Monday, December 29, 2008

Working hard for a living


I used to sell electronics door to door in City Terrace.

Pelon (One of my stepdads friends) came around one day and asked me for a ride to pick up some electronics.

I was bored at home and gave him a ride....I thought it will be a bunch of crap.

When we got to the shop I discovered that I was also going to be the translator...Pelon did not speak english and needed my assistance.

I talked to the guy at a tv repair shop and asked him what they had available....I found out they got their electronics cheap and just needed to sell them (Now I realize that they probably fell off a truck)

They asked me why the other guy was not there with Pelon and Pelon said the other guy did not know about him being there and that he was going to be using his own money and the other guys to make so money of his own.

We negotiated a price and I loaded up my Audi 5000 with a few boxes of electronics.

We got back to the house and I asked Pelon if he wanted me to help him sort out the stuff.

He asked me what certain things were for and I explained...since I was the one doing all the explaining I asked him if he wanted to leave the stuff at our house so I could find out what worked....what did not work and what we could sell...I told him I needed to see how much profit we could make from the stuff that he bought.

He left the stuff behind and the next day came over to see what pricing I had come up with.

I told him and he was shocked....he said that he and the other guy were selling the stuff for alot less....actually he said that the other guys was telling him that stuff was selling for less so that he could keep the unreported money.

I did my research and found out by visiting the electronic stores the day before that he has some pretty good stuff and that he was getting screwed by his partner.

He had Cd players, vacuums, dvd players....etc...etc...

So he asked me to help him sell the stuff....I was working at Thrifty on the weekends and did not mind having the extra money since my mom and stepdad were in Mexico.

I started knocking on the neighbors doors, talking to them about what I had and I made a few sales.....I made most sales because of my trustworthiness and knowledge of the product.

Sold a few vacuum cleaner and portable cd players and got tired of know so went back home to see what we had sold together....Pelon...sold nothing..I sold most of what I had.

We split the money....(I made more from a few hours of door knocking that from working 12 hours at Thrifty)....I learned some valuable lessons that day....

1) Always have a partner that is trustworthy if you have to have a partner

2) Never be afraid to ask for the sale

3) Learn as much as possible about the product that you are selling.


Needless to say , I quit my job at Thrifty scooping Ice Cream and started selling electronics door to door....We started making good money together...When we would buy our electronics I would do the research....teach Pelon about the product.. and go out to make some sales.

I started wearing my nice pants and shirt while selling and Pelon did too...we both worked hard....we started buying the electronics between both of us.

We made some pretty good money, but then my stepdad came back from Mexico and started taking Pelon with him to run "Errands"

Sold l the rest of my part of the stuff and retired from the selling electronics business.

Pelon would come around once in a while to get a ride of something but something was different about him now....he did not seem right...he smelled of alcohol and was not someone that I wanted to be around that often.

Then he finally CONnvinced me to take him on one last ride to to buy some electronics....we had the car filled up with vacuums and as I was making a right turn the axle on the Audi broke.

We called my stepdad , he came and picked up the vacuum cleaners and gave us both a ride home and that was the last time I did business with Pelon. He bought all the vacuums so he and my stepdad started selling them together and I got out of the electronic business for good.

Pelon was one of my stepdads many friends that would live with us from time to time, my stepdad is from the DF...all his friends had nicknames....

Pelon was nicknamed Pelon...but he was not a Pelon....he was missing and Eye and I think they called him Pelon from Childhood because his family made him keep his hair really short.

I will write about the different people that would come and stay with us from time to time....the little details that I can remember....Under the label boarders..

Evilchavo Out.

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