Some days I am still haunted by  the ridiculous script.

“Hello, I’m calling from International Magazine Service…”

The call was suppose to end with me slickly convincing the prospective customer to agree to magazines that they may or may have never ordered in the past. I was to confirm their address and get their credit card information to begin a billing cycle.

Get in, get paid. get out. 

It really wasn’t rocket science. I was an honor roll student. I should have been able to do it.  So why instead of ending with a new customer,  it often concluded with expletives or  a sudden slam of the phone on the other end. Hurt my feelings why dontcha?

It’s okay. My bleeding heart forgives you.  

Cold Calling. Selling magazines that nobody wanted to read from a cramped office near the freeway.  It wasn’t a job. It was a punishment for a crime I had committed in a past life. And I was horrible at it.

Despite that it took me some time to comprehend that it was a problem. Because I was normally good at most things. And this was a straight forward operation. It should have been easy sailing.

Okay, so my work environment wasn’t terrible. Most of my co-workers were older than me and kept to themselves. They’d ring a super loud bell every time they reeled a customer in. From the outside it all appeared to be pretty ordinary. But it always felt a little off.

Maybe that’s why I never got to ring that bell. Not even once.  

Then my boss liked me.

He liked liked me.

 In a very…creepy… icky poo kind of way.

His eyes lit up every time the afternoon shift began and I sailed through the door with my peppy-sweet sunshine of a disposition. I was virtually fresh out of high school and he seemed to want to lap up every ounce of my naivete. Intuitive girls like me know when a man wants to… lap.

He’d call me things like “doll” or “honey,”through his thick salt and pepper mustache. He’d also stare or hover and listen in on my calls which is totally what bosses do, but just not in a managerial kind of way.

I brushed away his weird vibes easy enough, excited to focus on one of my first real world jobs and confident that I would be the best sales girl that company had ever seen.  But it was harder than it looked. And the harder it was…the more southern my accent became.

That’s right. I said Southern. It just happened. I sounded like Dolly Parton. The drawl was charming, yes, but totally bogus. Because I’m originally from Miami and eat things like roti and curry and black beans and sweet plantains for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  

Anyway, the accent was great, but the job…not so much.  I was failing all the time but I wanted to believe I could make work. So somehow the accent– it just kept morphing into new variations. Southern. British. Caribbean. My mouth became a citizen of the world as every potential customer slammed the phone down in my ear. 

The constant  rejection was brutal and still  I convinced myself that I had to do it.  After all, this was the big leagues baby!  We’re no longer covered by Dad’s insurance. Because we’re grown.

Grownups make sales. If I could just make one sale…and ring that bell…it would prove that I was grown…and just as good as everyone else in the room.  

The day soon came when I made a call I would regret. A real cold calling nightmare for a sensitive girl like me who wants to be saving the world but is stuck selling Better Homes and Gardens. 

It started as normal. The dial. The 3-5 rings. The answer. 

I setup the call with the script. 

“Hi, this is Jen from International Magazine Service and I’m calling to thank you for paying your bill on time and to let you know that because you are such a good customer…we’ll be sending your magazines out to you again. Starting this month you will be receiving [insert horribly long list of pathetically boring magazines here] “

I finished the script  

There was a pause for a moment…

Then finally the voice on the other end began to sob. 

“My husband just died. I’m just from the funeral. Can you call back later?”

How about no. Just no. Never again. Nope. Not this girl. Within two weeks from starting that job, I was collecting my first and last paycheck.

You’re probably laughing at me, but you read that right. Two weeks.  I’m not ashamed. It wasn’t even the shortest job I ever had. I used to be a party clown for an entertainment company that made a profit off my balloon animals.

Savages.

That one lasted a few days.

But to this day I carry with me some of the most important lessons that came from those experiences. Because the path to the greatest version of ourselves is so often forged through struggle, distraction and failure.Many times we find ourselves and our paths by exploring and overcoming the things that were always meant to be released.