The summer after high school I sold Fuller Brushes. They gave me the worst n'hoods, a n'hood which had had an unreliable salesman, who took orders but didn't deliver (He didn't steal any money. He wasn't to get paid for the stuff until he delivered, and to a lot of people he just didn't deliver) and a n'hood that was just built and had no experience with Fuller Brush unless they had it somewhere else.
A guy stopped me on the street and after finding out I sold Fuller Brushes, he offered me a job canvassing for leads for aluminum siding. If they didn't want siding, he also sold this siding stuff that looks something like asphalt shingles, but comes in a big sheet and is made to look like bricks. I'm sure you've all seen it.
He offered me 50 or 100 dollars for every aluminum siding job I got. I sort of liked Fuller Brush, so we traded phone numbers.
While I was at work, he called and got my mother, and she negotiated for me to 150 dolllars for every alumininum siding job, some percentage I don't remember (2%, 5% ?) for anything else, and 40 dollars a week (unspoken, but I assumed that was for a 40 hour week, which was the most common work week in 1964.)
I didn't have to make the sale, only give him a lead, and I was to get paid the above if he made the sale, (except for the base 40 dollars that was for the 40 hours I put in.)
SO MY QUESTION IS, WHAT WOULD A TYPICAL SALARY/COMMISSION PLAN BE FOR SOMEONE WITH A JOB LIKE MINE, in 1964?
Would it have been all commission, and was the dollar an hour base uncommon? Or would most people have insisted on some base pay, like I'm sure the guys at Lowes get?
I really wasn't interested in the job based on what he offerred me when he met me, but after my mother negotiated for me, I took a break from Fuller Brush.
As it turned out, I got no leads the first day. Worked 10 hours the second day in a different part of town, and got one weak lead. I think it was the third day in a third part of town that I had been going door to door for 3 or 4 hours before a homeowner told me that the xway was coming through the n'hood and everything was going to be torn down. No one else had mentioned that. The guy picked the location every day. I had my own car. I finished the 8-hour day somewhere else.
The fourth day, the guy said, Well, you've worked the south side, the east side, and the north side. Let's try the west side. I don't really think it was the direction from the center of town that made the difference, but I did what he said.
It was disheartening to work all day and get no real leads. Maybe someone else would have been better at it. We both got tired of this after the fourth or fifth day. I had given him one or two more weak leads** but he didn't want to pay me my 32 or 40 dollars, I forget how much.
I told him I wanted to see his boss, and he readily agreed. He told the boss the truth except he said that the 40 dollars was for a 6-day week. I told the boss I had never heard of a 6=day week for an hourly employee, or something like that. (I guess my mother had really been the one who discussed this, but I know for a fact she would never have signed me up for a 6-day week. And I'm sure I discussed this with her afterwards.) The boss told him to pay me the base pay. (32 or 40, for
32 or 40 hours whichever I had worked) and he did. I had no idea who the boss was before I got there, but I recognized the name and I think the boss knew my grandfather, or my uncle, or my uncle's friend, or maybe even my mother a little bit. But I don't think it was believable that I had agreed to a six-day week***, for a job like this, so, I don't think that made any difference.***Especially when the base pay was 40 dollars. That's not even evenly divisible by 6.
**which I later went back to make sure if they bought sometighing or not, because I didn't trust him anymore. None of them had bought anything.Then I went back to Fuller Brush until the end of the summer.