“I had an interview for a sales manager position. They asked me to sell them a pen. It was the third time I was asked to do this on that day, so I just looked at the expensive marker in my hands and said,
‘You know what? This pen is worthless—until you have a reason to write.’”

That got their attention. The two interviewers—one in a gray blazer, the other scrolling through something on his phone—both looked up. I kept going.

“Maybe your daughter just got accepted to college, and you need to write her a check. Or you’re signing the papers for your first home. Maybe you’re just writing ‘I’m sorry’ to someone who deserves it. This pen doesn’t sell itself. Life does.”

There was a long silence. Then the guy in the blazer smiled. “Okay,” he said. “That’s… not the pitch I was expecting.”

I thought I’d blown it. I left the building feeling like I’d just given a TED Talk to two mannequins.

But something changed that day. Not in the interview room, but inside me.

I’d been unemployed for seven months. Not fun-unemployed. Broke-unemployed. Selling furniture-on-Facebook broke. Dodging calls from the electric company broke. That interview was one of six I had that week. I kept telling people I was “between roles,” like I was some traveling executive, not someone who’d been fired from a mid-level sales job at a regional paper supply chain that folded overnight.

That job hadn’t been glamorous, but I was good at it. Numbers guy. People guy. Show-up-early, stay-late kind of worker. And suddenly, none of it mattered. I’d sent out 90 resumes. Gotten back maybe ten polite rejections and a whole lot of nothing.

The pen story? That happened on a Thursday. On Friday, I got a call—not from them, but from another company I had completely forgotten about. A startup. HR manager with a nervous voice and too many ums. She said they liked my resume and wanted to meet. Not for sales, but something called “client experience liaison.” I had no idea what that meant, but I said yes immediately.

I wore the same suit from the pen interview, even though the lining was coming loose at the cuff. Didn’t matter. What mattered was how they made me feel. Seen. Heard. Like they weren’t just looking for a sales robot.

The interview was in this little converted warehouse—half tech office, half coffee shop vibe. Open space, colorful chairs, three dogs wandering around like they owned the place. The founder was a woman named Charita, late forties, long dreadlocks, clear eyes. She didn’t ask me to sell a pen. She asked me how I would handle a customer who was angry at 10 p.m. because a shipment didn’t arrive.

I told her the truth.

“I’d apologize. Even if it wasn’t our fault. I’d listen first, fix second. People want to be heard before they want to be helped.”

She nodded slowly. Then asked if I’d be okay working on a “probationary contract” for 60 days. It paid $23/hour—less than I made before, but more than zero. I said yes.

I started on Monday.

That job didn’t change my life overnight. But something else started to happen. Slowly. I started remembering who I was before the layoff—before the bills, the doubt, the mental spiral that made me feel like a failure just for eating cereal at 2 p.m.

I started staying late again, not because I had to, but because I liked being useful. I fixed their help desk system using a spreadsheet I’d built during my old job. I helped the interns write better email templates. I even organized a potluck on a random Wednesday, which became a monthly tradition.

But the biggest thing? One night, about three weeks in, Charita asked if I could help her run through a pitch deck for an upcoming investor meeting. She’d seen me give a presentation to a client over Zoom, and she said I had “good calm energy.”

She wasn’t calm, though. She was nervous. Sweating. She kept fumbling her words.

I stopped her and said, “Let’s forget the slides. Just tell me what problem you’re solving, and why you care.”

She blinked at me. Then she did.

That night, we stayed two hours after everyone left, just talking about her startup, her family, how she used to work in customer service at an airline and how much she hated it. I listened. Asked questions. Took notes. That’s all.

The next morning, she got the funding.

Not because of me—but maybe a little because I helped her believe in her own voice.

After the 60 days, she called me into her office. I thought she’d thank me and say my contract was over. Instead, she slid a piece of paper across the table.

It was a full-time offer. Higher pay than I’d made in my last job. Better title. Benefits.

And in the margin, written in blue pen, she’d scribbled, ‘Thanks for helping me write the next chapter.’

I almost cried.

Things picked up fast after that. I got promoted again, six months later, to Head of Client Strategy. I hired three people, all of whom had been unemployed for a while too. One of them, a quiet guy named Marwan, confided that he’d been turned down for 22 jobs in a row. I told him I knew the feeling.

Sometimes, at lunch, we’d joke about the pen interview. “Life sells the pen,” we’d say. It became a little mantra. We even printed it on mugs for the team holiday gift.

But here’s the twist—the part I didn’t expect.

One day, almost a year into my new role, I got a LinkedIn message. It was from the guy in the gray blazer from the original pen interview. His name was Tolan. He said:

“Hi—I don’t know if you remember me, but I interviewed you last year at Prestique Group. Just wanted to say I think about what you said about the pen a lot. You probably didn’t know, but the company was shutting down and we were told to keep interviewing candidates anyway—to ‘maintain market optics.’ Total bullshit. But your pitch stuck with me. Hope you’re doing well.”

I didn’t know what to feel at first—shock, validation, maybe a little anger. But mostly, I felt… calm.

I wrote him back.

“Thanks for saying that. That day, I felt like I was talking to a wall. But honestly, losing that job was the best thing that never happened to me.”

He replied a few hours later. Said he’d left Prestique shortly after that. Started his own consultancy. And then—here’s the kicker—he asked if I’d be willing to consult for one of his clients.

Me.

The guy who used to rehearse elevator pitches in the mirror at 2 a.m. now being asked for my expertise.

I said yes. Of course I did.

It wasn’t a huge project. Just three Zoom calls over a month. But it paid well. And it led to more. Word spread, and suddenly I was getting side gigs helping founders refine their customer outreach, build pitch decks, and train new hires on empathy-based communication.

One of those gigs turned into a board advisory role. Another got me flown to Austin to speak at a small business summit. I didn’t wear a suit—I wore sneakers and a denim jacket. But I opened that talk with the pen story. Everyone laughed. A few people teared up.

Because they got it.

We’ve all been there. At the bottom. Feeling invisible. Wondering if the best parts of us will ever be needed again.

But sometimes, the rejection is the redirection.

Sometimes the thing you think you need—that job, that call, that nod of approval—is just the decoy before the real door opens.

And sometimes, your lowest point becomes the story that saves someone else later.

A few weeks ago, we had a new hire. Fresh out of college. Nervous. He kept fiddling with his hands in the meeting. I asked if he was okay.

He said, “Honestly, I feel like I don’t belong here. Everyone’s so experienced. I’m just trying not to screw up.”

I leaned in and said, “Let me tell you about a pen.”

So yeah.

That one flubbed interview—the one where I walked out thinking I’d said too much?

It gave me everything.

A job. A mentor. A chance to help others. Even a little side hustle.

But most of all, it gave me back my own voice.

So if you’re reading this feeling stuck, invisible, or behind—it’s not over. You’re not done. You’re just getting shaped.

You’re not selling a pen. You’re selling your story. And someone out there needs to hear it.

If this hit home, hit like, drop a comment, or share it with someone who needs a little hope today.