'Lady, You Need Basic Wiring'

Everyone knows that the key word when looking for a summer job between semesters at Harvard is "Harvard."

Beyond the gates of the Yard, employers don't know the truth about guts or beer-woozy weekends or the real nature of reading period. Harvard is the Kennedys, the Roosevelts, John Kenneth Galbraith and John Rawls. Harvard is the Law School and the Business School and prestige.

And when you're shooting for that job in the law firm, bank or governor's office, dropping the Big H in everyone's lap as often as possible is a good strategy.

Thus, I had no good excuse for beginning my search for part-time employment last summer in the industrial wasteland of Detroit by culling want ads in June. Having blown the chance to wallow in opportunities offered by Harvard's precious career services office, I began sifting through offers at the Fuller Brush Company and several short-order establishments. Then something caught my eye: "Opening for lively, articulate people to sell Time-Life book series by phone."

Figuring that-coming from Harvard and all-I was probably either lively or articulate, I resolved to be a dignified part-time book salesman with an Ivy League background, and, of course to be immensely successful. Neither aspiration worked out.

No matter how hard I "smiled and dialed" (the official motto), I convinced almost no one of the inestimable value of my products nor could I explain to customers why they should want to buy from such an overwhelmingly qualified sales representative.

The Harvard identity was the first thing to go. Dialing beside unemployed autoworkers, retirees and kids paying their way through the University of Detroit night school, the last thing I wanted to be was "Tom from Harvard." I became Tom from the suburbs.

I also found it impossible to squeeze in biographical history between the time I said. "Hello, Mr. Schmidley? HI! This is Tom Howlett calling from Time-Life libraries. We were wondering if you'd received a letter and brochure from us describing our great book, Basic Wiring"...and the clicking sound that meant goodbye.

In a certain way, it was refreshing to work in an atmosphere where my school, previous work experience, grades and father's friend's friends had absolutely no relevance. But why didn't folks want to try out" on a ten-day, free-examination basis" the wonders of Basic Wiring, the Gunfighters (from "the very popular 'Old West Series'") or Knights of the Air("with a beautifully-bound leatherette cover and an authentic cut-out design of the Red Baron's plane")?

A Time-Life sales representative calls, on the average, about 40 households per hour. On a good four-hour shift, you might turn over six or eight sales. Rejection becomes part of life, but it's still tough to have Joneses, Steins and Cunninghams slamming the phone down in midsentence: "You haven't heard of Basic Wiring? Well, I'm glad I (click)."

The most crucial aspect of the job according to official doctrine, was to keep the customer on the phone. And to aid in this pursuit, unnamed phone-solicitation experts had developed fool-proof scripts, which had an answer for everything.

"What, not interested? Well, I can understand that, since you haven't heard about it yet, but this is really special..."

"Unemployed? No money? No problem. Basic Wiring will actually save you money. For only 99.95 plus shipping and handling, you clubs learn to change plugs, rewire sample and decorate your home with light much move cheaply than by havings professional come in."

"Electriclan in the family, You know, I was just talking to a woman who agreed to look at Basic Wiring because she recently was stuck when a big repair bill when her electrician brother was out of town."

"Can't read? Fortunately, Knights of the Air contains more than 170 Hlustrations, including ones of Eddie Rickenbacker and the Sopwith Camel."

"Too old to need Basic Wiring's handy tips on how to set up outdoor lighting? Well, then, the Gunfighters is the book for you, profiling, among others, one great Westerner who was said to have shot someone for snoring."

No matter what the excuse and snappy, reflexive answer, the inevitable punch line would be: "So try (fill in book name) for 10 days, see have useful/fun it is, and if you like it, then go ahead and buy it, okay.

Ninety-five percent of the line it wasn't okay.

Despite constant rejection, the job became strangely tolerable. Part of was that there really was no swindling involved; all we were asking was for people to look at books and return them if they didn't want to buy them. We always made clear the price and that a wave of other, related books would follow.

But, more than that, the constant challenge of finding that one sale among the swamp of slams, polite hang-ups and pungent swearing sessions became addictive. It was a game between two voices, two personalities, two frames of mind.

And there are, of course, the anecdotes: the early-morning (negated) sale to an eight-year-old; the sale of Basic Wiring to a master electrician; and the time one customer said, "Hey, 'can I have three copies? I got a couple, of buddies that would love that book." I almost told him that no one could love Basic Wiring. But I didn't.