The Wake

So it’s the end of my senior year, miraculously. A mere four years at the ‘U’ and I am prepared to head off into the “real world,” diploma in hand, resume ready.

Unfortunately, as those of you who’ve attended job fairs know well, everyone wants to hire us for a sales position. Now sales doesn’t seem bad when you first say it. I made sales while working in retail, and I liked the interaction with a variety of people, the varying inventory and being knowledgeable about various products. But sales positions mean something else entirely. . .Sales will mean working ten- or fourteen-hour days, making cold calls and needling companies into purchasing your product. Sales means you’ll have no idea what kind of money you might bring home each month; which leaves car payments, rent and credit card bills in disarray. Sales means you will do a job you could have gotten straight out of high school or with a years worth of work doing anything at all. The last sales recruiter I spoke with told me how he even has some guys working six hour days, like this was a huge improvement, but of course they’d been working the same job for at least five to ten years. Give me a break! I don’t want to sell someone else’s product for the next five years of my life; I don’t even want to sell it for the next year of my life.

They tell you sales can make you an unlimited amount of cash. The recruiters surmise, “It all depends on how much money you want to make!” Sure, if I worked eighteen hour days, I could make a lot of money, all the money I wanted, but when would I use the money, and on what? I couldn’t use it to hang out with my friends, or go on vacation. I could buy a fancy apartment or a nice car, but when would I be in my apartment or driving my car? To make a lot of money I’d have to stay at the office or be meeting with clients at all hours of the day and night. I’d have money, but no one to spend it with. That’s why recruiters come to us; the newly graduated greenhorns eager for any “career” that comes our way. Most people out in the workforce wouldn’t touch a sales job, because of its demanding hours and the few chances for promotion to better things. They come to us, make us trust in their opportunities, flash money in our poor college faces and many of us succumb to the dreaded world of sales. Though some may continue on in this profession for years, loving the late nights and early mornings, most will quit and move on to 9-to-5 positions in other realms of career land. “No” you say? Sales is a good career move? Then why are there so many sales positions available? Why does every booth at a job fair push you to go into sales? They can only have jobs available because of turnover. College grads work there for a grueling year or two, each day grumbling and growing more bitter, until they quit without a two-week notice and jump into any, any other job that will have them. So to you, college graduate, who has just signed up to enter the abysmal world of sales, to you I say “Good luck!” I’ll see you back at the job fair in a couple years.