On accidentally quitting my job

I’m a terrible new blogger, but a lot has been going on! The drama that led to the making of this little one-post blog next led to the aforementioned accidental quitting of my job. Oops…

I should admit that I was planning on quitting, but I wasn’t ready quite yet and hadn’t finalized my exit strategy. The blessing and curse of my job is that I’m on my own a lot, but suddenly it was time to spend a day working with my boss. After some sell-sell-sell action on campus, boss man turned the spotlight on me with that potentially dangerous questions: “How do you feel about your job?”

Oh dear.  Perhaps if I was a better liar I could have held out, but before I could figure out a response I realized I was in the middle of gushing out a big pile of oh-lord-I’m-burned-out-can’t-do-this.  In the Guinness Book of Surreal Moments, this only ranked behind the Hubs proposing.  By the time boss man left for the airport, I had quit and he had agreed to write a recommendation letter for the next big thing (patience, patience – one story at a time). Due to the quirky quirks of the textbook pu(bli)shing season, this happened weeks ago but I’ll continue be a book selling machine through the end of the semester.

Has your big ol’ honest mouth taken you somewhere you weren’t quite ready to go yet?

On Being a Reluctant Salesgirl

Things a sales person should be?  Driven. Motivated by money. Convinced of the value of what they sell (and/or good at lying). Smooth talker. Pusher. Workaholid. Social maestro. Incredibly competitive. Not particularly concerned with work/life balance.

Things on that list that apply to me?  Hrm… I believe in what I sell and I have competitive moments (just ask my husband about our last Scrabble match), but that’s about it.

So how did I get here?  Despite the piles of books about New York publishing interns – so glam, so fast-track – you rarely hear about the people who sell  the books. No, not the teenagers at Barnes & Noble who haven’t heard of what you’re looking for and always seem to assume you’ve gone back to school if you’re buying a classic. Mysterious middle men and women are out there making sure a publisher’s books are on bookstore shelves, and I am one of them, pulled in by the chance to work for a publisher – a publisher! My dream! – and keep a toe in academia. Yes, I’m one of the evil souls who pedals those dreadfully expensive college textbooks you were just complaining about. I was lured in by a unique publisher that swore their books would never be that expensive (other than when they were) and would never behave like the corporate crazies (other than when we do).

Welcome!