They'll Learn How To Say It

My father owned several businesses, all of which were related to printing. Over the years they dwindled down to the initial company, Delta Bindery. Back then, people suffering from high blood pressure were pretty much doomed. The medicines that exist today weren't available back then. If I remember correctly one of the medicines that he took was made from snake venom. Whatever it was that he was taking didn't really work. He had a massive stroke and although he lived for many more years, that stroke was really the end of his life. I always was under the impression that the pressure he was under due to the problems he was having in his business were the cause of his high blood pressure. Delta was on the verge of failing when he had his final stroke. I was about 22. I ran the business for about 6 months. It really had no chance to survive (it had no chance before he got sick, either) and we closed it.
I don't remember how, but somehow I got a job working as a salesmen for another bindery. I think the owner was a friend of my father's and wanted to help me out. I was awful. It didn't work out and I left after about 3 months.
I went to an employment agency seeking work. While I was waiting to be interviewed, someone came up to me and asked, "How would you like to work HERE?" I said sure and he brought me in to his office. He was the sales manager. He explained to me that their business was basically built around taking people that had no specific talent and marketing them to companies that had no interest in them. I was made the "Printing Counselor". People looking for jobs, any kind of jobs filled out questionaires. Then the questionaire was given to a "counselor" for some area. It could be printing sales, food sales, medicine sales, garment sales, whatever. But all the areas were sales related. I was taught to entice the applicant by selling them on a job that they really didn't qualify for, but that was OK, because these jobs didn't really exist. The next thing was to either call some company where I knew the name of the personnel officer, and try to sell the applicant to them, while the applicant was still sitting with me, or to let them leave and promise to contact them once "my friend" had called me back. This gave me time to cold call other companies and tell them that I had just interviewed the perfect candidate for a job with them, and then try to find out if such a job did exist. I was worse at this than I was at bindery sales. Since this was a commission only job I made no money. I don't remember clearly, but if I had to guess I would say that I made zero placements. I did, however, make a friend of the woman who handled garment center employees. When I realized that this agency was not going to be my future I remembered a friend of mine had gotten a job a couple of years before at a starting salary of $125 per week working for a company in the garment center. Big Bucks. I asked this woman if she could place me, and she said she knew exactly where to send me. She told me that her friend was not there at the time but she would try to call him later. Sounded kind of familiar.
The next day she called me over and told me that she knew of a company that was looking for someone like me and she would like to send me over. The company was Judy Bond. They were a ladies blouse company that originally had manufactured in New York City. When the owner discovered, after many years in operation in New York, that by moving his sewing to the south he could save an enormous amount of money, he did. He approached a town in Alabama, Brewton, and made a very favorable deal. They built him a factory at no charge. Of course the union in NYC was really upset and started to picket all the stores in New York City that sold their clothing as well as the building in which their showroom was located.Everyone in New York in those days knew who Judy Bond was. Shopping bags reading, Don't Buy Judy Bond were printed and distributed by the thousands.
I went for an interview. I remember the owner's name was Millard Rothenberg. His son who was probably in his early 30's was taking over for him and did all the interviewing, although the father still worked there. I can't remember the son's name, but I do remember that he was very smart. I also remember that he graduated from Yale. He believed that the best way to determine who would make a good salesman was through testing. All applicants had to go to the French Institute of something or other, where they administered aptitude tests. I was pretty smart, and did very well on the intelligence part of the test and I was able to figure out how to answer the real aptitude questions in a way that would make it appear as though I would be good at sales. I remember one question only. What would you rather do? A)Go to a movie B)Give a speech to a group of strangers C)Take a long ride D)Read a book. Most of the questions were as transparent. I did well on the test. I did really well. I know because I was read the results when I went back for my next interview. It was so good that years later when I was looking for a job, I was able to get a copy of the report and put it in my resume. I will never forget the opening line. "If ever we have had the opportunity to test an intelligent young man, it is Joel, blah blah blah. They fell over themselves raving about me. I got the job. I knew before that accepting a job with this company meant that I would have to move. The job available was for a road salesman. This meant that after training in New York, as soon as a territory was open I would have to move there. It could have been anywhere in the US. The company had a man who's job it was to teach the new employees how to sell. They rarely added new people and I was really lucky for there to have been an opening. The training was really more a matter of learning how to present the line than it was to sell something. The trainer's name was Sam Kalmus. Amazing that I still remember these names more than 40 years later. Maybe the drug damage wasn't as great as advertised. Sam handled the small mom and pop stores all over metropolitan New York. There was another guy who handled the big department stores. Sam was in the showroom a couple of days a week and out visiting stores the other days. I was with him wherever he went. When we first met he asked me my name. When I told him he said that no one would ever be able to pronounce my last name. He asked me my middle name and when I told him he suggested that I use that as my last name. After all, he said, it didn't really matter. It would be my stage name. I remember telling him that everyone would learn how to say it. He was right. I wound up spelling my last name for 35 years. When I came here and starting operating a Poker area at one of the casinos I tried to use my real last name and that lasted about 4 days.

Can You Actually Say This And It Makes Sense?

It was really pretty, but I didn't like how it looked.


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