Dirt, grime and horny rhymes. That's what skanky crew boys are made of. Sugar, spice, and lots of cash orders...that's what crew girls are made of.
Girls and boys are treated very differently on crew. Boys are supposed to be tough, strong, fearless! They need discipline, rules and tough love!! Girls are delicate, lovely, and emotional. They need to be treated sweetly, and held to the highest standard of innocence.
You're probably feeling confused right now. What about all that other stuff you said before? The blinding contradictions of crew life are starting to catch up to you! Everything I said in previous posts about excuses and injuries is very real, and it applies regardless. Its just a smidge more harsh if you have a Y chromosome.
*Common Management Reactions*
Blank Drop:
Jack- What the fuck you worthless mother fucker?! GOD DAMNIT!! GET TO WORK!!!!!!
Jill- Come on sweetie, pull your shirt down a little more to show that cleavage and I bet you get five the next drop.
No Cash Orders:
Jack- What the fuck mother fucker? Did you fucking steal it? I know your ass has cash, piece of shit.
Jill- Pull your skirt up a little bit more and I bet he give you alll the cash he have. Shit, I bet he take you to the ATM and give you errrything.
Girls are special to crew because everything about them is a rare commodity. They shower every day, they dress cute, they smell nice and they always get cash orders. Its okay if Jill wants to pick up two cash orders real quick and take a nap. Its totally fine if Jill wants to pick up a cash order and then sunbathe in the park for the rest of the drop. If Jill only has three orders on the day, and they are all cash, you better believe shes treated like a princess. When I say treated like a princess, I mean shes thrown some shade for not having more on the day, but its less of a capitol crime as long as she smiles pretty and hands over the cash.
That is why Lisa, myself and the rest of the girls usually got away with everything.
****
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Damn, That Was Long
Im sorry, dear readers.
I know the posts from the actual days on crew are long as shit. A lot can happen in one day on crew. If its any consolation whatsoever, I write the posts on my Blackberry. No, not kidding.
xoxo
I know the posts from the actual days on crew are long as shit. A lot can happen in one day on crew. If its any consolation whatsoever, I write the posts on my Blackberry. No, not kidding.
xoxo
Vermont: Part 4
Two Best Friends
July 28, 2007
Crews only stay in an area for one week. On a very rare occasion they will stay for two weeks if the money is coming in. In seven days time, your crew will 'stomp' an area. Meaning that by Friday, everyone in town knows who you are and what you're selling. Rival companies usually have informants on your crew, and are sometimes one city ahead of you. So, by the time your crew gets the next city, everyone is on their toes and alert. Including law enforcement. This is part of the reason why everyone is closely monitored and why crews usually don't find out where they are going until the day before the hop.
Before we are sent out, we pack up the vans and trailer with our various belongings. We won't be coming back to the hotel when the day is done, we'll be hitting the road to New York! The day will wrap early so we can make good time. Naturally, I am so excited for this day to be over.
Despite my excitement, I trudge through the motions. Lagging, dragging, hating life. Its hotter than Satan's ball sack today. I'm not producing. I've almost cleared a pack of smokes by noon. This is not what I signed up for.
Third drop comes, and I'm with Lisa. Even though I've spited her for making me stay up late to memorize a spill I don't even use on the Jones, we have become fast friends. Carl gives us a stern warning not to knock together when we get out of the van. Innocently, we assure him weeee wooonnnn't!!(insert cute winking face from both of us) After the van disappears, we scurry off to a cul de sac and knock the whole street down. Unsuccessful, we take advantage of the very nice, luscious park across from the sac. Its liberating and terrifying at the same time. I'm ecstatic to have some down time with my new BFF but scared we'll get caught if Carl drives by. We lay in the grass and have girl talk. Lisa says that if we're on the ground, Carl probably won't see us if he drives by. Since she is my trainer, I believe her and relax.
We smoke a few cigarettes, talk about things not related to magazines and pretend for thirty minuets that we are just two young girls who are having a normal life. I almost forgot about the whole being trafficked across the country to line the pockets of mag lords thing. Almost.
Lisa forces herself off the ground and tells me we need to get to it. Eye roll. I am,you guessed it,not amused. She makes me a deal that if I pick up one, we can take a nap together on the next drop, no homo. A nap sounds most delicious right now. I accept her deal and make my way up the road.
When I said I'm 'not producing' I ment I only had three on the day. If you have learned anything thus far, you'll know that means I'm not producing. I must have hit ten or so houses until I got someone to answer the door. Lonely housewife, blech. I don't see this going anywhere, but I attempt to give it my all because I want a nap.
Spill.Chat.Check. Really? This was definitely not my best performance, I am genuinely shocked she decided to cut me a check. She began to tell me a story about how boys would always come to her house tying to get her to buy, and how she never gives in for strangers blah blah blah. I am seriously dehydrated and not interested in her story, but I figure the least I can do is pretend to pay attention. After she was finished, I then realized why she took a chance and provided myself and Management with all the information necessary to steal her identity and fuck up her life. I looked like someone she probably knew. I looked like a girl she might see at the gas station or super market. I looked like a normal, college age girl that she could trust. Not some filthy, degenerate, high school drop out scam artist.
I thank her, wish her a good day, and make my way to the corner. We're told a quarter to five is when we are to be on the corner. Its ten to five when I arrive. I make a wager with myself that we might be picked up at five thirty. Lisa has been waiting for ten whole minutes, and is very impressed when I produce my nap ticket. She did great and picked up two orders. It begins to rain. At this moment, I believe there is a God. After a whole sweaty day of hell, its nice to get a beautiful, ten minute shower.
Carl finally shows up, and I lose my wager. Five forty five is the winning time.
****
I feel like I need to address the elephant that has entered the room. In the last few paragraphs, have you stopped to say to yourself 'Hmmm, that sounds a little like.....um.....prostitution?' It sounds like prostitution because it is prostitution. Management ships in these kids from all over the country, brainwashes them, drops them on corners to sell a product, picks them up, and takes the money. Management pimps their crew out for their own gain. You're told over and over you're not selling magazines, you are selling your personality. You're selling yourself. Ergo:Prostitution. They profit from the repeat sale of your battered, bruised, and broken soul.
****
Lisa and I are so utterly satisfied we got away with our debauchery. We did bad enough for Carl to assume we held tight with our promise to not knock together. He gushes to the car about how he is so pleased we kept our word, and everyone else could learn a thing or two from us about honesty and independent selling. Now I'm amused. Carl goes on by amazing the car with his all knowing:all powerful Manager smarts by saying he knows there is absolutely no way we could have knocked together, because two pretty girls like us would have come back with at least five cash orders a piece. Where Management comes up with these obscene statistics, I'll never know.
Our reward for being so sneaky and getting our Tom Fooleries past Carl is being allowed to be together for the final drop in Vermont, no homo. Little does he know we are about to make like a fat kid in gym class and slack. Its six thirty, we have an hour and a half to get a bunch. We are warned again not to knock together and we remind Carl of our sweet innocence with our irresistible wink faces. We are certain we can get away with our slacking until Carl decides that Daniel is going to be dropped with us. You already know.
I. Am. Not. AMUSED.
Lisa and I quickly run off while Daniel is preoccupied smoking and talking to some local skank on the phone. We decide to knock for a little bit, so we don't feel totally guilty about taking a nap. We are breaking about seventeen crew rules right now, but its ok because its still my first week and as long as we get some cash orders, all is forgiven. Cash orders are the equivalent of twenty Hail Mary's.
As I mentioned before, knocking together can boost your numbers or put you in jail. Either outcome, this is high on the mile long list of things thou shalt not do while working on crew. Rhymes, I haz them. Thug Lyfe.
I'm tired. Lisa is cranky. We need a nap. After about ten houses, we come up on some older gentlemen playing poker. I am so not in the mood for creepy old men right now. Lisa says poker=cash order=redemption=nap time. Ugh. Ok,let's get this over with.
Pervy,drunk men playing poker. What do you think happened?
That's right. Spill.Chat.Cash. Lots of it. After we played along with their tasteless jokes and humored them with our made up life stories, they handed us a wad of cash and a bottle of water and sent us on our way.
This could go one of two ways. We split the cash, take a nap, blank the drop and have steak for dinner.
Or
Its time to fake some orders.
If we took the cash, we would be caught. Management knows exactly how much money you have every day. They know your eating and smoking habits. They know they gave you twenty dollars the night before and if you buy three packs of smokes instead of two AND eat lunch, you obviously have stolen money on your person.
The way the spill is taught, by the time you introduce the magazines, you should already have all of the Jones information written out on the receipt. You fold the receipt in half(so they can't see the order form part) and tell the Jones your manager might want to do a customer satisfaction survey. That's what you need their first/last name, street, city, state and zip code. Even if there was no sale, kids are walking around every day with hundreds of peoples basic information in their pad case.
Since Lisa and I were so very slick with these drunk old men, we already had all of the necessary information to send them magazines they had not signed up for, but ended up paying for with the two hundred dollars in cash they gave us. We managed to finagle the order forms so that two of them got an old man-esq subscription. With the left over money, we sent the other a subscription to Womens Wear Daily. We thought this was seau hil.ar.ious. Lisa and I were giggling like five year olds for a solid ten minuets.
We ended up with three kind-of fake orders and ten left over dollars. Lisa thought that since she had more than me on the day and week, that I could have two of the orders and she would take the other one and the ten dollars. She assured me its win-win because if I do good, that means she's doing good. Lisa also assures me that there is nothing wrong about what we did. They gave us their information, and the money. So what if we decided what subscription they were going to get? Lisa says people ask her to pick for them all the time. Seau what if we forged the signatures on the order form? They were drunk and that's probably what their signature would have looked like anyway. Its neau big deal,Lisa reinforces, neau big deal. Really.
Whatever is clever at this point, let's take a nap,bitch! No homo.
We find ourselves in a little park that is semi secluded with trees and such. I don't realize how tired I am until I'm falling asleep in the grass. I am dead tired. No wonder I'm a chain smoker, no wonder I drink my weight in caffeine every day! How the fuck else am I going to stay awake? This nap is glorious. The grass is the perfect length and thickness. The sun is low enough to not be in my face, but high enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Birds are singing to each other, there's a fresh, clean smell wafting through the air. I really couldn't be any more relaxed. And then Lisa's phone rings.
*buzzkill*
She spouts an expletive, and gets on her feet at the speed of lightning. Looking at her phone, she makes a stank face and lays back down. I thought we slept too long and Carl was looking for us. It was just Daniel trying to join our slacker party. My phone rings, guess who? Lisa tells me not to answer it, she does not want to be around him. I oblige, I'm too relaxed to deal with his no-order having ass.
Ok, so I acquired a little bit of a complex that day. I was beyond exhausted, malnourished, cranky, basically I was feeling every negative emotion to the ten thousandth power. I had just started to get the hang of this slamming nonsense, I had mostly cash orders on the day, and Lisa made me feel like we deserved a little slice of paradise. Birds of a feather and all that jazz.
The clock is running up on eight, we roll off the ground and trek back to the corner. Daniel seems to have found more luck with local skanks than he did picking up orders. As he bragged about this 'totally hot chick he almost slammed', Lisa cut him off and boasted to him about how her trainee (me) had dragged a three year crew vet on the day. That's right, Daniel blanked on the whole day. He was none pleased with this realization and sauntered off to pout. Complex:Increase. I was really quite pleased with myself.
Carl actually picked us up at a reasonable time,only fifteen minuets late! He is so very satisfied with our work. We are almost as satisfied because we think we got away with melarky. Almost.
Feeling the sharp stinging embarrassment of Carls insulting reminders of how horrible he did that day, Daniel decides to rat us out. Well, kind of. He says the onnlyyy reason we did so well is because we were probably knocking together. Carl tells him to stop being a jelis hater, if we knocked together we would have done better!! Durr!!!! Daniel goes back to sulking, Lisa and I giggle to each other.
Quality time with my new bestie, semi relaxing day, and not-so horrible production was a great way to end the week in Vermont. Oh, and then we went on The Hop. Not so great.
****
July 28, 2007
Crews only stay in an area for one week. On a very rare occasion they will stay for two weeks if the money is coming in. In seven days time, your crew will 'stomp' an area. Meaning that by Friday, everyone in town knows who you are and what you're selling. Rival companies usually have informants on your crew, and are sometimes one city ahead of you. So, by the time your crew gets the next city, everyone is on their toes and alert. Including law enforcement. This is part of the reason why everyone is closely monitored and why crews usually don't find out where they are going until the day before the hop.
Before we are sent out, we pack up the vans and trailer with our various belongings. We won't be coming back to the hotel when the day is done, we'll be hitting the road to New York! The day will wrap early so we can make good time. Naturally, I am so excited for this day to be over.
Despite my excitement, I trudge through the motions. Lagging, dragging, hating life. Its hotter than Satan's ball sack today. I'm not producing. I've almost cleared a pack of smokes by noon. This is not what I signed up for.
Third drop comes, and I'm with Lisa. Even though I've spited her for making me stay up late to memorize a spill I don't even use on the Jones, we have become fast friends. Carl gives us a stern warning not to knock together when we get out of the van. Innocently, we assure him weeee wooonnnn't!!(insert cute winking face from both of us) After the van disappears, we scurry off to a cul de sac and knock the whole street down. Unsuccessful, we take advantage of the very nice, luscious park across from the sac. Its liberating and terrifying at the same time. I'm ecstatic to have some down time with my new BFF but scared we'll get caught if Carl drives by. We lay in the grass and have girl talk. Lisa says that if we're on the ground, Carl probably won't see us if he drives by. Since she is my trainer, I believe her and relax.
We smoke a few cigarettes, talk about things not related to magazines and pretend for thirty minuets that we are just two young girls who are having a normal life. I almost forgot about the whole being trafficked across the country to line the pockets of mag lords thing. Almost.
Lisa forces herself off the ground and tells me we need to get to it. Eye roll. I am,you guessed it,not amused. She makes me a deal that if I pick up one, we can take a nap together on the next drop, no homo. A nap sounds most delicious right now. I accept her deal and make my way up the road.
When I said I'm 'not producing' I ment I only had three on the day. If you have learned anything thus far, you'll know that means I'm not producing. I must have hit ten or so houses until I got someone to answer the door. Lonely housewife, blech. I don't see this going anywhere, but I attempt to give it my all because I want a nap.
Spill.Chat.Check. Really? This was definitely not my best performance, I am genuinely shocked she decided to cut me a check. She began to tell me a story about how boys would always come to her house tying to get her to buy, and how she never gives in for strangers blah blah blah. I am seriously dehydrated and not interested in her story, but I figure the least I can do is pretend to pay attention. After she was finished, I then realized why she took a chance and provided myself and Management with all the information necessary to steal her identity and fuck up her life. I looked like someone she probably knew. I looked like a girl she might see at the gas station or super market. I looked like a normal, college age girl that she could trust. Not some filthy, degenerate, high school drop out scam artist.
I thank her, wish her a good day, and make my way to the corner. We're told a quarter to five is when we are to be on the corner. Its ten to five when I arrive. I make a wager with myself that we might be picked up at five thirty. Lisa has been waiting for ten whole minutes, and is very impressed when I produce my nap ticket. She did great and picked up two orders. It begins to rain. At this moment, I believe there is a God. After a whole sweaty day of hell, its nice to get a beautiful, ten minute shower.
Carl finally shows up, and I lose my wager. Five forty five is the winning time.
****
I feel like I need to address the elephant that has entered the room. In the last few paragraphs, have you stopped to say to yourself 'Hmmm, that sounds a little like.....um.....prostitution?' It sounds like prostitution because it is prostitution. Management ships in these kids from all over the country, brainwashes them, drops them on corners to sell a product, picks them up, and takes the money. Management pimps their crew out for their own gain. You're told over and over you're not selling magazines, you are selling your personality. You're selling yourself. Ergo:Prostitution. They profit from the repeat sale of your battered, bruised, and broken soul.
****
Lisa and I are so utterly satisfied we got away with our debauchery. We did bad enough for Carl to assume we held tight with our promise to not knock together. He gushes to the car about how he is so pleased we kept our word, and everyone else could learn a thing or two from us about honesty and independent selling. Now I'm amused. Carl goes on by amazing the car with his all knowing:all powerful Manager smarts by saying he knows there is absolutely no way we could have knocked together, because two pretty girls like us would have come back with at least five cash orders a piece. Where Management comes up with these obscene statistics, I'll never know.
Our reward for being so sneaky and getting our Tom Fooleries past Carl is being allowed to be together for the final drop in Vermont, no homo. Little does he know we are about to make like a fat kid in gym class and slack. Its six thirty, we have an hour and a half to get a bunch. We are warned again not to knock together and we remind Carl of our sweet innocence with our irresistible wink faces. We are certain we can get away with our slacking until Carl decides that Daniel is going to be dropped with us. You already know.
I. Am. Not. AMUSED.
Lisa and I quickly run off while Daniel is preoccupied smoking and talking to some local skank on the phone. We decide to knock for a little bit, so we don't feel totally guilty about taking a nap. We are breaking about seventeen crew rules right now, but its ok because its still my first week and as long as we get some cash orders, all is forgiven. Cash orders are the equivalent of twenty Hail Mary's.
As I mentioned before, knocking together can boost your numbers or put you in jail. Either outcome, this is high on the mile long list of things thou shalt not do while working on crew. Rhymes, I haz them. Thug Lyfe.
I'm tired. Lisa is cranky. We need a nap. After about ten houses, we come up on some older gentlemen playing poker. I am so not in the mood for creepy old men right now. Lisa says poker=cash order=redemption=nap time. Ugh. Ok,let's get this over with.
Pervy,drunk men playing poker. What do you think happened?
That's right. Spill.Chat.Cash. Lots of it. After we played along with their tasteless jokes and humored them with our made up life stories, they handed us a wad of cash and a bottle of water and sent us on our way.
This could go one of two ways. We split the cash, take a nap, blank the drop and have steak for dinner.
Or
Its time to fake some orders.
If we took the cash, we would be caught. Management knows exactly how much money you have every day. They know your eating and smoking habits. They know they gave you twenty dollars the night before and if you buy three packs of smokes instead of two AND eat lunch, you obviously have stolen money on your person.
The way the spill is taught, by the time you introduce the magazines, you should already have all of the Jones information written out on the receipt. You fold the receipt in half(so they can't see the order form part) and tell the Jones your manager might want to do a customer satisfaction survey. That's what you need their first/last name, street, city, state and zip code. Even if there was no sale, kids are walking around every day with hundreds of peoples basic information in their pad case.
Since Lisa and I were so very slick with these drunk old men, we already had all of the necessary information to send them magazines they had not signed up for, but ended up paying for with the two hundred dollars in cash they gave us. We managed to finagle the order forms so that two of them got an old man-esq subscription. With the left over money, we sent the other a subscription to Womens Wear Daily. We thought this was seau hil.ar.ious. Lisa and I were giggling like five year olds for a solid ten minuets.
We ended up with three kind-of fake orders and ten left over dollars. Lisa thought that since she had more than me on the day and week, that I could have two of the orders and she would take the other one and the ten dollars. She assured me its win-win because if I do good, that means she's doing good. Lisa also assures me that there is nothing wrong about what we did. They gave us their information, and the money. So what if we decided what subscription they were going to get? Lisa says people ask her to pick for them all the time. Seau what if we forged the signatures on the order form? They were drunk and that's probably what their signature would have looked like anyway. Its neau big deal,Lisa reinforces, neau big deal. Really.
Whatever is clever at this point, let's take a nap,bitch! No homo.
We find ourselves in a little park that is semi secluded with trees and such. I don't realize how tired I am until I'm falling asleep in the grass. I am dead tired. No wonder I'm a chain smoker, no wonder I drink my weight in caffeine every day! How the fuck else am I going to stay awake? This nap is glorious. The grass is the perfect length and thickness. The sun is low enough to not be in my face, but high enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Birds are singing to each other, there's a fresh, clean smell wafting through the air. I really couldn't be any more relaxed. And then Lisa's phone rings.
*buzzkill*
She spouts an expletive, and gets on her feet at the speed of lightning. Looking at her phone, she makes a stank face and lays back down. I thought we slept too long and Carl was looking for us. It was just Daniel trying to join our slacker party. My phone rings, guess who? Lisa tells me not to answer it, she does not want to be around him. I oblige, I'm too relaxed to deal with his no-order having ass.
Ok, so I acquired a little bit of a complex that day. I was beyond exhausted, malnourished, cranky, basically I was feeling every negative emotion to the ten thousandth power. I had just started to get the hang of this slamming nonsense, I had mostly cash orders on the day, and Lisa made me feel like we deserved a little slice of paradise. Birds of a feather and all that jazz.
The clock is running up on eight, we roll off the ground and trek back to the corner. Daniel seems to have found more luck with local skanks than he did picking up orders. As he bragged about this 'totally hot chick he almost slammed', Lisa cut him off and boasted to him about how her trainee (me) had dragged a three year crew vet on the day. That's right, Daniel blanked on the whole day. He was none pleased with this realization and sauntered off to pout. Complex:Increase. I was really quite pleased with myself.
Carl actually picked us up at a reasonable time,only fifteen minuets late! He is so very satisfied with our work. We are almost as satisfied because we think we got away with melarky. Almost.
Feeling the sharp stinging embarrassment of Carls insulting reminders of how horrible he did that day, Daniel decides to rat us out. Well, kind of. He says the onnlyyy reason we did so well is because we were probably knocking together. Carl tells him to stop being a jelis hater, if we knocked together we would have done better!! Durr!!!! Daniel goes back to sulking, Lisa and I giggle to each other.
Quality time with my new bestie, semi relaxing day, and not-so horrible production was a great way to end the week in Vermont. Oh, and then we went on The Hop. Not so great.
****
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