Zero Club

I was given an idea true and not true all at once. The idea is that if with utmost devotion you pursue what you most desire you will not have it, but if you leave it at the edges of your mind and go about your business it will happen. I say it is true in some part because it happened to me.

A customer ordered something. We messed up. We shipped 24 hours late. At length I was told how terrible I was. She demanded that we air freight the product at our expense and take a huge loss. It was added that our in transit ground shipment would be refused and our loss enhanced. It was explained that if we only gave her free freight this time she would give us great amounts of business in the future and all her friends would also. I lost patience and blurted out that I do not want more business, I only want to do a good job. At that point I was informed that, I should find another job since I was unsuited to be a salesman.

At that moment I realized I made it finally after 55 years of effort. I am a member of the Zero Club. I am new and cannot know all the benefits, but I have a taste of a member’s joy. Not long ago I was plodding along the track I have plodded along for 25 years now. Suddenly a tall beautiful blond girl blasted by me with her beautiful blond dog on a leash trotting ahead of her in perfect order. I noticed many things. The dog was barely running at all. The Dog Girl controlled the dog better than I have controlled anything in my life. The Dog Girl was too beautiful, too fit and probably too smart to notice the aging likes of me. I imagined the Dog Girl’s boyfriend. He is 25 years old and has 25 businesses the size of Hillas Packaging. His monthly income is equal to our annual sales. While I struggle at the office each weekend, he and the Dog Girl take three-day trips to visit the Cairo Museum or go windsurfing on some island near Guam.

A real salesman must find a new track in the face of such tough competition or find something else to do. A Zero can go to the track hopeful that the Dog Girl will show. She makes the laps more interesting and the landscape beautiful. A real salesman need not work long days and weekends, but a Zero must to meet the needs of the people he or she is responsible to. A Zero will never impress anyone so a Zero is free to tell his or her truth (this is not costly since no one listens). A Zero can probably ignore distractions and drink-up all the life, liberty and happiness that populates the path he has found or has found him.

If I were 25 the Dog Girl would still run me into the ground and never notice. But at 26, if I ran every day, who knows. It is better to be young than a Zero. Please don’t waste it.

Rolly