There's just something about the holidays......that makes people absolutely bat-shit crazy. It makes for good stories, but it also makes me bang my head on the desk a lot. I think it's the consumerism. I think it's the 63% of us - I'm told - that struggle in one way or another with the holiday well-being and perfect family-ism that we tap into, watching it in ads in papers and online, and the holiday feel-good movies that flood the airwaves, and our own crazy expectations. We gotta cut that OUT. I keep thinking of Whoville. I really hope that they DO come out of their homes and hold hands and sing "Wha Hoo Dooray" - or whatever those words are! - every single morning, every single week. Because that is not just the underpinning of the holiday, it is the underpinning of our world...that compassion and love for one another and the appreciation for that which is really worthwhile...that stuff that our world is starving for and which is why our world (well, at least our country) is struggling to rise from; a pile of angry, hating, negative shit that's been dumped on us since 2016. Keep the faith in goodness, whatever its form, and keep holding hands while we cross the road of this bloody, heart-breaking time in our country's history. And maybe, just maybe, we can keep being an American country.
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Unnatural ResourcesHo! Ho! Holy cow! Holy moly! And Holy Jehoshaphat! (And I didn't know about that "h" after the "s" in the spelling either!) The store...and Christmas. No matter which store it is, Christmas is the Real Deal. It's the Big Trough. It's time to rake in the money because this is when people spend, baby! So that means using every resource at hand to make this work, and work well! To this end, people get moved around. I, for instance, volunteered to be helpful. So they gave me some work to do supporting the people driving the sales. Funny...I used to be one of the top sales-drivers. I was looking forward to doing something of that again, but I was put into a support position for people who don't ordinarily do this kind of order taking. Ho! Ho! Holy crap... Okay, I have lots of ways to be helpful, that's true, and today I did get to speak to one or two people. And it's as funny and interesting and weird as ever. I particularly loved the woman who told me over and over that she was not going to shop with us anymore if we couldn't make the 55% off deal an 80% off deal! Just for her. Just because. I pulled out my bag of tricks and told her a few things. Phone Work Again? and Holidays Ho! (God save the Queen!)Last September, in 2018, about two and a half weeks from today, I got a call from my friend, Nancy. "They're having open interviews today," she told me, and I trundled off to interview. Ninety minutes later, I had a job. On the phones. Sales. "Oh dear God" I thought. But it worked out to be better than okay! A lot better than just okay. I became a top salesperson - oh, no riches, sadly, because the hourly pay hadn't gone up yet, and because the commission is frankly laughable, but it beat the hell out of serial temporary jobs! - and my financial life began to stabilize, and I met cool people and then just five and a half months into this new job, I was promoted! You know what? I had never been promoted before. What an interesting sensation! People congratulate you and look at you like you're a unicorn because you've been promoted which apparently is as big a deal as you thought it was, and not just because you never got it before! For the last four-plus months I've been wandering through my new world of...analytics??? Holy crap. I think I hear my father rolling on the floor, laughing. And he's dead! So he must be laughing really loud! Me, and math???? Puh-leeze. Actually, I was hired for my interpersonal skills, which are up there baby! But now I've been attached to my computer for the time being, listening to calls. Wow, the things I've heard. My new position has brought me into contact with tons and TONS of information about the company and its many interlocking parts. Of course, being the investigative social scientist I am, I've found out what works and what doesn't work and I'm speaking truth to power and all of that because I finally figured out that at the store, I'm not actually going to be fired for being me. THAT...is a miracle. For the first three months in my new job I thought for sure I'd be fired just for breathing. Hey, don't judge me! I'd been through a LOT, and it left me sensitive as hell. Something completely unexpected came out of the whole store experience. Well, yes, this blog being the first, and oh my I love writing stories here. But something else is happening that is so completely badass! the experiences I have been through in business for the last 30-plus years of my life have been focused by my experiences here, resulting in...my having written a a book that looks like it just might get published!!! My voice. Focused. Revelatory. Truthful. Humorous. Impatient to impart. Understanding. And a little angry. Yep. Sounds like me! But meanwhile, do you know what happens in a few short weeks? [Cue the scary music!] The H O L I D A Y S ! ! ! ! "Everything Old Is New Again"At the end of this October, I will have been at the store for a year. Just one year. Or, you might say as I do: a Whole Year???!!! That's amazing. That's reassuring. I am watching new people come in. But they're not coming in just as I did. They are coming in under a different set of trainings; trainings based on sales and situations. In my training, our trainer did a lot of talking about her favorite plates, or family gatherings. We learned software but spent only 4 hours on the phones before hitting the floor. We lost 5 people the second day on the floor because they either freaked out about how unprepared we were, and felt, or another job came through. It was quick and brutal, the winnowing out of our class. Hard for the store too. Costly. "Died and went to heaven"
People think bliss is 20 years old, White and blonde; or maybe that bliss is having beaucoup bucks, a fast car and a hot lover. While I wouldn't argue with the hot lover being a big plus, I beg to differ with any of that as a bliss definition. In fact, I would know, since I have recently died and gone to heaven.
I can give you a map reference for heaven, by the way. It's about half-a-football-field's distance from where I used to sit in the phone bank. "The Fried Egg Org Chart"I just can't. I mean, I look at org charts and my brain goes all white noise. On the first sheet of paper, you've got the top level - the Big Kahuna. Then you have the Mini Me Kahunas under him (it's usually a "him", let's be honest). And then you have at least three or four more sheets of paper with the people who report to the people who report to the people who report to the people! By the time you've gotten anywhere, you're already done. Or should I say I'm already done. I just can't use them to understand things, especially if everyone is listed as a title that I don't even understand! See, my new job is in the Learning Department. That's not the official name, but it'll do for now. And under that department are three other departments which relate to one another, but they are so closely intertwined, it's just impossible to "get it" in the three weeks I've been there! I gotta tell you, when I'm looking at this collection of departments, and people with all kinds of titles, and I don't know who they are yet and I don't yet know what they do...it's beyond daunting, it's laughable. But I've been keeping up by studying those damn org charts. At least, that's what I was doing until about three days ago. Every day for two weeks, I tried looking at the org chart, and matching the people up with my notes from meetings I've had with a lot of them. I was trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Bits and pieces started to fall into place, but I still felt like I was running along behind everyone like a dog behind a vanishing car. I had to do something. "Maybe it's the whining...!"Talking to Mrs. B was the closest thing I could imagine talking to my mother would be like, if she were still on the planet. Hilarious, Bronx accent, laughter. So much ahhhhhhhh. Imagine the Bronx accent - because there's really nothing better - as we talked about New York, and about my endless fascination with and adoration of all kinds of accents, but particularly New York accents. She now lives on Long Island, does Mrs. B - or LawngAI-lnd if you're pronouncing it correctly? - and she was hilarious talking about how people can't seem to connect there, but she forces the issue every single day. A woman after my own heart. Mrs. B: "We aw whacked out heah! So crazy!" Me: [laughing] Whacked? Mrs. B: "Oh yeah! We think we'ah so speshl! Nevah occurs to-wus thaat theah moyt be uthah ways t'live. Sew separated!" (All I can think of is Joey on Friends saying, "This is whack!"i) But it was accents we were on. "I feel like I know you."You do, because I connect with you emotionally. Aaaaand...you don't, because you don't. I laugh with you because I can and because that is absolutely my response to the absurdity and beauty and unending challenge of communicating with people I "meet" on the phone. I also laugh because it gets you to chill out. It clues you in to the reassuring fact that you're not talking to a machine. It gives you the confident feeling that I don't hate my job and therefore you. Apparently, laughter is my Secret Weapon. A man named Alan has been on my mind in the last couple of months. He was the Call Center Manager for the Playhouse In the Park Subscriptions Call Center (if you can call one room a Call Center...but I digress). I wandered in there a few years ago and made outbound calls to sell subscriptions. When Alan appeared on the scene, I had one season under my belt and I was loaded for bear, phone-wise. Halfway through the season, Alan mused, "I think the reason people are responding to you is your laugh. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking that's what it is..." He was trying to work out what my "secret" was so that, possibly (?), he could teach others to do it. And now here I am, working for one of the country's biggest retailers, on the phones and laughing, and I suddenly realize that he's right! "It's a thing"! A woman called me about 2 weeks ago and purchased $500 worth of clothing. We spoke for 90 minutes and we laughed and I did my thing of connecting and selling. The next day, at her request, I called her back and she purchased $1,000 worth of clothing. She said she had told her husband the night before that she felt like she knew me. That pulled me up short a little. People do get attached easily, especially if they're not accustomed to being connected with. By the end of the call, it was close to 11:00PM. I was working a 4:30-12PM shift, and she and I had spoken for 3 or 4 HOURS. We were fine until the third hour. But when we tried to check her out, the system had a hiccup and then another hiccup, and it became a massive problem in terms of time. I ended up calling her back at 11:30 at night in order to finally place the order. But that wasn't what caused the problem. I actually showed a little bit of frustration during our fourth hour. She exhibited no sensitivity to the time this was all taking, and was going to squeeze every little bit of precision out of this order even though I had already had to redo the order once from memory and research (thank you so much, system). I didn't go off on her, and it was a matter of tone of voice which I did get back in check, but she was clearly not amused. I tried to make it all better by sending her a 25% off coupon, but it didn't help. When I came back to work after my weekend, I learned she had turned to someone else to place an order. She was mad at me. Clearly. And that was fascinating. "I feel like I know you" means you think you know what to expect. And when that doesn't happen, you get to be angry. But you don't know me. And what I know is that it is my responsibility to make it clear to people like that - though I won't be on the phones anymore (at least, not to my knowledge) - that it is "my pleasure" to help them, but that this is an exchange that I am happy to engage in, and not an engagement party. Call Center Sales is a thing that is so misunderstood as to be NOT understood. So, as I start into my new job, I put more items on my list of things to teach to others about how to be even better at their jobs. But I have something else to do first. I have to reveal what this job really is, and how skilled it actually is. And I have to be patient with other people not knowing... "It's the End of An Era!"
There are times I love being on the phones and times I loathe it. But all the time, I love the people I work with. We sit in groups of four as we do our work, and we talk with and at each other all the time, during calls, after calls, between calls. Sharing information, bitching, asking for help, rolling our eyes sympathetically at one another. And I'm about to leave all of that camaraderie.
We have most of us spent three weeks in training and two weeks in "nesting" before being set free to be "Ambassadors". Sales Ambassadors. Such a silly term, but not inexact. We have to spend 6 months from our start date in the positions we were hired for. Then we are free to apply for other internal positions. But getting through six months is no cake walk. This is energy- and emotion-intensive stuff! It took me all of four months to be able to come home and not jump into bed to sleep nearly instantly. And now I'm on the verge of a new job. A regular job. An 8-5 job instead of this 9:45-6:00 job. A job in which I don't have to be sat at a desk every stinkin' minute and push the right buttons to justify my going to the bathroom or whatever. And I'm thrilled and I'm sad. Not just about the people I don't get to work with every single day, but also about the people I won't get to talk to on the phone! What a parade of interesting people flow through that phone! Old people, young people, angry people, shy people, confused people, sweet people, rich people, kind people, utterly hilarious people, greedy people, mean people. I'll kind of miss them... So, truth be told, I am something the British call a "nutter". My version of nutterdom is that I'm intense, I'm driven, I'm friendly as all get-out (whatever that literally means - what is "get out"?), I'm gutted by the depths of spiritual devotion, I am a basketcase crying all over myself when I'm touched by something, and I'm also convinced that if I can't get ahead at this point, I'm going to die alone and poverty-stricken. That last one alone makes me want to move forward Right. Stinkin'. Now. Show me the money! But even more than that: Show me the meaning! I only want the money for that feeling of security. I'm working on feeling the security with or without it, but in the meanwhile SHOW ME THE MONEY! Along comes my new boss, just before Christmas. Takes one look at me and knows about me. Says to me within a month's time, "When I met you I thought, 'She's hungry.' I knew you'd rise to the top quickly, and that you'd get bored if there wasn't more to reach for." Too true! Ridiculously true. I'm freakin' Scarlett O'Hara: "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!" Scarlett O'Hara minus the petticoats. "What You Don't Know Can Kill You"
When a call comes through in the Call Center, we tend to think we know what we're about to do: Sell.
And the people who lead us - whose job it is to motivate, support, monitor, correct and improve us - tend to think they know what we're about to do:
All of the above while accepting that few, if any, of those above us will want to hear our point of view about what we do, how we do it, what the effects are, what could be done better, etcetera. We're just gonna do all that, just because we have a job. Yada yada yada. Sorry, but no.
I mean, yeah, of course. But...no no no no no.
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AuthorWorking in Sales at a Call Center for one of the biggest stores in the country should come with hazard pay. Archives
December 2019
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