Jeremy's Blog

While I was a little strapped for cash this year, I took on a job as a Sales Representative for Planet Celluar, an Authorized Retailer for AT&T Products and Services. It was an okay job, about as glamorous as retail sales can be. Due to some expansion at Omega Vortex and the fact that I didn’t really need the job anymore, I decided it was best that we parted ways. A recent e-mail that was circulated among the people I used to work with makes me glad that I did.

So, here’s my attempt to tear apart an e-mail from a retarded business executive. Some people’s names, product names, and location names have been changed to protect the guilty … or the mentally retarded.

First, the full e-mail. Read and enjoy. My comments will follow.

From: Jimi Hendrix (jimi.hendrix@planetces.com)
Sent: Mon, 8/18/2008 1:39pm
To: Eric Cartman (eric.cartman@planetces.com)
Subject: South Park visit

Eric,

I am putting the majority of my focus on South Park this week due to my recent observations & disappointment from my visit last week. I truly believe South Park could be the top location in the market on a consistent basis & believe we are not capitalizing on our opportunity there mainly because of weak & uneducated sales personnel. I am stepping in to help you fix this situation & gain back control of your location. Here are some my disappointments I observed.

1. Sales Rep not in proper dress attire (no tie).
2. Sales Reps not mentioning POOPS to any of the customers I observed.
3. Sales Reps not mentioning Sewer to any of the customers I observed.
4. Sales Rep stating “I really don’t know anything about the sewer line service, you can just go online to get it” when customer actually asked about sewer products.
5. Sale Rep stating “I really don’t know much about Business accounts so I hope I’m doing this right”
6. Sales Rep processing 2 JUAN payments without reviewing customers account or offering weapons, pipelines, sewer etc.

I am leading this Thursday’s evening weekly store meeting to assists you in setting the tone for a “MAJOR” mindset change in South Park. I expect the following to occur for my meeting on Thursday.

1. All South Park reps in attendance or they will be terminated.
2. No kids allowed. They have 3 days to obtain baby sitters.
3. Meeting will begin promptly at 7:30pm. Anyone late will be terminated.
4. All reps sitting at the conference table facing me, no one standing behind or lounging around
5. All reps with pen & note pad.
6. No food
7. All wireless devices turned off, no checking emails/texts/missed calls during my meeting.
8. Whiteboard/DSR updated through Wednesday
9. ALL REPS MADE AWARE THEIR JOBS ARE NOW BEING EVALUATED ON A DAILY BASIS BEGINNING WITH THIS MEETING.

Thanks,
Jimi

I’m sure you all see the massive point at the bottom. Jobs are being evaluated! Oooh. Scary. Let’s begin tearing this open, shall we? Starting from the top.

I truly believe South Park could be the top location in the market on a consistent basis & believe we are not capitalizing on our opportunity there mainly because of weak & uneducated sales personnel.

This is a massive insult to your employees. I hate companies that believe in frequent negative reinforcement and infrequent and random positive reinforcement. You’re a business. You have a right to be concerned about the bottom line, it’s part of the territory, but the devaluation of human beings in order to do it absolutely disgusts me.

I am stepping in to help you fix this situation & gain back control of your location.

This implies that you have no faith in one of your most capable managers. I know “Eric” personally and have known him for a long time. He’s easily one of the best managers I’ve ever had the opportunity to work for, and this statement alone should be extremely insulting to him. Even if it’s not, it’s &#%@ing insulting to me, you pompous little prick.

1. Sales Rep not in proper dress attire (no tie).

I’m sorry, but if “no tie” is on the top of your list of complaints, you seriously need to re-evaluate your priorities. Putting “no tie” at the very top of your list of complaints is probably one of the most retarded things I’ve seen come out of a business person in a long time. It happened to be 85 degrees (hey, why don’t you shell out some money to fix the freaking air conditioner in that store?) when the sales rep in question wasn’t wearing his tie. I wouldn’t have worn mine either and you, sir, would’ve received my warm regards if you had mentioned it to me.

2. Sales Reps not mentioning POOPS to any of the customers I observed.

Maybe they should think about how completely effed up and over-complicated the “POOPS” process is. If it wasn’t too much hassle for the customers and the sales reps, maybe it would be mentioned more often.

3. Sales Reps not mentioning Sewer to any of the customers I observed.
4. Sales Rep stating “I really don’t know anything about the sewer line service, you can just go online to get it” when customer actually asked about sewer products.

Isn’t the “sewer” services through Planet sort of new? The people in these stores were originally trained to sell wireless devices and services. You’re expecting someone who was just recently hired and someone who works VERY part-time to know that much about an obscure set of solutions that you just recently started offering? Personally, I applaud the sales rep for admitting his/her lack of knowledge on the subject and offering an alternative solution, instead of trying to make something up or giving the customer incorrect information. We’re humans, folks, we can’t do or know it all.

5. Sale Rep stating “I really don’t know much about Business accounts so I hope I’m doing this right”

If I remember correctly, the entire system to work with business accounts was totally screwed up the ENTIRE time I worked there. We had to be hackish and go in through *redacted*’s login just to be able to do ANYTHING to business accounts. We didn’t even figure out we could do that until the later part of my employment there.

6. Sales Rep processing 2 JUAN payments without reviewing customers account or offering weapons, pipelines, sewer etc.

Did it happen to occur to you that with the sheer number of repeat customers the store has that the sales reps may actually KNOW these people? While I was there, we quickly processed repeat customers payments all the time, because we knew who they were. They were in there all the time, we knew exactly what they wanted, and we got them out of there as quickly as possible. You can’t upsell to people with a purpose. If someone knows exactly what they want to do, they’re coming into the store to do exactly that.

1. All South Park reps in attendance or they will be terminated.
3. Meeting will begin promptly at 7:30pm. Anyone late will be terminated.

I wish these reps would organize with each other to just not show up. Don’t accept threats. You people aren’t being paid enough to deal with this garbage. The lot of you are intelligent people who can easily find jobs elsewhere. Let them find their poo-slinging monkeys that they can convert into button-pushing drones who care more about pushing something into a customer’s face instead of making sure they’re satisfied.

4. All reps sitting at the conference table facing me, no one standing behind or lounging around
7. All wireless devices turned off, no checking emails/texts/missed calls during my meeting.

This guy seems to think he’s God. I don’t give a rat’s behind if you’re anywhere near the executive ladder of this company. If you’re paying me the dirt-crap wages that were seen while I was working there, you’re not that important.

9. ALL REPS MADE AWARE THEIR JOBS ARE NOW BEING EVALUATED ON A DAILY BASIS BEGINNING WITH THIS MEETING.

When you take the human out of sales people, they become drones. People don’t like drones. You’re going to end up making your sales worse and killing off this store. After that rant, I think there’s only one thing I can say for Mr. Jimi Hendrix.

Effing lol.