Sunday, November 1, 2009

Hard Day yesterday

Ok so no more metaphors. Straight up nicknames. Everything else is being kept real.

Yesterday was the most difficult day ever at my job. It actually started the day before yesterday, Sunday. A customer called in, claiming that my co-worker damaged her phone. I saw the phone and it was not damaged at all. She wanted a verbal promise over the phone that I would replace it with a brand new one, free of charge. I declined and asked her to come into the store. She was talking to her husband, who I could hear in the background and he kept telling her what to say. She would be like, "Honey, the woman on the phone (me) says they are not going to replace it. What do I say?" Then I can hear him say "Tell her you are going to sue them if they don't." Then she says, "We are going to sue you if you don't." I tell her that there is no agreement and her phone was working just fine when she left. I can hear her repeat it to her husband and then he tells her what to say. It was straight up annoying! After a few times of this, I said, "If you want me to, I can speak to your husband myself?" She flipped out and starting swearing at me, telling me she isn't a little girl and doesn't need a father figure to figure things out. He got on the phone straightaway and said he was coming to the store to beat me up or shoot me with his gun and would be there in 5 minutes. I hung up on him and called security. They came and I explained the situation and asked them to hang around. Cell phones can be frustrating for people. Especially if they are crazy and unstable. In the meantime, there were so many customers waiting around.

I am currently training the new guy, scar head. He has many scars on his head, hence the name. Has a great attitude, lots of sales experience, is very intelligent, has nice writing and spells things correctly. Has two degrees: one in Theology and one is aeronautical engineering (or something like that). Went to school on scholarships. Downfalls? He is my manager's best friend and they live together. Which makes for a completely fair working environment - NOT! Also, my manager pressures him bigtime for sales. To make matters worse, I think I got top seller for the month for the island. Not conclusive but I am waiting for the numbers to be settled. I don't really care if I am Number 1 or not, as long as I get paid. The thing about Scarhead is that he feels the need to be Number 1, even though he is brand new. He keeps starting people on a sale and then getting me to help because he has NO CLUE what he is doing. It keeps me from actually getting sales because I am busy helping him. He's just so eager and controlling that he can't go slow, even though I told him he would be disciplined if he did this again. He told a family of 5 that we would set them up on the Fido network. They selected phones, gave him their information and went for lunch while he was going to set it all up. Thing is, there is no family plan on Fido!!!! He went through my paperwork, got my login codes and proceeded to complete a credit check for the customer. After activating the first phone, he realized that Fido doesn't have family plans and didn't know what to do. He was stuck. This is considered fraud because it was with my IDs and I didn't know about it. I got in trouble for not keeping them secret!!! Seriously? Are they kidding? He should have been fired, or at least a severe warning. I was so stressed that I started laughing maniacally. Which never leads to positive outcomes.

He apologized up and down and said that if the guy comes to the store to hurt me, he will kill him. I was like, great, but then you will be in jail and I won't be able to train you!
Next morning (yesterday), a couple was waiting outside the store at 9am. We don't open until 9:30 am. Whatever. Their phone was broken and I thought why not? Guess what??? Don't let people in early! And here's why:

Telus always opens late. 9:35am, sometimes the manager sleeps in and doesn't get their until 10am. They get fined $1000 for not opening on time. Telus always has customers waiting outside for them to open. Since we are directly across the hall from Telus, their waiting customers come into our store and ask a bunch of questions in order to compare in their heads between their current service and what they could potentially get from us. Super annoying, but sometimes leads to sales. So when I let the first couple in at 9am, the store suddenly filled up with 20 people, all grumpy and paying too much. Captive audience in one way, but really? they just want to find out how to get a lower price with Telus. You can tell it's an unhappy Telus customer when they start to ask you this kind of stuff:

"Do you think I am paying too much for my service?"
"Do you think $xxx.xx is too much for service for my cell phone?"
"Do you think this is a high quality phone?"
"Do you have any better phones than your competition?"
"Do you have a way of getting rid of extra costs? What should I say to my current provider to lower my costs? Is there a secret word?"
And my favorite: "Can you help me with my Telus phone? I don't want to go to the store, they aren't helpful at all."

Back to my morning. I have a line up of people. A very rude! man in army garb comes in, takes an iphone cover case off the wall and throws it at me, yelling me to put it on his phone. I tell him I am going to be 15 minutes. He freaks out and starts swearing. I tell him he can come back later if he wants to. He tells me to go F$#@ myself. I tell him to please leave. He comes right up to me and says "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME??" Again, I start laughing. Which wasn't good. I was petrified. So nervous. Dude, seriously, you are going to try to intimidate me? For no reason? Then he leaned in nice and close and yelled in my face, GO F$#@ YOURSELF. I leaned back and walked backwards, got a chair and put it between us, pulled my cell out and called security. The customers in the meantime had cleared out of the store and had contacted security. Security was out by Sears so by the time they got there, he was gone. Weird. I started praying. Hard.

My new co-worker comes in. Not scarhead. The other one. We'll call him Tbone for now. He had a weekend of partying in Vancouver and was coming down from it. He stood against the counter, not answering the phone, just staring at it. I was with customers and after the phone rang 15 times, I said "Can you grab the phone?" He answered it, but when he got off the phone wouldn't talk to me. I asked if he could hear me, he said no, so I asked what's going on? He screamed at me for about 10 minutes about how I am so bossy and rude and not polite and don't care about him. There were many swears in his yelling. I just let him get it all out. He was going red and purple and was so angry. When he was done, I was like, "ok, can we rewind? Cause I don't know what I said." I thought about it and confirmed with him about me asking him to get the phone. He said I should say please and thank you. I felt this was totally overreacting. Reason #4 to not do drugs. I wish I could take actions like this and televise it so kids won't do drugs. The old commercials used to show a frying egg. It made me feel icky cause I don't like eggs. If they really wanted to be effective, they should show how bad of a temper someone has, or how much money it costs and how the drug users are always stressed cause they don't have money. Or how they can't do simple tasks like answer the phone.

So, we talked it through. The whole time I was asking God "why?" I was so frustrated. Then, my other coworker rolls in. 2 hours late. He is also our manager's friend and doesn't get disciplined. There isn't much we can do about it. He doesn't clean, doesn't really do anything. But he gets paid. We will call him plaid, cause deep down he is really geeky but tries to be cool. He was not in a good mood and it was like sour milk for the day. Today was a little better. Here's the spiritual side of it:

My friend Singa says that the enemy tries to intimidate you when you are doing what you are supposed to be. I love my job. I love cell phones, love sales, love the atmosphere. I just don't like the drama. I feel like I am supposed to be here, doing this job. But it's hard. This morning when I opened, I had this idea that we should move the car to a different part of the store and move things around a bit. When the District Manager, Shazam! came in, he made us move the store around. When I came back from the bathroom, I thought I was imagining things because it was just what I had pictured. Odd. But cool. It was like a confirmation from God about my thoughts and stuff. I can't wait til Wednesday. Crave. Thursday off. Relax.

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