TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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CLIENT: Pretty hard.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what are your thoughts about the time? Pretty hard.

CLIENT: I mean I have one day off a week and this is it. I’ve been working pretty hard and just scheduling today was difficult. I don’t know…

THERAPIST: Too early or something? [inaudible]

CLIENT: It’s just difficult to plan around. I mean taking a bus is sucking and stuff. I don’t know, I’m just getting into what I want talk about.

THERAPIST: It’s what?

CLIENT: I’m getting into what I want to talk about but I don’t know what to say for a time.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Everything sucks.

THERAPIST: What’s that?

CLIENT: Everything sucks.

THERAPIST: Everything sucks time wise? Yeah.

CLIENT: Well no, just in general.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. Well I just… okay. Yeah. Do you want to just talk about it at the end then or… I don’t want to derail you. [1:10]

CLIENT: You don’t have any time Tuesday, huh?

THERAPIST: Tuesday the… you were hoping afternoon, after four or something like that?

CLIENT: Yeah, like five.

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, I don’t. I don’t. But… I have standing stuff at that time.

CLIENT: Six o’clock, six thirty?

THERAPIST: Nothing. And I usually I cut out of here at 6:30. And my last appointment I have a kind of standing time with somebody. Yeah, anything else that…

CLIENT: I mean Sundays on the weekends would be good but I mean… this is okay I just… I don’t know. [2:16]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean one… I certainly can let you know when something comes open. What I tend to do is let people have… unless something really has to change in my schedule, like if I have a commitment or something, I try not to have people move if they… if I can help it.

CLIENT: Right, yeah, I don’t mean to jerk you around.

THERAPIST: No, no, no, I don’t feel jerked around. What I could do, though, is kind of let you know if that comes open. I just can’t say that it’ll happen sometime soon. And yeah (pause) Yeah and I just don’t work on the weekends. (pause)

CLIENT: What’s the rest of Thursday look like? [3:36] What’s open?

THERAPIST: That… this ten o’clock is… for right now is it. It’ll probably be the case in May that stuff opens up a lot on Thursday. But for the next two months this, on Thursday’s, about it. Yeah, I mean there are times when people cancel and stuff and… but I know for you and I, no, I have this time.

CLIENT: You don’t have anything around four or five again?

THERAPIST: No. Yeah, those are the people that like those hours, yeah.

CLIENT: Okay, well I’ll just stick to this until it stops working. But I can’t commit to it long term so I… that’s… on a future day I’ll probably randomly say oh, they told me to work this day or something. [4:45]

THERAPIST: No, I get… yeah, no I see. I’m… so next week would be okay though?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: The following week I’m on… I’m going to be away. I’m going to be out that week, the week of the 17th. So here next week and then out the following week.

CLIENT: Great. [ph?]

THERAPIST: Yeah, sorry for the short notice. I just... I didn’t realize it… my plans until last week. [inaudible]

CLIENT: Busy schedule.

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, totally. Yeah, I’m packed. But I obviously want to… yeah, no, I didn’t realize what this time meant to you and what it was like, so… and Fridays were kind of out, huh?

CLIENT: Fridays were good for a while but I have to work Fridays.

THERAPIST: You’ve got to work Fridays. Yeah, no, I don’t mean to put you into a corner here with this time but I guess that is what is the only thing that I have for us. [6:19] Again, by May things’ll be different. (pause) Yeah, how is this all landing [sp?] with you though?

CLIENT: We’re wasting time.

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, go ahead. I don’t mean to (pause) Where are you at? [9:13]

CLIENT: I’m sort of sifting through things. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, what are you sifting through?

CLIENT: I had some experiences this week [inaudible] manic thoughts about selling or representing your own interest. (pause) Plus about you, what your life’s like.

THERAPIST: What way? What about my life?

CLIENT: Well not working weekends, leaving at 6:30. I wonder whether you come in at ten.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what about that? [11:34] (pause)

CLIENT: It seems kind of pretty.

THERAPIST: Pretty?

CLIENT: Yeah, like cushy.

THERAPIST: Cushy, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Easy?

CLIENT: Not necessarily.

THERAPIST: Cushy though.

CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t know why it can’t just be easy. I mean there’s the thought with it that… I mean however you choose to live your life supports what you do, which is your work and your therapy. And it’s necessary to the service you provide.

THERAPIST: What if it’s cushy or pretty?

CLIENT: If it weren’t you might not be good at what you do. [12:53] If it’s cushy… I mean I’m contrasting it with my own experience.

THERAPIST: Which is?

CLIENT: Which is getting up at 7:30 and then getting back at 10:00.

THERAPIST: How many days are you working?

CLIENT: Six. (pause)

THERAPIST: That doesn’t sound pretty or cushy or easy.

CLIENT: No, and it’s not the work itself that’s the problem. It’s the pressure it creates just by the amount of time it takes up, the time to think or collect myself or (pause)

THERAPIST: That’s extraordinarily long hours.

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s not every day, just a couple of days.

THERAPIST: A couple of days you’ve got to pull out that.

CLIENT: I mean every day I have to get up, so 7:30. 7:30, I mean not 7:30. I mean I have to be at the bus at 7:30 so I have to get up at 6:00. And the bus has just been [inaudible] watch two buses pull out just as I got there. So in the morning the bus left just as I [inaudible] I got there. So… and I missed it. And then when I left for work the bus left too. So I mean you feel kind of powerless. It’s pretty aggravating.

THERAPIST: Yeah, is that why you were late today? [15:03]

CLIENT: Yeah, missed the bus today. I mean I spent a lot of time trying to put this date together. I had a list of things to do and they just weren’t fitting correctly. And so I’m having lunch with someone at 1:00 but there’s two hours between the end of that and this. And so I mean nothing really fit together quite right. I’m going to go into work today, too, so this week it’ll be seven days a week. But yeah, I missed… the buses weren’t running favorably. So there’s one at 9:30 that I checked, too late. Because I said oh, I’m only 3 miles away so I assumed that I kind of [inaudible] it up to the bus. Twenty minutes in advance I should be okay, which isn’t to say I always do it though. Yeah, the buses… so I missed the bus at 9:30 just by laying in bed. And at 9:55 or something this bus came. And then I very well managed [inaudible] something wrong. So they keep [inaudible] delayed. Like during a snowstorm I had a class at 7:40 and I planned to meet the same person before the class. So I think we planned to meet at 6:30. So I got to the bus in time to arrive… at the stop in time to arrive at 6:30. But because the buses were piled up in a weird way the bus got me there just in time for class, an hour later. [16:41] So that’s…

THERAPIST: [inaudible] this year?

CLIENT: Well yeah, we could [inaudible] but it’s just to show that the bus is pretty bad [inaudible] I don’t want to be on the bus. So I mean I missed the bus yesterday. I… so I just wait in this pizza shop and read a book about parasails, which is pretty engaging. And so I catch the next bus just barely. And I get home and there’s someone from my church eating with the lady whose house I live in. [inaudible] pasta and meatballs and sauce and soup and crackers and then popcorn. And so I was eating that and then the lady was trying to schedule when I’m going to work on the newsletter for this month. So I said Thursday and [inaudible] and all that stuff. Then I went upstairs and then I fell asleep. I woke up and I tried to plan my day today. So after I leave here I think I’ll go shopping while listening to this story on the radio about car dealerships. And then read [inaudible] meet my friend, then go back, drink coffee [inaudible] groceries [inaudible] just trying to put it together. It’s not very interesting or important. [18:34]

THERAPIST: But it’s… what is the… so the… kind of the feeling of having the… it’s sort of something to schedule, not buses be all fucked up and having that… kind of be places and [inaudible]

CLIENT: I want to do more than I have the means to [inaudible] accomplish. I haven’t sold a car yet. And people are supportive of me at the business, and they’ve fired other people. But they… I mean then I… you wonder.

THERAPIST: They’ve fired other salesmen?

CLIENT: No. Well they fired a BGC [sp?] woman. And yeah, they did fire another salesman.

THERAPIST: What’s a B… a what woman?

CLIENT: She develops business. She calls people. She’s like a sales… she’s like a primer. She’s… she tries to get people in there.

THERAPIST: I see, past customers or something like that?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, I don’t want to be a burden. I mean I want to do well and the guy’s, the general manager, he was pumping me up before, some time ago. He [inaudible] in about two weeks. So he said you’re going to do great for the business. You have no problem. He was asking for information [inaudible] the guy’s just pumping me up and pumping me up, and so I just keep asking for information. And so I shut him down. I mean my biggest supporter. [20:23] The guy that’s the general manager. He’s just telling me how great I’m going to be in the business. But I need certain facts about how things go. And I kind of wish he was still pumping me up a little bit. He still does it [inaudible] He’s a character. But I need to feel a little more natural.

THERAPIST: How’s it been going, trying to sell? You’re selling new ones? What’s it been like?

CLIENT: I get to know some people. I’ve… recently I got really worried about the impressions I make on my superiors. So I think I’ve been looking for it but not… but doing less and less well. I mean every time I don’t sell someone it’s more of a burden of doubt. It’s a burden of doubt and I’m really afraid of failure. I’m afraid of failing. So I’ve got to a point, psychologically, where I don’t want to approach new customers because I don’t want to fail myself or the dealership in that way. Because it costs money to bring them in and all that stuff. I just… yeah, I don’t want to. I don’t want to approach them. [21:51] I approach each person, or I used to, with the [inaudible] of if they’re here, they want to buy a car. So no matter what they say they took the time to come here. But it’s… I mean I’ve been accepting excuses lately from people. And yeah, I’m afraid of failure I think. Because I mean I think where I’ve been or the only place I’ve accepted myself is being… is a friend of the pack or doing very well wherever I am, which is better than everyone around me. And it’s not really acceptable to me that I wouldn’t be very good at whatever I’m doing. So that’s related. I’m afraid of not doing well. [22:58]

THERAPIST: I think, too, there’s something here, too, though, about it also being about persuasion or something, or influence. What kind of… I mean just to say it strikes me as somewhat similar as your experience with that woman that we last discussed, and your feelings around closing the deal with her. It has a very similar quality. And it’s almost like this… taking this job is a way of trying to work on this kind of… I see it as in some way you’ve been wanting to feel more of a sense of hey, I can impact, I can persuade, I have… not just because of the art or a skill, maybe that, but also that… a connectiveness, a kind of feeling of place and importance, respect, influence. And I think you come into it with a lob of doubt about that.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: I also think it must’ve been… I mean it wasn’t good that we didn’t get to meet last week. [24:48]

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: While you were going through all this [inaudible]

CLIENT: Yeah, also my school came up. I mean I was… the general manager was asking me about where I went to school. And the sales manager, too, was there. We were talking. They were saying Lawrenceville has these alumni events. Do you ever talk to people from there. And I just said something like… I mean the core [ph?] of the school’s pretty preppy. I know people at the fringes but I didn’t… so [inaudible] people. [inaudible] body of people. And I remember the general manager sort of walking away, turn his back and [inaudible] disappointment. It was a very instantaneous reaction. So I mean [inaudible] prospective business contacts but… and there’s also the fact that I’m pretty privileged. And the only way I sort of… the only outlook of it is that it’s sort of bruised feelings about the experience. [26:21] I mean the guy himself had just been talking momentarily about how he’d done his job. I mean he’d paid for his daughter’s school and when she got out of there she was on her own. And that’s all he wanted to do was get her a car and get her through college. And that’s it. Hands off after that. And he’d be… if she has a diploma he’d be happy. So he’d just finished saying that and so that made me think. It made me wonder if maybe what I was afraid of at the time when I was going to the high school was that they would take me back, that I would have to go back home, or there would be this idea that I wasn’t ready for the challenges that I was facing. And maybe that was a… pushing back a reality, that I experienced too much too quickly. And so Lawrenceville, just like you might think of masturbation, with me Lawrenceville is sort of a catchall for a sort of an adverse experience of growing up, sort of a compilation of some necessary experiences put together too soon maybe. Because it wasn’t the structure that I’d been used to up to that point. [27:52] So the way… I know when you have parents and they’re in your life they sort of control the flow of new information, the flow of experiences you have. There’s a regulation there. But when you’re… when they’re not in your life that valve is gone. That’s the thought. But I mean the fact is that I’m still thinking about Lawrenceville and it’s still sort of a bruising experience years later. I mean I put my eyes down and I don’t know what to say about it. It’s…

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: And we haven’t gotten through that. And I mean that’s one explanation but I could have a different explanation next week. My conclusion about it, though, is it’s really that I… I mean I had a good experience and I… or it wasn’t a good experience but I was fortunate to experience those things at an earlier age than other people. [29:07] The general manager said the same thing that other people have said since I was eight years old. So I mean you look so much like I have a [ph?] five year old and then [inaudible] but I was 35 or something.

THERAPIST: What does that mean to you? They miss something?

CLIENT: I don’t know. I don’t really expect to be understood anymore, but it’s wonderful when I am. [inaudible] to be old, to be perceived as older?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. Like misperceived though.

CLIENT: I mean they’re seeing something [inaudible] perception, so in spite of who I am I take things seriously. I work hard; I don’t respond very emotionally.

THERAPIST: I… see, I don’t know if this is right but one thing that I think of is that people have come to maybe expect and see in you a kind of a gifted guy, and have put you in a lot of situations where they expect you to kind of… they expect that you’d thrive or something without a lot of support. [31:00] I was just thinking about… in terms of the general manager pumping you up and not giving you any practical help or something like that. And what I was thinking about Lawrenceville is that okay, yeah, intellectually you were ready, you were ready for that experience, but there was something about the emotional and the psychological experience where you were still an adolescent. You needed help. You needed support. You needed somebody who was helping you grow in that way. You weren’t… yeah, you maybe had a sophisticated kind of intellect but you were still growing as a teenager in the same way as a lot of people. And it was hard for you. Lawrenceville was hard for you, I think. less intellectually, more kind of emotionally, socially. (pause)

CLIENT: I had a wonderful dream somewhere that we… I had just finished watching Biography movies on redheads and stuff, and then I had this wonderful dream about this girl I met in high school, Rachel Wilder. [32:37] She was beautiful and she was… I mean if there were two girls who were really attractive in that grade she was one of them, probably the most attractive. In ninth grade I started flirting with her, and I was doing okay. But then one time she was walking by and I sort of… I slapped her ass with a ruler in front of some other guys. She didn’t like that very much. So we didn’t talk much after that.

THERAPIST: That was it?

CLIENT: I don’t know, I… yeah, I didn’t do as well. I was sort of crowded out slowly by other guys. But it was just very sweet. She sort of stuck with me as a genuine affection that I had. But she came back to me in a dream, and she wasn’t young; she was grown up and vivacious. I don’t remember much about it but I had the dream, and it was a natural [ph?] experience. It felt… you feel grounded. You feel like yourself in a dream sometimes. And I was… I remember we, I don’t know, I… there was some sort of intercourse with her that wasn’t…

THERAPIST: You got the girl.

CLIENT: Well it wasn’t sexual. It was… I didn’t get it, it was we just talked or something. I approached her confidently or something like that. Then I woke up and masturbated and felt horrible. And it does affect me, too, when I don’t have as much pep on the job. I’m beginning to… I mean I’m beginning to wonder, and I don’t want to reemphasize this now, I mean I wonder whether I shoot myself in the foot sometimes because I’m afraid of failing or afraid of successes or something like that. [34:38] I mean it’s difficult because the bosses actually… they really like me. They relate to me. They appreciate me. And that makes it difficult for me somehow. I just… I don’t know how to deal with that.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what do you find? How does that affect you, these guys liking you, your superiors liking you?

CLIENT: I don’t know how to act. I guess I want to keep them going and I’m afraid I’ll lose them. And so I start getting uptight or something.

THERAPIST: It makes you anxious in some way.

CLIENT: It’s never earned with me. It’s like a performance I have to keep going. And it’s more and more pressure the longer it goes on.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, okay, got it. As if you’ve got to keep providing whatever they’re seeing; you have to live up to that.

CLIENT: Yeah, and it’s not just with the bosses, either. It’s some sort of expectation. It’s like I can’t just be loved as I am but I… it just doesn’t exist.

THERAPIST: What do you think they see in you? What is it that you feel they see? [35:56]

CLIENT: Well spoken, I can relate to people well, people come to me after I meet them, smart, confident. I think somewhere deep down I am a salesman in a very deep sense. But I can’t get in touch with that maybe. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, and you’re anxious about letting them down too.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) There was a girl on the bus, I see her every Tuesday. The first time I saw her I said hello. Next time, sat near her, talked to her for a bit. Next time, sat next to her, e-mailed her album [ph?] Next Tuesday I saw her, she was just on the phone. She just ignored me. So I mean I read a book. And talked to her. A funny thing happened though. So I mean I [inaudible] this girl and told her so I’ll see you every Tuesday or whatever. And I said that the first time. Then I’m reaching out to people randomly, just because you never know who might want to buy a car but…

THERAPIST: Yeah, I think I was propositioned on your way out last time. [37:58]

CLIENT: Oh really? I didn’t… I don’t remember.

THERAPIST: You were joking but it… or maybe not; I don’t know.

CLIENT: No, that’s just you. You must have imagined that so (laughter)

THERAPIST: It’s a wish.

CLIENT: It must be coming out of your subconscious. That’s something you deeply need. (laughter)

THERAPIST: I wouldn’t be bringing it up if I really didn’t need it.

CLIENT: All right, but anyway, this girl, yeah, she just ignored me, and so I just ignored her because I picked up on it quickly. I mean I just… she’s talking on the cell phone, I’m not going to try… and I was thinking at first of just approaching her and, I don’t know, fooling around with her or something. But she’s on the cell phone so to me that’s a statement of saying you don’t matter to me. I don’t know whether it’s some girl mind game, but the funny thing was, I’m reading there. She’s right here standing up and I’m reading right here. And then this woman next to me reaches out and grabs her bag and shakes her bag and as like do you want to sit here? Do you want to sit here? And the girl turns around, she’s like what are you talking… and the lady’s like do you want to sit here. And I’m just watching the whole thing because it’s something she would expect I would do, is ask her to sit with me. [39:21] But instead, this woman right next to me did it. It’s just…

THERAPIST: Sitting next to you, suggest that she sit next to you?

CLIENT: So I’ve got a person here, I’m sitting here, this woman here and an empty seat there. And so the woman grabbed the girl’s bag and says do you want to sit next to me. And she said no. But she was… I mean that’s something she would think I would do.

THERAPIST: You would do.

CLIENT: Right. Did I tell you about the blind guy?

THERAPIST: I don’t think so.

CLIENT: No? Well my manager has a saying that it doesn’t matter whether they have one eye, one leg, one eye, they’re deaf, dumb, retarded, blind. You’re going to sell them a car. So once, when a blind guy came into the dealership, I knew I had to try. (laughter) I’m going through the aerodynamics and showing him how it feels and stuff and how cool it is, the interior and stuff like that. But the guy had this car he’s upside down on. He owes $8000 and he wants to trade it in. So the only thing he could possibly buy is a used car. So I decided it wouldn’t make much of a difference and I’d just get this car that’s two years old that he could actually afford that’s the same model. And I’m showing him all the features and the cool design and how there’s extra hood [ph?] space and stuff. [40:50] And he likes it. We go for a test drive and then I get out, and usually when a customer takes the keys I just tell them to hold on to the keys. It’s a psychological thing. So the guy takes the keys, they try to hand them to you, you say no, that’s okay, you hold on to them. And so they have the keys, right. Well this guy, he’s blind, right, and he just tosses the keys on my lap. And I say well don’t you want the car. He says it’s… everything’s great but it’s used. It’s like… so he could smell it. It was just [inaudible]

THERAPIST: So he wanted a new one but at the right price or something.

CLIENT: He absolutely needed a new one, and he thought that the car he had just financed and made four payments on was worth something. But it was not.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. I guess it begs the question how the hell was he driving.

CLIENT: Yeah, he wasn’t. I made that part up. But he had his caretaker with him so (laughter)

THERAPIST: So she… the caretaker or whomever drives him around.

CLIENT: Yeah, very stubborn.

THERAPIST: Tough [inaudible]

CLIENT: Yeah. He just wouldn’t listen to reason. [42:09]

THERAPIST: Yeah, how… so what have you been finding… I know we have to stop in a minute but what have you been finding a struggle? What’s been the thing for you that… what have you been finding getting in the way? What’s been challenging about…

CLIENT: Selling a car?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I don’t know how much to listen to people anymore. If someone says they’re on a lunch break, do I adjust my process for that or do I just keep going, assuming they’re lying. Someone drives up in a car and they don’t even… I mean they’ve parked the car and it’s still running. How do I bring them into the dealership?

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah.

CLIENT: Also, I have to shut up when my manager comes in. I mean here are people with 17 or more years of experience selling cars, so they tell me just to be quiet. Once the manager comes in, then pay attention to the manager so he can do the work so the person’s not distracted and feel like two people are digging into him. But to me, of course, there are sometimes things that I’d do differently at that stage or things I know that the manager doesn’t know.

THERAPIST: Oh, I see, yeah.

CLIENT: That they can’t use. [43:28]

THERAPIST: Yeah, so it’s hard to know how to work as a team in that… at that time.

CLIENT: Yeah, and I need to know how to hand it off well. I need to work better with my superiors. The biggest thing for me, the worst thing that can happen, is another salesman takes someone I’ve worked on. It’s like someone jumping into bed with a woman you’ve wooed. It’s just…

THERAPIST: Yeah, isn’t that kind of…

CLIENT: That gets in my head.

THERAPIST: That happens, though, huh?

CLIENT: Well I just… when I was just starting I asked a guy whether we had something in stock, and he used that as a way to enter into my conversation. And the managers let it happen so…

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, they’re like whatever.

CLIENT: That fucks you up. That’s what Braveheart is about. That’s like the First Knight or whatever. The lords come in and screw people’s wives, the First Knight.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, right. Right.

CLIENT: It’s the same sort of thing. So I need to get mine sorted out.

THERAPIST: Okay. Listen, just to say, I’m sorry it didn’t… I didn’t have anything available last week for us. I did… I had kept it in mind, it’s just that I just… I think we talked about a Tuesday opening up and it just didn’t… but yeah, I did have it on my mind to try.

CLIENT: Yeah, I just… I hope we can keep the sessions productive so I get some space or [inaudible] in my life.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and I realize this is not easy. This is not an easy month because of what happened last week and then on vacation. So I get that. Okay, I’ll see you next Thursday then.

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