On Tuesday I was looking at things on Craigslist, and came across a listing where an Antique Shop Owner had just died. Everything in his shop was being sold super cheap. So I hopped in my car, drove all the way down to Burien, and entered the store.
When I was on my knees digging through a pile of stuff in the corner, the guy who was running the store said to me, ‘If you wanna dig, I have tons of stuff out back that isn’t even on the floor yet!’
I got a super huge rush. I felt like I was an ‘American Picker!’ So I went out back and rummaged through everything. Finding old cameras, navy bags, flashlights, ect.
The owner then came out back, and we got to talking. I asked him if he needed help listing things on eBay. He told me he was JUST about to put an ad out on Craigslist for someone to do just that. So we talked more, and he told me to come to his ‘warehouse’ the next morning at 9am.
I was so excited! I went home and bought a new notebook and pen. Finally gonna be off Unemployment. Went to bed early, got up early, and made it to his ‘warehouse’ ten minutes early.
Well…his warehouse was his garage. Granted, it was nice, but it was a little creepy. He had to run and do something, so his wife was the one who was supposed to tell me how everything was going to go.
She told me my rate of pay would be 10% of what I sold on eBay for them. No hourly wage. (even though he said something about an hourly wage the day before). The wife went to go get ready, and invited me to go through the ‘warehouse’ and see what kind of stuff they had.
Junk… it was all junk. I looked stuff up as I was going through it. He didn’t have the eye that someone would need if they actually wanted to make money in this business.
She came back and told me they wanted me to go with them to the Antique Store, and find the ‘high value items’ in the store, so they can bring them home and sell them on ebay.
So I did…. But they really just had junk……
I then said to them, ‘Well, since I won’t be able to list anything today, I think it would be fair if you gave me an hourly wage, otherwise I would be doing this labor for nothing.’ The woman consulted with her husband and they decided they would give me $10/hr but only for a few hours and ONLY for today…..Otherwise it would be 10 percent of what I sold..
They also told me I would sell their stuff off MY ebay account and use MY paypal account. (Which I am thinking was a way for them to skip taxes).
So I hung around for an hour, doing what they wanted me to…and then I went to lunch, and never came back.
With this job, I could have worked 5 days a week for 8 hours and still NOT MADE A DIME, because their products were CRAP…. If I saw $10,000 items, I would have jumped on this in a second….but the stuff I was looking up was near worthless.. It was the kind of stuff that someone without an ‘eye’ would buy, thinking it looked old and cool, but never researching the market and mark-up before they purchased it!!
So…back to the unemployment drawing board for me.
Someone give me a god damn radio job.
This is what my life is like now…
Working for a random group of scam-artists is what I have been reduced to….
(ps-she picked out this photo!)
