Somebody Elses Money

Anyway. So I flew out to Frankfurt in Germany. No I'm not blogging for money again. This time it all stemmed from a phone call I received from a corrupt and desperate recruitment consultant seeking corrupt and desperate salespeople willing to relocate. The draw was the opportunity to earn unfathomable riches selling innocent expatriates inappropriate financial products. Naturally, I agreed.

Naturally it was all bollocks. I knew this in my soul from the minute she called me, but I wanted to believe. I so wanted to believe that I could be the high rolling, hand squeezing silver tongued lying bastard that I would have needed to become in order to earn the promised 6 figure salary. In my head, I still believe I could do it if I had enough money behind me. I really do.

The attrition rate in the job is about 95% within the first 3 months. It consists of desperately haranguing innocent foreign nationals over the phone whilst they're at work (a practice I soon discovered is actually illegal in Germany) trying to persuade them that meeting with me to discuss their finances was the smartest thing they'd do that day.

Unbelievably some of them would say yes. Even more unbelievably a couple of them agreed, in the middle of a financial meltdown, to commit a monthly amount to one of the outdated and frankly dangerous long term investment plans I was proposing. I'm going to name names here. Skandia. Hansard. Generali.

Although I had been promised as much, I had received no financial training whatsoever. I was given a brochure and told to pick whatever investments on behalf of the clients that took my fancy. The Manager, making a joke, said in one meeting that it was time to get the darts and the blindfold out. He didn't need such a crude approach however, because he just suggested the same investments to every single person regardless of their personal circumstances or attitude to risk. It was unbelievable, truly it was. He described the whole process as the R&P approach. Rape and Pillage.

So the good news is I got some business in. The bad news was all of the commission I 'earned' disappeared on things like paying the telesales staff and office rent, because I was technically self-employed. I soon found out that I was paying over £100 a month for renting the photocopier. The photocopier, for the love of God! That was hard to take. Thus my entire income was my miserable £1000/month retainer, plus I was given free rent at the company flat. Which was nice of them.

Even so, the entirety of my miserable retainer vanished on paying off debts and fortnightly flights back in order to maintain my relationship (the commuting is probably a whole other blog. But if you ever find yourself considering it, don't. That is all.).

I had to ration client visits because I didn't always have the train fare. I spent two months living off pasta that I'd cooked in batches and frozen using rotting ingredients from a rotten shop called Pennymart. Networking was out of the question, along with most of the other lovely concepts I'd included in my business plan. I only had one suit and about 4 suitable shirts for Christ's sake. I couldn't even afford shoe polish.

Now, it's probably clear by now that my time at Guardian Wealth Management didn't really work out, but I think ultimately it can only count in my favour that it ended in absolutely typical fashion. I may have had to leave, but at least by the time I did leave I had reached such a nadir I didn't actually have any dignity left to lose. Well so I hoped at the time, it's amazing though just how low you can go if you try.....

But that, reader, is a story for another day.