Melanie drove again today. We got in her dinky car again to head to a new suburb, forgot what the area was called, but we were in the car longer than last time. We walked the streets and we alternated between each other on pitching to business.
We hit up this instrument store. She was the first to talk for this store. While talking, the store manager just didn't want any of it. He knew I was training and was saying stuff like he felt sorry for me for being a salesperson and stuff like that and that I was like a prisoner or something. Mel had enough of him slamming us, since we knew he didn't want anything we were selling, she was like 'okay Alex, time to go, and time for me to lug your ball and chains out of this store' while laughing. Out of the store I asked if he bugged her, and she replied yes, even though she knows to not let things like this get to you. Australians have the best comebacks. She was very good at that.
I had the next couple of ones, but either the manager wasn't there, the store wasn't open, a corporate head office deals with the electricity or they just weren't interested were the answers the people gave me. Some of them just told me to come back on Monday instead. Those were called the 'appointments'. But the company expects you to sell it that day and on the spot. It's pretty hardcore. The process of signing someone up takes an average 30 mins; the explaining, the signing of papers, then the call in to switch it over. The closest I got was actually getting the stores electricity bill at a charity store. The old lady that owned it didn't want any part of me though, but I was trained to be persistent, so I was (which I'm usually not) and she eventually gave me her bill. I calculated it for her and she would've saved $60 per quarterly period. She said it wasn't worth it to change to save that much. Didn't make sense to me as she's a charity group, why wouldn't she want to save any money at all? Then she had some customers at the counter and me not wanting to be rude, I left her to deal with them. That was the closest I got to a sale. :(
After following Mel to her closing deals, we decided we were done for the day. I felt verbally raped and just mentally and physically exhausted. I was hoping to get at least one today, but to no avail. We drove to the train station that was closest to Mel's house so that she could drink at the pub tonight. At the train station we picked up a free MX newspaper. It was kinda like The Gauntlet from University of Calgary, or the Calgary Metro. About 30 pages of daily news. Mel pointed out that the best part of the newspaper is the 'overheard' and 'lost in love' sections. The overheard section is people texting in conversations that they eavesdropped on that is either funny, weird, or dumb. The lost in love section is people texting in love questions or love advice. These actually are pretty funny sometimes.
On the train we talked about how she has a lot of debt through parking tickets (hitting an Alfa Romero of all cars), and her University student loans. She was paying her student loans minimally, pretty much paying the interest off every month, which basically gets you nowhere. I told her that she should either start paying lump sums, or at least get a bank loan with a lower interest rate than the student loan rates. Then she also mentioned that she just bought her 22 year old boyfriend, Will, a $400 birthday present of clothes. I don't think she's understanding how bad debt can be.
We got off at the Flagstaff station, which is the closest station to our work, and headed back to the office. There we met up with Gwyn and the other sales people, which happened to be all girls. We all headed off to the nearby pub, but it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella. One of the girls, who was cute, said to take her umbrella and to hold it for us both. She was lighting up a smoke, crappy. That's pretty much a deal breaker for me. Mel walked with Sara and I could here them talking about us, the kind of talk that high school girls would talk about if they see a boy and girl walk together.
We got to the pub, which was at the bottom level of a hostel. They served pots of drinks. Pot size is 285mL. It was the perfect size for me for beer. I don't really like beer in the first place, but I wanted to celebrate my first day of work. I also asked if the pub served food but they didn't, though the bartender said that I could bring in outside food. One of the girls from our group tagged along with me to the diner down the street. This girl was good looking, but she talked a lot. She was blonde and totally had the stereotype of a blonde. She said she gets lost a lot with direction, even with a map and an iPhone. Then she would laugh at herself. She also said 'just kidding' after a lot of her sentences. She ordered fries while I asked what the diner could make the fastest so that we could get back to the group before I blew my brains out. I ordered a burger with pineapple which took 10 mins, not fast enough!!
We got our order and went back to the pub, whilst the whole time she didn't stop talking. The burger was very tasty. I think I'll add a pineapple ring to all my burgers when I make them back home in Calgary. After about another 30 minutes, more co-workers showed up. About 3 more girls and 3 more guys. Mel introduced me to her boyfriend Will, who also worked with the same company, but in the charity division. We played pool against each other. The first round we played by Australian rules. It means that if you sink the white ball or make any 'foul' the opponent gets to go twice in a row, as opposed to the Canadian rule which is pretty much the person making the foul loses their turn. I won the first game, then Will won the second game with the Canadian rules. For the third game we played Australian rules and I won that again. Will was a nice guy too. Mel and him seemed to fit well together.
It was around 8:00pm and Jenn (my Ultimate Frisbee friend whom was also in Melbourne on a working holiday visa) texted me to go out for drinks. I decided that I wanted to meet up with her since I haven't seen a familiar face in a long time. Mel was also leaving so we decided to walk together back to the train station. When we got there, none of the trains went to Flinders station, where Jenn was, so I walked about 3 blocks and took a tram.
I saw Jenn and we gave each other a huge hug. It was awesome to see a familiar face and I think she felt the same. It was a tough week for me so seeing Jenn totally made my week. Even though we weren't best friends or anything, it felt like we were. She introduced me to her Irish boyfriend, Paul, and Paul's Irish friend, Mickey, and her Australian friend, Natalie. Mickey quickly went to buy me a pint of beer, even though I told him I didn't want one, he was not going to take no for an answer.
We spent about an hour at that pub and Jenn decided that we should check out another pub down the street. We walked up a couple of streets and headed up some stairs and into a club type area. There was no dance floor, but there was a bed in the corner. Interesting... It was really packed in the place. While we stood around and drank some more, Mickey went up beside a girl and introduced himself, then me to her. I asked where she was from, she answered Toronto and I told her I was from Calgary, then she was like 'Oh we're nowhere near each other, we shouldn't talk'. I said 'okay'. She wasn't attractive and rude anyways. Mickey started talking to another girl but the girl kept looking toward me as if I were to decipher the words for her, but I told her I didn't even understand what he was talking about. I said that he's Irish and the more they drink, the heavier their accent was and harder to understand. She just laughed.
Our group started heading out as that was not a fun place since it was way too packed and we couldn't hear each other talk. We walked to another pub up the street but it was close to closing up, it was 1:00am. I didn't think bars and pubs would close so early downtown.
I looked at the online bus schedule to see when my last bus
would leave downtown to my house and it was in 10 minutes. I told everyone I
was heading home and I ran to my stop. I got there in time, but about a quarter
way home, the bus driver said that it was the end of the line. Apparently the
last 2 buses of the day are cut short so that they don't have to
double back to the bus depot. He told me to get off at the nearest stop and
take a tram. I took the tram that stopped in East Brunswick. The tram driver said that
he could get me back to Flinders station before my last train would leave
there. Then I decided to google map how far I was to my house from where I was.
I was 4 km away. So I decided to walk. The other option was heading all the way
back downtown, run for my train and take that back up. If I went back, it
would've taken another hour to get home, but according to google maps I could
walk home in 45 minutes. Walking it was. It was about 3 communities/suburbs
away I think. I passed by Batman Park too, awesome. The walk seemed like it took forever, probably because I've been walking in my dress shoes all day. I finally
got home and plopped to bed.
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