I was ecstatic, and when my father picked me up from the hotel, I blurted out, “Dad, I’m going to get the job! I’m going to get the job!”
Always supportive, my father just clapped my shoulder and said, “I knew you’d get it. Are they going to pay you more than $70,000?”
“It’s got a base salary of $120,000, and a commission on top of it,” I told him. “I could make $200,000 a year! Thanks for pushing me on this. I really feel like I’m getting somewhere again.”
MAYBE YOU SHOULD SEE SOMEONE
I have only one sibling—my sister, Angela (Anju), who is seven years younger than me. While I was an introvert and geek growing up, she was outgoing and popular. Despite the difference in our personalities, we both got electrical engineering degrees and both worked in the telecom industry. And despite the difference in age, we spoke often to each other about life, career, and family. We kept in touch consistently through my travels to Vancouver and hers to Kingston (Queens University) and Boston for her first job; but the relationship withered when I moved to San Diego.
As I made preparations to move back to Toronto to start my new job with Scientific Atlanta, I returned to frequent communication with Anju, and after I received the offer from Scientific Atlanta, she called me from Boston, excited. “Hap, you won’t believe it! I got in!” I didn’t immediately realize what she was talking about, and I guess my silence gave that away. She groaned and said, “MIT! How could you forget? I was so upset last year when I applied for my MBA and didn’t get in!”
“You’re kidding. Seriously? You got in this year?” In my mind I was thinking, “I’m supposed to be the smart one, and my kid sister is the one getting into MIT?”
But I was genuinely happy for her and started to say, “Wow, Anj, that is awesome, I’m so—” but she interrupted me.
“Wait wait wait, there’s more! I’ve been talking to Mom and Dad about you moving to Toronto. I have a year before that program starts, and we all think it would be a great idea for me to move to Toronto for the year, and we can share a place while you get back on your feet.” I was elated at the idea that she and I would be together, even as I realized that she and my parents had also decided I couldn’t be trusted to be on my own.
---
A few months later, I was back in Toronto full time, able to see my daughter again, and even making progress on my child and spousal support payments. My sister and I planned to rent a condo when she moved to Toronto herself, but for the first month I was on my own, and I started out living in a university residence for a few hundred dollars a month. I knew that my bankruptcy trustee was watching, and that even with the nice salary Scientific Atlanta was going to pay me, most of it would go to the trustee; I had to be careful with how I spent money.
I had to pay cash for everything. The Royal Bank and Toronto Dominion Bank were both frustrated creditors from my bankruptcy, so I opened a new account at the Bank of Montreal to deposit my first check. The teller, a pretty young brunette named Cindy, saw the amount of the check and said, “Oh my, it looks like you do quite well. Do you have a credit card with us?” I was quite pleased at the size of the check myself and basked a little in her admiration, but I responded, “No I don’t, but I don’t think I’d get approved. So, thanks, but no thanks.”
All Cindy heard of course was, “No, I don’t have a credit card with your bank,” and she started pressing me. “Oh I’m certain you’ll get approved. With a salary this high, you’ll have no trouble at all. In fact, I can get you approval right now if I go and speak with the manager.”
I shook my head and said, “Sorry, Cindy, I should have explained. I recently declared bankruptcy, and that’s why I don’t think I’ll get approved. I really don’t even want you to inquire about it, since I don’t want to go through the embarrassment of getting turned down.” She continued to insist, and it became obvious to me that there was a substantial commission involved for her. I eventually relented and let her go speak to her manager.
For the next fifteen minutes, I waited nervously, feeling like everyone in line behind me was staring at me and casting judgment on my creditworthiness. After the extended wait, Cindy returned, her admiration for me completely extinguished. “I’m sorry, sir, but your credit rating is too low for us to offer you a credit card.” She didn’t say, “Gee, I guess you were right.” Just the sullen look of another bank employee looking down on me because I wasn’t good enough. I finished depositing my check and left.
Since I was still catching up on support payments, I made sure I kept my expenses low. I was annoyed that I had to pay a dollar a month for touchtone service on my residence phone. I had to go with having the room cleaned weekly instead of every second day. My father bought me a copy of Quicken for my work computer so I could implement Frank’s training and set up a strict spending regimen. It was the first time in my life I’d had such a detailed budget.
After sending half of my first two paychecks to the bankruptcy trustee, I hadn’t heard anything from him, so I took a chance and simply stopped reporting my income. Maybe it was because the bankruptcy was in my home province of New Brunswick and my new job was in Ontario, but for whatever reason, I never received a letter or any threats of garnishment, and I simply saved myself that money.
My father and I had many moments of introspection as I was starting my new life. Just after I started my job at Scientific Atlanta, he called me and said, “See, Son, all that education we encouraged you to get paid off. You have a great job, and things are looking up. Did you learn anything from all this?”
I thought for a while and then answered, “Well, I’m pretty paranoid now about spending money.” This made him laugh, as I added, “But I also know that all that crap happened and I’m still okay. I learned that whatever life throws at me, I’m going to be able to take it. That’s a pretty valuable lesson.”
“I know things are difficult right now, but trust me, you’re going to start feeling better soon,” he responed.
I thought for a second and said, “Dad, I’m already feeling better. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
Dad laughed again and ended the conversation by saying, “Just make sure you don’t quit or get fired this time. I don’t think you’re cut out for starting a business.”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” I said. “I know how to get along with people now. And I’m never going to start a business again.”
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Soon my sister joined me in Toronto, and we were able to move into a nice high-rise condo building near my new office. In a further sacrifice for me, she took a job that was on the other side of the city, with a long commute. I was extremely grateful, although I didn’t say it out loud. While I was enjoying my job (and my short commute), I talked to my sister a lot talk about my divorce, my bankruptcy, my depression, and my relationship with my daughter. One day Anju said to me, “Hap, I don’t mind talking to you about all this stuff, but maybe you should see a therapist. I have a friend who has a great therapist that she’s worked with. Why don’t you meet her and see if it’s helpful?”
I thought it couldn’t hurt, so I got the referral from Anju’s friend and set up an appointment to meet Kelly* Hummel. Dr. Hummel was a thirty-something strawberry blonde with a perpetually slightly rumpled appearance. Leading me into her office and shaking my hand, she smiled and said, “Please, have a seat.”
I thought, “She must be a great therapist,” because with a handshake, a nod, and four words, I was almost overwhelmed with a sense of how much she cared for my well-being.
Over the past year, I had developed a tremendous amount of guilt over my neglecting my daughter, and as I sat down on Kelly’s couch, I launched right in with, “Kelly, I worry sometimes that I’ve messed up my relationship with my daughter as much as I’ve messed up everything else the past few years.”
“What was your relationship with Nikhita like when she was very young?” Kelly asked me.
“I spent a lot of time with her until I we
nt nuts with this company that I started. I put her to sleep, changed diapers, and hung out with her on weekends. I’m sure my ex thinks I didn’t do my share, but I feel pretty good about it.”
Kelly told me, “Sanjay, your relationship with her was set in those early years. As long as you continue to spend time with her now, that bond will always be strong.” I was suspicious that she was just saying that to make me feel better, but it worked anyway. I relaxed and got over some of the guilt I’d developed.
With my sales job and regular travel assignments with Scientific Atlanta, I wasn’t around consistently, but I settled into a routine of spending Friday nights with Nikhita as she grew up. While it was a small amount of time, it was also dedicated quality time and, true to Kelly’s prediction, my relationship with her continued to be strong.
Unfortunately, I continued to suffer from depression cycles when I started with Scientific Atlanta, but with the help of Dr. Jamal and a series of psychiatrists, I tried several medications over a five-year period: Lithium, Wellbutrin, Celexa, and Effexor (very similar to Prozac). Of them all, only Effexor worked, but it had side effects that kept making me stop taking it, a common problem with depression medications. I was fortunate that I had a job with a lot of flexibility and an understanding boss, so I was able to have a somewhat normal life with encouragement from both my sister and Kelly during ongoing visits.
I COULD SELL ICE TO…
Starting out in my new sales job with the great salary, I also had great perks, like an entertainment allowance, a company car, sales conferences that were mostly parties, and nearly complete freedom to do my job, since my boss was in New Jersey and I was going to be responsible for everything in Canada.
My first sales call was to Simon*, Director of Engineering at Rogers Cable, but Simon didn’t return that call, or any of the daily calls I made the rest of that week. I was just getting voicemail and starting to wonder if I was cut out for this sales thing. After the week, it occurred to me that maybe Simon was out of town, so I called the department secretary and asked her, “Sorry, but I’ve been leaving messages for Simon and he hasn’t returned my calls. Is he out of town?” She said, “Oh, Simon is in town, I saw him this morning. But he’s very busy. Why don’t you try again? I’ll transfer you.”
So I was transferred to Simon’s line, got his voicemail, and dutifully left him another message. “Hi, Simon, it’s Sanjay Singhal from Scientific Atlanta, hope you’re having a great day! I’ve been told you’re the key person to speak to about evaluating our new line of optical nodes. Give me a call back when you can!” I ended on an up note, refusing to lose my energy.
Two days later I still hadn’t received a call back. I called the secretary again. “Hi, I spoke to you a couple of days ago? It’s Sanjay from Scientific Atlanta, I—”
“I remember you. Look, if Simon isn’t returning your calls, it’s because he doesn’t want to or he’s too busy.” I was flummoxed. What to do?
I desperately whined, “Isn’t there anything I can do to connect with him?”
She sighed in exasperation and said, “Well, I know he likes to golf.”
I did a quick Internet search for golf clubs in the Toronto area, found a good one, and immediately called Simon’s number. I said, “Hi, Simon, it’s Sanjay from—well you know. Anyway I’ve got a tee time booked for later this week at National Pines, and I was hoping you could join me. Give me a call.” I swear he was listening to the message live, because it felt like he returned the call minutes later.
“Hi, it’s Simon. You said something about golf?”
Positivity wasn’t the key to salesmanship. It was golf. Well, golf and sex, but mostly golf. Unknown to me until that point, nearly all the senior executives that I had to sell to were golf fanatics. My company had tickets to all the major events, and if I wasn’t out playing on the golf course with a client, I was taking him to the Masters or the US Open. I almost saw José María Olazábal win the Masters in 1999, and I almost saw Tiger Woods win the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2000. The reason I didn’t actually see either of them was the VP of Engineering at Rogers, Damian*.
Damian was Simon’s boss and one of the top decision-makers at Rogers, the largest cable company in Canada, so he was at the top of my list to call for anything special. Damian didn’t particularly play golf, but he liked major events, so he agreed to go with me to the Masters in the spring of 1999. Damian and I didn’t spend a lot of time together and weren’t chummy, but I put a smile on my face, met him at the airport in Toronto, and accompanied him and a few other executives on a Scientific Atlanta private jet to Atlanta, Georgia, and then in a limo for the two-hour drive to Augusta. Masters tickets are incredibly valuable, so we were only going to be there for a day.
Damian immediately made a beeline for the first hole, where John Daley was teeing up the ball. I was happy to see the big guy hit a driver an incredibly long distance, but the show was over after only a few minutes. I looked at a scoreboard to see where Tiger Woods was, and he was just one hole over, on the other side of a hill. I mentioned this to Damian, but he sneered. “You’re not one of those crowd followers who likes Tiger Woods are you?”
I was supposed to be making friends, so of course I responded, “No, no, of course not. I’m a purist. Tiger’s just a flash in the pan. I was just mentioning it in case you…” Damian turned away from me and began walking in the opposite direction. I ran after him, plastered on my sales smile, and proceeded to spend an entire day actually avoiding the most popular golfer in the history of the sport.
A similar course of events played out at the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach, where Tiger won with an unprecedented twelve-shot lead over his closest rival. It was the final day, and I heard through the buzz of the crowd what was about to happen on the eighteenth hole. I managed to get “lost” long enough to watch Tiger’s victory march up the eighteenth fairway before detouring into a VIP booth and appearing thirty minutes later with hot dogs in hand, asking Damian, “Hey, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you all over.”
Coming home from the event, I complained to a coworker. “I can’t believe I was at an event of a lifetime and I had to sneak around to actually see the event. I hate my customers!”
“Then how do you manage to keep selling them so much gear?” she asked.
“I guess I’m good at faking it,” I replied. But the faking was starting to really grate on me.
The other major activity—more of a favorite with the rank and file—was sex. More precisely, strip clubs. I wasn’t aware of this until one day after visiting a client in Edmonton, Alberta, when I submitted an expense form that had a restaurant on it with the name, “The French Maid.” On submission, I immediately got a call from Ed, asking, “What the hell is this? The French Maid? You can’t put strip clubs on your expense reports!”
I defended myself. “Ed, it’s not a strip club, it’s an actual French restaurant. You can look it up.”
He paused and then responded. “Okay, I believe you, but don’t be an idiot and put it on your expense report. You know what it looks like, so just change the name of the restaurant on the spreadsheet.” I dutifully edited the Excel file and resubmitted it. It occurred to me, though, that Ed had said I couldn’t put strip clubs on my expense reports—not that I couldn’t expense strip clubs. I asked another salesman at a conference what the policy was, and he grinned at me as he said, “You can take clients to strip clubs; use cash and submit the expense without a receipt. Just let your boss know that you’re doing it. Oh, and no hookers.”
One night shortly after that, I had a bunch of drunk Montrealers from Videotron visiting our test facility in Atlanta. Atlanta had one of the most popular strip clubs in the country, The Gold Club, and one of the clients asked me about it. I hadn’t been there, but I was happy to oblige, so we had dinner nearby and arrived at the club around 11:00 p.m. The dances in the club were paid for with coupons, so I bought seven hundred dollars worth (there were seven customers) and handed t
hem out. They immediately scattered.
I called Ed and said, “Um, Ed, I thought I’d better call and let you know that I’ve got the Videotron guys at The Gold Club. That’s okay, right?”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Just keep an eye on them. Montreal’s pretty famous for its strip clubs; god knows what they’ll get up to. And don’t spend more than $1,000.”
I went looking for my customers and eventually found two of them in the VIP lounge with two bottles of champagne and four ladies lounging in their laps. I asked where the others were, and just then another one of them stumbled into the room with his hair messed up, asking me for more coupons. One of the first two, Jaques* was the senior manager of the group, and he waved to a waitress standing in the corner. “The kind lady is looking for a credit card to take care of our bill?” I asked how much it was, and she blew the guys a kiss as she told me, “Two thousand dollars.”
I nearly fainted, but in the general direction of the club ATM. I told the guys to gather at the exit, and I asked the waitress to hold on. I called Ed again and said, “Uh, Ed, things are a little out of control. I’m $3,000 down, but the guys are having a great time. What should I do?”
Ed was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “You let Jaques go to the VIP room, didn’t you?”
He told me I was cut off at $3,000, and anything extra would be my own expense. I quickly withdrew the cash, handed it over with no tip and a dirty look from the waitress, and headed to the exit. I didn’t find any of the other Videotron guys, but I reasoned that if I wasn’t around, they couldn’t make me pay for any more expenses, so I grabbed a taxi home and hoped for the best.
At a morning meeting the next day, I was groggy and hungover; they were all looking chipper and happy, with Jaques winking at me over a cup of coffee and a donut. Videotron later bought $20 million in equipment from me.
Another time I was accompanying a lab manager, Liam*, to Las Vegas for a cable conference. Liam wasn’t a golfer, but he had been to a couple of strip club outings. As soon as we exited the plane, Liam asked me, “Which way to the chicken ranch?”
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