A few months before I graduated from high school, I applied for a job at Telesolutions International. The receptionist told me that it was a "promotional advertising company, " and I, having designs on a career in advertising, was rather easily seduced. I learned in the excruciatingly long and meandering training session that all this meant was exposing customers to ads in magazines. So much for that plan.
I shall now proceed to run down a list of things that made the job, at best, less than favourable:
1. I sat in a cubicle about the size of a washing machine, wearing a headset that made me feel like I had an ear infection after several hours of continuous use, using a computer that let us use the autodialing program and nothing else, meaning that we couldn't just play FreeCell all day.
2. I made nonstop calls from 8:30 to 11:30, took a half-hour lunch break, and made more nonstop calls from 12:00 to 3:00.
3. We had to ask to use the bathroom, and could only do so when no one else on our sales floor was in there.
4. Our floor manager, a woman who has a voice loud and deep enough to make little children cry, paced around the room and screamed, "Let's go, guys! Let's get those leads in! " every three to five minutes, which can be very distracting when you're trying to make a call.
5. We constantly listened to XM 30 on the radio, which played the exact same top-40 songs EVERY FRIGGIN' DAY. The only upside for me was that I got to sit in front of the window. Yes, THE window. I had THE highly prestigious view of the wall of the building and a bush.
6. The lunch room was built to hold about 15 people, so it could get mighty cramped once in a while. Also, one of the vending machines was constantly on the fritz, and there was no indication that they intended to replace it.
7. Employees entered the call centre through a small courtyard that had absolutely no greenery. Almost everybody in that tiny space smoked, so a walk through there was like riding in Rush Limbaugh's car.
8. One payday, they LOST my check. Yes, they LOST it. I had to wait two days until they found it.
9. We had to work two Saturdays per month. If you didn't have a talk time over 30 seconds or at least one lead in the first half-hour, you were sent home. Did this happen to me? Yes. The floor manager refused to accept an excess of answering machines as an excuse. I didn't think she'd accept "Nobody wants to listen to me! " either. Before then, I had tried to extend my talk time by listening to the machines until they beeped, but they monitored all our calls, and I got caught and was told to cut it out.
10. The straw that broke the camel's back was the sales manager (the HR manager's wife hmmm ...) telling me that I had a "bad reputation" in the closing room, where all of our sales were confirmed. Apparently I had told some customers that the offers could be canceled anytime. OK, fine, a mistake on my part. But only a couple of my customers actually asked me this, and not all of those who didn't took the deal. I had eight leads and two sales that day, which was much better than I usually did. I quit at lunch.
11. When the sales manager called me in to negotiate the receipt of my last two paychecks, I asked her point-blank if they were involved in a scam. The fact that all of our leads got the same order number (C-208) tipped me off. So did the fact that people who claimed to be on the Do Not Call list were still ending up on the phone with me. So did the fact that I was calling people's work numbers and cell numbers all day. She refused to tell me what was going on, saying, "I don't have to explain our business to you." When an employer tells you that, run for the hills.
Do I still think that they're involved in a scam? After reading other reports on this site, I say: Now more than ever.
Rio
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada
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