In the early part of 1990 I was employed as an insurance agent by a large insurance company in Brisbane. I had moved interstate to Brisbane and there was a mini depression happening which meant that I was unable to find work in my chosen field and had to work in an area where I had absolutely no expertise or training.

As my previous experience in this type of work was basically nil; I was competing for the all important dollar with many experienced sales women - a naif in a field of experts. So to cut a long and torturous story short I got to thinking about how to take the short cut to all those promised riches - never a very good idea really. Well, my observations in the office led me to the fact that those who enjoyed the largesse that a great income brings, were those insurance agents who had brought in large groups, then worked and burrowed right into those groups to make many sales of the different types of insurance (life, car, mortgage, keyman, savings, bonds etc) to a tied group of people on whom you had first "dibs" so to speak!

Serious thinking about the hows and whys of getting a Group of my own then led me to inspect the "book".

"What book I hear you would-be wealthy insurance agents ask?" Well the book to which I refer is the equivalent of the bible in the insurance industry terms - the guide to behaving ethically, the standards to which everyone must adher to, the various types of insurance sold by your company, and of course also listed at the very back of this book were the Groups already brought into the company by enterprising agents. Now as I am talking about a period of about 20 years ago; I do not know whether this training book is still in use or even exists.

So, as I looked at my copy of the Book it dawned on me that what I personally had to do, was to get my own *Group*; so ensuring that the riches of the earth would be endowed upon me. And in order to do this I engaged in a little lateral thinking. I went to the back of my book and set about checking the Groups already listed, and what did I find but that there were great lists of Groups which I knew also had affiliated Trade/Professional Union Groups associated with them. I then deduced that as these affiliated Trade/Professional Union Groups were not actually listed they had not in fact, been approached by my employer; this particular Insurance Company.

The one Group I fixated on was a Teacher's Federation and I soon realised that there was an affiliated religious Teacher's Federation which was not listed or indeed represented in the Group list at the back of the Book!

Bingo - my reaction - I can fix this anomaly. I can bring in a Group!

Now as I was really new to the industry I had joined up with another woman from my unit and another two women from the same company but a different unit (which was located quite some distance away in a shopping centre) so that jointly we would try and make some sort of income from our joint endeavours. Now the two women from the opposing unit said; after I most excitedly blabbed my "lightglobe"idea for a Group to them

"Well - as you are so new to the business maybe you would like us to go and talk to them and naturally we will share any positive outcomes with you".

"Yes" I said "But I will come with you!"

So of course what happens is that they set out full steam ahead almost the next day; whilst informing me that they were indeed moving very quickly on my big idea. They had decided that it would indeed be best if they went to the appointment without me. Big Result for the rival office - these two heroes brought in MY Group. The outcome being that they were hailed as being the best thing since sliced bread for bringing in this huge, untapped group - seems that this Group was indeed the biggest to be brought into an insurance company in Queensland in ten years!. They were definitely the company heroes of the hour and, since they had operated out of another rival office there was absolutely no intimation that indeed the idea had been mine, and that they had taken it and gone ahead without me.

To this day I do not know whether they made money from this little caper as I left the insurance industry shortly after this event.

copyright: a.a.gallagher 2008.