Mid day Tuesday was hot and sunny. Walking down a busy road, going door to door just invited sweat all over the body. The breeze from the passing traffic did little to subdue the heat's affects. Stops for water, few and far between, were amazingly delicious for what seemed to be the best tap water ever. People in general were in an uninterested mood, but they were generally nice about it. They probably sensed the desperation as much as the perspiration rolling off our buttoned-up long sleeves and dress slacks. I question why I'm doing this with a guy I just met, but I have no choice. He's my ride, and I'm an hour's drive away from home. Why did I let myself get stranded just across state lines selling golf passes?

Being the unemployed recent graduate that I am, I've been applying left and right for jobs. One of the random places that got thrown my resume was Global Acquisitions, Inc. for a random marketing job. The first red flag would be that the Portfolio and Testimonials pages are "under construction." Sure they are.

I found the job on Career Builder, described as for people interested in sports and entertainment and promoting such. Don't care for sports, but entertainment is fine, and I can do promoting. Still, it had the air of one of those multi-level marketing plans. You know the ones. The managers tell you that this is new and trendy, that this is a cutting-edge form of marketing that bypasses the lack of connection through traditional channels of print, broadcast and internet. All you're doing is selling products with hopes of eventually managing people below you who sell products, who also hope to manage people below them who sell products. Hence the multi-level name. Until you get high enough in the organization, the pay is 100% commission. No steady pay check, not even minimum wage. Working yourself to death does not guarantee getting paid without a sale under your belt.

Of course, this was all confirmed in the first interview. Why then did I go back for the second interview? Morbid curiosity. Can't fully knock it until I tried it. Plus, I needed something to blog about.

The so-called "second interview" consists of the interviewee (yours truly) following around a leader (someone who's been selling for basically a month) to observe and see what the job consists of. The leader, meanwhile, observes you, imparts knowledge of the job to you and quizzes you at the end (real pen and paper quiz) for the manager to assess and decide on. Luck has it, I and another hapless interviewee were stuck following two of these leaders right outside the Fort Campbell Army Base, outside Clarksville, TN on the Tennessee/Kentucky line. The product? Passes to a golf course in a Kentucky town not too far away.

My leader's name is Joe. All four of us left in Joe's own car around 9:30 a.m. and took an hour to get to Fort Campbell. We then parted ways with the other two in my group on two different sides of about a four-mile stretch of Fort Campbell Blvd. Joe was dressed to impress, with his charcoal slacks, pink button-up shirt and blue tie littered with pink sea horses.

In fact, of our group of four, I alone did not have a tie, opting for simple dark blue slacks and a shite button-up with blue strips. Thanks to my recent hair cut and my wearing glasses, the other leader, Jamie, said I reminded him of Bill Gates. I don't know if he meant anything by that. I certainly avoided most of the sports discussion on the ride up. Mostly unfamiliar territory. Sports, not the ride.

After parking in a Pizza Hut parking lot around 10:30, Joe and I began our trek from business to business to get people to golf for $40 a piece. Wal-Marts and department stores of its like are awful places to pitch, according to Joe. Eventually a supervisor will kick you out. Sonics are bad because it's hard to get to employees. Guess Joe doesn't press the little red button. Car lots, however, are great places because, as Joe tells it, “they're salesmen too,” so it seems to be a camaraderie. However, not many car salesmen here golf.

Golf passes seem to be one of the worst products this sales firm deals with. The pitch originally given to me is that Global Acquisitions is contracted by organizations to sell discounted tickets and passes to sporting events or entertainment attractions. All this in an effort to fill otherwise empty seats. Organizations included the Nashville Predators, Nashville Shores and even Atlanta Braves. People don't mind sitting and watching a game, and even swimming isn't beyond most people. Playing golf, on the other hand, requires slightly more initial interest. And a set of clubs. As I'm told, that makes pitching trips to a gold course slightly harder.

The pro to selling around Fort Campbell is that there are a ton of soldiers to talk to, and a lot of them seemed to be out that day. They didn't seem to be avid golfers either. Most of the stores seem to be geared towards soldiers, with a wide variety of army surplus stores. Not many avid golfers there either. Plenty of clothing places, restaurants, banks and so on. Even the adult toy shops didn't have anyone who really golfed. Most people didn't play, and the few who did couldn't or wouldn't pay. It was turning into a long day.

Joe does have some own personal restrictions as to where he won't try and sell. He doesn't petition government buildings, schools or churches. Post offices are avoided less because of conviction and more because they just always have a long line. Places with “no solicitation” signs, however, are oddly fair game for him to solicit. I noticed at least three such signs in places we went into, and none of them said anything about it. We only had one person mention it, and that was outside a store we didn't even get a chance to see a sign to ignore.

Joe and I were to meet with Jamie and the other interviewee halfway on the strip as we approached from opposite ends. However, those two managed to “sneak” onto base, and by that, I mean catch a ride. Joe without any I.D. would be prevented from getting into the base. We were now left on the strip of stores all four of us had already hit in either direction. Approaching 2 p.m., over three hours in the sun, Joe and I sought sanctuary in a nearby Wendy's, where Joe regaled me with stories of making over a hundred dollars a day some days his first few weeks. This week, though, sales aren't going so well and money is getting tight. Maybe it's just because it's just a Tuesday. Probably not.

Joe started working with Global Acquisitions three and a half weeks ago and recently became a leader. The next rank up is assistant manager, where one finally gets a salary. While the move from entry to leader is just a few weeks, Joe says leader to assistant manager is six to eight months. That's six to eight months with no guaranteed pay. That has to take some dedication to door-to-door sales.

Joe and I eventually drove around, stopping and walking up to more businesses. Joe remembered a car lot he visited a couple weeks back with golf passes to a different course. They told him to come back if he had some to, just as luck would have it, the very same gold course we were peddling that day. Unfortunately, everyone who was previously interested were either not there or busy. We then head back to check on a couple of leads of interested parties we heard about along the journey.

Our one and only sale happened at the end of our journey, and was oddly enough at one of the first places we visited. One interested-yet-broke fellow said he would get money if we'd come back later. We did and he did, so we made our one and only sale for the day after walking around for four and a half miles in sweltering heat.

After the long day, we eventually reconnected with Jamie and the other interviewee for the trip back to the Global Acquisitions office in Nashville. Once there, we interviewees got quizzes on points of salesmanship and rules to follow and so on and so forth. Then the final interview with the manager. As tired as I was, I couldn't hide my lack of enthusiasm. She asked me to call her if I ever want to try again. She could tell I wasn't interested in the job, and she was right. I was only interested in going home and trying for a real job the next day.

Joe got $14 for that whole day of work, for that one sale after the six hours of wandering outside Fort Campbell and the twice hour-long trip between Nashville and Clarksville, not to mention his own gas fees or even his Frosty from Wendy's. Me? I got some exercise and a story to tell.