The Kentucky State Fair here in Louisville is a 
happening. With the 2005 audited paid attendance being 629,740, I ought be there in a booth in the largest indoor fair in America, occupying 520 acres, or almost 700 football fields. I ought to be giving away free Child Safe Kits ( ID kits), Medical Information Kits, and $3,000 Accidental Death insurance policies. I ought to be selling insurance.
happening. With the 2005 audited paid attendance being 629,740, I ought be there in a booth in the largest indoor fair in America, occupying 520 acres, or almost 700 football fields. I ought to be giving away free Child Safe Kits ( ID kits), Medical Information Kits, and $3,000 Accidental Death insurance policies. I ought to be selling insurance.Back in June I suggested to the office manager that Liberty National Life Insurance needed to have a presence at the State Fair. I even gathered the information needed and an application for a commercial booth in the huge exhibition center of “the largest indoor fair in America.” My rationale was that, with over 600,000 attending the fair and at least 90% of those attendees spending some time walking through the exhibition center, we would be in touch with at least 480,000 people.
With the cost of a booth being a little as $700.00 for the entire ten day fair, I believed that to be an excellent investment. So did the office manager and my team leader. However, the home office of Liberty National Life Insurance in Birmingham, Alabama, didn’t agree. Thus I am not at the fair.
That reality was brought to my attention this morning when I turned on my car’s radio and heard that the attendance at this year’s fair was setting a new and higher record. I really ought to be at the fair—and if I had been paid the commissions that Liberty National owes me, I would have invested my own money to obtain a booth. However, they haven’t and thus I can’t.
I have been analyzing my feelings in regard to working for this company and have decided that it is like living with an alcoholic family, with the games that Claude Steiner describes in his book, Games Alcoholics Play, being primary to the company’s existence. Is that why popular belief has it that so many insurance salesmen are alcoholics? (I think that an insurance company as an alcoholic family must be a subject of one of my future blogs).
There you are!!
ReplyDeleteI was wondern when you was gona post something. I spent most of my day cleaning what about you"? also i dont have your e-mail any more
It sounds like being at the fair would have been a good thing.
ReplyDeleteWith your job being like living with an alcoholic family. I laughed because I know what that is like, so I would not like your job.
I had no idea that the Kentucky State Fair was the largest indoor fair in America! Mr. Wonderful and I may have to take a roadtrip next year :)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of alcoholic and otherwise dysfunctional behavior, sounds like working for Liberty National is the same as working for Dewey Screwum & Howe. gah...I wish they'd pay you!
CHICA: I, too, spent much of the day cleaning—at least until it got too hot. Call me about getting email.
ReplyDeleteNINA: From what a friend who works for a nonprofit organization told me this evening, I probably could have earned as much in a day as I do in a week had I been at the fair. Even with heavy rains this afternoon, my nonprofit friend said that they had over 5,000 people stop by their booth!
As for the alcoholic family, I am connecting some real links between selling insurance and living with an alcoholic. I feel I have been living in the Alcoholic Triangle of victim, rescuer, persecutor.
LITTLE SISTER: Yes, the Kentucky State Fair is really something. I’ve been to state fairs in several states, including Indiana, and none are like Kentucky. Even with the indoor display areas being renovated and enlarged this year, one of my friends told me that she came home with two grocery-sized bags full of free stuff and she signed up for chances of about 3 dozen drawing, including a car and a house.
If you take a road trip to Louisville, contact me and I introduce you-all to some of the neater sights!
I remember the Kentucky State Fair. Yes, your company should have been, there. You tried didn't you, but they refused--just like an alcoholic refuses advice to stop drinking.
ReplyDeleteWhat dumbasses. I'm sorry you're hooked up with such a brainless, greedy operation.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any legal recourse to get them to pay your commission? Or would it cost you too much?
I suppose you could contact the Department of Labor for help getting paid, but that's the sort of step you take when you already have another job lined up.
ReplyDeleteSQUIRL: I hope—and I hope my hope is not a false hope—that they will catch up on my commission eventually. The problem is, I have to live while await them to do so. Last week’s trip to my MD cost $50.00—and that was after he took $67.00 off the bill. I also had to pay the water bill to keep water coming into my house. Then there is gasoline: the insurance company reimburses me for nothing and I have been driving 60 to 150 miles a day doing their business. Being paid $24.00 for doing two weeks work just doesn’t cover what it costs me to live and work.
ReplyDeleteBefore I began working for Liberty National, they had me sign three different forms stating that I would not sue them, but take any problem to arbitration. I have three friends—took judges and a state prosecutor—tell me that those forms are worthless, that I cannot sign away my right to sue. Of course, the amount of money I am owed isn’t enough for a law suit, besides which, it would take ages to see any money from them.
THOMAS: I fear that, as with taking legal action, contact with any government agency would not be fast enough. Besides which, my legal standing according to the contract I signed that states I am “an agency” and not an employee, negates a lot that I can do.
I believe my best course is to follow the advice from YOUR BEST MAN yesterday and locate employment/income based upon my social work and ministerial education, experience, and skills.
Nick, just from what I've been reading on your blog, I think you would be very good at doing what YOUR BEST MAN suggests.
ReplyDeleteHello Nick ~~ I liked your fun jokes above. Pity that you didn't get to the fair as it sounds great. I guess you have been before. Glad to see that Tiffany is back and left her a message. I hope you can get satisfaction with your pay. Life gets
ReplyDeletedifficult doesn't it? Thanks for your
comments - we are as young as we want to be. Take care, Merle.
u should have been at the fair. i went and it was mobbed. do u like mobs?
ReplyDelete