SALESREPRESENTATIVEPHOBIA

For those who aren't so far aware of what I do for a living, you should know that I own a school where anyone can learn a second language. Owning a business is in part very nice but a bit overwhelming especially in my case that besides teaching, I enjoy having some hobbies of my own such as blogging, pretending I can be a journalist, Orkuting, Yahoogrouping, learning languages, and MSNing quite a lot. A good reason to find my job stressful is that since this school is small, we are supposed to take control over everything: being at the front desk and receiving everyone who wants to get to know about it for instance.

I haven't been depressed, under stress, or passing through difficulties in life. The toughest times of my personal journey happened many years ago. I can freely say that I'll become 30 (next year) financially OK and almost 100% professionally satisfied. As achieving those things in a country like Brazil isn't easy I ought to be proud of myself and I bet my parents are too. However there is something that bugs me about being a business owner.

My school is a small educational institution located downtown in a medium sized city. It is the branch of a chain of many other schools - about 900 - in Brazil and in other countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Dominique Republic, and Japan. From the school name, architecture, interior looks, to the materials, these are all things dictated by a central office located in São Paulo city.

Ours was chosen to be installed in a house, not a common house, but an old-fashioned three-story house. Now, this house has been remodeled and painted with bright colors. Although the hot colors were intended to give a more modern look to the house, its original appearance was kept. I just love my place and sales representatives find it attractive too. Since we have had it remodeled, there is not even a day that we don't get either a call or a visit by these creatures.

Sales representatives are protected species in Brazil and everywhere else as their predators never surplus their sales power. They like hunting clients and normally eat take-out food. These beings dress in black, usually business suit, or any dark color suit so that they can disguise their black leather briefcases. Yeah! They carry briefcases. This is where they keep their secret weapons - purchase order receipt books. Be aware that sometimes they leave the briefcases in the car. Without briefcases, they can be mistaken or easily confused as being politicians, pastors, or fancy disco security guards - yew.

I fear sales representatives. They come and go with those brilliant proposals. If you buy from them, your life will certainly change. They attack us by selling all sorts of products and offering all sorts of services: miracle detergents, soft paper towels, desks, heaters, school supplies, stationery items, dictionaries, calculators, softwares, international magazine subscriptions, surveillance, industrial coffee brewers...

They don't easily convince me to purchase, but they demand much time. They like to talk. OK, I like to hear people but their conversations are mostly bogus. I fear those beings. They scare me especially when they look serious (I've already said that serious people frighten me and that is so so so true!). They scare me when talk religiously memorized texts. They give me the jitters when they show up smelling cheap colognes, having gel smeared on their hair, and shinny nails accurately manicured. They enter the school and place on the counter samples, catalogs, price lists... Aaaaah!!! It's too much for me.