I worked for Apprion until about a year ago. When I left I promised myself to never again take a job in which I had to deal with the public. Of course now I'm working at the coffee shop down the street, but I try to keep my interactions with customers short and simple. You get the ones that want to talk about the weather or how they don't feel like going to work and that sort of thing. But all they're really looking for is an audience. You know, they talk and you listen and react appropriately. I can handle that.

With Apprion I often had to go out and meet with clients. Such interactions were inevitably more complex, particularly since I had to keep in mind that I could not criticize the company I was working for, even when such criticism was called for. These boundaries prevented me from coming off as a trustworthy and honest individual. The customers always knew that I had an agenda, or, at least, that there was an agenda that I had to abide by.

I remember once I went out to meet with this fellow named Hayes who called us because he wanted to know more about our video surveillance products. He mentioned something about self storage facilities but didn't elaborate. He requested a meeting with a sales agent, and they tapped me for the job.

To be honest, I was never comfortable in sales. I started out doing some writing for the company, but they started outsourcing for that stuff, so they offered me the choice of changing positions or resigning. At the time I thought that they would eventually come to realize what a big mistake they had made by getting rid of the in-house writing team, so I thought I should stick around. Of course that day never came, at least as far as I know.

Anyway, this Hayes fellow gave us an address in Palo Alto, but he didn't tell us that his office was on the second floor of a miserable old shopping centre. I drove by the place twice before I realized that it was the right address. I had to go around back to get to the door that led upstairs.

I found the right room number and knocked at the door. There was no answer at first. I looked in inside through a little window in the door, and all I could see was an empty lobby. The place looked abandoned. I knocked again.

After about a minute, Hayes came into view and opened the door. "Sorry about that, " he said. "I don't even know how long you've been here."

"Not long, " I said, shaking hands with him.

"I was on a call and I completely lost track of time, " he said. "You should have banged on the door. It's hard to hear from my office."

"I'll know for next time, " I said.

"There's the salesmanship right there, " Hayes said. "You've already got our future mapped out."

He led me through the empty lobby into his office, which was not visible from the door. The office itself was furnished properly, with a desk and chairs and prints framed on the walls. He saw me looking around and figured out what I was thinking. "I rented more space than I needed, " he said. "There should be a small company working out of here. But it's only me. The thing is that the rent was so cheap."

"I'm guessing everyone else works at your facilities, " I said.

Hayes sat down behind his desk. I took a chair on the other side. "I don't understand you, " Hayes then said.

"I was under the impression that you were in the storage business, " I said.

Hayes smiled at that. "I clearly gave the wrong impression, " he then said.

"I'm getting this second-hand, " I told him. "They said that you didn't say much. I didn't take the call myself."

"I suppose I was a bit cryptic, " Hayes said. "I made it quite clear that I was willing to spend quite a bit of money, however. I suppose that's all you need to know at first."

"We make money if we meet the needs of our customers, " I said.

"There you go again, " Hayes said. "Are you sure you're really up for this kind of job?"

"I'm not sure what you're saying, " I told him.

"Have you made any sales yet?" Hayes said. "You're clearly quite new at this. I hope I'm not offending you. I'm just pointing out the obvious."

"This is the first time I've got out on my own, " I said. "If you'll allow me to be honest, nobody really seemed to want to deal with you. One of the other guys even thought you might be a serial killer that deals in salespeople."

Hayes laughed. "So we both make bad impressions, " he said. "Maybe you're the right man for this job after all."

"I'm still not quite clear what you're interest is in our products, " I said. "What kind of business are you in?"

"That's not an easy question to answer, " Hayes told me.

"Give me a general idea, " I said. "We can go from there."

Hayes quite suddenly stood straight up. "How would you like to go for a drive?" he then said.

"Now you're making me think that you really are a serial killer, " I said.

"You're wondering what I do, " he said. "I can't explain it. I really can't. You'll have to trust me here."

I thought about his offer for a moment. "I guess I need the sale, " I said.

"Of course you do, " he told me. "So let's get going."

We took Hayes' car and drove out to Milpitas. We got on the Sinclair and got right off of it again, and then we pulled into a self storage facility right off the freeway.

"So you are in the storage business, " I said.

"It's not that, " he said. "I rent space here."

We drove towards the back of the lot and pulled up beside one of the larger units in the facility. "Here we are, " Hayes said.

We got out of the car and Hayes went over to his unit. He unlocked a padlock on the side and swung the door open. He then walked inside and switched on a light. "Come in, " he told me.

The room had stacks of boxes along every wall that were two and three deep in places. There was just barely enough room for the two of us to step inside. Hayes looked around, admiring the scene. "This is what I need you to secure, " he said. "I have units like this all over the place. Nearly a dozen."

"I'm sure the company that owns this place has its own security, " I said.

"It's not enough, " he told me. "I want something I can control myself."

"We can't just install our equipment on their property, " I said.

"You put it inside each unit, " Hayes said. "We can power everything with batteries, right?"

"The smallest units do well enough on battery power, " I said.

"I'll change them when I need to, " he told me. "I visit every location nearly every day anyway."

"I'm still not sure I can get the company onboard with this idea, " I told him. "I don't understand why you don't move everything to a more secure facility, if that's the problem."

"I want a system that I can control myself, " Hayes said. "I told you that already. Don't you see? I want it so that I can monitor everything from my office myself. I don't trust anyone else to keep everything safe."

"Like I said, I can't approve this myself, " I told him.

"That's why you're a terrible salesperson, " Hayes said. He then reached towards one of the boxes in front of him and opened it. Inside were stacks of papers. He pulled one sheet out and showed it to me.

"Look at this, " he said. "This is why I need to keep everything so safe."

Now, here is the interesting part. When Hayes wasn't looking, I managed to get out my cell phone and take a picture of the sheet of paper that he had handed me. I told him I had to go outside to read it, and he started fussing about with some of the other boxes when I left. So he didn't notice when I took the photograph. And the thing is that I still have it stored on my computer at home, and I can pull it up and tell you what was on it.

It was a regular white sheet of paper with a list of years running along the side. Beside each year there are a few sentences that seem to be describing events that took place during that time. On the sheet Hayes handed me, the first five years are filled in as follows:

"1171. An outsider came to town and spoke in a peculiar language. A local priest claimed that the language was ancient in nature, but that he did not have the skill to decipher it. The outsider was forced to leave.

"1172. A spring flood caused many buildings along the riverbank to collapse. Much of the rest of the year was spent rebuilding what was lost.

"1173. A group of local scholars claimed that they had deciphered a hidden message inside Scripture. They sent their findings to Rome.

"1174. A militia passed through town on their way to a war that was being waged further north. They demanded rations for their journey. We did not hesitate to comply.

"1175. News came to us from a number of travelers that wars were breaking out in all directions. We put plans in place to form a local militia in case the need arose to defend ourselves. A great number of honorable men volunteered to take up this cause."

It goes on like this for the rest of the page, and I can only assume that all of Hayes' boxes were filled with this sort of stuff. In any event, after I went out and read this thing and took the picture, I went back inside the storage unit.

"I hope you understand why I'm so eager to keep all this safe, " Hayes said.

"I still don't understand, I think, " I said.

Hayes grabbed the sheet of paper out of my hands. "Of course you don't understand, " he said.

"We'll do what we can to meet your needs, " I told him.

"You should listen to yourself, " Hayes said. "It's no wonder you don't recognize the importance of the information I let you see."

"I don't get what one has to do with the other, " I told him.

"This is real life right here, " Hayes said, sweeping an arm across the room. "This is stuff that happened to real people. And the thing is that nobody wants it to get out. Don't you get that? If people found out that this kind of information existed, it would change everything. It would wreak havoc wherever it spread."

"I'm not so sure about that, " I said.

"Look at the volume of information around you, " Hayes told me. "And multiply this by maybe a dozen. Don't you get it? This would cause mass chaos if it got out. Nobody would be able to comprehend it all. They wouldn't be able to comprehend the idea that it even existed."

"I'll have to take your word for it, " I told him.

"You have to get out of this job, " Hayes told me. "You should hear yourself. You're not even a real person anymore."

We went back to Hayes' office after that and worked out some details concerning his security needs. I filed my notes back at the office, and called Hayes a few times after that to clear up a few details. But I don't think Apprion ever sold him the equipment he wanted. As I suspected, they didn't want anything to do with him after they found out what he had planned.

Hayes was right about me quitting that job, though. It was the right thing to do. He knew that before I did.