The Home Mag

The Home Mag- some time in late June/early July


As I was searching through some indeed.com search results of "sales and marketing," I came across an interesting opportunity. It was for a company called The Home Mag, a home improvement magazine dedicated to being "all about the home." They were hiring for a sales position, and were looking for a motivated, outgoing individual who wants to earn a lot of money. I can do that. I read over the description, trying to make sure it was something that I wanted. It claimed that I would have either a set territory, or one that I can choose on my own. It sounded alright, and I felt like I wanted to make my "quota" for the day at around 4 or 5 applications, so I applied. No harm, no foul.

The next day around 3:00 PM I get a call from a guy named...lets say Chase. I miss the call, call him back, and we end up playing phone tag for a bit. Finally around 4:00 I get him on the phone. He seems very happy to talk to me, and wanted to just have a quick initial interview before me coming in. So we get o the phone, and he tells me he went to South Carolina. I joke with him a bit, and after a minute or two we start to talk business. His associate, James is on the conference call as well, so I acknowledge him and they start asking me some questions. Let me state that I have since forgotten both of their real names, and as James said his name over the conference call I swear I could see the words fly out my other ear and become lost forever. All I knew was Chase. The interview was nothing big, just what I want to do, if I'm really interested in the job, etc. We chat for about 10 or 15 minutes, and I convince them that they should bring me in for an interview. We set the date for two days later (Wednesday) at 1:00 PM. I get moderately excited.

Wednesday comes and I'm preparing for my interview. I hop onto their website and start looking around. Apparently the company is in several other cities, and they are opening up an office here in Atlanta, and want to start staffing their company. The website is vague, and doesn't really give me a great sense of what the company is and what they do. All I know is that they're looking for outside salespeople who are motivated, and that the magazine is dedicated solely to the home.

I get on the highway and make it to the downtown/Buckhead area with relative ease. I allowed for a lot of time just in case of traffic or if I got lost, none of which happened surprisingly. I reach the building and sit in my car overviewing some of the questions I'm going to ask and reviewing the company information before I forget it. At about 12:40 I get out, put on my jacket (start seating immediately), and head inside the building. I ask one of the security guards what floor The Home mag is one and he tells me. I get on the elevator and head to the top.

The elevator comes to a rest at the 14th floor. I step out, turn right and walk into one of the nicest reception/waiting areas I've ever interviewed at. The floor is a beautiful dark hardwood, with beige colored walls contrasting nicely with the sharp crown molding that seemed to cover every edge and corner perfectly. Black leather covered the futuristic chairs, and a broad receptionists desk sat in the middle. It looked, convincingly and appropriately, like a home.

I approached the secretary and told her who I was. She told me to just have a seat and Chase would be right with me. so I sat. I knew I was early, and figured I could keep refreshing my mind as to the pertinent information that I thought I needed to know. Ten minutes go by. Fifteen minutes go by. Twenty minutes go by and by this time I feel like I've been waiting a lifetime. My hands (although I am not necessarily nervous) are in a state of continual moistness, and I'm read for them to shake something other than my pants to dry them.

At 1:05 Chase comes off the elevator and walks in. He is a big, broad black man with a bald head and a dark colored suit on. He gives me a big grin and introduces himself to me. He tells me that he has to go get his things together and that he'll be ready for me soon. "Good," I'm thinking "I've been ready for you." About 5-10 minutes goes by, and his office door finally opens.

Chase walks out and invites me in, giving me a strong handshake as I cross the doorway and into the conference room. The room is a fairly boxy shape, with the door in front, two walls on the left and right, and a window as the third wall facing me as I walk in. There is a long rectangular conference table with a lot of chairs around it located in the middle. Chase has me sit at the end of the table, facing the window. He sits on my left, and as I look over I see who I can only assume is James sitting on my right. I introduce myself to him, and at the time I completely forgot his name. I was hoping he would mention it again as I shook his hand, but to no avail.

James was a middle aged, balding white man who hunched over the table and took on a look that resembled Dick Cheney. While Chase was thanking me for coming, I noticed that James just looked at his papers and didn't say much. We got to some rapport building (did you find the place alright? It sure is hot outside! No, its not too far of a drive form my house) before we got underway. Chase started in.

"Ok Steven, what we want to do today is just find out more about you and decide if you're going to be a good fit with our company. I'm going to ask you some questions and just give me a response, ok?

"Ok, sounds good" I say.

Chase begins with the usual barrage of questions- how I heard about the job, what attracted me to it, what I did in college, what I wanted out of a job, etc. He asked his questions not in an inquisitive way but as though he was challenging me to say the right thing to him. I was trying to be confident in a room where the most interesting thing was the view form the window. He was especially interested about me selling tiger paws, which I mistakenly tried to sell myself on during the initial phone interview. It was something I did for a few months, and most of the sales I claimed to have made were made by the pledges whom I had delegated my powers to. Still, I made a few.

"So tell me about you selling these tiger paws."

"Well, my fraternity received the rights to paint tiger paws back in 1970, and when I came into the organization it was one of our traditions, but not something we proactively engaged in. I took it upon myself to go around to local businesses and try to sell some of these tiger paws to help get better community relations."

"And did you enjoy going door to door?"

"Yeah it wasn't that bad. It was something that I was interested in, and I wanted to stay as involved as possible within the fraternity and the school as well."

"So how do you think that experience relates to this job?"

"Um, well.." and I proceed to give him a synopsis of how the classes I took gave me an understanding of the business environment and how I feel that I am good with people and that I liked the feeling of a sale. I finished, and the room unfortunately remained silent.

At this point in the interview I was clearly stuck in the middle, in a rut. I was sitting between Chase on my left, and James on my right. Chas asked the questions, and I looked at him first while answering, then I would have to move my body and turn to the right and look at James, who never took his head or eyes away from the desk. In front of me the gorgeous Atlanta landscape sprawled out before me, making me momentarily lose my train of thought almost every time. So I was continually shifting, and each turn of the head required me to look at only one person at a time, in opposite directions.

Chase sat back in his chair and asked if I had any questions for him. I did. I asked him to give me a more detailed overview of the job. He proceeded to tell me that The Home Mag was a purely advertising magazine dedicated to the home, and that my job would be to go door to door and try to get people to advertise with the magazine. There were no articles, nothing special other than it was a magazine filled with advertisements. This was a brand new market, and I would be given a county to canvass, or just a general geographic area. The work was all outside, and it literally required that I work extremely long hours, especially some on the weekends to get the sales. I would get a base salary, and a commissions as a percentage of the cost of the advertisement I was selling. When I heard this job description, I mentally blanked out. I didn't want to be a door to door salesman, even it was door to door business. I especially didn't want to do it in downtown Atlanta, where I had just as much of a chance of being mugged as I was getting a sale.

I asked Chase a few more question regarding the specifics of the position, trying to act interested even though I wasn't as much at this point. He had just answered one when he leaned forward and looked at James. Miraculously James found the strength to pick his head up and look at Chase, and they locked eyes for a moment. Then James put his head back down. I wanted to leave. I wanted to get out and not return. This job could be done by a high school dropout. Then Chase spoke.

"Steven, try to help me out here. I just don't believe you want this job, and you haven't convinced me that I should even consider you for it. I want you to convince me that I should hire you. Go ahead."

I had nothing to say for about a good 10 seconds. What a ballsy way to phrase something. What a douche. Sorry that I haven't gotten on my knees yet, I was saving that for the second interview. I couldn't believe he phrased it in that way, and I really didn't want to muster the mental energy to have to answer it. So I formulated a nice heaping pile of crap to feed him and started my response. He stopped me halfway through it and said "No, I want you to convince me. Don't tell me you're a hard worker and that you're competitive, give me something else." So I fed him my reliable line of how this would be my first job and that I would give it 110% of my effort because I want to put into use the skills that I've learned over the past four years. I waited for his answer.

He either liked the new pile I gave him, or he got tired of hearing me talk. What I do know is that I wanted to leave. Chase sat back again and James continued concentrating on the table, and he asked if I had any more questions for him. Thankfully I didn't care enough to ask any more, and I told him no. Then I asked for their cards, and since they didn't have any, they told me their email addresses. Chase went first, and then I swiveled over to James. Remember that at this point I had no clue of what James' name was. I asked for his email, and he gave it to me, which provided me no clues. We all stood up, and they said they were talking to some other candidates and that they would get back to me. I shook their hands, thanked them for wasting...taking the time to speak with me, and I left.

I got home about 45 minutes later and contemplated whether or not I wanted to send them emails thanking them for speaking with me and to reiterate my interest. I decided not to even send it, because I had absolutely no interest in the position, the company, or the managers. Almost a waste of time if it weren't for the story. I never heard a reply back from them, but if you listen closely, you may still be able to hear the faint knock of a door to door salesperson somewhere in Atlanta.