Black Buck

Darren wakes up at 5:30 on his first day at Sumwun; every Monday they start work at 7:00am sharp. Ma gives him clothing advice—to go for a more casual look, rather than the conservative “Mormon” attire he first chose. He says hi to Mr. Aziz, then Jason, whose face is puffy and bruised as a result of being robbed the night before, prompting him to work overtime selling drugs—cocaine, not just the cannabis he sold previously—and Jason resents Darren for criticizing his choices. Counting down the minutes to 7:00 while on the train, Darren runs into Brian, who continues to see him as a superhero. The train must stop for a sick passenger, and despite rushing, Darren is three minutes late for the meeting. Everyone stares at him, and Rhett bawls him out for being late. The other SDRs—sales development representatives—are ordered to introduce themselves with a “fun fact”: White Guy Number One, who, too scared to reveal his name, panics and runs out of the room; Arnold Bagnini, a former Notre Dame football player, who earns the nickname “Frodo”; and Claire Vanderbilt, from Darien, Connecticut, whose “fun fact” is that she is a Vanderbilt and who is thus promptly crowned “The Duchess.” Darren, now known as “Buck,” freestyles for the crowd, despite his misgivings that he is thereby catering to white peoples’ narrow views of Black identity. The sales lesson insert both notes the success of this strategy and warns of its dangers.

The new SDRs are introduced to Deals Week, a period of intensive effort to meet sales goals, and the central business principle of maintaining continuous growth, without which “All this goes away” (62). The breakfast that follows illustrates the hierarchies within the company: Only the sales teams eat from the trays of hot food, while workers in other departments confine themselves to cereal and bagels. Before they eat, however, Clyde leads the sales teams in a meditation ritual in which they first imagine their future success and then shout the mantra “EVERY DAY IS DEALS DAY!” while overcome with “[r]age” (67). When Darren sits down to eat, he is doused with a bucket of white paint, to the uproarious laughter of his colleagues.

In the Bhagavad Gita conference room, now clad in a clean white t-shirt and sweatpants, Darren and his fellow SDRs learn about the structure of the company: Rhett is the CEO (chief executive officer); perpetually worried Chris is the CTO (chief technical officer); and Clyde is director of sales. As SDRs, they generate leads, which they then refer to AEs (account executives) to close the deal. After asking the SDRs to tell him what Sumwun does and not being satisfied with their answer, Clyde makes them practice memorizing the 266-word company mission statement about improving the lives of clients via connecting them with assistants uniquely suited to serve their virtual counseling needs. Frodo stumbles through, mispronouncing common words; The Duchess is robotic but perfect; but Darren, despite his mastery of the statement, is forced to continue reciting for eight more hours. A sales lesson insert notes the importance of vocal confidence when making sales. After Darren endures the grueling performance, his spirits lift when he sees Rhett.

On his way to work on day two, Darren checks in with Ma, Soraya, Jason, and Wally Cat. Wally Cat’s advice produces a sales lesson insert: “Whether you sell someone on yes or they sell you on no, a sale has always been made” (83). When he checks in with the Starbucks staff, Darren discovers that the new manager, Jared, is making Brian miserable. Darren promises Brian that he’ll see if there’s a position for him at Sumwun. The SDRs practice cold calling potential clients with Clyde in preparation for their test on Friday. Darren discovers that The Duchess had a family connection to Sumwun and Clyde personally coached her on making sales calls, and that Frodo’s recruiter gave him similar guidance. Frodo claims that Darren looks like Dave Chappelle. After a full day of practicing calls, Darren chats with Rhett in his office and is inspired by Rhett’s confidence in his abilities. Rhett promises to teach and support Darren as long as Darren promises to “always be honest” with him (94), which he does.

Ma calls out from work the next day, which she’s never done before. At Sumwun, Clyde celebrates closing a deal with Virgin for $200,000, and Darren sees the same admiration of Rhett and desire for his praise that he himself feels. Then, after “strutting into Bhagavad Gita like a colonizer” (98), Clyde performs an overtly racist caricature of a Black man while drilling Darren on making sales calls. He tries to provoke Darren into accusing him of being racist, but Darren keeps his cool and stays focused on “long-term gain,” as the sales lesson insert emphasizes (101). In conference room Torah, Eddie explains how the business model of Sumwun works—sourcing wide variety of assistants globally and connecting them with customers who share their belief system—and gives Darren helpful tips on sounding like you believe in what you’re selling when making calls. Darren plays pool with Rhett, and Rhett tells him about his childhood poverty and faith in God, which he likens to “any gamble” (105).

Ma is sick again but promises she’ll go to the doctor. Darren has a spat with Jason, who accuses him of selling out and thinking he’s better than everyone else; to Jason, both of them are “pushin’ weight,” but Darren’s doing it for white people. Wally Cat urges them to get along and drops a bit of wisdom about the importance of having a “short-term memory” to keep going (110).

In the Book of Shadows conference room, Clyde continues to target Darren and critique him more harshly than the other SDRs. Darren leaves the building and meets up with Soraya in Washington Square Park, where he details the frustrations he’s been experiencing about having to “be twice as good” as the others to get by (115). Soraya encourages him to “play their game to be able to win it” (115), and an hour later Darren heads back into the office.

On test day, Ma makes Darren pancakes, and he drinks coffee, much to her surprise. Mr. Rawlings has Darren put his hands into the dirt. He compares a mind to fertile soil and reminds Darren that “only you can decide what grows” there (120). At work, the cold-call tests are conducted before the whole company, complete with props intended to humiliate the wearer: Frodo gets a little football helmet; The Duchess gets a plastic crown; and Darren gets a Starbucks hat, which Clyde paid Brian $20 to borrow. During Darren’s test, Clyde pretends to be the VP of Human Resources at Starbucks, whom Darren knows, and outs Darren as a former employee from the store downstairs, which his colleagues hadn’t realized. Though Clyde doesn’t want to pass Darren, Rhett does, and the rest of the company agrees with him.

Charlie, the new SDRs’ account manager, tells them to pick three people to cold call; if they successfully qualify one of them, they’ll be promoted to account executive, something that has never happened before. Their team name, Negotiators With Attitude, is one of several team names that reference Black musical groups, a phenomenon that, Darren reflects, is “what happens when you have a company with zero Black people in it” (130). After pretending that they didn’t hit their sales goal that week, Rhett claims that they actually did, and the company goes wild. To celebrate, they start drinking in the office, and Clyde pressures Darren into chugging a beer, which leads him to have several more drinks and then join Rhett and other coworkers at a club. Darren misses the celebratory dinner his mother cooked and receives a series of worried texts from her and angry ones from Soraya.