Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

I do not remember now just how I came to have this young man be assigned to my district, or who hired him. Unfortunately, for both he wound up having to be cut and it was really a waste of several people’s time. In trying to recall just what happened, I do recall that most of his preliminary training had been done in the Houston District. In conjunction with that, he was living in an apartment complex that was the same one that a large number of airline stewardesses were residing.

To be fair, it is possible that he was originally supposed to be assigned to the Houston District, but after a few months, asked to be re-assigned to me in the New Orleans District since he was from Louisiana. He confessed he just could not handle working in the Houston environment where he never got any sleep! There seemed to be an all-night party every night!

I really doubt that the poor kid really understood the basic requirements of our sales job. I worked with him several times while he was re assigned to a territory in Baton Rouge. One time he called and told me he had the flu, so I go up and check on him. I picked him up at his apartment and he was only equipped with a water bed on the floor and an orange crate for a night stand. I was surprised but decided that once he get on his feet he can buy what furniture he needs.

We go to a local general practitioner to see what his illness was, the doctor concluded that he was suffering for an upper respiratory infection. He said to the kid, “drop your pants and I’ll give you a massive dose of penicillin to help you fight it.” The boy in front of us both, drops his slacks and does not have on any underwear! The doctor and I both glanced at each other with amazed looks. I took him back to his apartment and left him to recover.

It wasn’t more than a few weeks and he called to resign. He said he just could not do the job, that making the 4 to 5 doctor sales calls a day were beyond his capabilities, that it took too much self-discipline. When I go to recover his vehicle and his supply of pharmaceutical samples, he had in the trunk, the back seat, and even the passenger seat loaded almost to the ceiling with unused samples. In a similar environment, a salesman making his normal volume of calls would never have been in such a situation. It became obvious to me that his time spent in Houston had not been productive at all. Whether more disciplined training might have helped would never be known.

I believe that a neophyte salesman is much like starting of a screw. If it is cross threaded at the beginning, it nor he will ever get back into a regular acceptable pattern. I resolved then that I would only accept those rookies whom I had total responsibility for their training. That way I would also be responsible for their future success and would know what if anything they had missed or lacked in the entire training routine. New Orleans might be known as a party town, but our district was one of the top producing districts in the nation and I could not afford nor tolerate a rookie salesman who had not been properly and adequately trained or had the necessary self-discipline to do their job. Just Sayin…RJS