How To Get On The Road

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Title:     How To Get On The Road
Author: Charles N. Crewdson [More Titles by Crewdson]

Since starting on the road many have asked me: "How can I get a job on the road?"

Young men and old men have asked me this--clerks, stock boys, merchants and students. Even wives have asked me how to find places for their husbands.

Let's clear the ground of dead timber. Old men of any sort and young men who haven't fire in their eyes and ginger in their feet need not apply. The "Old Man," who sits in the head office sizes up the man who wishes to go out on the road and spend a whole lot of the firm's money for traveling expenses with a great deal more care than the dean of a college measures the youth who comes to enter school. The dean thinks: "Well, maybe we can make something out of this boy, dull as he is. We'll try." But the business man says: "That fellow is no good. He can't sell goods. What's the use of wasting money on him and covering a valuable territory with a dummy?"

On the other hand, the heads of wholesale houses are ever on the watch for bright young men. This is no stale preachment, but a live fact! There are hundreds of road positions open in every city in America. Almost any large firm would put on ten first class men to-morrow, but they can't find the men.

The "stock" is the best training school for the road--the stock boy is the drummer student. Once in a while an old merchant, tiring of the routine of the retail business, may get a "commission job"--that is, he may find a position to travel for some firm, usually a "snide outfit"--if he will agree to pay his own traveling expenses and accept for his salary a percentage of his sales shipped. Beware, my friend, of the "commission job!" Reliable firms seldom care to put out a man who does not "look good enough" to justify them in at least guaranteeing him a salary he can live on. They know that if a man feels he is going to live and not lag behind, he will work better. The commission salesman is afraid to spend his own money; yet, were he to have the firm's money to spend, many a man who fails would succeed. Once in a while a retail clerk may get a place on the road, but the "Old Man" does not look on the clerk with favor. The clerk has had things come his way too easy. His customers come to him; the man on the road must go after his customers. It is the stock boy who has the best show to get on the road.

The stock boy learns his business from the ground up or better, as the Germans say, "from the house out." If one young man cannot become a surgeon without going through the dissecting room, then another cannot become a successful drummer without having worked in stock. The merchant, who oft-times deals in many lines, wishes to buy his goods from the man who knows his business; and unless a man knows his business he would better never start on the road.

But, my dear boy, to merely know your business is not all. You may know that this razor is worth $12.00 a dozen and that one $13.50; that this handle is bone and that one celluloid; but that won't get you on the road. You must have a good front. I do not mean by this that you must have just exactly 990 hairs on each side of the "part" on your head; that your shoes must be shined, your trousers creased, your collar clean and your necktie just so. Neatness is a "without-which- not;" but there must be more--a boy must work hard, be polite, honest, full of force, bright, quick, frank, good-natured. The "Old Man" may keep to sweep the floor a lazy, shiftless, stupid, silly, grouchy "stiff"; but when he wants some one to go on the road he looks for a live manly man. When you get in stock it is up to you; for eyes are on you, eyes just as anxious to see your good qualities as you are to show them, eyes that are trying to see you make good.

How can I get "in stock?" That's easy. If you are in the city you are on the spot; if you are in the country, "hyke" for the city! See that you haven't any cigarette stains on your fingers or tobacco in the corners of your mouth. Go into the wholesale houses, from door to door--until you find a job. If you are going to let a few or a hundred turn-downs dishearten you, you'd better stay at home; for when you get on the road, turn-downs are what you must go up against every day. If you know some traveling man, or merchant, or manager, or stock boy, maybe he can get you a "job in stock." But remember one thing: When you get there, you must depend upon Number One. Your recommendation is worth nothing to you from that hour on. This is the time when the good front gets in its work.

The city is a strong current, my boy, in which there are many whirlpools ready to suck you under; yet if you are a good swimmer you can splash along here faster than anywhere else. A successful traveling man once told me how he got on the road.

"I was raised in a little town in Tennessee," said he. "A traveling man whose home was in my native town took me along with him, one day, when he made a team trip to Bucksville, an inland country town, fourteen miles away. That was a great trip for me--fourteen miles, and staying over night in a hotel!--the first time I had ever done so in my life. And for the first time I knew how it felt to have a strange landlord call me "mister." It was on that trip that I caught the fever for travel, and that trip put me on the road!

"When, the next morning after reaching Bucksville, my drummer friend had finished business and packed his trunks, he said to me: 'Billie, I guess you may go and get the team ready.' I answered him, saying, 'The team is ready and backed up, sir, for the trunks.' In three minutes the trunks were loaded in and we were off.

"'Billie,' said my friend--I shall never forget it for it was the dawn of hope for me, as I had never had any idea what I was going to do in after life!--'I'll tell you, Billie, you would make a good drummer, suh. When we drove down yesterday you counted how many more horseflies lit on the bay mare than on the white horse. You reasoned out that the flies lit on the bay because the fly and the mare were about the same color and that the fly was not so liable to be seen and killed as if it had lit on the white. That showed me you notice things and reason about them. To be a good traveling man you must make a business of noticing things and thinking about them. Real good hoss sense is a rare thing. Then, this mo'nin', when I said "Get the team ready," you said "It is ready, suh," and showed me that you look ahead, see what ought to be done and do it without being told. Generally any fool can do what he is told to; but it takes a man of sense to find things to do, and if he has the grit to do them he will get along. I'm just going to see if I can't get a place in our house for you, Billie. You've got the stuff in you to make a successful drummer, suh. Yes, suh! Hoss sense and grit, suh--hoss sense and grit!'

"Sure enough the next Christmas night--I wasn't then sixteen--I struck out for the city in company with my older traveling man friend. He had got me a place in his house. The night I left, my mother said to me: 'Son, I've tried to raise you right. I'll soon find out if I have. I believe I have and that you will get along.' My father then gave me the only word of advice he ever gave me in his life: 'Son, be polite,' said he; 'this will cost you nothing and be worth lots.'

"Well, sir, with those words ringing in my ears: 'Use hoss sense; have grit;' 'Be polite;' 'Son, I've tried to raise you right,' I struck out for the city. As I think it over now, the thing that did me the most good was my father's advice: 'Son, be polite, this will cost you nothing and be worth lots.' The boy can never hope to be much if he does not know that he should tip his hat to a lady, give his seat to a gray-haired man, or carry a bundle for an old woman.

"How strange it was for me that night, to sleep with my friend in a bed on wheels! How strange, the next morning, to wash in a bowl on wheels! and to look out of the Pullman windows as I wiped my face! I was living then! And when I reached the city! Such a bustle I've never seen since. As I walked up a narrow street from the depot, I fell on the slippery sidewalk. 'Better get some ashes on your feet' said my friend. And, indeed, I did need to keep ashes on my feet for a long time. I had before me a longer and more slippery sidewalk than I then dreamed of. Every boy has who goes to the city. But, when he gets his sled to the top, he's in for a long, smooth slide!

"I started in to work for twenty dollars a month--not five dollars a week! I found there was a whole lot of difference, especially when I had to pay $4.50 a week for board and forty cents for laundry. I was too proud to send home for money and too poor to spend it out of my own purse. Good training this! One winter's day a friend told me there was skating in the park. I asked a gentleman where the park was. 'Go three blocks and take the car going south,' said he. I went three blocks and when the car came along I followed it, for I could not afford a single nickel for car fare. What a fortune I had when, during busy season, I could work nights and get fifty cents extra for supper money! None of this did I spend, as my boarding house wasn't far away. The only money that I spent in a whole year was one dollar for a library ticket--the best dollar I ever spent in my life! Good books, and there are plenty of them free in all cities, are the best things in the world, anyway, to keep a boy out of devilment. The boy who will put into his head what he will get out of good books will win out over the one who gets his clothes full of chalk from billiard cues. One day the "Old Gentleman" saw me at the noon hour as I was going to the library with a book under my arm. 'So you read nights, do you, Billie,' said he. 'Well, you keep it up and you will get ahead of the boys who don't.'

"Work? I worked like a beaver. I was due at seven in the morning. I was always there several minutes before seven. One morning the old gentleman came in real early and found me at work, while a couple of the other boys were reading the papers and waiting for the seventh strike, and before most of the stock boys had shown up. At noon I would wrap bundles, take a blacking pot and mark cases, run the elevator or do anything to "keep moving." I did not know that an eye was on me all the time; but there was. At the end of a year the old gentleman called me into the office and said: 'Billie, you've done more this year than we have paid you for; here's a check for sixty dollars, five dollars a month back pay. Your salary will be $25.00 a month next year. You may also have a week's vacation.

"How big that sixty was! Rockefeller hasn't as much to-day as I had then. What he has doesn't make him happy; he wants more. I had enough. Why, I was able to buy a new rig-out. I can see that plaid suit of clothes to this day! I could afford to go home looking slick, to visit my mother and father; I could buy a present for my sweetheart, too. The good Lord somehow very wisely puts 'notions' into a young man's head about the time he begins to get on in the world, and the best thing on earth for him when he is away from home is to have some girl away back where he came from think a whole lot of him and send him a crocheted four-in-hand for a Christmas present. This makes him loathe foul lips and the painted cheek. When a boy 'grows wise' he stands, sure's you're born, on the brink of hell. It's a pity that so many, instead of backing away when they get their eyelashes singed a little, jump right in.

"All during my first year I had helped the sample clerk, who had the best job in the house, get out samples for the salesmen. It was not "my business" to do this; but I did it during spare time from my regular work. When I came back from my visit home, the old gentleman found me on the floor one day while I was tagging samples. 'Billie,' said he, 'Fritz (the sample clerk) is going out on the road for us next week. I have decided to let you take his place here in the house. You are pretty young but we think you can do it.'

"I tried to answer back, 'I'll do my best,' but I couldn't say a word. I only choked. The old gentleman had to turn away from me; it was too much for him, too. After he stepped on the elevator, he turned around and smiled at me. I heard him blow his nose after the elevator sunk out of sight. I knew then that he believed in me and I said to myself, 'He shall never lose his faith.'

"In a few days Fritz had gone out on his trip and I was left alone to do his work, the old gentleman handed me a sample book one afternoon near closing time. 'Billie,' says he, 'Gregory is in a hurry for his samples. Express them to Fayetteville.' He had merely written the stock numbers in the book. It was up to me to fill in on the sample book the description of the goods and the prices. This I did that night at home from memory. I had learned the stock that well. I also wrote the sample tickets. It took me until after midnight. Next morning I was waiting at the front door when the early man came to unlock it. That night the samples went to Fayetteville.

"Two days afterward the old gentleman called me to the office and asked me: 'When can Gregory expect his samples? He's in a big hurry.'

"'I sent them Wednesday night, sir,' said I.

"'Wednesday night! Why it was Tuesday night when I gave you the sample book!'

"'I'm sure they went,' said I, 'because I saw the cases go into the express wagon.'

"'All right,' said the old gentleman; and he smiled at me again the same way he did the morning he made me the sample clerk, a smile which told me I had his heart, and I have it to this day.

"Next morning he sent up to me a letter from Gregory, who wrote that the samples came to him in better shape than ever before. At the end of that year I got a check for $150 back pay, and my salary was raised again. At the end of the third year the old gentleman gave me more back pay and another raise, saying to me: 'Billie, I have decided to put you on the road over Moore's old territory. He is not going to be with us any more. Be ready to start January 1st.' I was the youngest man that firm ever put out. I was with them sixteen years and it almost broke my heart to leave them."

"You bet," said I, "the stock boy has a chance if he only knows it."

"Yes," answered my friend, "sure he has. My mother put in my trunk when I left home a Sunday School card on which were the words: 'Thy God seeth thee, my son.' Without irreverence I would advise every stock boy who wants to get on the road to write these words and keep them before him every day: 'The eyes of the old man are upon me.'"

I once heard one of the very successful clothing salesmen of Chicago tell how he got on the road.

"I had been drudging along in the office making out bills for more than a year, at ten a week," said he. "My father traveled for the firm but he never would do anything to get me started on the road. He thought I would fall down. I was simply crazy to go. I had seen the salesmen get down late, sit around like gentlemen, josh the bosses, smoke good cigars and come and go when they pleased for eight months in the year. This looked better to me than slaving away making out bills from half past seven in the morning until half past six at night, going out at noon hungry as a hound and having to climb a ladder after a ham sandwich, a glass of milk and a piece of apple pie.

"I had kept myself pretty well togged up and, as my father wouldn't do anything to get me started, I made up my mind to go straight to the boss myself. He was a little fat sawed-off. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and whenever he was interested in anybody, he would look at him over his specs. He did not know much about the English language, but he had a whole lot more good common sense than I gave him credit for then. It never hurts a boy in the house, you know, who wants to go on the road to go square up and say so. He may get a turn-down, but the boss will like his spunk, and he stands a better show this way than if he dodges back and waits always for the boss to come to him. Many a boy gets out by striking the 'Old Man' to go out. If the boy puts up a good talk to him the old man will say: 'He came at me pretty well. By Jove, he can approach merchants, and we will give him a chance.'

"One day, pretty soon after I had braced the old man to send me out, a merchant in Iowa wrote in that he wanted to buy a bill of clothing. They looked him up in Dun's and found that he was in the grocery business. My father didn't wish to go out--the town was in his territory. I overheard the old man in the office say to him: 'Let's send Chim.'

"Well, Jim started that night. They told me to take a sleeper, but I sat up all night to save the two dollars. I didn't save much money, though, because in the middle of the night I got hungry and filled up on peanuts and train bananas. The town was up on a branch and I didn't get there until six o'clock the next day. When I reached there, I went right up to my man's store. You ought to have seen his place! The town was about seven hundred, and the store just about evened up with it-- groceries and hardware. I got a whiff from a barrel of sauer kraut as I went in the door; on the counter was a cheese case; frying pans and lanterns hung down on hooks from the ceiling; two farmers sat near the stove eating sardines and crackers. No clothing was in sight and I said to myself: 'Well, I'm up against it; this man can't buy much; he hasn't any place to put it if he does.' But I've since learned one thing: You never know who is going to buy goods and how many on the road must learn that the man who has nothing in his line is the very man who can and will buy the most, sometimes, because he hasn't any. And besides, the little man may be just in the notion of spreading himself.

"A young man was counting eggs back near the coal oil can. He was the only one around who seemed to have anything to do with the store. I walked up to him and told him who I was. He said, 'Yes, we are glad to see you. I'm just out of school and father wants to put me in business here. He is going to put in all his time in the bank. He wants me to take charge of the store. I've told him we could sell other things besides groceries--they are dirty, anyway, and don't pay much profit; so we have started to build on another room right next door and are going to put in other lines. I've told father we ought to put in clothing, but he hasn't fully made up his mind. I'll ask him to come down after supper and you can talk to him.'

"'Hasn't fully made up his mind, and here I am my first time out, 24 hours away, and a big expense,'--all this went through me and I couldn't eat any supper.

"The old banker that evening was just tolerably glad to see me. It wasn't exactly a freeze, but there was lots of frost in the air. He said, after we had talked the thing over, that he would look at my samples the next morning, but that he would not buy unless my line was right and the prices were right. I was sure my 'prices were right.' I had heard the bosses talk a whole year about how cheaply they sold their goods. I had heard them swear at the salesmen for cutting prices and tell them that the goods were marked at bare living profit; and I was green enough to believe this. I also knew that my line was the best one on the road. I had not stopped to figure out how my bosses could stay under their own roof all the time and know so much about other houses' goods and be absolutely sure that their own line was bound to be the best ever. I had heard the road-men many times tell the bosses to 'wake up,' but I did not believe the salesmen. You know that a young fellow, even if he is with a weak house, starts out on his first trip feeling that his house is the best one. Before he gets through with his maiden trip, even though his house is a thoroughbred, he will think it is a selling plater.

"That night I worked until two o'clock opening up. I did not know the marks so I had to squirm out what the characters meant and put the prices on the tickets in plain figures so I would know what the goods were worth. But this was a good thing. The salesman or the firm that has the honesty and the boldness to mark samples in plain figures and stick absolutely to their marked price, will do business with ease. Merchants in the country do not wish to buy cheaper than those in other towns do; they only wish a square deal. And, say what you will, they are kind o' leery when they buy from samples marked in characters--not plain figures. They often use a blind mark to do scaly work on their own customers and they don't like to have the same game worked on themselves. Honest merchants, and I mean by this those who make only a reasonable profit, mark their goods in plain figures, cut prices to nobody--prefer to do business with those who do it their way. The traveling man who breaks prices soon loses out.

"That night I couldn't sleep. I was up early next morning and had a good fire in my sample room. I had sense enough to make the place where I was going to show my goods as comfortable as I could. I sold a bill of $2,500 and never cut a price.

"When I got home I put the order on the old man's desk and went to my stool to make out bills. The old man came in. He picked up the order and looked over it carefully, then he asked one of the boys: 'Vere's Chim? Tell him to com heer. I vant to see him.'

"I walked into the office. The old man was looking at me over his specs as I went in. He grabbed me by the hand and said so loud you could hear him all over the house: 'Ah, Chim, dot vas tandy orter. How dit you do id mitoud cotting prices, Chim? You vas a motel for efery men we haf in der house. I did nod know we hat a salesman in der office. By Himmel! you got a chob on der roat right avay, Chim.'"

[The end]
Charles N. Crewdson's short story: How To Get On The Road

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