Opportunity Knocks

My second year at UNL was uneventful and at the end of the second semester I went home to Ord. It was home for my folks but not for me since I had never lived there. My dad said he had a job lined up for me on a bridge gang building a structure just outside town. It was good money and I figured I could last the summer on a manual labor job.

The work didn’t begin immediately so I “sacked in” most mornings. About two weeks into the summer I got a call to report to work. It was 95 degrees out and I hurried to the job without any breakfast. After a couple hours in the hot sun one of the workers felt sorry for me and offered me a banana from his lunch box. That did it. I got sick and decided construction work was not my forte.

My dad was unhappy that I didn’t stick it out after he had pulled some strings to get me the job. I therefore felt it was incumbent upon me to find a job quickly so I scanned the Omaha World Herald want ads and took the first thing available to a college student during a short summer.

The job was selling vacuum cleaners door to door. After a day’s training, a crew of about a dozen men (if you include this 20-year-old as a man) set off. We traveled in three or four cars and by the end of the summer had been in at least five states. Our crew leader was a man who was proud that he had only a third grade education but stood above us, not only in authority, but in financial rewards. For every sale we made he earned a commission also.

His philosophy was simple: “We’re not looking for security, we’re looking for opportunity!” He demonstrated that the first day out when we were between towns at 4 a.m. He saw a light in a farm house and made a pitch to the startled farmer. He didn’t make the sale but he did make his point, don’t ever pass up an opportunity.

Later on in the summer, I had a similar opportunity and did actually sell a cleaner on a farm without electricity. It isn’t as bad as it sounds. The federal Rural Electrification Association (REA) was just making it to that part of the west and the farm was due to have electricity soon.

Demonstrating the cleaner to the farm wife was difficult but she was so anxious to have all the modern conveniences just reading the instruction manual was enough to convince her to buy.

I was sent out with an older salesman the first day but the next morning I was on my own. The crew left me off in the poorest part of town and I figured that was my initiation. I realized later they were doing me a favor because most direct sales are made on time payments and to the lower income bracket homes.