I'm sure I have written before about my growing enmity with sales people and the sales profession. So becoming a magazine salesman, even by phone, was not my idea of a successful career path. But Ron, already assuming the smooth salesman role, assured me that they did not want to hire me for sales. Instead they wanted to draw upon my fine arts expertise in order to produce and coordinate continuous motivational programs to encourage the large sales staff to generate sales.
That was all I needed to hear. That, and the offer to fly me up to Chicago for an interview with the executive manager, was all I needed to seal the deal. The plan was to complete some initial training and brainstorming for a few months in Chicago, then proceed to Tampa, Florida, where we would set up the branch office.
I flew to Chicago, completed the interview, got the same sales pitch as Ron had given me, then promptly accepted their offer. It paid more than I was making, so I easily recognized a natural progression up the food chain that would more than suffice to support me and my family.
Just before I had accepted their offer, however, I had received some material in the mail that contained a list of the magazines they pushed. One that caught my eye was Oui, an adult mens magazine --- okay, soft porn. My Christian fundamentalist radar went up immediately, and I began to feel convicted about working for a company that promoted seriously un-Christian material.
I called Ron and expressed my concern. Still the smooth negotiator, he explained that I wouldn't personally be selling the offensive magazine and that my testimony would remain intact because everyone, from the executive manager down to the sales staff needed to see my life in Christ on a daily basis. Boy, rationalization can be a killer! I fell. I flew. And I started.
Little did I know what I was getting into.
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