The First Day

What follows is a fictionalised account of being in car sales. As it's fiction, stuff is made up for dramatic effect and all the characters are made up too. So any resemblance to real people is a coincidence. I aim to post about 200-500 words a day. Hopefully it will be a bit of fun. In a real sales environment, language is frequently coarse. So I would appreciate opinions from readers as to whether they would like to see it as it happened (if it were real) or a slightly mollied version. e.g. "What the 'fox' do you think you are doing sitting on your arse.

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Money was tight at home. Not to the point of getting thrown out on the street. That sort of thing was unlikely to happen to us. We’re not that sort of people. Not really, we’re just too middle class. Getting a job in car sales, as a car salesman, was about as low as Mrs H was going to let me slide. Any lower and I suppose it might have been the divorce courts before financial destitution descended.

Today is my first day as a proud trainee car salesman. I was actually excited as well as a little nervous. Not just any old cars though. Oh no, this was what they call a premium brand. During the interview, the manager had called buying a Jaguar an, “aspirational purchase”. I liked the sound of that, plus I’d get to drive one as a ‘company car’ demonstrator. I was honestly looking forward to it. What was not to like? A nice warm showroom out of the rain and wind. Plenty of nice cars to sit in and push buttons or turn dials, smelling and stroking the leather – no fetish involved. The doors all shut with a satisfyingly muted clunk. Incredibly, there were lots of nice colleagues who were all very supportive and friendly. Yes, of all the jobs I’d done over the years, this one would quite possibly shape up to be about the best.

That didn’t last of course. That is to say it did last until I attended my first sales meeting about 20 minutes after arriving. It sounds like a good idea in principle; to gather the team at the start of the day to talk about targets and sales offers and deals and all that strategy stuff. This meeting was not like that though. This was a ritual slaughter of anyone who was the target that day.