When I worked at Frito-Lay, I was the number one salesperson in the state. I was 25 at the time and I became aware of my position when headquarters decided send a weekly report to each salesperson, disclosing everyone’s sales. This was a new thing designed to foster competitiveness and increase the bottom line. Frito was constantly tinkering like this because there are major big bucks in potato chips and they were after every single one of them.

So they’d do this and then not do it and then do it again, unsure if it drove sales of not. Because we all worked on commission and this meant when the sheet went out, everyone knew what everyone else was making. And you can see how this was sort of dicey. They didn’t want strife however ultimately they found this practice did drive sales and it was instituted full time.

Now I worked in a rural area where the routes are typically much larger than routes the city, so our weekly list was made up of all the rural salespeople.

“All the rural salespeople” were a group of about 25 men and me, who were scattered in outlying areas around the state. And each week I was on top the list. Oh, not always. But 50 out of 52 weeks I was #1. And when someone did beat my sales for the week it didn’t mean much since my year-to-date sales were just less than double the #2 man. That’s right. I was selling nearly double my closest competition and because of this I became sort of legend.

The rural salespeople, myself included, were all loner cowboy types. We were working in the country because we didn’t want to deal with management, right? Right. We liked our freedom and independence and we were only very rarely brought together. Once every 3-5 years if that. But we had awareness of each other. We were linked by the weekly sales figures chart, for one but there was some communication in the form of a man I’ll call “Chip”.

Chip was the line driver. He drove the 18-wheel truck from the plant down the line dropping inventory at each of our little warehouses around the state. And Chip liked to chat. He was a Mercury figure relaying bits of info and no doubt working to keep it interesting. It was via Chip I learned of my status to a degree. I say degree because Chip always seemed to me to be the type to embellish a story.

Chip said all the other drivers wanted to know who “Elsa” was. He knew I was on top of the list. He knew it because he delivered the stuff, right? And he delivered way more product to me than to the other salesmen on the line and he dogged them about it. I knew this because I worked alongside two men in a little shack warehouse in my part of the state and I heard him go at them without mercy every chance he got.

“What’s a matter with you two?” he’d say. “Let some little girl sell more than you do? How do call yourself men? If I were your wife, I’d be out looking for a real man…”

Well lucky for me the two men I worked with were Aquarian so no one got hurt. We all liked Chip and he liked us. We thought we were his favorite on the line and knowing Chip every other little pocket of salespeople thought the same.

But I really do think we were his chosen because a line driver could only drive so far in a day and Chip would lay out his route so he would end in our town. This way he could offload and then hang out with us. We’d sit in the back of his nearly empty truck and talk shit, tell jokes and I hope you get the picture here.

Anyway, Chip said the other salesmen on the line thought I was a brutish sort. You know. They thought I was a burly woman, built like a truck and kind of mean and biker-ish. Having Venus in Leo I freaked when I heard that. Blinking my eyelashes, I asked Chip to go back and clear up the misconception…damnit!

He said he’d already done this. He’d told them over and over what I was like but they thought he was lying.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because they don’t think a woman can kick their ass the way you do,” he said.

“Well I obviously can kick their ass,” I said. “And soundly,” I added with a snort. “I can kick their ass all day, every day, the next day…”

“Right, so they think you must be a man.”

“Well I’m not a man for Godsakes. That’s ridiculous.”

“Right,” he laughed. “That’s what I keep telling them.”

“Well tell them again!”

“Yes sir!” Chip quipped.

I laughed. “Fuck you!”

“Come on Elsa. You know my wife would never go for that.”

Ignore.

So this is how it was, week after week and then one day Frito decided to have a convention. They were introducing a new product and per their habit they were throwing a big shindig about it. The city people would have their thing in the city where they worked but the rural people will be brought from all over the state, to a resort in a central location. So you see the set up. I was going to meet my peers.

Skip to part 3 - The Convention

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pictured “Looking Good” by Lorna Dillon