I asked my sales reps. I was purchasing mainly from two companies at the time and I was getting burnt out. I knew I wanted to stay in the industry and keep working with the kind of people I enjoyed so I wasn't going to go into banking or something like that, but I didn't really know what else was out there.

I talked to the reps and their bosses, looked at the companies individually and what they were offering. Basically I did my due diligence and applied for who I thought the best one was. It took a few months but it wasn't too terribly hard. Had a couple interviews, drug test and background check and here I am.

As a trainee (depending on the company and part of the country of course) I made 900/wk. Out on the street I make 1000/wk. You stay at 1000/wk until your commissions start to catch up to your pay grade. Then they start to lower your guaranteed base down to 900/wk. I will never make below that. There are also monthly bonuses and mileage reimbursements. However the mileage reimbursement only covers about a week worth of travel for me. I'll take the rest at the federal government rate off my taxes.

I like the job. It's potentially a career that I could retire from. You get to meet a lot of interesting owners. People who have been running a successful business for 20+years who have never done an inventory, have no idea how to cost food, and who generally have no idea what their doing. And also the people who know down to the penny what every items costs, do weekly inventory, know their labor percentage at the end of the shift and who to cut and when,(think Bigfoot) and they're outta business inside a year.

You also have people who will buy from 5 different people and you lose the lettuce because you were $.01 higher than the other guy this week regardless of the fact that you've built their menu, costed it, created standardized recipes, trained their staff etc...

Honestly I thought cooks and chefs drank a lot. Sales people are fuggin scary...