A Small Victory

Not all victories are wins and not all defeats are losses. Usually there is a little of both in each. When it comes right down to it, it is what you get out of them that matters.

I remember with not a little fondness the time I lost my first real job out of school. The job was with Worldwide Monolith Industries, a vast, unwieldy, international conglomerate which consisted of Dennis, the owner, Sharon the receptionist, and me, the newly minted Marketing Intern. My new employer imported glass and rubber goods from Malaysia and Italy and sold them to drugstores in Canada. The products were as exotic as hot water bottles, eardrop dispensers and measuring cups.

Well, I worked at Worldwide Monolith for about a year until it became evident that:

1.       I had as much talent for sales as a duck has for crossword puzzles, and,

2.       The business would run out of cash before that duck got good at the puzzles.

So, at the appropriate time and armed with these realizations, I slunk myself into Dennis’s office to let him know of my decision to relieve him of his star sales anchor. “You must have been reading my mind” he sighed in relief. “Wasn’t sure how to tell you”.

It was not as difficult as I thought leaving behind the glamourous world of global commerce. But I had to find something else pretty quickly because I hadn’t been smart enough to secure something else before handing in my resignation. The home printing press was never so busy. Every day, ten letters and their accompanying resumes were dispatched to potential lucky employers in Toronto.  Never in the history of that amazing city had so many been offered the rare chance to avail themselves of Walpolian genius.

After three weeks, I had enough rejection papers to start a small bonfire in the modest living room of the basement apartment I was sharing with my best friend Dan. We almost had to start a little conflagration because it was January and the landlord had just cut off the heat on a cold Tuesday morning. She claimed something about a late rent payment which caught me by surprise, having just paid some rent about sixty days before. When you are in the throes of letter writing, time seems to whiz by way too quickly and some obligations tend to get forgotten.

To remedy the situation, Dan and I conducted an impromptu bottle drive the next day to raise the rent money. Luckily, between us and the landlady, who only imbibed on days with a “y” in them, we had enough Labatt Blue/Black Label/Ruby Rouge empties to get us caught up with the pressing monthly housing ransom and then some.

The heat came back on along with the return of our landlady’s smile and, having enough extra cash for pizza, suds and a conciliatory 60 0uncer of Ruby Rouge, we organized a party for the upcoming Saturday. We needed a theme. “The Really Satisfied Landlady Party” seemed a little too risqué so we settled on “Take A Hike, Loser” in honour of all the rejection letters I had been getting.  All the usual suspects were invited and the rejection letters were wallpapered all over the living room, dining room and bathroom. Not only did the insulation factor in the walls double, but we were able to hide an awful lot of the accumulated evidence our less-than-superior housekeeping skills.

The party was a grand success. Condolences were offered in embarrassing profusion and multi-surface dancing was committed. No one peed on the toilet seat and even the landlady came down to share a bit of her bottled enthusiasm. Those who went home, went home happy. Those who stayed had to clean up.

Now, an astute reader may ask what this convoluted tale has to do with the opening premise: victories as losses and losses as victories. Well, it so happened that, while Dan and I were at the Brewers’ Retail conducting our glass for liquid exchange on the Wednesday in question, we had invited the manageress of that august establishment to our Saturday party, after boring her with all the details of our sorry plight. Much to our delight, she showed up with a case of Black Label and three dance-crazy friends from the Ford Modelling Agency. Even better, by midnight, she offered both of us fulltime jobs at the place she managed. Job loss turned into job victory in under four weeks. Makes you want to throw a good party doesn’t it.