I'm All Engine, No Transmission

There is so much good to be said about people with bipolar (bipolarites) but having common sense is not one of them. Many bipolar people have said that they felt like everyone else had a rule book on how to act and what to say and do. I've never really known what to say or do. Although, at least the way I see it, I am very well adjusted, I still don't know what's appropriate and I say the most awkward things at precisely the wrong time.

Despite having no common sense, I don't also feel so limited. There are times when I feel anointed, chosen. I see things that other couldn't possibly see. I was once interviewing for a sales job where I would be selling to CEOs, CFOs, and CTOs; basically, I would reach out to these highly placed executives cold, and get commitments from them translating to sales in the $50,000-$30,000,000 range. I knew I could do the job as I was the Sales Director for one of their competitors.


They brought me in for a pre-interview where I passed off my resume and took an I.Q. test. A week later, they called me in for the actual interview. They basically put me in a large conference room with three of the firm's executives placed around me in somewhat of a death circle. For forty-five minutes, they created a mock selling environment where they fired objections at me and I would turn these objections into commitments. They tossed grenades and I handed them back origami figurines. At the end of the interview, they were high-fiving me as they had never seen anything like it. I later found out that my I.Q. test results returned the only perfect score in the history of the test.


I was given a large contract and even more expectations. At first, I did really well. My sales were off the charts. I frequently had my day interrupted by nonsensical meetings which gave my bosses and client confidence that I was the right guy. In the end, I failed miserably as so much of my job wasn't actually selling. I was supposed to schmooze clients and say and do the right things around my bosses and I didn't know what to say or do or how to act; I just knew how to get the sale. Everyday I was thrown into new and strange situations.

I was used to just selling all day at my old firm. I knew exactly how my day would be as I was the boss. Every month, I was the top sales guy; my sales were so large and frequent, no one was in second place. I typically logged more sales than my entire seventeen person sales team combined. When the new company lost half its business in the aftermath of 911, common sense should have told me I'd be the first to go. I remember walking to my car with my desk's contents feeling blindsided.


I took a job managing a warehouse which gave me a lot of time to think. It puzzled me as to where it went wrong because, at the time, I thought I was doing everything right. Because of my past, I am still courted by sales organizations with incredible offers. I turn them down remembering the pain of walking to my car with my coworkers watching through the front window.


I'm like a high tech laptop without out the software. Lizzie Simon in her book Detour, said of her childhood: "I'd didn't know how to talk like the other kids so I would just say whatever came into my head."


I frequently tell friends "I'm all engine, no transmission;" but I can sit on the side of the road and rev like no one else. VROOOM.