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quiet_tiger) wrote2005-07-08 12:43 am
Today, for what it's worth
Today I was back as a construction flagger for the tree cutting guys. It's easy work, not terrible pay, and it wasn't hot today, so I didn't want to die, unlike yesterday where it was really uncomfortable right before lunch. But the guy in charge of the two-man operation is one of those guys who when he gives instructions to people, he either does it half-assed so he only gives part of what he needs done, or he mumbles so you can't hear him. It is, shall we say, quite frustrating to work for someone when you're never quite sure what they want you to do, as I bet everyone reading this knows.
And I learned even more about the girl I worked with. She lives with her grandparents, who either have money or just spend foolishly, because her parents were heavy into drugs. She has a sister who's 30, and a brother who's only nine and half months younger than she is (all I'm gonna say to that is, "damn"). She didn't get the one level of her high school diploma because she failed one of the necessary exams. She's coasted by on what I assume are mostly Ds, based on the fact that she almost didn't graduate and that she was in school for 14 hours her senior year to make up classes to ensure that she graduated at all. She used to smoke up every day, but she's been clean for 7 months. She's 18! I can't even comprehend having a drug habit at 18. I'm not trying to judge her or anything, I just have trouble wrapping my brain around the different ways that people living only 20 miles or so apart can live. I mean, it's not like I'm comparing Montana to LA. Heck, differences like this can exist across a street (or, pardon the cliche, across the tracks). I just find it utterly fascinating. Compare her, or the woman from the packaging plant, to the kids at my school who drive their own Mercedes or BMW. Class structure, or at least different living situations, really is interesting.
Then tonight for the sales job I met with a woman. A housewife. A housewife who basically said she's completely and utterly financially dependent on her husband because she has no job, and it seems as if she has to get his okay in order to purchase anything because it's all his money. As the 21st century Renaissance Woman I like to consider myself, this concept of a poor housewife is just completely foreign. Like, I know in the '50s and stuff it was just the way things were: the man went out to work, and the woman raised the kids. I guess I've just never known anyone whose family worked like that in this day; I think everyone I know works. I just can't imagine being completely dependent on someone, and having no money at all that's your own. If it works and you can do it and you're happy, then that's great. I just like being able to buy something if I want it.
Then tonight was also our team meeting. It was... interesting. I'm still not sure what the average person does in a week with respect to sales and appointments. I don't want to hear about the actual "average" because there are a couple of sales people who are like freaking amazing at it and are skewing all the numbers. I can't seem to log onto the website that tells us all that stuff. Like I said before, if a lot of people on the team only do three appointments a week, then I'm not going to feel bad about only fitting in five or six. In addition to working the temp jobs, of course. I know it's better money to just do the sales thing, but there's a lot we don't actually get paid for, and if I can definitely make fifty bucks or more in a day rather than playing the odds and only making thirty, I'm going to work the whole day and not waste my time. The sales stuff will just be extra. But anyway, so at this meeting, Manager Man goes into this long bit about one of the reps, great attitude, blah blah blah, always checks in, blah, blah, whatever whatever, and he meant me, for some reason, so I got promoted to the Key Staff, which is apparently the "inner circle" of sales representatives. Now, you're probably thinking, "Wow, a promotion, that's cool." Well, it really isn't. It means I have to drive all the way out there (20 minutes) for an extra meeting with the other Key Staffers, and then wait around until the weekly meeting (so I guess it's the same drive I'd have to do anyway, just three hours earlier). And it means I have to spend more time with Manager Man, whom I just really can't stand, for various reasons. And, we don't get paid for this meeting, so it's one less time a week I can actually schedule something where I will actually get paid. It is, shall we say, really frustrating. What kills me is that Manager Man said the first time I met him that he's a good just of character. OBVIOUSLY NOT. Or maybe my nervous smile and way of letting people walk all over me is screwing me over, or deceiving him, or something. I am clearly not positive. I haven't even been particularly friendly with him once I decided that I didn't like him and didn't trust him as far as I could throw him. And I have missed a call or two I was supposed to make. And yeah, I did set a goal of 13 appointments for the week. I've actually made 7, though I do have some more calls to make to catch people at work tomorrow. Err, today. Um... long story short: I don't like this job, I don't want this promotion, but it is good money when I actually do work it (though the promotion just seems to be a way to get people together to feel special- though it looks like two thirds of the staff are in that inner circle, which makes no sense). Though it's really not as great as it seems to be on the surface. Damn analytical mind.
After the meeting, we went bowling as a group. My buddy Asad didn't come, but he should have because it was fun. I am not a good bowler, I'm in fact a below average bowler. But it's still fun. The number one rep girl, who Manager Man talks about constantly, is a bit of one of those loud, outspoken, jokes-with-everyone-but-you're-not-always-sure-if-she's-joking kind of person. Then, this girl that Manager Man is like in love with, is just about my total opposite. She was dancing to the clubbing music the place put on, trying to get me to dance, she was cheering all loudly, and she's a bit of a ditz all the time. I'm a ditz, too, sometimes, but I don't think I could live with myself if I never seemed to fully understand what was going on around me. See? I'm a horrible person. I admit it. Though I can also be really nice and helpful and caring, so please don't hate me.
The alley had one of those claw machines, and from it I got a Batman ball! It's squishy, and it has drawings of the Justice League Batman, and a shadow outline of the V of Justice League people, whatever the logo shot during the opening credits of the show is called. I recognize everyone except the dude in the cape on the far left with an X on his chest. Who's that? So, now I have one more Batman thingie to add to my growing collection of Batman junk. He's just so... irresistible in a weird kind of way.
And.... *drum roll* ... I got my computer back! It seems to work okay, it's just all virgin and untarnsihed by my Favorites folder and my AIM away messages and all the other things that made it mine. *sniffles* Thankfully I was able to save my wallpaper, which took me hours to do last summer. It's a collage of pictures of all the celebrities I find attractive (of course MR and TW are there, among a lot of others). And, what really rocks, even though I had to lose just about everything to get it, is they cleaned the keyboard! I do *not* take good care of the keyboard for this thing, so it was really gross, and I had been wondering how to clean it anyway, and now it's all clean and spiffy, which I'm happy about.
So, while today was kind of frustrating in some instances, there were some good things, too. I love my Batman ball. It only took me two tries to get it, too.
And, if anyone would like to comment about what I've been saying about that sales job, please do, even if there's no way I know you at all. I'm not sure if I should give it up because I agonize over it so much, or suck it up and keep it just to get the little extra bit of money each week. But then this stupid promotion thing really screws up the former choice. Grrr. My parents think I'm crazy for taking the job at all, and I just bitch to my friends, so I'd appreciate all comments.
And, yet another MSN article (it's the homepage on my dad's computer): Books Versus Movies
Now, I usually like the books better because there's more in them and you can get inside the heads of the characters better. Stuff is also cut out of movies. A lot of the time I have trouble following a movie if it's made from a book I've already read, because movies omit characters, scenes, blend things together, totally make stuff up, and lots of other things. I also like in books that you can read a character's motivations for doing something, or at least know what they are thinking. This is noticeably missing in a movie, of course, and is very apparent in a novelization of a movie, where the words are pretty much just a screenplay in a prose format. I have the novelization of Batman Returns *hangs head in dorky shame*, and it's weird reading about what I know happens in the movie, but still not being told why a character is doing something. There's just a noticeable lack of depth.
The article, however, trashes a movie I used to be obsessed with: The Secret of NIMH. *Loved* that movie when I was little. Haven't watched it in a while. Love the book it's based on, too, I have two copies of it for some reason. One has an original cover painting, whike the other seems to be a sort of screen cap almost from the movie. Great book. Fun movie. Not a great movie, but lots of fun. And of all the things the article could have chosen to mention about movies based off of books, it didn't mention the T-Rex storming LA in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Heck, that movie changed weird things and didn't make sense anyway, but I hope you catch my drift.
Wow, I'm tired, it's late, and I should probably go to sleep. But, it's been fun sharing with you.
no subject
*sad sigh*
Sales is harder than it looks. I remember always thinking: The customer shouldn't suffer for the kind of day I've had...and stuff like that, so I smiled through it. Don't know what to tell you, but if it's a choice between the extra money or being bitchy, it's yours to make. Email me if you wanna talk more anout it, kay?
:D
no subject
I don't mind the actual sales part of the job, I like talking to the customers and things like that once I actually have a time to meet them (calling them really sucks). Some people have been really nice, and it was cool hearing what my mom's coworkers have to say about her (hehe, talking to my dad's coworkers and the people who work for him is a totally different story).
What I have a huge problem with is the people I'm working for. I simply don't like them. I don't respect them, and I find them creepy and untrustworthy. I also really don't appreciate the lies they've given us. And I hate the way that they keep insisting that the pay is so great. Factor in the work we do outside of the actual appointments, and the pay per hour is noticeably lower. Unless of course you sell the big sets, which are really tough to sell (they make it seem like everyone sells them all the time, and based on the chart on the wall in the office, maybe 25 or so of the "most popular set" has been sold this summer, a mostly by the same people). And the flexible schedule seems okay, but not when the managers are on your back constantly. I don't like being pressured, you know? I've been good at school and stuff because I can do my own thing. And I've had no problems with other jobs, because I haven't been watched every single second. The temp jobs I'm doing don't pay that well, but I go in, I do the job, I leave, and I can forget about it until the next day. I just feel like a part of me is always thinking about and agonizing all of this, and I hate that.
And when I reach the one guy in the morning for our morning call-in things, he talks for like ten minutes and constantly asks "what's up" (even after he comes back from putting me on hold), and, "you know?" as if I can't comprehend a single thing ever said by anyone. Granted I don't always know what he's talking about, but I do catch a few things. ;) I think he does that to everyone, though.
I just don't like being demeaned, I guess (no one does, unless they have one of those fetishes). I knew I would be at the movie theater last summer, you know, being trained by kids four years younger than me (everyone pretty much was nice, I just felt weird), cleaning grime out from popcorn cases, having to deal with customers who complain about the prices- as if they weren't printed three times over above the counter, and as if they didn't already know that movie theaters jack up the prices something fierce, but that's the way theaters make money: concessions- awful things like that. But I knew to expect that. Same at last summer's internship, I knew I'd be doing jobs that the real workers didn't want to do because they sucked. I think that it's just maybe these peoples' ways of trying to pump people up and get them motivated are just insulting to me. Which is totally my own problem and if I can't get over this I know I should quit because I don't want to be miserable this summer.
I don't know. I'll see how this weekend goes.
But thanks for your comments. Sorry, I know this isn't an email, exactly. But if you want to keep talking about this, feel free to email away. I'd love to hear about your experiences. :) It seems like half the people I've met with have done sales, and it's fascinating to hear the way in which their experiences have paralleled mine thus far.
no subject
I usually find that what wears me is the people I work for (which is why I'm loving being a stay-at-home mom, lol!!), as opposed to the job itself.
Let me know how it goes, babe, hope it works out well!!
:)