Management loved that line.
"When I was an agent, I was pulling fifty cash orders a week, EVERY WEEK!"
"When I was an agent we weren't allowed to get picked up unless we had ten on the day"
"When I was an agent I was positive and happy all the damn time!!"
I could honestly go on forever. Management loved to remind us of what shitty agents we were by comparing our work to their successful hay days.
I'm sure we could all pull fifty orders a week, every week, if the internet still hadn't been invented and if the country wasn't on the verge of a recession. When did you knock doors, Manager? Twenty years ago! Gosh golly, people were still using pagers and rocking jerry curls back then.
Management never let us forget that we were never going to be anything other than amoebas-on ticks-on fleas because we weren't selling on the level they were when they were agents.
In case you haven't figured it out, anything short of shitting gold bricks was not even remotely impressive to management. Even if you shat a brick of solid gold, they would tell you to fuck off until you could shit a platinum one.
Why would you strive to be the best if "the best" isn't good enough?
****
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Occupational Hazard
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, more commonly referred to as OSHA. Their mission is to prevent injuries and protect the health of America's workers by ensuring safe and healthful workplaces. Oh what fun they would have with mag crew!
Heat stroke, severe sunburn, infected insect bites, blisters on your feet the size of golf balls,complications from prolonged dehydration, mixed in with poor nutrition. Not something you would expect to deal with on a daily basis, or even a rare occasion. One would think there is an easy fix to these problems. Buy insect repellent, wear orthopedic shoes, get a reusable water bottle,use sunscreen, make better food choices. These are wonderful preventative measures, but they have one thing in common. They all cost money. If you had to choose between soothing a sunburn or eating,what would your choice be? If you had to make a decision to prevent your body from completely shutting down from lack of nutrients or wearing comfortable shoes, what would it be? And really, there is no such thing as a 'healthy' choice at a fast food joint.
Most of these kids don't even realize there is an option, seeing as everything that goes wrong is always one hundred percent their fault. They are told that these painful inconveniences are supposed to build character. You have blisters because you obviously don't know how to sweet talk the Jones into inviting you inside to sit down. You have a sunburn because you're spending too much time slacking and not enough time inside with the Jones. You passed out in the middle of the sidewalk because you don't know how to use the Jones to your advantage.
On the rare occasion management decides that your injuries are severe enough to seek the care of a licensed medical professional, you are allowed to go to the hospital. Only after you have completed a full, twelve hour day of work. Anyone who knows anything about hospital emergency rooms (and how they treat you once they realize you are destitute) can appreciate the stinging slap in the face of this situation. In the eyes of a crew kid, its almost better to just let your injuries fester. Pain and suffering versus time and money wasted.
Once management has deemed you invalid, a car handler will drive you to the ER when the day is done, and orders are checked in. Sometime around eleven thirty at night. Once you arrive, you have to fill out paper work and wait to be seen. This can take anywhere from thirty minuets to a couple of hours, putting the time roughly at one o'clock in the morning. Once you are seen, you are questioned about how you obtained these injuries. You then receive a lecture about how if you had taken the above mentioned preventative steps, this wouldn't have happened. Next, you are usually given a band aid or some extra strength Tylenol(with Codeine, yum!) and sent on your way. By this time its close to three o'clock in the morning. In order to get back to the hotel, you have to call a cab. Cabs, you guessed it, cost money! God forbid management give up some of their beauty sleep, or cut a random one night stand short to do you a favor. Those local girls aren't going to impregnate themselves, you know. The cab takes about fifteen to twenty minuets to pick you up and you spend about another fifteen to twenty in transit. This costs you close to sixty percent of your twenty dollar draw. Its now close to four o'clock in the morning. Fortunately for you, you get to sleep for a whopping three and a half hours before you have to wake up and spend another day pounding the pavement and irritating your injuries further.
Does that sound worth it? It almost isn't.
****
Heat stroke, severe sunburn, infected insect bites, blisters on your feet the size of golf balls,complications from prolonged dehydration, mixed in with poor nutrition. Not something you would expect to deal with on a daily basis, or even a rare occasion. One would think there is an easy fix to these problems. Buy insect repellent, wear orthopedic shoes, get a reusable water bottle,use sunscreen, make better food choices. These are wonderful preventative measures, but they have one thing in common. They all cost money. If you had to choose between soothing a sunburn or eating,what would your choice be? If you had to make a decision to prevent your body from completely shutting down from lack of nutrients or wearing comfortable shoes, what would it be? And really, there is no such thing as a 'healthy' choice at a fast food joint.
Most of these kids don't even realize there is an option, seeing as everything that goes wrong is always one hundred percent their fault. They are told that these painful inconveniences are supposed to build character. You have blisters because you obviously don't know how to sweet talk the Jones into inviting you inside to sit down. You have a sunburn because you're spending too much time slacking and not enough time inside with the Jones. You passed out in the middle of the sidewalk because you don't know how to use the Jones to your advantage.
On the rare occasion management decides that your injuries are severe enough to seek the care of a licensed medical professional, you are allowed to go to the hospital. Only after you have completed a full, twelve hour day of work. Anyone who knows anything about hospital emergency rooms (and how they treat you once they realize you are destitute) can appreciate the stinging slap in the face of this situation. In the eyes of a crew kid, its almost better to just let your injuries fester. Pain and suffering versus time and money wasted.
Once management has deemed you invalid, a car handler will drive you to the ER when the day is done, and orders are checked in. Sometime around eleven thirty at night. Once you arrive, you have to fill out paper work and wait to be seen. This can take anywhere from thirty minuets to a couple of hours, putting the time roughly at one o'clock in the morning. Once you are seen, you are questioned about how you obtained these injuries. You then receive a lecture about how if you had taken the above mentioned preventative steps, this wouldn't have happened. Next, you are usually given a band aid or some extra strength Tylenol(with Codeine, yum!) and sent on your way. By this time its close to three o'clock in the morning. In order to get back to the hotel, you have to call a cab. Cabs, you guessed it, cost money! God forbid management give up some of their beauty sleep, or cut a random one night stand short to do you a favor. Those local girls aren't going to impregnate themselves, you know. The cab takes about fifteen to twenty minuets to pick you up and you spend about another fifteen to twenty in transit. This costs you close to sixty percent of your twenty dollar draw. Its now close to four o'clock in the morning. Fortunately for you, you get to sleep for a whopping three and a half hours before you have to wake up and spend another day pounding the pavement and irritating your injuries further.
Does that sound worth it? It almost isn't.
****
Excuses, Excuses
According to the all powerful management team, the only plausible reason you aren't pulling 30+ orders a week is because you are a worthless piece of shit. This sentiment held true for some of the Grade A scum on crew, but for the rest of us, it was completely false.
About eighty percent of The Jones' are comprised of hard working, middle class, productive members of society. These people are at their nine to five, from (you guessed it) nine to five. Usually they are home by six, and eating dinner by seven. The other ten percent is made up of housewives, retirees(or people on a fixed income),broke college students, and smart people who don't answer the door to someone they aren't expecting or don't know.
These statistics in mind, how exactly do you think I'm going to sell you a magazine if you are at work for the first three drops of my day? What feasible outcome can manifest when I knock on your door while you are making/eating dinner? How on earth am I going to get my numbers up if you won't even come to the door? Walk in and write the check myself? Take the cash right out of your wallet? The pressure to perform is much more suffocating when there is no such thing as a variable in the equation to success.
Step 1- Knock Door
Step 2- ??
Step 3- Profit
You were out on T for ninety minuets and no one answered the door? That's not a reason to have blanked this drop you weak piece of shit!
The only Jones you talked to has a fixed income and an array of health problems that they need to use their fixed income on? You really should have slammed them for 5 orders, fucking dumbass.
You mean to tell me that the reason you only picked up one order this drop is because you were in police custody for eighty of ninety minutes? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, WORTHLESS MOTHER FUCKER? GOD DAMNIT GET TO WORK!!!!!!!
This is where kids become corrupt.
There is no such thing as an excuse. Kids become desperate to meet their quota, they shoot orders (tell your car handler you got one when you really didn't in hopes of making up the difference on the next drop),they literally scare people into buying, they are overly aggressive, they steal, they tell people to give them the sale right then and there and they can cancel it the next day. You're only as good as your last drop. Kids don't eat or smoke for days so they can fake orders with their own money. The average subscription price was about eighty dollars. If you're living off twenty dollars a day,and you give up eating and smoking, how long will it take for you to be able to fake your orders? Some of these tactics only have a short term effect, it works for that day, sometimes even that week. Come Sunday, you find out only half of your orders went through, due to cancellations.
So what's your motivation? I realize that by giving people a push to do better is a smart business move, but Management was most definitely giving the wrong execution of the right plan. By intimidating your workforce with the idea that N O T H I N G they produce is ever going to be good enough, you're taking away the positivity and drive required to be a productive sales person. You're breaking their spirit by badgering them for not producing when the situation was completely out of their control. You have successfully turned them into a mindless drone who's only purpose is to serve management.
I realize some kids slack off on drops, and use the aforementioned scenarios as a way to justify their lack of effort. Management treats everyone as if they are lazy pieces of shit. That makes it tough for anyone who was genuinely making a concerted effort to have a voice. Management automatically assumes that no matter what the reality of the situation was, you were sitting on your ass the entire drop if you hadn't picked up at least five orders.
Again, what is your motivation? You become so broken down the only thing you're really working for is to get your twenty dollar draw, and to keep the insults and humiliation to a minimum.
Super fun, right?
****
About eighty percent of The Jones' are comprised of hard working, middle class, productive members of society. These people are at their nine to five, from (you guessed it) nine to five. Usually they are home by six, and eating dinner by seven. The other ten percent is made up of housewives, retirees(or people on a fixed income),broke college students, and smart people who don't answer the door to someone they aren't expecting or don't know.
These statistics in mind, how exactly do you think I'm going to sell you a magazine if you are at work for the first three drops of my day? What feasible outcome can manifest when I knock on your door while you are making/eating dinner? How on earth am I going to get my numbers up if you won't even come to the door? Walk in and write the check myself? Take the cash right out of your wallet? The pressure to perform is much more suffocating when there is no such thing as a variable in the equation to success.
Step 1- Knock Door
Step 2- ??
Step 3- Profit
You were out on T for ninety minuets and no one answered the door? That's not a reason to have blanked this drop you weak piece of shit!
The only Jones you talked to has a fixed income and an array of health problems that they need to use their fixed income on? You really should have slammed them for 5 orders, fucking dumbass.
You mean to tell me that the reason you only picked up one order this drop is because you were in police custody for eighty of ninety minutes? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, WORTHLESS MOTHER FUCKER? GOD DAMNIT GET TO WORK!!!!!!!
This is where kids become corrupt.
There is no such thing as an excuse. Kids become desperate to meet their quota, they shoot orders (tell your car handler you got one when you really didn't in hopes of making up the difference on the next drop),they literally scare people into buying, they are overly aggressive, they steal, they tell people to give them the sale right then and there and they can cancel it the next day. You're only as good as your last drop. Kids don't eat or smoke for days so they can fake orders with their own money. The average subscription price was about eighty dollars. If you're living off twenty dollars a day,and you give up eating and smoking, how long will it take for you to be able to fake your orders? Some of these tactics only have a short term effect, it works for that day, sometimes even that week. Come Sunday, you find out only half of your orders went through, due to cancellations.
So what's your motivation? I realize that by giving people a push to do better is a smart business move, but Management was most definitely giving the wrong execution of the right plan. By intimidating your workforce with the idea that N O T H I N G they produce is ever going to be good enough, you're taking away the positivity and drive required to be a productive sales person. You're breaking their spirit by badgering them for not producing when the situation was completely out of their control. You have successfully turned them into a mindless drone who's only purpose is to serve management.
I realize some kids slack off on drops, and use the aforementioned scenarios as a way to justify their lack of effort. Management treats everyone as if they are lazy pieces of shit. That makes it tough for anyone who was genuinely making a concerted effort to have a voice. Management automatically assumes that no matter what the reality of the situation was, you were sitting on your ass the entire drop if you hadn't picked up at least five orders.
Again, what is your motivation? You become so broken down the only thing you're really working for is to get your twenty dollar draw, and to keep the insults and humiliation to a minimum.
Super fun, right?
****
Vermont: Part 3
Sexual Harassment Panda
July 27,2007
Anyone who has been on crew can tell you that women are a minority. Crews are mostly comprised of oversexualized boys 18-25. Anyone who's had a normal job can tell you about what is considered sexual harassment, and the consequences surrounding it. Apparently, none of my male counterparts on crew ever had a normal job.
When you're new, you are told no drinking, and no sex for the first two weeks. Just because you aren't allowed to fornicate for fourteen days doesn't mean the boys leave you alone about it until its 'ok'. Just about every day, the women on crew were subjected to hearing the boys say the most disgusting and depraved things about women walking down he street, women in the car next to us, and female Jones'. We weren't left out, as we were not excluded from hearing the same vomit inducing things about ourselves. The boys constantly solicited us for sexual favors, and reminded us of all the ways they could turn us into Audrey, and what is going to happen when those two weeks are up.
This day was like any other, woke up, got ready, had a meeting, and stopped at a gas station to get breakfast (for those who did not take advantage of the continental breakfast at the hotel). Alex, a new agent like myself, approaches me and strikes up a conversation. We have a good chat, as we do have a few things in common. He's a really shy guy and having a really hard time adjusting to crew life. He looks at me with the saddest eyes I've ever seen and says "I just want to be your friend, I'm not going to try and have sex with you like the other guys". I almost empty my stomach. I realize there is a shortage of women on crew, but Jesus Christ! No wonder some of the boys weren't selling anything, they were too busy thinking of ways to get in our pants! They could start by getting better pick up lines. "I'd beat!" Really? I like sex as much as the next person, but no woman in her right mind would let any of these degenerates do anything remotely resembling sex to them.
I'm starting to get into the groove of crew life. Hardly any sleep, aching body, blistered feet, sweat drenched clothes,constantly exhausted, dehydrated and hungry. Sure we got to eat, but crappy fast food isn't the best if you're working twelve hours a day. I've never really been a breakfast person but I've taken fancy to at least two(or one big) cups of coffee and no less than five cigarettes to get my day started. I've also joined the pack-a-day club. Not something myself and my wallet are particularly proud of. Smoking is fucking expensive,especially when you have a twenty dollar budget in the northeast.
The day wraps up earlier than usual. We are told to get the evening routine done quickly so everyone has a chance to get packed. Packed? Why? We are leaving Vermont the next evening. To where? The great state of New York, Long Island to be specific. The old heads are overwhelmingly excited about the upcoming venture. The top agents get to go to the Hamptons to sell. Is this some kind of a joke? The Hamptons? Playground of the uber rich and super famous? THEE Hamptons? What about the rest of us? Don't worry, there's plenty of T for the rest of us.
Another long, exhausting day on the books.
****
July 27,2007
Anyone who has been on crew can tell you that women are a minority. Crews are mostly comprised of oversexualized boys 18-25. Anyone who's had a normal job can tell you about what is considered sexual harassment, and the consequences surrounding it. Apparently, none of my male counterparts on crew ever had a normal job.
When you're new, you are told no drinking, and no sex for the first two weeks. Just because you aren't allowed to fornicate for fourteen days doesn't mean the boys leave you alone about it until its 'ok'. Just about every day, the women on crew were subjected to hearing the boys say the most disgusting and depraved things about women walking down he street, women in the car next to us, and female Jones'. We weren't left out, as we were not excluded from hearing the same vomit inducing things about ourselves. The boys constantly solicited us for sexual favors, and reminded us of all the ways they could turn us into Audrey, and what is going to happen when those two weeks are up.
This day was like any other, woke up, got ready, had a meeting, and stopped at a gas station to get breakfast (for those who did not take advantage of the continental breakfast at the hotel). Alex, a new agent like myself, approaches me and strikes up a conversation. We have a good chat, as we do have a few things in common. He's a really shy guy and having a really hard time adjusting to crew life. He looks at me with the saddest eyes I've ever seen and says "I just want to be your friend, I'm not going to try and have sex with you like the other guys". I almost empty my stomach. I realize there is a shortage of women on crew, but Jesus Christ! No wonder some of the boys weren't selling anything, they were too busy thinking of ways to get in our pants! They could start by getting better pick up lines. "I'd beat!" Really? I like sex as much as the next person, but no woman in her right mind would let any of these degenerates do anything remotely resembling sex to them.
I'm starting to get into the groove of crew life. Hardly any sleep, aching body, blistered feet, sweat drenched clothes,constantly exhausted, dehydrated and hungry. Sure we got to eat, but crappy fast food isn't the best if you're working twelve hours a day. I've never really been a breakfast person but I've taken fancy to at least two(or one big) cups of coffee and no less than five cigarettes to get my day started. I've also joined the pack-a-day club. Not something myself and my wallet are particularly proud of. Smoking is fucking expensive,especially when you have a twenty dollar budget in the northeast.
The day wraps up earlier than usual. We are told to get the evening routine done quickly so everyone has a chance to get packed. Packed? Why? We are leaving Vermont the next evening. To where? The great state of New York, Long Island to be specific. The old heads are overwhelmingly excited about the upcoming venture. The top agents get to go to the Hamptons to sell. Is this some kind of a joke? The Hamptons? Playground of the uber rich and super famous? THEE Hamptons? What about the rest of us? Don't worry, there's plenty of T for the rest of us.
Another long, exhausting day on the books.
****
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