The Art of the Hustle

by Edward Mullen

  ***

  Ashley lived about five minutes away from the mall. When we arrived at her place, she headed straight for the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower, I smell like pancakes. You can watch TV if you like. There’s juice in the fridge and snacks in the cabinet beside the fridge if you get hungry.”

  “Alright, thanks.”

  TV with cable, a comfortable couch, juice, snacks – this was a life I could get used to. What may seem ordinary to some people was a privilege to me. For the past month, my diet consisted almost entirely of wieners and tap water. I would skip breakfast and lunch and have wieners for dinner. I couldn’t even afford buns or mustard. I felt bad for taking so much from Ashley, but I vowed to make it up to her one day. For now, I sat back and enjoyed the ride.

  C H A P T E R

  S E V E N T E E N

  My first day of work was exciting. It seemed like a cool environment – young staff, good music, and nice clothing. After I was given the grand tour and was introduced to everyone, I was instructed to read the company’s policies and sales manuals. I sat at a small desk in the back room, which also served as the employee’s lounge.

  The following day was my first day on the sales floor. This was where I would be tested against the other top sellers. Each week, the employee’s sales were posted in the back office. I made it a point to study that well, to see who my competition was. A guy named Josh was consistently the top seller each week. The week before I arrived, his total weekly sales were $4,168.89. I didn’t care who he was or how he did it, but he now had a target on his back and I made it a goal of mine to destroy him. It was nothing personal, just business.

  Since I was in the back the entire day on Monday, I only had four more days until the end of the week. The sales results were posted every Monday. I was already down a day, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

  “I just sold another pair of shoes!” Josh announced to anyone willing to listen. “I’m on fire today; I’m already at eleven hundred!” he bragged.

  It was rough going for me at first. I was unfamiliar with both the product and the store layout yet, but I had hustle. I would not be outworked.

  After an hour or so, I started to find my rhythm. I made a couple of small sales, but more importantly I learned how it all worked. The sales floor was like a shark tank, with five sharks working at all times and the customers were their prey. To the untrained eye we all just looked like a bunch of sales people walking around aimlessly. In actuality, we were very much stalking our prey, getting into position, and would become incredibly hostile towards each other if another associate got too close to our customer. We would mark our territory with sayings like, ‘I got these people’, ‘I talked to these people first’, ‘I’m already helping that guy’. I wasn’t saying these things at first, but I was also not getting very many sales either. It was a sink or swim environment and I had to adapt quickly. “I got these guys,” I said over the headset as I followed my prey up to the shoe wall.

  The first challenge was to convince an ordinary person who walked into the store to open their wallet and buy something. There were two main strategies with this: one was to catch as many fish as possible – the ol’ strength in numbers play. The other tactic was to focus on catching only the biggest fish. The latter required an incredibly keen eye to read people for buying signals, a technique I had not yet perfected in this environment. Once a big fish was identified, the goal was to get them to buy as much as possible.

  I focused on numbers. I went for the customers nobody else wanted. I sometimes had five customers at a single time. It was a juggling act that required a lot of running, but my strategy paid off. Many little sales eventually added up to a lot. Occasionally, I would get lucky and catch a big fish.

  Each night, I would take the product manuals home and study them. Then each day, I would spout all the knowledge I had just learned the night before. Over time, I became more comfortable with the store's products and their locations. I made some large sales, but took many smaller ones as well. I knew I was selling a lot, but I didn’t know where I stood in terms of beating out my co-workers, especially Josh.

  I came in on Monday morning and Marc greeted me with a warm welcome. “Good morning, champ,” Marc said with a very suspicious smile on his face, as if he knew something I did not.

  “Good morning,” I replied.

  When I returned to the back room, I put my bag down and looked over at the sales board. Josh was standing by the latest posting, analyzing the results.

  “Hey, Josh,” I said in a friendly tone. He didn’t say anything back. As soon as he walked away, I went over to view the results. Josh sold an impressive $5,347.00 last week, crushing his last week’s total by more than a thousand dollars. I then searched for my name. I was expecting it to be somewhere near the bottom. I eventually found it in the top spot – Trevor Morrison – weekly sales total: $11,582.00.

  “Holy crap!” I said under my breath, surprised at the result. Am I reading this correctly? I figured it had to be some sort of typo. I could hardly contain my happiness; it felt like I had just won the lottery or something. I had to be careful not to gloat in front of anyone. It was important to remain on good terms with my co-workers. I knew keeping them happy would be a huge component in my future success there.

  “Hey, Trevor. Congratulations!” Karen said to me.

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh my god, did you see your sales last week?” another co-worker asked.

  “Yes, I saw, I’m quite surprised,” I said.

  “Yeah, how did you sell so much?”

  “Got lucky I guess,” I said humbly, trying to downplay the defeating blow I had just served to the veterans. Josh was not as pleased as the others were. He was really competitive about his sales and I had just humiliated him. I had sent a message loud and clear, there was a new top dog in town.

  C H A P T E R

  E I G H T E E N

  I decided to pay Raashid the rent, $900 cash for the 2-bedroom suite. He didn’t say anything about it costing more and he seemed to have forgotten completely about the damage deposit and the key to the other apartment that I still had. Once again, he wrote me a receipt on the back of a postcard. I quickly took the receipt and left before his memory returned. I had just bought myself another month, but I definitely needed a new place. I didn’t even bother hooking up the electricity because I didn’t think I would be there too much longer.

  I woke up at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. It was the beginning to my weekend. My manager deliberately scheduled my days off on the two slowest days of the week so that I could be there to maximize the sales for the rest of the week. Ashley was working so I needed to find something to occupy my time. I decided to take a long walk along the sea wall.

  I walked for hours – just thinking. What do I want to do with my life? I asked myself. I drew a blank and tried another way. What’s missing in my life? The answer to this question came a little easier. I needed one thing – happiness. Everything else was just a byproduct. I then asked myself, how can I acquire happiness? I continued to walk, pondering these grand questions.

  At around 3:00 p.m., I texted Ashley. She texted me back right away. ‘HEY, I’M OFF AT 3:30. COME MEET ME :) ’.

  I arrived at her work just as she was leaving. “Hey, gorgeous,” I said, as I gave her a big hug and a kiss on top of her head. “Mmm, you smell like pancakes and syrup.”

  “Eww that’s disgusting. I need to go home and shower.”

  When we arrived at Ashley’s place, I fell into my usual routine: grab some snacks and juice and make myself comfortable in front of the TV. I flipped through five hundred and thirty channels and there was nothing on. I finally settled on Oprah.

  I wasn’t paying too much attention to what she was talking about, I was much more interested in studying her body language. I was curious as to why some people are successful and others are not. There had to be something in Oprah that I could point to, a particular
talent she possessed that others did not. It wasn’t obvious to me. Was it luck? I wondered. Luck probably had something to do with it. I bet when she was my age she never imagined how her life would turn out.

  Oprah’s story fascinated me. Here was a woman who miraculously came through the mix from the ground up, and somehow made it to the top when so many others had failed, and she was an ethnic minority. If she could do it with two noticeable disadvantages, then surely I could do it too. I had heard ambition beats talent ninety percent of the time, so maybe that was it.

  On the commercial break, I went over to the fridge to refill my juice. On the kitchen counter was a pile of opened mail. On top was Ashley’s most recent bank statement. I contemplated on whether or not I should have a look at it. I wasn’t interested in how much money she had, but I was curious how a minimum wage server at a pancake house was able to afford such a nice downtown apartment on her own without having a roommate. I figured the rent was at least $1,600.00 a month.

  The bank statement was practically opened already; all I needed to do was casually poke it open some more and have a quick peek. What’s the harm? I thought. I listened for a moment and heard Ashley still splashing around in the shower so I set my glass down and picked up her bank statement. On the top of the page I saw her name ‘Ashley Taylor’. My eyes scrolled down to her account balance ‘$8,162.15’. I went over the statement in more detail. ‘June 1st - deposit… $5,000.00’. What the heck is going on here?

  I heard the water shut off so I folded up the statement and went back to the couch.

  “You still okay?” Ashley came out with a towel wrapped around her.

  “Who, me? Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. Just watching Oprah,” I said with a smile.

  “I just have to dry my hair, then we can hang out.”

  “Take your time.”

  Fifteen minutes later she came out looking amazing as usual. Her bronze skin glimmered and smelled of fresh exotic fruits.

  We went downstairs and hailed a cab. The cab took us over the bridge into my neighborhood and dropped us off right in front of Luigi’s Italian Restaurant.

  After we ate, we took a stroll down the main shopping street in my neighborhood. It was not like the main strip downtown, but it had character.

  “So whereabouts do you live?” she asked.

  “I live just a few blocks west of here.”

  “Oh really, I want to see!” she said excitedly.

  This was the decisive moment for me. I was hesitant to show her my apartment because it was a big contrast to her lifestyle. She was aware of my situation, but maybe she thought I was exaggerating a bit.

  I reluctantly led her to my apartment building. We both didn’t say much. I held the front door open for her and we walked upstairs then down the hall. I unlocked the door to my apartment and prepared for the worst.

  “So here it is,” I said. “It’s nothing fancy… and it’s just temporary,” I tried to conceal my insecurities.

  “This isn’t so bad, it has character,” she said with a smile. I didn’t say anything, I was just waiting for the bad news like she just remembered she needed to pick up her Aunt from the airport or she left her hairdryer on. Some reason she had to get the hell out of my apartment.

  After a brief tour she turned to me with a sincere smile and said, “I like it.”

  “Keep in mind this is only temporary, okay? Remember, I needed to scramble last minute to find a place and this is what was available.”

  “Hey, nice view. You can see the park perfectly. Oh wow, look at all the trees… my view is so boring; I’m surrounded by cold buildings.”

  I guess it is true what they say, the grass is always greener on the other side.

  “Well before you get too excited, I have to mention something,” I took a long pause before I delivered the bad news, “there’s no electricity.”

  “That’s okay, we can tell ghost stories,” she said trying to lighten the mood.

  “Really, you don’t mind?”

  “No, not at all, do you have any candles at least?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” she said with a sexy smile.

  As the sun went down, we lit all the candles I had and put them in my bedroom.

  I laid down on my bed in the dimly lit room and gazed up at Ashley who was standing at the foot of my bed in the flickering candle light. She slowly unbuttoned her shirt and it fell to the floor. She did the same with her pants. We both didn’t say a word. Talking would most likely ruin this moment. I was happy just staring at her beautiful toned body in silence. She crawled toward me and got a little more comfortable.