Dreams at Auction

Insurance salespeople. An occupation which brings to mind those who have push-broomed their dreams into a scraggly yard of dirt and weeds in the name of money and stability. Images of cheap briefcases and personas that of George McFly come to mind. A knock at the door and a cheesy smile lets them slink into your kitchen and unclick their arsenal of brochures and diagrams. Their products may be worthwhile; it’s just that the process and the people seem so nauseatingly lame.
I have no basis whatsoever to make these broad-brushed claims. In fact I know one insurance salesman who does not wear glasses or have greasy hair—although I do not know the quality of his briefcase—so I honestly do not know where this occupational distaste originated. I only know that it is there and it tastes a bit like earwax.
If I was to pose a guess, I would say that insurance salespeople symbolize, to me, the ultimate sellout. I have never met anyone who wanted to grow up and sell insurance and thus I do not believe that people in the profession are saying to themselves; “I can’t believe I finally made it! I am LOVING this!”
Most likely what happened to the poor souls in this industry was that they majored in marketing, all set to become the next dreadlocked, flip-flop-wearing protégé at Wyden Kennedy, when WHACK! Rejection. All of a sudden they realize they are not quite as chicly creative as they had troubled themselves to be. Next they will pitter around for a while, trying to cling on to some corner of the dream that they had wrapped so tightly around themselves. At the funeral of this effort, however, many will begin looking for jobs in sales—not marketing—sales. This is the Big Compromise—the number four ‘safety school’ if you will. This is when Big Insurance scoops up the ragged, hungry, soot-smudged young graduate and tells him he’s going to be a star. ‘You’re not so bad—hell you’re even handsome! A shower and a shave is all you need and you’ll be dancin’ in a barrel-full of money in no time, son!’ Soon the monkey suit is donned, insurance licenses acquired and the dreads sacrificed. All to the tune of rehearsed sales pitches and babbling middle management. Ugh.
It is this profession which causes my most violent occupational recoil mainly because I too am a marketing major with no chance at Wyden fame. Not that I envisioned working for the advertising agency which throws out award winning Nike commercials like a Vegas dealer on crack—my sights were never that high. But I certainly do not foresee a career which entails selling anything to anyone. I would like to assist sales. Assist.
As irony would have it, however, I have recently interviewed for a position at an insurance company. How much is the soul going for these days, you ask? Well, wait. The sole reason that I am not standing on a tottering stool with a noose around my neck is because the position is for an operations director—not sales. I handle operations at the bank and I actually like it, so this would not be a half-bad opportunity.
I have two hesitations. The first being that I would be working for an insurance company and just the thought of that makes me wince. How boring. I would forever hate the question, ‘So what do you do for a living?’ The plus side, however, would be that I would get to know some insurance salespeople and maybe, just maybe, they would prove all of my biases wrong. I would realize that they are not sleazy, slimy, boring people and that I had been ignorant and stupid for having assumed so. Hah. Right.
My second hesitation roots in my desire to enter into some sort of communications job somewhere. That would be my career ideal. I can see myself taking the operation job, however, and doing nothing but just that for the extent of my working life. I don’t mind operations, but I’m not quite ready to give up on a more challenging and interesting career. In a fight between writing and filing, writing still wins. In the first round.
This seems like a weighty and difficult decision regardless of my ideals, however. This choice could potentially determine whether I will become some wondrously unimpressive insurance worker with a huge phone attached to my belt and desperate skittish eyes, or a neurotic chain-smoking writer who has five cats and a gun.

Not a bright future either way. Good thing life is not that dark. Just this blog.