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On top of all that, they had a bouncing payroll...
hours: evenings, weekends
places: local, though they have offices elsewhere
training: as you go
type of phone: manual
bonus: not really
pay: hourly, low
security: donors pay by checks
legit or illegit: illegit, staff self-deceiving
pressure: rapid turnover
Samantha, 48, housewife
I am glad I have the chance to talk out
about this because it bothers me that people think all people working in Montreal telemarketing are bad people. I have found
quite the contrary, myself.
For example, I worked a few years ago at a children's charity which had a name very closely
related to a real famous children's charity. Except that it wasn't the real thing, and there's the rub.
You may not
believe this that every last one of us, at least on my evening shift, believe heart and soul in that charity and pushed ourselves
to get in as much money as we could. Also the payments were different than what I saw before, only small checks were asked
for and the money did not seem big enough to be a scam office.
Checks for ten and fifteen and twenty-five dollars?
The telemarketing companies we hear about in the media are dealing in thousands of dollars per sale.
We called lists
the boss gave us. People always gave. I tried to guess what the night shift made in a year, maybe a couple of hundred thousand,
if that. I am sure they spent as little of that as possible on the children's festival or parade or picnic, or whatever it
was. An annual event which gave them a long time to gather themoney.
I felt good doing this job at first. Why am I
suspicious? Because they never gave no tax receipts, that's why - don't you think all charities have to do that?
We
had to refer the ones that pushed hard to the day shift, and saying to us, the day shift does the business fundraising for
the charities, that's why we deal with the tax receipts on the day shift.
The second thing, in my family we have done
some church and community work. The bosses never took no notice of all the people we talked to who said I have no money to
give, I sure would like to work there as a volunteer worker. Like if it was a business with a free computer to give, okay,
if it is a volunteer worker for free, no way.
I couldn't figure out the tax thing to myself, in my own head, so I
left. On top of all that they had a bouncing payroll. I got the money finally, had to go back a few times with my boyfriend
waiting downstairs for protection.
Dan, 24, student
I worked in magazines for a while.
It
seemed really easy to sell because of all the prizes attached to it. I wondered about the prizes. There were airline tickets
with no hotels to atttached to them. You took the airlines tickets because they went to places that ended up at a hotel that
you had to pay for. I have seen these same tickets in business magazines so they seemed legal.
There was a prize of
hundreds of rolls of camera film. This too has a catch. The film may be about to expire soon, however it still is a prize.
They also throw in a watch, and watches can only cost a few bucks.
The job paid hourly, about eight dollars,
plus commmissions. The office was friendly and with all the prizes many people took it, since they only had to pay a few dollars
a week for a four year subscription to a famous magazine.
Problems? I had to find out whether they had Visa or Mastercard
right away, and then let them know at the end of listing prizes they did have to pay for their magazine. We ran it as a promotion
by magazine advertisers in their area of the United States. Our bosses told us in our training that it was realistic of the
magazine advertisers to want to give something back to people.
The four year thing got to me because I phoned a 1-800
hotline for one of the magazines, The National Enquirer, which I just love, even though it is a little trashy it is less trashy
than others of the type, and found out there is no such thing as a four year suscription.
Also after we had done all
the work we hasd to turn the sales over to a guy in a shut door room who got the crerdit card number. He told us most of our
sales never came through. I though he was lying at the time but maybe he was straight, because I noticed the whole amount
of money went up onto the boards when the sale cleared.
Both the buyer and seller assmed the three or four bucks would
be coming off the credit cards on a weekly basis, and then it hits you one thousand dollars Canadian or about six fifty USA
comes off the card right away.
That is quite a lot of money. Our office belonged to a travel telemarketing company
before us, I wonder if they sold the tours that had no tickets, ha ha. Then we phone with the tickets and no hotels.
I
left to go out West for the holidays to see my girlfriend. About a year later I applied for a job at a low interest card place
in the same building.
It was spooky seeing the same guys running this place that had been running the magazine place.
They would sure know who was having credit card troubles! They were good to their staff and always gave us a pat on the back
to encourage, whether or not we were selling a lot. The music was helpful.
Prizes really help to make a sale and also
their leads were good at that office. No telephone screamers. I buy things myself that have prizes atttached to them. Though
not on the telephone.
It's just a job like any other. Attitude and positivity count in life.
Andrew, 38, ex-insurance executive
I worked at one of those auto-dialler places that do insurance and telephone companies
mostly.
I have gone back to university and do not know how I will pay all my bills, except
that I am lucky to have a good wife who has a stable job with Bell.
This place paid rock-bottom, about $7 an hour.
They did a lot of commission altering. for example, most places like this have a weekly
rate for the commission based on how well the sales are going on that campaign.
If the sales were going well, the bosses changed the rate in the middle of the shift!
Sometimes in the middle of the hour! This made it hard to keep track of your rates.
I would never have bought insurance like this, in a two minute sale, you don't know
where the call is coming from and you can never speak with the person who sold you the policy.
When I was a boy on the Lakeshore, our insurance man came right to our house,
and sat down in the kitchen and talked to my mom and dad. He came from a famous name company that had a big building
in downtown Montreal and my parents knew him for years. The way things used to be done can be the
best way, sometimes.
Back to the high-pressure place. It was a lot of pressure for not much money.
You could be washing dishes at a submarine sandwich joint for less stress on the head. One night two of the top salespeople
broke out into a bad argument, they got up to their feet and almost were punching one another out.
The managers whisper in their ears to compete with one another, to get those sales
up. The managers too have to compete with one another. There was listening in on all the calls from several areas.
I thought that was against the law, we are only told when the clients who are using our company are tapping in. Not
when our own managers and bosses are cutting in.
The competition is so fierce that even the day and night shifts are turned against
one another. One night, a young girl who was always better than the day shift employees was lectured for being the slowest
on her team of four that night. She was working with two of the best on the floor, and her sales were still higher than
day shift.
You pick on the weakest to increase the fear of being fired, so the fear will get
the sales up. The girl started to cry. Instead of backing off, the tears seem to make the boss want
to dominate and control the situation. Any jerk who sells a lot thinks he has great people skills, whether or not he
does or not.
Since almost offices in the city paid the same or more, she had nothing to lose by
flipping out, which she did. Over a hundred people in the room, including the entire French end of the office, stopped
to listen to the argument.
I'll never forget what she said, when she left the room that night. She spoke for
a lot of us myself included.
I am not telling you. Sometimes pain requires privacy. Not listening in
on others' conversation. And everyone would know where this happened, too.
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