Strikes and Gutters

It's amazing how 24 hours can give you something to write about. I realize I don't write posts anymore unless something happens. So the last day has provided you with the following post:

Last night was our last hockey game of the "season." As I mentioned last week, it was the last place game. The game was going well. I had a couple goals in the first half and we took that lead into the third quarter when the unexpected happened.

I was trying to prevent their best player from taking a shot, so I lunged from behind him and tried to hook him down. As I did that, I fell to the ground and after that it is hard to tell exactly what happened. I think one of my teammates was right on my tail, and tied the guy up. But for that one second I was on the ground, my face was run over. It felt like a skate, but I'm pretty positive it was a stick. It felt like I was hit twice actually. The feeling was instant numbness. It wasn't quite pain because of the adrenaline flowing, but it was unfamiliar, and I was pretty positive I was cut. I saw blood start dripping on the playing surface and knew my night was probably done.

You could say I was lucky. One clean cut above my eye, a bit of a shiner on the other side of my face and a little cut to the bridge of my nose. I of course wanted to go back out there, but knew I should look after my face. My friend Eoin was there and he helped me treat it. It is a bummer I didn't get back out to play as we lost the game 13-8.

After the game, Mike York, Eoin and another friend, Bryce, went over to Eoin's parents house. Eoin's mother used to be in charge of an entire hospital and is a former nurse. So she attached some butterfly bandages to my face and I was all set to go.

You may ask why I don't wear a face mask. It is a preference really. I have played every week for three months and this is the first time I was hit in the face. It was a fluke. I probably won't wear a mask when the next competition starts - next week! That's right. We're keeping the same teams and just starting over again. Three or four of the best players are leaving for Europe next week for a world wide tournament, so the teams should still be fairly even.

What great timing with the cut eye and shiner to have a job interview the next day! That's right. 9am this morning, I showed up to Zest Marketing with some fresh looking bruises. I had found this company's ad online and wrote them over the weekend. They called Monday and we set up an interview. I wasn't positive what they did, except that it had something to do with marketing.

It was a bit disappointing when I found out what it was exactly. You know those people in the cities who stand in parks or busy areas with t-shirts for The Red Cross or a Cancer Society? Well that's what this was. It was in your face marketing. I knew as soon as I saw what it was that I wasn't going to do it, no matter what. They let me watch for an hour or so and had me fill out some questions about marketing. I know I could have acted my way into that job. No problem at all. But in your face selling might be one of the most miserable things I can imagine doing.

I marketed Up with People for a year. In that time, I learned many strategies on what makes a fun marketing campaign. We had booths and put on fun games and made the consumer comfortable for the most part with what we were trying to sell them. It was fun for us as the seller also!

As someone who hates...loathes...being approached for a donation, I could never do this type of selling. I have walked many many steps in my day, out of my way, to avoid people I can see coming towards me trying to sell me something. It offends me, I get uncomfortable and I usually have no desire to donate, not because I don't like the cause, but because of the way they are approaching me. Yeah so you could say the job I was going for today was my worst nightmare. It was telemarketing, door to door selling and any other type of selling that makes you angry.

I'm happy I got out of the house and tried something new, but am a bit disappointed. I should have realized what they were. The people were very nice. They were enthusiastic. What a harsh job though. On one of the forms it talked about the ability to accept hearing "no" a lot. I asked the team leader how many donations they expected to get today. In 6 or 7 hours, the four of them are expected to get THREE donations each, sometimes four. That means three times people say yes, and most likely 100 times they say no or just walk right by. I couldn't do it. Nope, never.

Oh and while I was observing these sales persons, I was texting a guy who lives in Sydney who is also currently looking for work. He writes the Stuck at Seven blog. He was telling me to RUN! Just run away, because that's what he did. He was somewhat duped into interviewing similar gig that I interviewd for and literally ran away from the interviewee. Pretty hilarious picture. Edmund explains it below. He tells a good story.



So that's my story. Hopefully I will have more interviews to tell you about soon. In the meantime, enjoy these photos from hockey last night. Hopefully you won't be seeing anymore like them! That's Mike York with me in both photos.

That's the other York brother above, Curt. I went to his soccer match on Sunday. Will tell you all about his party he is throwing this weekend next time. See ya!