Do You Carry Anything For Luck?

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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I carry a pocket knife, have for years, and I use it (whichever one) every day. I open boxes, envelopes, cut flower stems, open pill bottle plastic and trim the foil off wine bottles, open mail, whittle. Oddly, I didn't in the Navy nor in grad school after that, but then I reverted to my childhood habit of carrying a pocket knife and have for decades. I prefer carbon steel, but often carry stainless if the size and blade is otherwise right. I don't know if any of this is superstition or just practicality.
 

Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916

macaroni

Lifer
Oct 28, 2020
1,006
3,113
Texas
I try not to carry anything except a wallet in my pants or shorts pockets, or they seem to fall down -- even with my belt! LOL. I like having stuff in my shirt or vest pockets that I used to carry in my pants :). No good luck charms, knives, tactical pens, guns--but I used to (i.e., Rohrbaugh 9mm, Seecamp .380, S&W lightweight snubbie .357, and once or twice a 3" 1911--in a coat pocket -- shoulder and belt rigs worked best for me with 1911's :)

Sometimes my rosarie, but i get it tangled up in my wad of keys!

Now, phone, keys, wallet--plus the really important stuff--2 pipe tools, 2 lighters always--and sometimes a lit pipe in my shirt pocket LOL--these last items make me feel good!

kindly
mike
 
Mar 11, 2020
1,404
4,476
Southern Illinois
Bet it smells like ass in there ?
Depends on the department. Some are bad some are good. I am in an office 70% of the time but on the floor can get alittle bad. We used to swear they mixed elephant dung in with the rubber. We do mix a lot of different thing in the rubber, Chili pepper, grape seed oil and etc. We have a plant in Russia that replaces rubber with a wild dandelion native to Russia and it makes a nice tire with a renewable source
 

cigrmaster

Lifer
May 26, 2012
20,249
57,280
66
Sarasota Florida
Back in 1984 - 1986 Iwas a salesman in the car business. The first customer I ever had I sold him a car. A few days later was the annual Washington birthday car sale in the car business. for some stupid reason people thought they would get better deals on that day, they didn't.

At the end of the day I had sold 7 cars and second place was 3. The managers were speechless, the owner was my new best friend and they all wanted to know how I did it. I just laughed and said this is what a talented salesman does, not some dumb ass order taker.

The tie I had on that day became my lucky tie. If I ever went 2 days without selling a car, I would bring it out and it never failed. I didn't wear it everyday as I knew that it needed rest to get back to full power.

My last year as a salesman was October 1986 and then I became a manager after that. We had a 2 month contest for a trip to Aruba. I decided that I would win the contest and that was that. Each new car was a point and each used car was a point. The first month of the contest I delivered out the door 38 cars, second place was 18. I crushed it so bad they changed the rules making new cars still the one point but then made used cars 2 points trying to slow me down.

I sold 14 used and 9 new and no one even hit my 38 from september. I won the trip and had a blast. I did my first ever scuba diving and I was hooked. My 38 cars is still the record at the company I worked for and most people can't even conceive of doing something like that. Once a year or 2 I call my buddy who still works there as the finance manager and he tells me year after year no one has even hit 30 much less than 38.
I wore my lucky tie every day for that contest and after the car business, never wore it again. I started my own business in June of 1990. I still miss the car biz as the action was fun and I was a really good manager by the time I hung it up. I trained lots of salesman and everyone was a killer except for a rare few. I had complete rookies who never sold a thing making 50 grand their first year. My guys were always at the top of the leaderboard as there were always contests. My first manager job was truck manager. In 3 months or so we went from 35th in the zone of New England to number 3. My bosses couldn't believe it and I began making 10 grand bonus checks as I was hitting numbers they never thought possible so they had a 15% level that I would blow through. They took me off as truck manager and made me a sales manager for the entire dealership. They gave me a 50 grand salary and 5 percent of the net of the sales department.
It was a pay cut buy around a grand a month but I didn't bitch as I was still making good money especially for the late 80's.

I don't know what I did with the tie as once I opened my own business I never wore a tie to work again. Was it the tie or was it that I outworked any salesman or manager. I made a few managers look useless. I think it was a little of both.
 

Jaylotw

Lifer
Mar 13, 2020
1,062
4,063
NE Ohio
@cigrmaster your story sounds a lot like my brother’s. He had a lucky watch, though. Then he turned that lucky watch into a custom watch business which took off, enabling him to quit managing a sales floor and then quit the car biz entirely.

I think it’s a confidence booster having a lucky item. Confidence is the salesman’s best ally, and knowing that you’ve got your “lucky” item with you makes your confidence soar.
 
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