Screwed over again

Working for the religious right turned out to be a bust. 72 degrees of Hickory scammed me in their hiring practices and then got me again when they fired me.

I know some of you warned me about paying for my own schooling, but because these guys touted being a faith based company I thought I would be OK. As it turns out, I was wrong.

To lessen the burden and because I couldn't afford it, I made a deal with them that I would pay my expenses and then pay them back for the school out of my commissions. I told the owners wife I would pay 25% of my paychecks towards the cost of the school. The amount was $1809. I spent a week in St Louis that cost me around $500 for transportation and meals. Oh, I forgot to mention, I bought a new car for the job, a Honda Civic.

So I started the last two weeks in May. I hung around the office and learned pretty soon that Comfort Advisers are not really a part of the company. They're more like contractors. The pay is straight commission. They guarantee two calls a day (which this company couldn't do) and you take what you get. In some cases the calls were bogus and in others you actually had a shot at making a sale. So.... during the first two weeks I went on a couple of calls with my 30 something sales manager and read up on the program and selling system. After that I went to school in St Louis for a week and came back ready to rock.

Only thing was the market had cooled considerably. What had been a summer long active replacement season last year turned in to a couple of weeks this year. By the time I came back from school and got into the field it was already slowing down. The existing salesman was having trouble closing sales and they let him go a week ago. Then this Monday, after my only being there for less than two full months they gave me the axe.

Now here's the kicker: the thirty something sales manager told me that I would be payed for all sales made. In this case I had one commission coming of about $600 or so. When I called today to pick up my check he told me he'd misunderstood the owner and that they wouldn't be paying me for any sales. The owner told him they'd call it even on the school. Well Duh............. If you fire me and don't give me the opportunity to earn enough to pay you back WTF!

So...the claims they made about income potential, how I'd get two good leads a day, how they'd take care of me if I was working the calls and doing the best I could all turned out to be Bullshit. I should have known when the manager and the owner's son listened to Rush Limbaugh that I was in the wrong place. The frigging republicans just let the down market sneak up on them and then fired all their salesman. Not to worry, they'll get some new suckers and go through the same scenario with them.

I'm old enough to know better, but we were desperate for me to get back to work. Whenever a company has such a high turnover rate of salespeople there's something missing at the company. All the salespeople weren't bad were they? In this case it's pretty evident that management is an issue. I told the thirty something guy that if I were the owner I'd have him running every sales call; he's experienced and good. In addition he knows how far they can discount to get the sale. What I didn't tell him was that as a Sales Manager he didn't cut it, though some conversations we had may have led him to understand my feelings.

One of the big disadvantages of having had good employers and decent jobs is knowing how crummy your present one is. I will have to be more careful and stay away from small businesses.

So...on the downside I got screwed again by a republican small business owner. (go figure) On the upside I have economic transportation, I got to see St Louis, and I still believe in me. Oh, and I learned a bunch of stuff about heating and air conditioning too.

So enough of working for so-called faith based righties. Definitely not a good fit for this boy.

The Daily Husband