The Art of the Hustle

  ***

  At around 3:00 a.m., I heard a commotion in the hallway outside my apartment. This was not the typical drunk guy coming home from the bar commotion – it was different. I slowly got up to check it out. Still feeling a little groggy, I stumbled down the hall toward my front door. As I approached closer to the door, I could hear arguing. I looked out the peephole in the door and saw a short well-dressed Asian man saying something about rent. Oh no, that must be the building owner, I thought. I was now completely awake with my eye fixated on the peephole, trying to get a better view of the action. I checked to make sure the door was locked. I was not really sure what to expect when he knocked on my door. After all, I paid my rent and I still had my receipt to prove it. But I didn’t need this hassle in my life, especially when Ashley was here. I hoped he would just go away.

  I couldn’t see much through the peephole, but I continued to look. I could hear perfectly through the flimsy door.

  “Where’s my rent money?” the man shouted with a Chinese accent.

  “Ray, we tried to contact you about the rent, but you were out of town”. One of my neighbors said.

  “Rent is due on the first of every month; you haven’t paid in over three months.”

  “Yes, but there are a lot of issues with the building, Ray. The elevator doesn’t work, the laundry doesn’t work, and there are lots of other repairs in our unit that need to be done.”

  “Hey, rent is rent, where do you think the money to fix all those things comes from?”

  “Ray, it’s late, can we discuss this in the morning? We will pay you the rent tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” he said, as he moved onto the next unit.

  ‘KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK’ – Ray banged on my door.

  “What’s going on?” Ashley said as she came out to see what all the commotion was.

  “Shhh,” I said quietly putting my finger up to my lips.

  ‘KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK’ “Landlord, open up!”

  This can’t be good, I thought. I really didn’t want to have to deal with that at the moment.

  “Ashley, come on, let’s go back to bed,” I took her back to the room. “Let’s just ignore him, maybe he will go away.” For all he knew, nobody was even renting this unit. Maybe he would just move on to the next one.

  “What’s going on?” she asked in a frightened tone.

  “Ashley, when you live in a crumby apartment above a pub that has no electricity, this is the kind of stuff you can expect at 3:00 a.m.”

  As we laid in bed quietly, we heard a key go into the lock and then the lock snapped open.

  Someone was now in my apartment and he was not alone. “There’s stuff here, somebody lives here,” I heard one of them say. “Check the bedroom.”

  Someone flicked the hallway light switch, but nothing happened.

  “Just pretend you’re sleeping,” I whispered in Ashley’s ear.

  “Hey! Landlord, wake up!”

  We opened our eyes and saw three men standing at the foot of our bed. I tried to act surprised. “Hey, get out of my house before I call the cops!” I demanded.

  “I’m the landlord and I’m with the police. You are trespassing!”

  “What are you talking about? I live here,” I said trying to sound confused.

  “Where are the lights in this place?” Ray said.

  “They don’t work. Just give me a minute, I’ll be right out,” I said in a calm voice.

  Ray and the two police officers waited for me in the hall outside my apartment where they could see me better.

  “Stay here, baby, I’ll take care of this, it’s all a misunderstanding.”

  I quickly put some clothes on and went out to the hallway. “You mind telling me what’s going on here?” I asked.

  “My name is Ray, I’m the owner of this building, who are you?”

  “My name is Trevor. I live here. I paid rent a few weeks ago to Raashid, I was told he was the property manager. I have a receipt right here,” I took out my makeshift receipt and gave it to Ray. He held it under the light, skimmed it briefly, and then handed it back to me.

  “Come with me. Let’s go talk to Raashid,” Ray said as we all went downstairs.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK “Raashid, it’s Ray, open up!”

  Raashid came to the door and opened it as if he was expecting Ray at that very moment.

  “Ray, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  “Where is the rent for 2E?” It was apparent Ray was not in the mood for small talk.

  “Stay here, I will go get it.” Raashid scurried off. A moment later he returned holding a pile of cash. “Here,” Raashid said, as he handed me a stack of bills. I quickly counted it and it was all there.

  “See, I paid rent, here take it,” I said, as I extended my arm to give the money to Ray.

  “No, I don’t want it like this. Give it to me tomorrow in a money order.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just drop it in the slot there by the mail boxes.”

  “Okay. I’ll take care of that first thing tomorrow morning, Ray,” I said.

  I went back upstairs.

  “What’s going on?” Ashley said worriedly.

  “Nothing, I took care of it. I paid the rent to the property manager and he never gave it to the owner. I just need to give the owner a money order tomorrow and everything will be fine.”

  C H A P T E R

  N I N E T E E N

  The next morning we woke up and took a cab back to Ashley’s place. “I’ll call you later; I just need to take care of this.”

  As I was walking home from Ashley’s place, I came across a restaurant. I looked up and it said, ‘Andre’s Seafood Restaurant’. I took my phone out of my pocket ; it was 10:01 a.m. Wednesday morning, July 15th.

  “The fifteenth!” I exclaimed.

  I went into Andre’s and the hostess greeted me.

  “Good morning, for how many?”

  “Oh, uh, no, I’m not here to eat. Do you know if Chris is working?” I asked. “I don’t know his last name, but he’s a server here.”

  “Yeah I know him, he will be in later,” she said as she checked the schedule. “Yep, he’ll be in at 5:00 p.m.”

  “Okay, good, do you think I can leave a note for him?”

  The hostess handed me a scrap piece of paper and a pen. I wrote the following:

  ‘Hey Chris,

  My name is Trevor, I met with you about a month ago regarding your room for rent. I hope it is still available because I’m still interested. Please call me A.S.A.P.

  Thanks.’

  I wrote my name and number at the bottom, folded up the paper, and handed it back to the hostess.

  Later that evening my phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, buddy, what’s happening?” Chris said.

  “Nothing much, I see you got my note.”

  “Yeah, I just got into work.”

  “Are you still looking for a roommate?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s tough to find a suitable match in the city. You seemed like a nice guy and my sister felt positive vibes from you. So yeah, if you want to move in, you can.”

  “That would be great, thanks. Do you mind if I come by with my stuff tonight? I will have all of your money.”

  “Sure, I get off at 10:00. Just give me a call.”

  I didn’t want to spend one more night in my place for fear that Ray would come back in the middle of the night with the cops, so I went home, packed up my clothes and abandoned everything else.

  I couldn’t remember if Chris had told me to call him at 10:00 or to be there at 10:00 so I called a cab, loaded up the few things I had, and waited on the front steps until he came home. From where I was sitting, I could see Ashley’s building. This was definitely an upgrade and I was happy to be downtown.

  The rent was only $600 plus $300 for damage deposit. When Chris came home, I gave him $300 for the remaining 15 days of the month and $300 for the damage de
posit. I was now settled into my new apartment and I still had more than half of next month’s rent. I had caught the break I desperately needed.

  C H A P T E R

  T W E N T Y

  I arrived at work early in the morning. I had a renewed energy about me. I had settled into a nice new apartment, I had a job I liked, and I had a great girl who worked in the same mall with me. I felt like I was on top of the world.

  “You see the sales results for this week yet?” Marc asked.

  “No, not yet. How are we looking?” I responded.

  “‘We’? I like that.”

  “What?”

  “No, that’s good. You really seem concerned about the overall store performance, and not just your own,” he said. “Too many people are only out for themselves and forget we’re a team. In the last few weeks, you really demonstrated your passion towards the team. Last week you dominated the sales once again, but everyone else’s sales have also improved since you’ve been here. We are up twelve percent from this time last year and I can’t help but think you’re an integral part of that.”

  “Wow, thank you, I’m flattered.”

  “Let me ask you something, Trevor. What do you want to do with your life?”

  “I’m not too sure yet, I’m still trying to figure that out. I enjoy sales so maybe I will open up my own store someday when I get enough experience.”

  “How would you like the opportunity to get that experience?” he said with a big smile.

  “I would like that very much, what do you have in mind?”

  “We have a manager trainee program here and I would like to offer you the position to be our manager trainee.”

  “Are you being serious?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m confident you have what it takes to be a successful manager. When I first met you, your leadership skills hit me like a brick wall. You had such an undeniable confidence in yourself and it is quite inspiring. Not to mention you can back it up too. You’re not cocky about it either, you’re very humble.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So what do you say, would you like to be our new manager trainee?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said enthusiastically.

  “Great, that’s what I wanted to hear. So as you may know, with any promotion, there are some benefits. You will get a raise from $8.50 an hour to $12.00 per hour. The commission scale also increases so you can earn a lot more on top of that. You will be in charge of the daily operations of the store. So if any employees have any problems, they will go to you first. You will be in charge of the scheduling, hiring, training and of course you still have to sell.”

  “Okay, that sounds great.”

  “Here’s your STAMP manual.” Marc handed me a thick white binder.

  “Study this. There are progress reports in there that you have to complete and get me to sign. Once you complete the course, you can be a real manager.”

  “Thanks again, I really appreciate it.”

  “Congratulations, you deserve it,” Marc said with a proud smile as he shook my hand.

  “There’s one other thing,” he said.

  “Okay, what’s that?”

  “I want you to give a talk at our next staff meeting this Thursday. It will be a good way to introduce your new position to the rest of the team and give them a chance to learn about some of the things that make you so successful here.”

  “Sure no problem, what would you like me to talk about?”

  “Sales,” he said plain and simple.

  “Okay, sure, no problem.”