Supplement to 3Q25 Newsletter - Unqualified, Unsure: My First Private Sector Job

July 15, 2025

Chris Weil

In the history of business there have been any number of entry level job seekers whose prospects for success would seem, to an objective observer, unpromising.

You could count among these a 25-year-old Christopher Weil sitting on a cool February morning in l963, in the passenger seat of a fairly new Cadillac parked on a Westwood street and listening without understanding to the pitch of a company recruiter.

My prospects for business success were unpromising for nowhere in my personal history was there a hint that I was destined for a business career, successful or otherwise.

In four years of college, I had never taken a business or economics course or indeed any course that could be said to teach practical knowledge. Furthermore, my family had never owned anything except houses and personal effects. “Wealth” was whatever cash happened to be in the bank and whatever amount of money was coming in the next paycheck. And, despite my age, I had never held a real job. I had only worked part-time (selling newspapers, clerking in liquor stores and markets, shelving in libraries); and had spent four years in the Navy which wasn’t a job but a trial. Finally, my family had nurtured in me a pro-work but anti-business ethic. In part this arose from my father’s commitment to the labor movement (and his corresponding dislike of business which he viewed as labor’s ever exploitive adversary); and in part from my mother’s conviction that business was unworthy of the attention of first-rate minds.

During each of my summer vacations while in college I had worked as a recruiter on temporary active duty at a local Naval Reserve Training Center. July, August and September I spent convincing l8 year olds that it was better to enlist in the Reserve and spend two years on active duty than enlist in the regular Navy and spend four.

The summer of l962 should have been my final “enlistment” for I was to graduate in June l962, then work for three months while looking for a job. But that spring it became all too clear that I was not going to graduate. I discovered that I had managed to take only a year and a half of foreign language and the requirement for a B.A. was two.

I was disheartened. We were broke; my wife happened to have pneumonia at the time but, healthy or otherwise, I had her and a one-year-old to support; and my four-year G.I. Bill money had run out, so I elected not to return to school in the fall. I petitioned the Navy to let me work beyond the normal three-month tour. My petition was approved and I was contracted to spend July l962 through March l963 as a recruiter.

During that summer I had job interviews with whatever enterprise would talk to me. But I must have been an unappealing candidate (a philosophy major without a degree) for I was never called back (by Prentice Hall, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Telephone Company and five or six others).

By February l963 I was convinced that I would be spending the next few years pumping gas. The job interviews had petered out and I had, as they say, no prospects.

Then, one evening the phone rang in the tiny student housing apartment we were shortly to forfeit (as UCLA had discovered I was no longer a student and hadn’t been since June) and a voice introduced himself as Mr. Morph (or some such sound) and that he represented the investment firm Investors Diversified Services and that through a friend he’d learned I was in the job market and could we talk? I agreed to meet him for breakfast that week.

The breakfast meeting lasted two hours and then we adjourned to his car to continue talking. And so it was that I found myself listening but not understanding on that morning in February.

Soon I was attending my next meeting, this one at the offices of the company – located in a building just this side of shabby and that side of respectable – on Wilshire near Western. Present were Mr. Morph (actually, his name turned out to be Stanley J. Sponholtz), the recruiter and Don Christopher, the Divisional Sales Manager.

I was dressed in my best: slacks, sports shirt, loafers and white socks.

We pretty much covered the same ground covered in the first meeting with pretty much the same result: total lack of comprehension on my part. I asked for a week to think it over.

At our next meeting I started at square one and, to my surprise, detected a certain impatience on the part of Sponholtz and Christopher. They thought that these matters had been dealt with before. I had sense enough to take another tack. In effect I said that I had no idea what their company did, nor did I have any idea what they wanted me to do but if they’d pay me $100 a week I’d come to work for them.

And so it was agreed. Some months later I discovered that what I had agreed to was a draw, otherwise known as an advance against commissions, but at the time the distinction between draw and salary meant nothing to me.

Almost immediately, our little family moved from its 600 square foot apartment at UCLA to a 600 square foot apartment in Westchester; and I began to “work” for IDS – which meant going each day to the Wilshire office to prepare for the securities licensing exam I had to pass to be in the business and, not unimportantly, assure the continuation of my $l00 weekly check.

Our trainer employed a rabbinical teaching method. We studied only one document, a prospectus for one of the IDS mutual funds. In those days, a fund prospectus ran to 25 or so pages of closely printed text. We began our study by reading sentence one of paragraph one of page one. After reading the sentence the trainer would provide an explication and then closely question us as to our understanding. When he was satisfied that we (meaning the slowest of us in the class, meaning me) had got it then it was on to sentence two of paragraph one of page one.

And so it went for four weeks. At least that’s the way it went mornings. After lunch we shifted from textual explication to sales training.

At some point it became clear to me that the job I was embarked upon consisted of 1) telling the story (that is, the mutual fund story but boiled down from the twenty or so mornings I was devoting to mastering it to perhaps thirty minutes) 2) telling it to as many people as I possibly could; and 3) having them buy it (which meant writing a check to open an account and purchase shares).

With clarity came shock. For quite aside from the fact that “salesman” meant someone in a loud shirt standing outside a car dealership trying to lure unwilling customers inside I could not imagine how I was to make a living even if, as seemed unlikely, I could learn how to sell. I had no money; I didn’t know anyone who had money. So what if I could tell the story to anyone who would listen? At best I would be met with nothing but shrugs and empty pockets turned inside out, forever.

I took and passed the securities exam in May l963. I could explain what a mutual fund was (in more than thirty minutes but less than twenty mornings) and write letters and make phone calls seeking opportunities to tell the story. These were my qualifications. What I did not know (about business, people, investments, my company and myself) would have filled a library. 

Download a copy of this newsletter here.

This communication may contain privileged and confidential information; people other than the addressee should not review, distribute or duplicate it without permission. Nothing in this communication constitutes a solicitation by us for the purchase or sale of any securities. We do not accept account orders or instructions by e-mail, and will not be responsible for carrying out e-mailed orders or instructions. We provide reports as an accommodation to help you monitor your investment activity; securities pricing may not reflect reliable values. In the event of a discrepancy, the information in your confirmations of daily activity and monthly statement of account shall govern. While the information in this communication comes from sources believed to be reliable as of today, we make no representation as to its accuracy and completeness and provide no assurances as to future returns or performance. We may own positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Investing involves risks, including the possible loss of the principal amount invested. There can be no assurance that recommended investments will be successful in meeting their objectives. Investment in mutual funds is also subject to market risk, investment style risk, investment adviser risk, market sector risk, equity securities risk, and portfolio turnover risks. More information about these risks and other risks can be found in the funds’ prospectus. The prospectus should be read carefully before investing. Nothing herein should be construed as legal or tax advice. You should consult an attorney or tax professional regarding your specific legal or tax situation. Christopher Weil & Company, Inc. may be contacted at 800.355.9345 or info@cweil.com. (Version January 2025)