Day 88 - Pounding Pavement with Pride

Beaufort Street, Mofo

July 5th, 2015

Originally, I had planned to get up at 10, but the night witch got the better of me. I got up around 11:45 instead and it feels good. I help them fix their internet, as it’s been down since the night before and no one in the house is a native english speaker, and I don’t think any of them are particularly good with tech. 30 minutes later, I have them up and running again with a 50% boost in download speeds. Feels good x2.

Optimus?!

I pack up all my stuff and am ready to go business knocking, this time I’m putting the skills to use for myself so that I won’t need to go door knocking anymore. Honestly, even after this week, I was doing a better job pitching people when they seemed a little interested in hiring me. I had about 10 resumes, and didn’t feel like wasting time or resources. “Are you hiring now or any time soon?” was the question of the day. If they said a vague timeframe or a negative… NO RESUME FOR YOU! I seriously told a number of them that I was going to hang onto it instead of handing it them in hopes that “one day” they might call me. Giving it in those circumstances has never gotten me very far, so let’s try this more aggressive strategy.

I pushed for the manager every time, gently, and would chat up whoever I could. Thor got mad at me for putting his name on my application because he knows I’ll be quitting shortly after I start. The tickets for Bali were booked last night for the 22nd, which puts us at 17 days and counting. I told him I didn’t mean any harm, and that none has taken place yet, but he seemed paranoid about it getting back to him and management harbouring a grudge against him. It annoyed me because there’s no way that would happen. I kept going.

What do you think it means?

Somewhere along the way, I went to The Grid to get the money they never paid me, and managed to get them to e-transfer it to me. Hopefully it goes through, and I was right to give Rod, the owner, the benefit of the doubt. It seemed to have just fallen through the cracks. I laugh now, as I had considered hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) to harass him until he paid me. Lets see.. he owed me $200ish, a VA in India costs around $4 an hour… Well, you can do the math of how many hours of annoyance that could buy me before break even*.

My endurance for pushing through fatigue and fitting as many places in the timeline I had set for myself were directly from the job that was currently fuelling me. It’s probably a rationalization, but I decided that money was worth more than the gamble/experience/torture of door-to-door. I still have yet to decide whether I’ll ask for 1 day a week or just outright quit, but I have to figure that out by tomorrow. We’ll see if they will even give it to me.

Cutting back to it: I had a few promising leads, and ran out of resumes. I had a number of e-mails and cards in my pockets to send resumes to, pushing for that instead of giving them one of the few I had. I figured I could keep doing that after I ran out, and it’s a good thing I did.

Walking right off the street, I could see the guy was receptive to me. I was certain I could do the job. My Dad was right, selling a product you actually believe in is much, much easier.

Beaufort.

Anyway, he hired me off the street. No resume, just luck and/or charisma. Well, whatever charisma I have. He asked when I could train, and I said anytime. How about now? I ended up training for an hour, and he said he liked me. He saw me handle a couple customers behind the cash after a brief review of the functions, and thought there was promise. Awesome, I’ll be back on Tuesday. Drawback: he’s leaving on the 22nd and wants me to help keep the store open with the other two employees he has trained. that would mean 40-50 hours a week at $17 after tax. I’d be making more working there than I did working with the homeless. Huh.

Shimou and Lee helping me
dry my pants after they so
graciously let me use their
laundry facilities.

Main catch: The aforementioned Bali tickets. Exact same day. Now I feel a little guilty, so I should keep looking, but at least this gives me more freedom to cut back from the Charity gig. I think the lesson is to constantly look for better work opportunities just to see what your options are. I’ve been guilty of not doing this way too much, and have been burned a number of times because of it.

Remember: He with the most options "wins".

Oh, also, We went swimming at this indoor pool place that had like, 6 pools. Massive, and excessive - great adjectives to be able to use once in a while. We stopped at Hungry Jacks on the way back to their place. Lee is not the most confident in his English abilities, so they degraded to FOB levels when put under the pressure of giving the order. I couldn’t stop laughing, I was just picturing what the guy on the other side thought. I had to step in to help after a bit of entertainment, but it was all in good fun. We ate dinner back at their place, played cards, and passed out in preparation for my potentially last day of canvassing.**

*: 50. The answer is 50 hours, you lazy SOB.
**: they insist going door-to-door for charity is not canvassing. Mince words all you want, it's essentially the same thing.