7:24 p.m. - 2005-01-06
pounding the pavement with my head
The next time someone posts a job opening and calls it "Marketing/Account Coordinator" when they really mean "DOOR-TO-DOOR SALES" I'm going to be forced to pull my hair out of my head one strand at a time.
This day was insane, folks. Sigh. I don't even know if I can tell you about it. OK. I think it's bad enough to be funny. Here we go. So I show up for my day-long second interview at MC Marketing Solutions today, in my best Tahari suit, as I was instructed to dress "Business Professional". I was expecting to tour the office, have some meetings and learn more about the company's goals and methodology. Maybe even grab some lunch at a cute nearby cafe.
The first problem was a major flood in the downtown area, basically bisecting my route to my destination. The good news is that my ever-vigilant and well-informed father was on top of things. He woke me up early so I could leave with plenty of time to take an alternate route. Unfortunately, even an hour early was not enough time and I was running late, as was the entire population of Southwestern Pennsylvania, evidently. However, just as I was about to call the potential employer to tell hem I would be late, they rang me to tell me everyone was running late because of the flooding and to get there when I could. Excellent. What thoughtful people!
When I arrive, Marc, the guy who interviewed me the day before greets me warmly. Yesterday, he spoke enthusiastically about how he thought I'd make a great addition to his team and how he thinks I'm "serious management material." He recieves my handshake and "Nice to see you again" with both hands, twinkling eyes and "Great to see you, Jessi" and introduces me to the "Senior Executive" he told me about yesterday. Hmm. This is where things begin to decline. Senior Executive Mandy looks about 23 and has a really bad dye job and is chewing gum. Loudly. Mandy is wearing an ill fitting suit with a FLEECE over it. I am told I will be spending the day with Mandy "out in the field." What field?! What about touring the office and having meetings???
I follow Mandy, totally unclear on what we are going to do, when she tells me we will be heading to Uniontown. Um, Uniontown is well over an hour away. I'm imagining 2 full hours in the car with Mandy, there and back, doing whatever the hell we are supposed to be doing in between. As soon as we get in the bright yellow jeep, and pull out of the parking lot, Mandy lights up a Marlboro Red and doesn't stop smoking the entire day. If we were in the car for three minutes, she'd light up and then stamp it out and SAVE the BUTT to smoke it later. OK. In bars, great. In smoking sections of restaurants, fine. Outside, fabulous. But in the car, with a person you've never met before, without asking them, when THEY are supposed to be on a job interview, when it's pouring down rain into the window, which caused her to only put down her window a quarter inch...!!! My best suit and my best coat smell like a freaking ashtray now.
After about a half hour in the car, I realize that we are going to be meeting with owners of small businesses to see if they want to switch service providers for their credit card swiping machines. That is our "client", a company called First Horizons, which according to Mandy can give anybody a much better deal than their current provider. What I don't realize until the first one or two "meetings" is that the people we are "meeting" with are not expecting us and pretty much think we're annoying. Yup. We are door-to-door salespeople. The day really started to plummet when the hair salon lady literally chased us out shouting "No no no no no no no!"
We talked to tavern owners and bakers and candlestick makers. We talked to a papermaker and cobbler. More mechanics than I can count. A gift shop owner. A painter. An antique dealer. Only a very very nice and apparently very bored fire extinquisher shop owner filled out an application. I think he felt sorry for us.
See, as if all of this wasn't bad enough, from my perspective, Mandy was going about it all wrong. Which is a shame because all MC Marketing Solutions entry level employees are paid only by commission, which I learned somewhere between Elizabeth township and Uniontown. First of all, she basically lied to every single one of them. She made it sound like she was with Mastercard and was there to make sure they weren't being overcharged, which was just so she could get a look at their bill and them come up with a cheaper plan for them. She sounded like a salesperson, she looked like a salesperson. It was embarrassing. I mean, she was "nice" but she was so cliche and monotone, I actually started doing little eye roll things at the business owners once they got that glazed over "NOT interested" look affixed grimly to their faces and I knew they weren't taking the bait anyway. It made me feel better. Hey, she was scamming the business owners and the whole "marketing" company was scamming me. As far as I could tell, we were in it together...me and Jim Bob and his Auto Parts store.
As for lunch...about 4 hours after we started all of this silliness, I was offered a trip to the Drive Thru at McDonalds. Mandy had brought along with her a can of Grape Cola and a bologna sandwich on white bread. For someone who was apparently trying to sell me on the glorious wonders of this "amazing opportunity"...she wasn't impressing me...neither with her lunch nor the suggestion for mine.
Back at the ranch 6 hours later...6 LONG hours and one McYogurt Parfait later...Marc was eagerly awaiting our return. When we got there, I was handed.....a quiz.
OK. Here are the first two questions on the quiz:
What are the eight great work habits?
What are the five parts of a conversation?
Hmm. At no point did Mandy discuss any such thing with me. I could tell you exactly what she said to most of the business owners. I could quote her on any of the fifteen times she gushed about what a great boss Marc was and I could outline for you her "Six Year Plan." But never was anything about a conversation having five parts or there being eight great work habits discussed. I mean, I'm a smart girl....I can put two and two together. Things don't have ot be spelled out for me to "get it." But I'm telling you...there was no such thing talked about at all. As I went further down the quiz, I realized that this was not so much a quiz about what I learned today...but apparently more of an "evaluation" for how Mandy had done. Apparently she didn't do well.
After they took my quiz from me, some strange things happened. The office had a waiting room with the most uncomfortable couch I've ever sat on...the kind where it's so low to the ground that when you sit down, you're kind of squatting, which in dress clothes is very unnatural and when you are ready to get up, you kind of have to heave yourself up off of it or sort of pull yourself up by the arm rest. This is awkward, especially when every time you have to get up off the couch, it is to greet someone who has already grasped your hand for a nice firm handshake but has no intentions of helping you up. Well, the waiting room looks into a conference room with glass doors. To the left of the conference room was a small office for the administrative assistant. To the right were two larger offices...for the Manager and Assistant Manager. When we arrived, all of the doors were closed. Mandy disappeared into one of the offices where there was enough chatter to indicate at least five other people in the office. She shut the door behind her and I never saw her again. The ad/min opened her door, came out, gave me the quiz and left. Marc came out of the other office, took the quiz from me and disappeared into the ad/min office. People would come out of one office, give me a friendly smile, then dart into another office, glance back at me and quickly shut the door behind them. I must have seen fifteen different people do this and sometimes the same person more than once. Sometimes they would leave the office altogether and go, presumably into the hallway for about ten seconds and then come back, smile at me and disappear into an office. Oh and this was all occuring at about 6:45 in the evening. It was like a scene from Being John Malkovich or something.
Finally Marc came and got me, in this very official manner and sat me down in the conference room. After he talked for a long time about the sort of person he is looking for to add to his team of "Bright, competitive professionals" I told him I didn't want to do any cold calling sales work and that I wasn't interested in the position. In his salesman way, he said "Great. We'll call you and let you know how it turns out. You did great today." Umm. Ok. Bye.
