Imagine the shock to my system when I am touted as the country’s next tycoon – in line with Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, or even the rich and famous-for-being-famous Kim Kardashian.
Let’s be realistic. All I wanted was a side hustle as a part-time government contract editor to supplement my income from Social Security and pension after I retired from my day job.
The contracting rules said I needed an official name for my new startup. Something that people might remember. Brothers and sisters, did they ever.
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Riffing from an episode of Seinfeld, I half-seriously went with the name, Vandelay USA -- a take on Vandelay Industries, which an unemployed George Costanza made up as the name for an imaginary firm, and lied to the employment counselor that he was close to getting a job as their latex salesman.
Immediately after my brand hit the market, someone called surveying how much income Vandelay had generated over the past year. In a voice brimming with excitement, he claimed that he could spur my company’s growth potential to unlimited bounds. Only my hesitancy to sign up with him could stunt that growth.
I tried to assure this guy that he was under the wrong impression. My company had no growth potential. It consisted of only one person: me. Maybe he didn’t hear right as he chattered on. Act this instant, he advised, and Vandelay could turn huge monetary profits. His sales shtick promised that before long, I could be living somewhere fancy, such as in a mansion in the Greek islands.
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Oh, sure. Not to be rude by hanging up, I let him spew his spiel even as I talked over him, while he continued talking over me.
Finally, I said, I better go now because all wonderful things like this conversation have to end. Which meant our deal fell through, especially since there was no deal to begin with.
Shortly thereafter, someone who identified himself as “Jerry” called, asking for “Mr. Vandelay.” He said earnestly that he would like to “crunch some numbers” regarding my startup.
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I tried using humor on Jerry, joking that the only crunching I do is when eating cornflakes and popcorn. Then I added more seriously, “My company’s gone belly-up. We’re bankrupt. Kaput. Finito. So hasta la vista.”
My supposed insolvency didn’t seem to faze him at all. Five seconds later, the phone rang again from the same Jerry. By now, I figured he had contacted me from a call center. It sounded like Jerry was affecting a folksy Midwestern accent to make me feel like we were both just down-home folks doing legitimate business. He addressed me as “buddy.”
The time had come to lay down the law. “Jerry, if you call here again,” I warned in my best official all-business tone, “I’ll have no choice but to call the Better Business Bureau to report that you’re harassing me. Okay? Jerry?”
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“Actually,” Jerry said, sounding out of breath from being overly excited, “the Better Business Bureau is the one that highly recommended your company to us as innovating and cutting-edge, with growth potential out of this world.” And then he added, suddenly sounding bitter, “If you hang up on me, Vandelay, I’ll just call you back again.”
I didn’t take that threat lying down, even if when he said it, I was standing up. This time I let him know the police would be contacted if he called here again. That seemed to work because my phone went silent.
But the bar on my solicitations was raised even higher when a few days, later I received a check in the mail made out to Vandelay USA for a $49,400 loan to be used as “business working capital.” The California company that sent the check said all I had to do was sign on the dotted line and to get in touch with them within 30 days – at which point the money would be all mine, “no strings attached.”
I had qualified for the funds, they said, because my company showed “tremendous financial possibilities.” In very small print at the bottom of the company’s letter was a statement that the loan came with a 10.5 percent interest rate.
Please. Was this company delusional, offering only $49,400? Maybe I was developing a swelled head after hearing such a buildup about Vandelay. I figured by now I was worth double or triple that amount. My company’s policy was they needed to put some serious figures on the proverbial table before we could talk turkey.
More time passed, and Vandelay kept being solicited. Enough of these come-ons. I finally called the contracting government agency to have Vandelay USA listed as being removed from the market. I thought that would alert America that Vandelay was gone and hopefully forgotten.
Soon after, I received a letter from another group in California claiming that Vandelay had already been approved for a $250,000 loan, again as “business working capital.” Included in the letter was a check for $59,600. I didn’t bother to look at the bottom line for the interest rate as I deposited the letter into the round file.
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Things suddenly took a different, slightly more menacing turn. Somebody called, leaving a scary garbled message, which sounded like he was asking for (in all seriousness) the Vandelay CEO. He wanted to know if my company was mixed up in DEI and what percentage of minorities was Vandelay hiring – which sounded dangerous, and a possible investigation into whether I was challenging the Trump administration’s hatred of diversity and “wokeness.” I played it safe by not returning the call.
I don’t mean to boast. But with all this attention, I must say that the next thing that could happen is that Vandelay will be listed as one of America’s top companies. Which means that with any luck, Mr. Jeff Bezos and his little mom-and-pop Amazon shop might want to pay u folks here at Vandelay a princely sum in a hostile corporate takeover.
If that happens, I’ll be out of the Vandelay business. But you never know. I might seek a new side hustle. With all apologies to George Costanza, I won’t rule out getting into latex.
Author Bio:
Eric Green, a Highbrow Magazine contributor, is a former newspaper reporter, U.S. congressional press aide, English-as-a-second-language teacher, and now a freelance writer in the Washington D.C. area. His articles have appeared in various newspapers and websites, including the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun.
For Highbrow Magazine