Nicknames are funny things. More often than not, they are earned. Years ago
I earned the nickname “Projector Boy” for my obsession with projectors, both
loving them and selling them to other people. However, much earlier in my
career I earned another nickname.

It was my first month on the job at my first ever commission sales job in
retail electronics. I remember it vividly, because although I was an eager
beaver I knew next to nothing. Believe it or not, I wasn’t always a
technophilic propeller-head. When I was hired I knew a TV from a VCR, but
that was about it.

I was so completely lacking in either knowledge or sales skills that I
distinctly remember calculating how many cases of VHS and cassette tapes
(remember those?) I would have to sell that month to earn a decent paycheck.

Back to the nickname story, I had done one of my first product presentations
ever: demoing a pair of JBL tower speakers that we had on clearance.

The customer said he’d take them.

I was so thrilled; I was oblivious to what else he said “I have to go get my
wallet from the truck.”

I hadn’t yet learned that in order to be “a sale” I had to get the
customer’s money and put it in the cash register.

That didn’t stop me from taking those floor-model speakers and wrapping them
in a six inch layer of bubble wrap so my first customer could take them
home.

Of course, he never came back. And of course my co-workers started calling
me “Bubble Boy.”

That’s not the funny part, though.

A few months later, I was working at another location, and during some
friendly trash talking with my friends at my old store, one of them said
“We’re out of bubble wrap, can we borrow some of yours?”

That’s when my co-worker Don and I decided that we’d send them some bubble
wrap, alright. Bubble wrap with a surprise!

Don, who was kind of a sweaty, disgusting guy took off his sweaty, stinky
wool dress socks and we wrapped them in a six-inch thick layer of bubble
wrap, slapped a shipping label on it and put it by the back door for the
inter-store transfers the next day, giggling at the thought of the guys at
the other store opening it up.

Somehow, we decided that putting the package in the break room microwave
would head Don’s sweaty socks and make them that much more pungent when the
package was opened.

What we didn’t count on was the microwave SETTING FIRE to the package,
filling the break room with acrid plastic smoke!

In a panic, we snuffed out the flames and desperately fanned the air, trying
to keep the smoke alarms from going off. We succeeded, but the package still
reeked horribly, so we put it outside the back door to cool off.

When things got back to normal Don and I laughed pretty hard.

Not long after, we went out back to get the package.

It was gone.

Someone passing down the alley had found it lying by our back door, seen the
shipping label from our store (the package was about the right size for a
Sony Walkman), and stolen it!

We laughed even harder at the thought of that poor guy when he opened the
package.