W. Bell & Co. employee card
After my stint at Dart Drug I looked for a company that would value my trustworthiness. It was April 1987. A classmate of mine worked at a catalog showroom store and suggested I apply there. It sounded a bit more professional than what I’d just done, so I filled out an application and got an interview.
The store was W. Bell & Co.: a now-defunct Rockville, MD-based retail catalog showroom chain that once thrived in the D.C. area. My friend worked at the Tysons Corner store doing what I wanted to be doing: selling electronics. The store manager had different plans for me, however: he wanted me to sell jewelry. Jewelry was W. Bell’s mainstay. I gave it a shot and showed up the following Monday wearing slacks and a tie.
What I had yet to learn is that selling jewelry is an excruciatingly boring job, especially if you’re getting a pittance of a commission. Hovering over wealthy over-the-hill women while they dithered for ah hor over which ring to buy was intensely frustrating – especially when I felt the urge to scream ” BUY IT! BUY IT! TAKE THAT ONE! STOP WASTING MY TIME!” in my best Sam Kinison voice. I would get done with one of these extended shopping sessions and look jealously over at my buddy in the stereo department. As least he kept some resemblance of coolness.
There was one benefit to working around expensive jewelry and that was that I was bonded. That almost certainly helped me gain a security clearance later in my career. But that was about the only benefit.
It didn’t help that the store was in Tysons Corner: a lengthy commute for a high schooler living in Great Falls and making minimum wage. And I might have gotten the hang of selling jewelry had I known anything about jewelry, but I had no experience and my manager didn’t seem motivated to train me. Looking back, I think management might have thought that a grandson-type might make it easier for these old ladies to part with their money. I certainly wasn’t hired for my jewelry expertise, I can tell you that!
At any rate, I soon recognized this wasn’t the line of work I wanted to do. I worked there for about a month before I turned in my notice. It was time to look for something better suited to my talents – and closer to home.