Just Off Center

Ever since I got promoted to manager at the telemarketing job life has been a bit easier, perhaps even more fun. Before the promotion I would sit in my car in the parking lot until the last possible minute before my shift, just dreading all the angry fuckers who’d be picking up the phones. Now my job is just to walk around and listen to the reps get yelled at and hung up on, and do my best to show them how to be as effective sellers as possible.

So for the past two weeks I’ve been reading management books and doing exercises meant to prepare me for the daunting task of managing a group of uneducated dickbrains. But until yesterday I didn’t have any specific names to associate these lessons. Now I do. I have been assigned a group of reps that I’ll be specifically watching and listening to, and I must say I’ve got quite the diverse group of demographics.

CEASAR – We’ll start with the best. Ceasar (and that is how you spell his real name) is a black man in his late twenties or early thirties. He sports a shaved head and is into working out. He’s very muscular, but fit. On the phone, his voice is like butter. People stay on the line with him just to hear him talk I think. The first time I monitored him I gave him a list of things he could do to improve. He didn’t like that. He took the list into the site manager’s office and complained. She seemed to quell his anger and he actually took the advice to heart. Last payday, when I handed him his check, he actually said, “That advice really helped me. Thanks. I think you’re a really good manager.” Warm fuzzies across the board. Then last night I monitored him again, and his performance was fucking spot on. I gave him a great write up. He shook my hand and told me that it was encouragement and advice that helped him become the room’s top seller. Aaahhhhh…

JOE – Our resident pathetic pussy hound. Joe is a 31-year-old fella who’s fallen on some tough times. He’s white, average looking, shorter than most women like, and he overplays his wit with poor choices of jokes. Oh and did I mention that if you are a female, you absolutely looooooove Joe? Well at least that’s what he thinks. In truth he makes women very uncomfortable, but not quite uncomfortable enough to go through the trouble of filing a complaint. He’s just one of those men you ladies have to deal with. He is actually a great seller so I give him some latitude. I just hate that he tries to copy the regional dialect of whatever lead he’s speaking to. Apparently it helps the party relate to the seller. But we’re not supposed to do it. Last night I heard him putting on some feaux-Asian accent for the Nguyen family in Sacramento (pronounced en-goo-why-en didn’t you know?). It was such an insulting representation I can’t believe they didn’t just call him an asshole and hang up. Well, that’s Joe

ANNA – Anna is a middle-aged woman of undetermined ethnicity, though I suspect mostly Asian and Mexican. She sits as far fro the young people as possible and stares at her screen. She has a sales pitch that she never ever deviates from. Unfortunately, it’s a pitch that excludes some phrases that we’re required by law to say. I wrote up a monitor sheet for her last night with all the things she just needs to add to be perfect. She took it, signed it, handed it back, and continued to give the exact same sale right in front of me. Fucking bitch. I can see she’s going to be an issue. If I can just get her to change these few little things, we’d be cool.

JASMINE – Our stereotypical ghetto black girl. She’s got nappy hair, an at times unintelligible dialect, ugly, unflattering ho-wear, and a bad attitude. She’s the “what-EVAAAA” girl. This is her response to being confronted on pretty much everything she does. But she makes enough sales to be productive, so I mostly leave her alone. She keeps trying to have conversations with the skinny black fag in the room all the time, which annoys me to no end. And I say fag because that’s what he is. He’s not gay, queer, dainty, prissy, or butch. This boy’s a straight up fag and he’ll announce it to the whole room…and often does. He told me he was hungry and I told him, “Honey, you sure you need to eat again?” He didn’t.

DANIEL – Older, gruff, pleasant to the leads, and doesn’t bathe regularly. I steer clear of him whenever possible.

ERIN – Sweet-natured Native American girl in her early twenties who wears all 80’s metal attire. I’m most impressed with her collection of vintage concert T’s by Megadeath, ACDC, Judas Priest, and fucking Lita Ford. She’s kind, quiet, respectful, and doesn’t participate in the drama that’s always flying around between the reps. I like Erin. And as much as I hate to say it, it’s nice to see an Indian lady who isn’t well on her way to a heart attack by thirty. And I like how impressed she was when I told her that I saw the Bon Jovi/Cinderella - Slippery When Wet/Night Songs concert.

ELYSE – She’s actually not on my team, but she’d like to be. She’s a sweet little black girl in her late teens I think who for some reason has taken to me as the manager she’s going to trust. I think it’s just that I’m the only one who tells her that she can do better rather than simply berating her for doing badly. Too bad she looks like a bulldog. But I sit with her and give her pointers. She’s gotten a lot better, and that makes me happy, because she seems to be enjoying the job more having taken to pleasing me as a motivation.

There are other, but I’m fucking bored with this post myself now.

# posted by Mike @ 7:57 AM