Confessions from an Insurance Salesmen

[kigs]

It's a little known fact that I used to sell Life and Health Insurance.
I'm a damn good salesmen. It was damn good money.

But, at the end of the day, I didn't feel like I had helped the world in any way. Every once in a while, I provided a desolate household with cheap health insurance and felt good, but more often I sold conversational time to old ladies and the hope of living longer to old men. The fact that I could walk into the home of a family on welfair on walk out with several hundred dollars in my pocket bothered me.

So, I quit.

It was over a year ago, but something which was said before I quit still bothers me. Once, I went up to my boss and asked him about the ethical implications of what I was doing. He looked me right in the eyes, smiled, and said:

That's a very young thing to say.
Trust me, you can cry your way all the way to the bank.
It's a job like any other job."

At the time, it struck a strange chord. Now, I find that phrase deeply disturbing."...you can cry all the way to the bank"! As if money is going to pad my ethics.

How bloody eerie!
Truely,
~Kigs

Comments

[cass-rising.livejournal.com]

I try to live my life by simple rules. One of them is: Don't eat your soul to feed your belly.

---
Circle around children, it's time for Ms. Cass's story hour. Once upon a time, there was a man. Now he wasn't a bad man, but he had been taught his whole life that the size of his bank account was what made him a good person. He was praised, called the "good son", while his sister was rejected for living a modest existance. He dragged his family across the country, always in search of a better job. He bragged to his neice that where once there was only forest, now there were mini-malls and golfcourses because of him. The man's family praised him and rejected his sister and her family.
One day, the neice was walking in the woods. The birds sang to her and the soft loam of the woodland soil squelched between her toes. It was the day of a family gathering, one that she was not invited to. At the gathering there was lavish luxury, there was an army of underpaid men in white suits serving fancy dishes to the man and his kin. But in the woods there was a girl and her dog, happy and poor, never having once to make apologies for their existance.
---

My uncle laughs and cries his way to the bank every week. His wife and children resent him. Trees and communities die because of him. And he thinks that makes him a good person. *shrugs* That was what he was taught. I can only be grateful that his sister (my mother) didn't take to that conditioning. It's my sincere hope that more and more people can be raised by people who don't.
Take good care of that kid bro of yours.

[kutztowndragon.livejournal.com]

What a phony

[skadjer.livejournal.com]

Alternate interpretation:
"You have two choices... walk on principle, (with no implied outcome) or take your check and go to the bank. The crying is a result of the latter choice."

I had a rant... about the nature of stubbornly defended opinions of the world's inherent corruption, but Cass just illustrated it better.

This man, and others like him, live in a world where morality is the fluff of fools... this is absolute, infallible fact... and the sooner one learns it, the better off they'll be. 100% true.
In their world.
And until proven otherwise, that infallible truth might extend no further than their own craniums. As for "a young thing to say," I used to look down on underexperienced, awkward, idealistic youth as a handicap...
Now, I'm no heavyweight at 25, but I've aged enough to learn that there is irreplacable value to the "young" frame of reference.
The majority of Nobel laureates are credited for discoveries made under the age of 30... presumably, because by the time they get older, they know better.
So often, it seems stupid, idealistic youth is all that holds the world together.

[theginko.livejournal.com]

welfare

[kigeni.livejournal.com]

Edited

[areitu.livejournal.com]

I'm a terrible salesman. x-D

[kaypea.livejournal.com]

His point is you can boo-hoo all you want about the ethics of your job but that doesn't seem to stop you from cashing your check. Every job has these sticky ethical questions so really it is just a matter of how much your willing to sell your conscience for.

[noplate.livejournal.com]

Hence why I don't do sales, no matter how good I am at it.