"Help Wanted: Assistant, greeter for one person sales operation. Applicant should be Microsoft office proficient have good multitasking ability a must. Have a pleasant outgoing personality.
Call 714-555-2405 for interview bring resume with previous employment and salary history."
Finally I am able to get an assistant. I have been building my sales marketing company for the last year all by myself and it took a great toll on my personal and social life.
A little back history, I was working for a restaurant equipment manufacturing company for 15 years when they decided that our district office was no longer needed. I was devastated and confused. I thought we were doing a good job hitting our numbers bringing in new clients and making the sales. Not long after I was laid off I had no choice but to begin collecting unemployment while trying to put my resume together and feeling sorry for myself.
I guess my wife couldn't handle our down turn in lifestyle and left me soon after by announcing she has been having an affair for the past year. We were married for 25 years had two grown kids WTF. This other guy I found out had family money that he liked to show off and I guess she couldn't resist any longer.
The divorce went quickly thanks to his family's high priced lawyers. We agreed on a clean break since we had no money to split the kids were grown and I had no job or immediate prospects. We sold the house split the money from the sale after the real estate fees. I got to keep the furnishings in the house and the car, her gift for fucking me over. I took my half and bought a small investment property, a two family building with a storefront on a down town busy street. I moved into the apartment just above the store and started living off the rent I was getting. The third floor was empty when I took over and I left it that way, I didn't care, the store front was making me enough to live off of for now.
Life sucked, I started drinking and rarely left the house. If I did leave, it was to get more beer and only occasionally food. I hadn't seen my kids in about 6 months when my son, JJ, dropped by one day. I thought he was going to go ape shit when he came in my apartment and saw the way I was living. He started yelling and swearing he was going to stage an intervention if I didn't get my act together. I used to watch that show on TV and thought how bad could you let your life get to have to go through that embarrassment? Being as drunk as I was I was in no shape to defend myself. Although I tried to slur something in my defense but even I didn't understand what I tried to say.
From that moment I knew I had to do something to help myself so I sobered up by going cold turkey. I started to think of what I can do to get out of this funk? I was getting calls every now and then from former customers asking questions about the products I used to make. Since I was still bitter about being laid off I ignored the calls. I started thinking this could work out into something. I returned a few of the calls and made a couple appointments to meet with a few of them. I listened to the issues they were having and offered to help, for a price. Since I worked for so many years on the production lines I knew the products in and out. There was little I didn't know about any unit. I started putting my number out in the service agency circles and almost immediately started getting calls from service agents who were stuck trying to repair what they were not experienced to do.
These calls started making me money as a freelance adviser and I began thinking what else I could do to expand on my experience. I used my connections in the industry to get an independent rep position for a local sales agent and started knocking on doors and making the sales. In the mean time my store front tenant moved out and I was stuck with an empty space. Luckily I was making enough money now so I wasn't dependent on the rent to live off of. I made a few agreements with a couple of the factories I was working with to give me some consignment product that I could display and show off. Since I had the space it was an easy set up. Business was picking up and I was really glad to be out of my funk. But now the problems started again. I was getting tired, over worked and in a bad need of some help. At first I tried to call on family for help but being the black sheep for so long all I got was excuses why they couldn't find the time.
So here I am looking over the advertisement I was about to place in the local paper. Oh well here it goes, I hit send on the computer and off it goes into cyberspace. I am promised it will show up in the classifieds starting in two days but be available on line the following day.
Almost immediately I start getting call responses. I started making interview appointments starting the next day. A few of the people that came in were a NO right from the start, a few were maybe's. It came down to two women I called them both in for second interviews. In order to get a better sense of their abilities I planned to give them both typing test along with a staged phone call requesting information. From that I thought I was going to pick my candidate.
But of course things don't go as planned. I had one copy of a rejection letter written out all I had to do was fill out one name or the other. Then Amy came in, completely unexpected, different in a way I couldn't describe if I wanted to. She looked about 25, jet black waist length hair, pale white almost goth looking, about 5 foot I would guess 100 lb pretty face not loaded with makeup. I noticed a few tattoo's nothing too reveling or too punkish.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
"I hope so, My name is Amy Williams I hear you have a job opening? I would like to apply, if it's still available."
"I was just about to hold my final interviews." I replied, "I'm sorry you are a bit late. "
"It's ok", she replied, "I was just taking a chance."
She put her head down and started to turn away.
Something intrigued me about her, not wanting her to leave just yet I say "Hold on, if you give me a few minutes maybe we can sit for a sec and you can show me your resume."
She turned back and gave me a shy smile but it was still a smile.
Then all hell broke loose. The phone started to ring and a customer came in both at the same time. Not being one to be able to turn either away I asked the customer to hold for a sec and I ran to the phone before it stopped ringing. The phone customer needed some information on replacing an existing range they had in their kitchen and the walk in needed the same.
Amy saw my stress and instead of just hanging around waiting for me to finish she actually went up to the customer and started talking to him. She started asking him what kind of range was he interested in purchasing, overall size, how many burners, griddle plate, kind of lower oven? All of the questions I would have asked. How did she know this I wondered?
When I got off of the call Amy excused herself from the customer and came up to me and ran off everything the customer had talked about. She took no written notes, just repeated what she was told in detail.
After she finished I excused myself from her and approached the customer.
"Hi my name is Jim I understand from my assistant you are interested in a 6 burner range........."
We spoke for about 20 min all the while Amy answered a couple calls, took messages and looked the part of my assistant. I was impressed.
When our conversation was done we had a signed sales contract I shook hands with my new client and thanked him for the order. I approached Amy and thanked her.
"You know Amy; I don't think I would have been able to make that sale if it wasn't for you. How did you know what to ask?"
"I worked in restaurants a lot and I am familiar with the sample you have over there."