Not Cleaning Port-a-Potties (aka Honey Bucket's)

I was reading a post over at Laughing Through My Chardonnay and it reminded me how I got into the business I am in...

When I graduated from college, I played a lot of volleyball...for 3 months, I ate tuna, played volleyball and generally horsed around. I started to run out of money so I decided I better get a jobby-job.

Mutual fund administration paid well, so I did that...then to work for a brokerage...then venture capital...then a call to raise money for some guy buying debt.

Buying Debt? What? Huh?

That was my reaction, probably yours as well.

So I agree to go out to dinner with this guy who buys debt for a living. I was thinking "Cool. I score a free dinner, hear about the most recent multi-level marketing scheme and will have a good story to tell."

Then he told me how much he would pay me. "Sign me up. Wait. Is this legal?"

I signed up, learned about the business and then realized the guy was a crook. Not the business, but the guy. So I left the company and applied for a job with another debt buyer. This one much larger and actually reputable.

I go through the interviews (3 days worth of verbal communication, including some math test that made me question my ability to count to 3, an interview with the COO that made me cry in my car and an HR rep that made me decide that I was completely unhireable and should work as a beggar on the streets...Hey, got any spare change?) and, remarkably get the job offer.

2 months later I am having coffee at Conference Room K with my boss. He says to me, "Do you know why we hired you?"

"My quick wit, good looks and stunning ability to charm the pants off of people?"

"No. It was because your last boss said you were a loser. Someone who should never work again. Someone he would not even hire to mop floors or drain port-a-potties. In short, he said you were the worst person he had ever hired."

"WHAT?!?!"

"Don't worry. We love you and knew that when he gave that type of description that we had found our man."