I am currently traveling through Europe looking for a home. How did I get here? It’s a long story, but it all starts with years ago when I decided I wanted to move to Europe. I had been considering moving abroad for a long time, in fact I felt called to be a missionary. However, things did not work out as planned. 2020 hit and the world got locked down. Eventually, it was get vaxxed or stay home. Many countries were shut down to all travelers.
In 2020 I had the opportunity during this time to simply live off of a welfare check called “unemployment”, since the government was doing a big Covid relief plan to give the unemployed huge income. But, I decided, even though I am eligible for it, I would rather work. Plus, I could make a lot more money working at a real job.
So some months into the shutdowns I started applying to many many jobs, hard. I updated my resume. I put in hundreds of applications, and got a lot of responses. But most of these were one of those sales commission-only jobs like insurance or other types of jobs which are basically scams. Some are kind of legitimate, but they are still effectively scams. Companies only hire commission-only because they don’t have the resources to hire people, which makes for a bad sales position for the salesperson.
Commission-only jobs scams
Only poorly-run or deceptive companies have commission-only positions. It means they aren’t willing to train employees to be successful, aren’t confident in their ability to choose the right candidates, and don’t have the capital to invest to pay for employee’s time. And that’s why it is commission only. You should avoid these like the plague.
The scam of commission-only jobs is they promise the world and unlimited income, but their system is designed to first of all provide no training and expect you to bring in the big bucks, and second the system is designed so that they never pay out what was promised even if you worked tirelessly day and night and are the best in the world. They design an unachievable tier system to make sure even the best salespeople only achieve a meager income. They work you to death for pennies.
I did take one of those commission-only jobs around 2018 or so. It was a roofing job. Some months in, I ended up and quit because the whole sales team had quit due to some ridiculous restrictions or else pay would be cut. That was the final straw for most people, and all but one quit that day. I quit a short time later. In fact, I didn’t even really quit.
It’s so weird. I didn’t quit and wasn’t fired. The owner who was running the sales team (now composed of only one person other than myself), and decided to hire a dedicated sales manager. I had been hired based on flexible work hours, and I am a night owl and was attending Seminary at the time. Well, the new Sales Manager from New York decided that everyone should come in at 5am.
That isn’t what I signed up for and it went against my employment contract. I accepted the commission-only because I wanted the flexibility of working on my own hours so I could achieve my other life goals. It also did not work with my schedule. Well, the owner basically said listen to him, and stopped taking my calls, so I ended up looking for another job. Technically, I’m still employed there, I guess. I never quit and I wasn’t fired.
My next real jobs
That was before the lockdowns. After that, I got another sales job, and it was ok, and I was by far the top sales performer. I sold 5 times the average person and worked my butt off. This was a base pay + commission job, as I wasn’t going to accept another commision-only position. The base pay was not much more than minimum wage, but that was ok with me, because I was going to kick butt, and I put in extreme effort to become the top achiever. I stayed late regularly, as late as I could, and sold sold sold. I did fantastic. The secret to doing well in sales is you sell, and you sell a lot. Sure, I read sales books and practiced sales strategies, but the real secret was just hard work and focus. I called called called. All day long.
Unfortunately, some months later they brought in a new Sales Director. Well this Sales Director was form Comcast, the worst sales company in the world that treats their employees like trash. The first most annoying and obtrusive thing he did was bring in this stupid Gong that every time there was a sale he would hit the gong. It was very disturbing and everyone hated it, but he did not relent. Then he decided to overhaul the QA system with a ton of riduculous arbitrary things to say on the phone, which hurt sales. It was unnecessary, and actually it was a scam.
These QA rules were then open to interpretation, so there was no solid rule. A special QA tean would monitor your calls and it was open to opinion whether you passed QA or not. Even if you followed the exact phrasing, they could still determine a failing grade. So there was no way to guarantee a passing grade no matter what.
This was a conspiracy to take away sales commissions. The first month in after stealing commissions from the sales team, they remodeled the kitchen bringing in really nice expensive appliances. So they stole the money from the minimum-wage sales team who were hired to make sales, and instead used their commisions for other things. This was quite angering to the whole sales team. Many quit or were fired.
So I wrote a letter and went to the management team. I said that I am by far the top performer. All I am asking is that you return it to what I was hired to do, and I didn’t agree to these arbitrary QA rules at hiring, it was not in my contract. I just wanted to do my job like I had been doing before this new Sales Director from Comcast.
They had a habit of mistreating other employees if they found out they might quit, so what I did was cleared out my desk before pitching the proposal to them. As expected, they declined and they let the one employee who made 30% of the team’s sales walk out the door. I knew my worth and I wasn’t going to put up with this abuse. Of course, they stole my commissions after accepting my resignation. I offered to train the next person, but they declined. I wasn’t going to be abused so I walked out.
Fast forward to 2020, and I was on the hunt for a real sales job for a hard worker and top performer. I finally found one after a lot of looking. It was $50,000 base pay + commission. I worked my butt off for a year, but then I ended up leaving the company on good terms for reasons I will not disclose for the sake of privacy. I got one more sales job after that, with a Big Tech company, but they pushed me so hard until I had chest pains and I decided it wasn’t worth my health to continue at that abusive and poorly-run job, and I also discovered a lot of fraud at the company, so all this led to me leaving the company.
After that, I decided to leave the sales profession altogether. I would never lie to a customer and I didn’t like being pressured to say things that might be a lie. I refused and still made top sales. You don’t have to be dishonest to get a lot of sales, as I proved. I didn’t like when I found out that the company was doing deceitful things to scam customers, and then having salespeople sell things that are not what the company said. I only found this out by looking into the system to find out the truth. After that I didn’t want to work there anymore.
I was finally ready to move overseas
So after leaving the Big Tech company, I decided I had saved enough money, so it was time to accelerate my plans. This was now in the Fall of 2022, and the world was starting to open up, so I patiently waited a couple more months for the country I was going to go to first, Lithuania, to open up. As soon as they did, I booked the plane ticket.
But it was not so easy. You see, I am an orphan and I grew up in the foster care system as I have no parents. So, since I have no family, I don’t have anyone to hold onto my stuff and store for the long term. Espeicially if I never came back. So I only have one choice: Sell everything.
But it was later 2021 and the economy was suffering terribly, and it became harder and harder to sell my stuff. After months and many people flaking out on me, I finally accepted an offer on my car, which was an inflated market value but I really took a loss because I had put a great deal of money into my care to prep it for sale. I loved that car, but it was time to leave. So I let it go.
Getting rid of my stuff
I was able to sell a lot of stuff, but most of it sold at a loss. I took a great deal of losses. I was out of time and ready to get on with the next stage of my life, nad I felt God telling me it’s time to go, you need to leave now. So I lowered prices and sold everything I could of value.
But I was still left with a ton of lesser stuff that I couldn’t sell, even though it all added up to a lot. But I had nowhere to put it. So, I literally threw it out, and I gave away what I could to goodwill. Thousands of dollars in suits and clothes I simply let go to goodwill. I had to. I couldn’t take it with me.
And once I got rid of enough stuff, I pared it down to 2 suitcases and a carryon. And let me tell you, this was extremely difficult. I had to let stuff go that didn’t matter. And I had to get rid of most of my clothes. It was so hard to throw away and give away all the stuff I had spent years accumulating and hand-picking.
But the truth is, that most of that stuff I never or rarely used, and this was the challenge. Although some of that stuff I did use. Yet all my stuff was weighing down on me and preventing me from moving onto the next phase of my life. So I had to let it go. It was so hard to do. But I did it.
Finally ready to move overseas
Now remember I have no family. Everything I had I had worked my butt off and went through so much to painfully acquire. I had put such effort into picking out just the perfect items. I went from homeless 15 or so years ago to successful. It was a hard road. But I had to change things, because I’m now in my 30s and I don’t want my life to slip away.
So I had to make a change and go, before it was too late. And who knows when the next lockdown, and Paris and London are no longer the place they were. Who knows how much time Europe has left. I wish I could have visited Europe 15 years ago, but I was just trying to stay alive at the time. I can’t turn back the clock, but after years of hard work, I finally had saved enough to be able to go. And so I did.
And this is the story of how I got here. I could write books on the details leading up to it, but this should help you see one man’s path to achieving freedom. It was freedom hard-fought and painfully acquired. And it’s not over, because I am still looking to achieve this freedom. And the next steps are for another post and another day.
Hope you enjoyed my story and hope it helps you in some way.
