The first of many ...

The first blog of many has to be memorable ... sure. So why has it taken 17 minutes now for me to even start putting pen to paper ... or fingers to keyboard as it were?

Well let's start with why I wanted to start the blog in the first place. I wanted to start getting into my writing again. Once upon a time I was an avid writer who used to write about anything ... and I mean anything. Some of the stuff I wrote ought not to be even thought of again, let alone written in the first place. Yeh, I was a muppet. Yet now the more I think about it, the more I want to do it!

This sector of my blog is entitled "the not so much luck of the Irish"; to which I open the question, is luck painted out by the gods or fate; or do we create our own?

The reason I ask this question is because of this ...

I have recently finished a job as a "residential field sales representative"; a fancy name for a door-to-door salesperson ... selling gas and electricity. Sounds daft ... and I know what you're thinking ... why on earth would I ever consider doing a job as a door-to-door salesperson trying to get people to switch over their gas and electricity provider?? Simple. Desperate for money!

The process was quite strange. I heard horror stories from some people. Yet, the environment when you walked in the office first thing in the morning to when you left at night was fantastic. Never in my life had I seen so many people who loved the job. It was insane. It was meant to be like "running your own business" ... but you still got told what to do ... how to do it ... and you could still get sacked?!?!? That to me ... does not seem like running or controlling your own business in any way shape or form ... but the business prospects and the way that it structured itself was absolutely incredible. But did it really work?

The group that I worked for is called the Cobra Group. From what I've read on the internet about the company I should have ran in the other direction completely! There were horror stories that the group were scam artists, stealing money etc. Now from what I saw is that it made a small minority of people very very rich indeed. I saw people make 100 quid in a day ... and I also saw people make nothing in a day.

I was both of these people believe it or not.

But what I could never pin it down to was whether it was luck; me on that particular day; or the people that I spoke to on that day were just particularly nicer and I fell upon the right people.

Now I have to admit and be perfectly honest, the product wasn't dodgy or anything and I never did anything under false pre-tenses ... that isn't the part that people didn't like if I'm honest ... it was the fact that it was all commission based, and I found myself coming up with excuses and blaming myself when I worked a 10 hour shift and yet made no money. It just didn't make any sense to me. Yet equally, i could come back theoretically making £10 an hour!?

Which is why I keep asking ... is it luck, or skill that makes people sucessful in business or in life ... and do I have any luck at all. If i'm perfectly honest, the only money I actually made out of the job I spent while I was working on petrol and going out with people from work. My entire summer was taken up with the job ... which if I'm perfectly honest ... I loved!

I met some great people, I can honestly say that I have never worked in a happier, friendlier or more motivated environment ... but the job just wasn't for me. I know that if I only had the job to focus on then I would have been able to do brilliantly at the job. However, the only people who will do well at a job like that is if it's the only thing that they have to focus on ... and if they are motivated, driven, don't mind the hard grafting (and believe me it really is a hard graft), and will stop at nothing to get what they want.

My personal opinion is that the people who complain on these sites - and there are a lot of them - are the people who didn't read the small print and were blinded by the opportunities that this job can give you ... and if you play your cards right, you can be turning over a small profit in your first year of business. The small print is, it's not a get rich quick scheme that some people think that it is. It's not going to change your life straight away, and you're never going to be sucessful at something that you only try out for a day or a week. Given time you'll know whether the job is good enough for you or not. The only thing it ever was to me was a job ... not a career, which for a lot of people it was. I saw the office turn over a million times while I was there with the amount of people who come and go ... people who I worked closely with who turned out to be nothing but infantile idiots who obviously didn't get how the system works.

I've been ridiculed in the job, praised in the job, and had very weird and wonderful situations in the job. I was told by one man that I could sell condoms to a nun!!

The most important thing for me is that I met some fabulous people who I hope to be friends with for a long time. But a word to the wise ... if you're not prepared to work hard, despite if you're lucky or not ... you'll never reap the benefits and then it will seem like a scam.