Recession forces Coweta salesman to reinvent himself

By Dan Chapman

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The death of a salesman is never pretty. Just ask Willy Loman. Or Walle Waters.

Enlarge photo

Staff 2009 photo Walle Waters, who looked for nearly two years to find a job in Atlanta, finally found work in Orlando.

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Their American dreams died.

At nearly 60, Walle, though, lived to reinvent himself. He’s a walking, talking parable of life, loss and labor in the post-recession 21st century.

A former traveling salesman, like the fictional Loman, Walle quit Atlanta for Orlando after 18 months of fruitless job searching.

“Anyone would like to finish their career on their own terms. I didn’t get a chance to do that,” Walle said. “My generation expected a gold watch and appreciation for 40 years in the business. Well, those days are gone.”

No demographic has escaped the Great Recession. Older workers have been hit particularly hard, though. The unemployment rate for job seekers 55 and older more than doubled to 7.2 percent since the recession began, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The numbers don’t tally the emotional toll of late-age job loss. Walle, for example, was planning for retirement, tallying his 401(k) and imagining the good life with his wife, Debra, in their Coweta County “dream house.” Kids, grandkids and church mission work overseas awaited.

Instead, a rental house and a property management job is Walle’s fate today.

“You can be bitter and sit around and moan and groan or you can go out there and maybe reinvent yourself,” he said. “You just have to pull your pants up and say, ‘I know I’m productive. I know I add value to a company. I know I can make it work.’ ”

Walle was a Midwesterner until he moved to Sharpsburg in 2007. He handled police dogs in the Air Force and earned a college degree before selling Planters peanuts and Fleischmann’s margarine across the Midwest.

Walle lived for the deal, the travel or the convention where he would entice buyers to his booth with shoeshine girls and card tricks.

A corporate merger wiped out Walle’s job. Thankfully, Debra had a good one with Panasonic Automotive.

Her salary covered the mortgage on the one-story, five-bedroom house they built near Peachtree City. Walle set about finding work.

He sent out 1,000 résumés over two years; he got four interviews. He’d hit two, maybe three job-networking workshops weekly.

Desperate, Walle sold cars. He tried to get on with Kroger, Publix and Coweta County schools. Zilch. Finally, he accepted a sister’s offer to work at a retirement community in Winter Park, where he markets, leases, collects rent and talks grandkids. He makes less than half his former six-figure salary.

“I like my job,” Walle said. “It’s not my passion, of course, but reality sets in. You get caught in the age crunch. A lot of people say age doesn’t matter, but it does to employers.”

After living apart for a year, Debra sold the house in Coweta and joined Walle last month in Florida. She’ll take a part-time accounting job at Walle’s apartment complex. They’ll continue renting a home until they figure out what they want to do next.

The 401(k) is rebounding. Debra got a handsome severance package from Panasonic. Walle is itching to network again, maybe find another sales job, move back north, who knows.

“People tell me, ‘You’re on a journey.’ Well, I’d rather read the book,” Walle says. “Heck, I could write the book.”

And the title?

“Back from hell.”