I used to deliver those stupid coupon books.

I can’t remember the name of the company but they sold coupon books similar to “Entertainment” books if you’ve ever had one of those. It might be a Minnesota thing, I don’t know. Anyway, the way it worked was simple. Sort of. (I think they were Showcase books, not sure now.)

I would take a box of books and then head out to a given territory and just sort of hang out until the telemarketers in the office made a sale. The customer’s info would be sent via pager and then I’d deliver the book and pick up the money. Not too complicated except that you could never account for traffic or getting lost or whatever.

I remember one time I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and the orders were coming in fast and furious but I couldn’t do anything because I was stuck. Finally a message came through that said “I don’t care where you are or what you are doing, CALL NOW.” This pre-dates cell phones and of course I couldn’t call, hell, I was trapped in traffic and there were no payphones nearby anyway.

I finally got all of the books delivered and made it back to the office.

The next day, they called me in and fired me. They told me to go out to the car and bring in the books. “Fuck you,” I said. “I don’t work here anymore,” a line I would use many times over the coming years.

I went to the parking lot across the street. One of the managers followed me out. Before he could cross the street, I chucked the books out into traffic. I’m pretty sure they all got ran over but as an ex-employee, I could not, and therefore did not, give a shit. Man it felt fucking good to do that.

The funny bit is this… About 2 or 3 years later, I bumped into a girl and we started talking about our shitty jobs. The book delivering gig popped up and she told me that she worked there and that they were still talking about it. I’m proud to know I made an impact!