They Laughed When I Walked In For A Job Interview

Before I get into that, allow me to tell you a little about my work background.

Most of my background work has been in retail management. One of my first jobs was in a business I started with a modest $4000 investment. When I sold the business it was doing several million dollars a year in sales. I was among the first to manufacture projection TV's in this country. I started the business in my basement. The reason I made the first giant screen tv was because my father's eyesight was failing and he had trouble viewing the small 15" tv screens of that day. I made a seven foot projection tv for him.

When the word got around people were knocking my door down to see one. So I rented a piece of an industrial building and started production in earnest.

Eventually a couple years later when Sony, RCA, Panasonic and others started making their giant screen TV's, they were superior to mine and had a much brighter picture. So I immediately stopped making mine and picked up their units along with VCR's, Video tapes, Video Cameras and accessories.

An interesting thing happed when I switched. Since I was using parts from their company, they had me listed as an "OEM account. OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacture. This allowed me to buy their productgs below what even their biggest distributor paid and put me into a situation where I had no real competition. Besides this advantage I had another. Every time a ship arrived the price of electronics was lower than the previous shipment. No large retailer wanted to carry inventory that was going to cost less than the previous month. Prices were deflating every month.

On the other hand I carried dozens and soon even a hundred or two in stock. This inventory allowed me to display all the major brands and each model they produced. My store was picked by channel 10 news Oran Reed as the best place to buy vcr's and other consumer electronic goods. After thirteen years in business I sold it and purchased an Ocean Front Condo and started living the good life.

About that time computers were just starting to make their debut. I just had to get one so not to be left behind in this new technology. Almost immediately I become really good on the computer. I have been told I was ten years ahead of my time.

I started a desk top publishing business in my condo and published a book called "Opportunity Street". Purchasing my book made you a dealer for products I created on my computer which filled the book. To make money with my book, my dealers just needed to paste their name and address on the page of the products they were interested in marketing and mail the page(s) to prospected customers. They received 50% on each order. Mail order was big then. There was no internet.

The business started to grow and get out of hand. I found myself spending as much as twelve hours a day, just filling orders. I decided I no longer wanted to do this work and notified my dealers I was discontinuing the business. Wow! All hell broke loose. Letters and phone calls from my dealers angy that I was quitting started coming in. They were making a living on my computer products and did not want me to stop. In order to get them off my back, I lied and told them I had cancer.

Once I stopped the desk top publishing business, I told my wife we were really lucky people and that I wanted to give back by helping some non profit organization.

About that time a non profit had advertised for a Business Manager which caught my eye. They wanted someone to help open profitable retail stores for them from scratch. I jumped at the opportunity. The only problem was that in the business I owned I was making $135,000 a year in salary and all the non profit could pay was $10,000 a year to start.

I offered them three years of my life and proceeded to open stores for them. Once again I found that not only could I develop profitable retail stores for them, but was really good at doing this.

Ten years later I was still doing this for them. Finally my wife said to me, Fred you offered them three years and now it is ten years later. You know we are living on our principle and this should stop. I really loved what I was doing, but she was right and I left.

I did not want to just hang around doing nothing. I liked being with people and decided to find a job of some sort.

I went around to furniture stores and asked if they were hiring. One store I went into was in real trouble. They were failing and about to go bankrupt. The woman who owned the business had more personal problems than anyone person could handle. She offered me a one year contract to turn the buiness around and offered me besides a salary, 10% of what ever she was able to sell the business for if I got it back on track. One of my first tasks was to fire her daughter who was stealing her blind along with the furniture delivery truck driver and helper who also had their hands in the till. Before the year was up, I had turned the business around and she did sell it. I never got the 10%. She had moved to California and in my heart I believe she was so happy to get out from under, that she forgot. We had a verbal agreement and nothing in writing. My mistake!

All of the above is to give you some idea of what I have to offer an employer. Now to explain the heading "They laughed when I walked in for a job interview"

Today my hair is white. I am in excellent health full of energy. I had applied for a store management position once and when I walked into the store the interviewer and the store employees laughed. They were younger people in their late teens or early twenties. Yes there is age discrimination in the good old USA. Getting a job for me is very very difficult when the interviewer sees my white hair. Almost all jobs. Even low paying ones.

Another recent surprise I had is when I applied for a retail store management position and was turned down because although I was born in the USA, I did not speak Spanish. Imagine that. I applied for a job in America were I was born and was turned down because of language.

No! I am not going to dye my hair, but I may try to learn the Spanish language.