Don't have gun, will travel.

This is going to be a short one, I’ve been pretty busy lately.

Anyway, as you may or may not know I took a lateral demotion at work just before the end of the year. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll explain.

I was selling to Fortune 500 accounts originally. Auto companies, conglomerates, defense contractors, technology companies, what have you. If they’re listed on the Dow or NASDAQ chances are I would have called on them. Anyway, I struggled with that position. Mostly because I was coasting last year, figuring that I would be quitting in April of this year to return to school.

The company decided that since I wasn’t doing so well in the corporate area that they would allow me to move over to accounts from the fortune 1000 on down to small businesses. So that’s where I am now. Other than a change in title and account base, nothing has changed for me. I have the same base salary and commission structure and a lower quota. Last week I told Mona that this is the best my morale has been in a while. I’m pretty happy in this job, at least for now.

Now on to the story.

When I moved into the new spot, I was assigned a new territory by zip codes. Among a few other areas I was given the entire city of Detroit. Even though it’s slowly crumbling, there is still a lot of business being done, even outside of Downtown. And outside of Downtown is where the job took me last week.

I had called a guy looking for business the week before and since I was in the area I decided to stop in and talk with him. He’s sort of in the recycling business. I don’t want to say much more than that, but he at one time used to pay cash for the recyclables that people brought to him. The sign on the building now says they pay with Checks Only, No Cash.

So I rang the bell and the owner’s son let me in. He took me into a dingy office and we sat down by the desk to talk. Can you guess what I saw when I looked into the foot well of the desk? Yep. A pistol grip shot gun clipped there, in case of emergency. When I mentioned it, the son was pretty casual about it and then pointed out the pistol under his shirt as well. Hmph. Well.

Apparently the owner got shot about a year ago. That’s when they stopped paying cash for goods. He was shot in the belly, which I’m told was “lucky”, since it missed his heart and spine. Grrrreat.

So we got down to business, talked for a while, and then I was escorted out. The armed customer stood in the door and kept an eye on me until I was in the car.

Later, I called my boss and told him that if my customers were going to have guns then I wanted one too. So far he isn’t budging.

And that’s my new job. I go into one of the most dangerous cities in the developed world in a small car, wearing a suit and tie and try and sell things to people who at any minute may find themselves in the middle of an honest to God firefight.

Outside of the whole potential gunfight thing, I actually really like what I’m doing and the kinds of customers I now have. A guy who can decide whether or not he needs to shoot someone is not a person who dithers about making a buying decision, whereas someone in a mega-corporation usually looks for a way to not do anything that may draw attention to him or her self.

Strange, the things which make me happy.

What about you? What about your work do you enjoy that might seem a bit odd?