Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Adventures In Direct Sales, Pt. 2: "Your Christians are so unlike your Christ" and Other Annoyances

So, I wish I had something positive to say about work today, but I just don't. First problem: the office is being stupid and letting me take the heat for it. To make a long story short, when someone books a presentation, they receive a free gift. They have a choice between two items. Right now, however, we are out of one of the items and won't likely have more for two weeks. So when the office calls the customer to confirm the appointment, it might be nice of them to say something like, "by the way, I see you wanted item B, but we're currently out of it. Is item A okay, or would you like to reschedule for when the shipment arrives?" But NOOOOO. They just carry on like nothing is out of the ordinary, and when I get to the house and hand them item A, I'm the one that takes shit for it. I'm tired of it. Then when people don't want to see the presentation until we have the gift they actually chose, I get in trouble from the boss. Because you know, it's totally my fault.

Also, the system I'm selling is expensive. I get that. I totally believe in what I'm selling, but I admit that it's a big investment. Now, between the economy being in the shitter and the fact that in Saskatchewan, people don't finance things (that being a big part of the reason we've been hit less by the recession to begin with) any sales I do make tend to be cash or credit card sales. That in itself is good. The "problem" is, people who are otherwise interested but don't have the money right now are not buying on payment plans. According to my boss, this must also somehow be my fault, at least judging by the tone in his voice when I tell him that a customer just doesn't want to finance and therefore won't be buying today. See, he comes from a city where people practically finance cups of coffee, and he "doesn't understand why [I'm] not making sales."

Now for the story referenced by the quote in the title of this post. (Disclaimer: I know not all Christians are douchebags. Love you guys. :D) I had an appointment yesterday in a Christian senior's condo complex. To get my equipment to and from my car takes two trips. So, after I was done with the presentation, I took the first load down, moved my car into the loading zone for the building so I wouldn't have as far to carry the second load, and buzzed the lady's suite to get back up there and get the other stuff. Now, she had mentioned that she was having some trouble with her buzzer, so it might take a couple of minutes for her to let me in, just in case she had to actually come downstairs to open the door.

As I was getting out of my car and walking to the door, a guy walked up and introduced himself as the building manager, then asked who I was looking for. I told him I was here to see "Anna" (name changed) in suite 300. He very gruffly informed me that "there is no Anna in 300" and tried to hustle me along. Of course, since I have a terribly overactive imagination, my first thought was not "wow, this guy is a douchebag" but instead, "holy crap I was just having tea with a ghost." Yes, you can all laugh at me now.

Anyway, I smiled and politely said that I had been upstairs with Anna in 300 not five minutes before, and she had mentioned some trouble with the buzzer, so I'd just ring her and wait for her to let me in. The jerkface building manager informed me that "this is a Christian building, and we don't want just anybody (said while leering at the negligible bit of cleavage shown by my blouse, which can't be helped because I have big boobs, and I'm very sorry that my FUCKING GENETIC MATERIAL is so offensive to your religious beliefs) loitering around and causing trouble." Furthermore, he informed me, "if you don't move your car right now you're looking at a $500 ticket." I pointed out that all the clearly visible signage said that the spot I was in was a fifteen minute loading zone, and I had been there for less than two minutes-in fact, he had seen me pull up. I then pressed the buzzer for Anna's suite and stood there waiting. All the while, this charming fellow kept sputtering about how parking and visitors are up to the manager's discretion. Yeah, the condo manager can TOTALLY tell the condo owners when they can have visitors. Uh-huh.

After a few minutes, Anna from 300 (who the manager had said didn't exist) came down, let me in, and told Mr. Assface that he had better get someone to work on her buzzer, because it was getting to be a pain for her to have to come all the way down and let her visitors in. Yay, nice old lady.

I'm just getting really frustrated with taking crap and getting yelled at by strangers for something that I can't control, which could be avoided if the office would just be honest with people. Ugh.

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