Chapter Thirteen - Chocolate Meltdowns & Chick-fil-A in Hell

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chocolate Meltdowns & Chick-fil-A in Hell

FRIDAY, BABY.

AND like clockwork, we kicked it off the same way we always did.
With the prayer circle.

Picture a room full of folding chairs, dudes half-asleep with iPads, and that beautiful dry erase monument to failure: the Scoreboard of Shame. Another day, another womp womp for me.

But then... (For legal reasons and basic honesty, everything in this next section is described to the best of my memory.)

“Maybe I should kill JJ and hide his body in the wall.”

That’s a direct quote.
Out loud.
In front of everyone.
From a manager, Mr. Jacob Blakney himself.

Some technician that looked just like Negan from The Walking Dead walks in and starts chatting with Jacob. I wasn’t paying full attention until mid-convo Jacob casually blurts out:

“Maybe I should kill JJ and hide his body in the wall.”

I froze.

For a second, I genuinely thought I hallucinated it. No one else reacted. Not a word. Just dead stares. I’m sitting there like: Hello? Did anyone else catch that? Or is this just normal now?

Later that meeting, we broke into one-on-ones. Mini training sessions where you’d roleplay pitching a sale. I was paired with Caleb. As we're running the script, Jacob walks up again.

“So you're going to kill me, huh?” I said.
“Yeah, I was thinking about it,” he replied happily.

And when I asked why, he didn’t miss a beat:

“Because you stopped knocking early.”

This man wanted to kill me for taking a break after blacking out on the street the day before.

I reminded him of that.
I reminded him I literally lost consciousness.
He didn’t care.

“Happens to all of us. Drink more water, eat more food.”

Great advice.
Too bad I was still living off cheese and sidewalk charity.

Oh, and Connor also chewed me out.
For going to the store.
Apparently, using a public bathroom when you’re knocking is frowned upon.

We got dropped off. I was second. I took a second to breathe and hyped myself up. I was ready. Friday was going to be the day I turned it around. I had this vision in my head: I’d get my first sale, and after that it’d be floodgates. The confidence would click in and I’d be unstoppable.

Thirty minutes in?

Disaster.

I did the classic pocket check.
Left pocket: wallet, keys, charger...

And a melted dark chocolate Hershey bar I forgot was in there from the night before.

It was a full swamp.
The charger was brown.
My hand was coated in chocolate goo.
Wallet was fine, somehow. But it was a mess.

So I quietly walked over to a patch of trees, dumped my pockets, and tried to clean everything off with grass like some kind of raccoon with debt. The charger still works today. Still slightly brown.

But I didn’t stop.

I kept going.
I was fired up, man.
I was having good convos.
There were even these two dudes washing their car I clicked with. They were renters and I thought perfect, but they weren’t sold. Still, I kept knocking.

About ten minutes later, I remembered: we had a quarterly package that might work for those car wash guys. They didn’t need the regular deal, but the quarterly one? That might do it.

Only problem?

I didn’t know how it worked.
No one had ever gone over it. I’d never even seen it.
So I sat on the sidewalk, pulled it up on my phone, and started studying.

Less than five minutes in, Connor pulls up in his giant truck.

“What are you doing, man?!”
“You can’t sit. That’s curb sitting!”

You’d think I was caught with blood on my hands.
I tried to explain, but he didn’t want to hear it.

I took a water from the back seat and it felt like a crime.
Then I told him my plan.
I was going to go back after lunch and offer the alternate package.

He wasn’t having it.
He wanted me to go right now and re-knock them.

I knew that was a bad call.
You knock once, fine.
You come back ten minutes later, now you’re weird.

But I did it.
And as expected, nothing.

Then, Connor decided he was going to teach me how it’s done.

He took over.

Attempt 1: Woman wouldn’t open the door.
He yelled through it. Nothing. She wasn’t interested.

Attempt 2: House with a No Soliciting sign.
Guy answers via ring doorbell and says:

“Can you see the sign?”
“I didn’t notice it ‘til I came up.”
Goodbye.

Attempt 3: He spots some expensive cars in a driveway.
Connor gets stars in his eyes. Jackpot, right?

Wrong.
A woman answers. She already has a company.
Already paying less.
Already covered.

Connor tries to pivot.
He realizes she’s also paying for termites and asks what she’s paying.

Her rate is cheaper than ours.
He finally says the words:

“Sounds like you’re good then.”

Yes, Connor.
She’s good.
Go sit down.

We go to lunch.

It was supposed to be Jersey Mike’s. Last-minute change: Chick-fil-A. But not a real one, an outdoor-only one. No indoor seating.

So after baking in the sun all morning, now we got to bake in the sun while eating. Except I wasn’t eating. I didn’t have money. I spent most of lunch trying to clean chocolate off my phone charger while everyone else talked about their numbers.

Nobody offered me food. It’s fine.

Back in the field, I kept knocking. I asked people for water and some kind strangers gave me bottles. That was cool.

Later in the day, Aaron found me and sat with me to debrief. I just wanted to breathe, but he wanted to roleplay sales pitches.

Great.

Then I told him my dad had called me earlier and we talked for 5 minutes.
Aaron got pissed.

“You really shouldn’t be on the phone when you’re out. You should wait until after knocking time.”

Yeah. Because knocking time is sacred.

Eventually James picked us up and we went back.

Gratitude meeting, same as always.
Same stale positivity.
Same overcooked grindset.

And that was Friday.

Three days down.
I hadn’t eaten a real meal.
I was still broke.
Still no sales.

Still waiting for that first win.