Today I am thankful for the strange euphemisms in the English language.
I have a strange day job.
I coach sales agents.
I call them. I listen to them. I give them tips.
Today, I called one.
She was perfect!
She was awesome. She had a gorgeous voice that let callers know that they were the most important people in the universe.
I could not ask a single question to throw her off her game.
She was great.
I had to tell her that she was good.
We spoke a bit about the hardships of sales.
And she said....
"That's the way things are. There are some things we can't do. We can't fight city hall."
I said... "Well, you can fight city hall. Government officials just like to harass people who stand up to them. If that fails, then they try to make you feel guilty when you win."
This person is an immigrant. I'm wondering if her statement betrays her fears surrounding Donald Trump's presidency. I didn't ask.
I hear grumblings from people at work. I hear their fears about being sent away or anger at the thought that all Mexicans are criminals. I watch people get violent in the break room when they are watching CNN and Trump starts bashing Muslims.
Maybe she needs to know she can fight the government. People will fight. People are fighting for her right now.
*****
Life is funny. I wonder when people will get wise to the political game?
I jumped into politics about ten years ago after taking a back seat for twenty years. It started when a Tax Audit Supervisor stole $500 bucks from my family. She basically threatened my ex if he didn't give her the cash. I traced it to her. When I asked why the city manager let her steal my money, an Assistant City Attorney started harassing me. So I filed a complaint against her with Colorado Supreme Court. At that point, the cops started harassing me. I started collecting my experiences in a blog.
I'm a redhead who was orphaned as a child. Threats don't work on me.
I put an ad on Craigslist asking other people who had money stolen from them by the city contact me. That opened my eyes to many abuses. Once in a while, people still approach me with their stories. I wish people weren't too afraid to fight.
Eight years ago, I started to share the nasty threatening correspondence I received from city employees in a second blog. The city lawyers did not like that one bit. How they handled it is another story in and of itself.
I joined a tax activist group. A mayoral candidate asked me to run against him because he thought I'd make him sound sane. I did. Funny thing, when you go into the public eye, the harassment tends to stop.
It did. I still got nasty emails from the Tax Audit Supervisor that stole the money. That's when I realized there was something funky going on between her and my ex. She knew too much about me. The things she said mirrored the things my stalker in-laws said. That's when I realized he was smearing me to his family and his work mates. That was causing harassment on two fronts (his family and the city).
The group I was in won a couple of fights against tax hikes. I still run across the occasional grouch upset that they lost a tax hike measure eight years ago. They don't understand the dynamics of the tax hike request. The City Council stole money from the libraries and shoved it in the general fund. Then they threatened to fire a bunch of librarians if they didn't get to raise property taxes and override our TABOR Amendment.
Everyone loves librarians. That was why the chose to threaten the libraries. They thought it was a slam dunk. The slogan they used to push the tax hike was something like...if everyone paid just $5 a day, we could save the libraries.
Yeah.. I know elderly people who don't have the luxury of $5 per day to buy food. They can't afford a property tax hike. Sorry....
No one was fired when they lost the tax hike. One librarian became an interim City Manager and she got the privilege of ignoring me and not telling me why they let some brat steal $500 and harass me. No one was fired.
If city officials were more open and honest, they'd build trust with the community and their tax hikes would pass.
They've got to stop fining people and acting like jerks.
They don't listen to me.
In years past, I've tried talking to stupid politicians who don't listen. They do dumb shit to ruin their chances of winning (e.g smear campaign against their opponent thus dirtying their hands by slinging crap). They always lose when they resort to these types of tactics because it takes the focus away from the issues. People associate their names with the crap they flung.
At least, someone is paying me to teach sales people how to build trust and rapport with prospects.
I'd like to go one step further and teach them NLP but that might be going too far.
As a recording artist, I'm thinking of buying microphone filters for their telephone agents so they sound better.
It's a good job. I get to use my other experience to make some money.
It pays the bills. They give me health insurance and let me stay anonymous so I don't have to worry about the stalking. They've got a nice security team, too. At least I feel safe.
Once in a while a sales agent will threaten to beat me up in the parking lot after work. That only happens when they don't want to hear my feedback. Those are the times I think about quitting. Thankfully....I'm a redhead in disguise who has PTSD, a CCW and pepper spray. I pity any fool who tries to jump me in a parking lot.
It sucks working two jobs. I'll never get child support, alimony or any of the money stolen from me back. I've got judgments for over $50,000. I'll never see the money, so I need work to two jobs or more.
At least I still get to see my hypnosis clients. That's what makes me thrive.
I'm using a social deal site to advertise just because they help me stay anonymous. After they take their cut, I get about $10.00 an hour (not counting the work I do making customized recordings in my studio for the clients). I need to find a way to advertise while hiding from my ex's family. The answer will probably involve changing the name of my business and the branding. It sucks to have to change my brand.
At least I do something worthwhile. May you do the work that makes you want to wake up every morning.
Love ya,
S.