The Traveling Saleswoman

Direct sales is always touted as one of those businesses where you control the schedule and the hours. That’s true to a degree, in that I could avoid scheduling any parties this weekend so that my husband and I could get away together for a much-needed romantic break. However, I am not in control of people who don’t call me back when they say they will! As a result, my weekend was interrupted by my work more than I care to mention, and my poor husband is a very long-suffering guy.

I had a party last week which the hostess promised to close by Thursday – I heard from her at lunchtime with a question, and then not for the rest of the day, despite me leaving two messages. For reasons outside my control, this party HAD to be entered by Friday. That is how I found myself leaving messages from my cellphone while driving on an out-of-state turnpike, and logging on from a distant Starbucks to check if she had emailed me. As they day went on and I hadn’t heard from her, my stress level mounted. I was going to have a lot of annoyed customers if this party didn’t get closed.

Eventually the necessary phone call came, just as I was heading out to dinner with my husband. He patiently sat there in the parking lot which I scribbled down the hostess’ order on a scrap of paper, hoping I was hearing her correctly over the background noise. But she didn’t have her credit card number on her, so I was still missing one significant piece of information and needed to connect with her one more time that night. We ate our dinner and returned to our hotel room, where all thoughts of a relaxing evening watching a movie together went out the window. Instead my husband watched the baseball game on TV while I frantically typed in her order, dealt with a customer check made out to the wrong person, and generally got more and more stressed.

Finally it got to 11pm, my husband was fully-clothed but snoring on the bed, and this woman was still not answering her phone despite many messages. I had to make the executive decision to put her order on my own credit card in order to get the party into the system. I hate doing that, but not doing so would have resulted in many angry customers not receiving their products on time. She called me apologetically the next day, and promised to send me a check. I’m grateful that the money arrived in today’s mail, and thankful that my trust in her was not misplaced. Still, it was unnecessary drama I could have done without.

During the weekend I also had to handle impatient leads requesting more information, past hostesses querying things about their deliveries, and several team members with what they perceived as business crises. I had to deal with so many phone calls and emails, it was crazy. Maybe I should have ignored them all? But my conscientious streak makes it impossible to ignore requests for help, even on a romantic getaway. I might need an intervention! “Hello, my name is The Traveling Saleswoman and I’m addicted to providing exemplary customer service, even at the cost of my personal life and sanity.”