appointment reading to me from her phone about the products I was selling, which she wanted to buy, but was telling me how terrible they were.

I am pretty sure the husband and I shared a few moments, sideways glances, asides, if you will.

I could hear his eyes telling me he was sorry. He knew his wife was a lunatic with poor social skills.

I wondered if he could read my expressions, offering to take him with me if he could quickly pack a bag and make a break for it. He probably already had one packed in the back corner of a closet somewhere.

He could exit through the garage and hide in the trunk of my car when I left.

“Save me, Dave. Save me,” he cried out in silence.

This sale was a nonstarter from the beginning. I think the wife was just looking for someone to argue with for about 90-minutes. I would not give her the satisfaction.

I absolutely wanted to, but I was not playing into her game. As she read reviews to me (only negative ones of course, none of the thousands of positive product reviews) at decibel 1,000 despite our close proximity, I assured her she could choose from any of our products or none at all if she did not think it would work.

I did pose one question to her though. I asked if she knew who the people on the internet were who posted the review; who they had install the product; if it was installed legally, permitted, inspected, met safety and performance codes; was it serviced regularly? Were these people writing the reviews professionals who work with the product daily? Is it possible they were just regular people who thought this would be a D.I.Y. project, and the product failed because they did not install it properly or have maintenance done regularly?

I gave her one morsel for thought: “You know, a lot of people write negative reviews about IKEA furniture because they didn’t assemble it correctly. They blame the product rather than themselves, whereas, my wife and I have had an IKEA coffee table for 8-years without any issues.”

That gave me about 30-seconds of blissful silence while she dug deeper into the internet.

By the end of the appointment, after spending some time alone outside calculating the work to be done and returning to the house to build the job in our system, the wife’s attitude had drastically changed.

Suddenly, she thought purchasing the product I recommended was probably a smart thing to do. It came with a 10-year warranty, and she was able to find just as many poor reviews for the product she originally thought was laughably better than the one I suggested.

I reiterated we sold and installed both. It was her decision.

Her husband had disappeared by this point. Lucky him.

I was stuck alone with this gem of a human being while I built the job as quickly as possible.

They both worked from home. In my mind, I was certain the wife’s company and coworkers teamed-up and offered her an additional stipend if she would work from home.

Just before showing the couple the product they would not be purchasing, she revealed another amazing side of herself.

She began talking to her cats in front of me. Clearly, we had bonded on a level of which I was unaware.

Yes, everyone talks to their pets. My dog even had his own voice. I would talk to him, and he would return conversation. Translation: I would talk back to myself in his voice.

As proved with every other aspect of this encounter, the wife was able to take what some people might find cute, or endearing, and make it painful and grating.

She spoke to her cats and offered them weed, which was catnip, but she felt the need to repeat it over and over again at increasingly higher volume because she thought she was the cleverest person ever by coming up with this saying and expected a laugh at her cleverness.

Never lady. I am not even going to fake a smile for you.

Go be creepy with your cat somewhere else.