Read Online Dispatches From a Dilettante by Paul Rowson - Free Book Online
Authors: Paul Rowson
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somehow qualified as a teacher and must therefore be articulate. For those readers who have never attempted to sell anything door to door, my experiences should persuade you never to contemplate such a shallow and soul destroying enterprise.
Armed with some of the publicity pamphlets I was dropped off by Elwyn on the corner of a street in a well heeled district in South Liverpool. It was a dark November morning with the rain teeming down. His succinct advice and my only training for the new role was, “Just get them to agree to me calling and giving them an estimate for tarmac on the drive, or slates on the roof”. As a chance to observe the human condition this was to prove the best practical opportunity a person could have had, but it required a robust spirit, verbal dexterity and the ability to absorb rejection, abuse and tirades of invective on a fairly regular basis.
The first three houses produced no replies and the fourth quite clearly had both a roof and a drive that were in pristine condition. Eventually some doors opened and I was in turn mistaken for a Mormon missionary, a carpet salesman and a representative from the Gas Board. The misidentifications were followed by well articulated dismissals and, on two occasions, before I could utter a word. Pity got me the first result as, soaking and by now shivering, a kindly Jewish gentleman said he would be delighted to get a quote for his drive as it was looking quite shabby.
When we later won this job I remembered his kindness and got the tarmac crew to put the word’ Shalom’ which is the Hebrew word for peace, in white pebbles in the newly laid tarmac at the head of his drive. The kindness of the act was slightly mitigated by the fact that they had run out of decorative stones and therefore missed the letters S and M out, those being the ones that required most pebbles. We did eventually rectify this but for weeks visitors to a house in south Liverpool were greeted with the enigmatic word ‘HALO’ in large letters on the new tarmac.
Without getting into too much technical detail the profit margin in this business was self evidently dependant on ordering the correct amount of tarmac or, in the case of Langdale Contractors, the minimal amount that would create the impression of a covering. An estimate has to be made as to how long a job would take and if it was, say four hours, the tarmac is ordered to be ‘cut back’ to that time. That meant that it is delivered at such a temperature as to be easily unloaded and workable for four hours, after which it begins to set. Thus tarmac crews on small domestic jobs do a lot of hanging around to be certain they are there for delivery, followed by frantic and exhausting work to get the tarmac down in the allotted time. Once we had a couple of jobs in an area, more often followed and this meant that I reverted to labouring.
After an exhausting week’s hard physical graft we, without fail, went straight to the pub on a Friday evening. Two things happened with certainty at this point. One was that Elwyn paid us individually in cash after asking us to follow him to the gents toilets. None of us knew what the other was getting paid and, as all of us were illegally signing on as well, no one asked too many questions. The second was that most stayed all evening, got thoroughly pissed and tragically spent a good proportion, if not all, of the money they had worked so hard to earn. I had not read Robert Tressell’s epic tome ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ at this point but the workforce of Langdale Contractors would have empathised with the plot and characters.
We had a breakthrough of sorts when, again trading on my genuine Catholic connections and conveniently ignoring my conspicuous lack of faith, I managed to persuade a religious order near Warrington to have their car park resurfaced. This was by far and away the biggest job ever undertaken by Langdale Contractors and greed had added a sparkle to Elwyn’s
Armed with some of the publicity pamphlets I was dropped off by Elwyn on the corner of a street in a well heeled district in South Liverpool. It was a dark November morning with the rain teeming down. His succinct advice and my only training for the new role was, “Just get them to agree to me calling and giving them an estimate for tarmac on the drive, or slates on the roof”. As a chance to observe the human condition this was to prove the best practical opportunity a person could have had, but it required a robust spirit, verbal dexterity and the ability to absorb rejection, abuse and tirades of invective on a fairly regular basis.
The first three houses produced no replies and the fourth quite clearly had both a roof and a drive that were in pristine condition. Eventually some doors opened and I was in turn mistaken for a Mormon missionary, a carpet salesman and a representative from the Gas Board. The misidentifications were followed by well articulated dismissals and, on two occasions, before I could utter a word. Pity got me the first result as, soaking and by now shivering, a kindly Jewish gentleman said he would be delighted to get a quote for his drive as it was looking quite shabby.
When we later won this job I remembered his kindness and got the tarmac crew to put the word’ Shalom’ which is the Hebrew word for peace, in white pebbles in the newly laid tarmac at the head of his drive. The kindness of the act was slightly mitigated by the fact that they had run out of decorative stones and therefore missed the letters S and M out, those being the ones that required most pebbles. We did eventually rectify this but for weeks visitors to a house in south Liverpool were greeted with the enigmatic word ‘HALO’ in large letters on the new tarmac.
Without getting into too much technical detail the profit margin in this business was self evidently dependant on ordering the correct amount of tarmac or, in the case of Langdale Contractors, the minimal amount that would create the impression of a covering. An estimate has to be made as to how long a job would take and if it was, say four hours, the tarmac is ordered to be ‘cut back’ to that time. That meant that it is delivered at such a temperature as to be easily unloaded and workable for four hours, after which it begins to set. Thus tarmac crews on small domestic jobs do a lot of hanging around to be certain they are there for delivery, followed by frantic and exhausting work to get the tarmac down in the allotted time. Once we had a couple of jobs in an area, more often followed and this meant that I reverted to labouring.
After an exhausting week’s hard physical graft we, without fail, went straight to the pub on a Friday evening. Two things happened with certainty at this point. One was that Elwyn paid us individually in cash after asking us to follow him to the gents toilets. None of us knew what the other was getting paid and, as all of us were illegally signing on as well, no one asked too many questions. The second was that most stayed all evening, got thoroughly pissed and tragically spent a good proportion, if not all, of the money they had worked so hard to earn. I had not read Robert Tressell’s epic tome ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ at this point but the workforce of Langdale Contractors would have empathised with the plot and characters.
We had a breakthrough of sorts when, again trading on my genuine Catholic connections and conveniently ignoring my conspicuous lack of faith, I managed to persuade a religious order near Warrington to have their car park resurfaced. This was by far and away the biggest job ever undertaken by Langdale Contractors and greed had added a sparkle to Elwyn’s
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