Thursday, May 20, 2004
A NEW JOB
Kornbus got a job. Good for you, Kornbus.
Yeah, that’s right....a man has gotta feel responsible for the welfare of his environment. Therefore, I took a job as a collections agent in what has to be considered to be one of the top moronic moves on my lifetime. I’ll explain.
I took the position at UCB, one of the nation’s top collection firms. I wasn’t too excited about it, really. Honestly, who actually pines to be one of those people who calls you up non-stop trying to get money? Not me. But I needed a job, so I took it. I figured it wouldn’t be so bad. Well, it turns out it is bad. Really bad. Evil, even.
It isn’t so much the part about calling up old women and hassling them for the final 3 payments on their oxygen tank. If grandma wants to breathe, grandma has got to pay, right? No, it wasn’t things like that which make me want to quit. It’s more in the way of how the company pits their employees against one another for the opportunity of advancement and/or commissions.
I wasn’t in training for more than a day before I realized how big of an error in judgment I had made coming to work there. The Operation Manager who hired me came to our class and passed out various papers explaining the nature of the business. Fine. It was pretty much all cut and dry anyway. But then he delved into how the collectors go out of their way to steal their fellow associates’ money. For instance: If a man has agreed to a payment plan with one collector to alleviate his debt, and another collector calls him at a later date and gets the man to pay it off quicker, collector #2 reaps all the awards. It doesn’t matter that collector #1 initiated the whole process. #2 will gladly accept the fruits of their labor.
Everyone in my class thought this was pretty sick. Rightly so, I might add. But it turns out that our trainer, a woman that apparently hails from deep within the heart of Ghettonia, began to brag about her former exploits as well. She explained that she used to “love it” when she could call up debtors who already made payment arrangements with a prior representative. You see, she would just get them to pay it off a little quicker so she could accept the bonus the original rep thought they had coming to them. She spoke with great enthusiasm as she detailed her many cases of legalized thievery. It sounded as if she just couldn’t wait to get her ass back in front of a phone to do it over and over again. She also promised she would teach us the tricks of the trade. I wanted to puke.
Well, it turns out that my mom knows a few people who used to work there. And why is it that they no longer do? Because they were sick of being cheated out of the commissions that they believed were rightly theirs, of course. They grew really tired really quick of getting their paycheck and being shortchanged. Who can blame them?
So, I can’t stay at this place. It’s one thing to have the debtors hate your guts...but I am NOT going to engage in twisted little games of oneupsmanship in order to gain a few extra dollars a month at the expense of a colleague. I’m just not going to do that. It’s wrong and it should go against any decent person’s moral code.
After I quit, which will probably be tomorrow, I am going to apply at various little shops and stores in my neighborhood. Will it be less money? Yes. Will I receive less hours? Probably. But will I have to cut someone else’s throat for an extra buck? Hell no. And that suits me just fine.
Kornbus got a job. Good for you, Kornbus.
Yeah, that’s right....a man has gotta feel responsible for the welfare of his environment. Therefore, I took a job as a collections agent in what has to be considered to be one of the top moronic moves on my lifetime. I’ll explain.
I took the position at UCB, one of the nation’s top collection firms. I wasn’t too excited about it, really. Honestly, who actually pines to be one of those people who calls you up non-stop trying to get money? Not me. But I needed a job, so I took it. I figured it wouldn’t be so bad. Well, it turns out it is bad. Really bad. Evil, even.
It isn’t so much the part about calling up old women and hassling them for the final 3 payments on their oxygen tank. If grandma wants to breathe, grandma has got to pay, right? No, it wasn’t things like that which make me want to quit. It’s more in the way of how the company pits their employees against one another for the opportunity of advancement and/or commissions.
I wasn’t in training for more than a day before I realized how big of an error in judgment I had made coming to work there. The Operation Manager who hired me came to our class and passed out various papers explaining the nature of the business. Fine. It was pretty much all cut and dry anyway. But then he delved into how the collectors go out of their way to steal their fellow associates’ money. For instance: If a man has agreed to a payment plan with one collector to alleviate his debt, and another collector calls him at a later date and gets the man to pay it off quicker, collector #2 reaps all the awards. It doesn’t matter that collector #1 initiated the whole process. #2 will gladly accept the fruits of their labor.
Everyone in my class thought this was pretty sick. Rightly so, I might add. But it turns out that our trainer, a woman that apparently hails from deep within the heart of Ghettonia, began to brag about her former exploits as well. She explained that she used to “love it” when she could call up debtors who already made payment arrangements with a prior representative. You see, she would just get them to pay it off a little quicker so she could accept the bonus the original rep thought they had coming to them. She spoke with great enthusiasm as she detailed her many cases of legalized thievery. It sounded as if she just couldn’t wait to get her ass back in front of a phone to do it over and over again. She also promised she would teach us the tricks of the trade. I wanted to puke.
Well, it turns out that my mom knows a few people who used to work there. And why is it that they no longer do? Because they were sick of being cheated out of the commissions that they believed were rightly theirs, of course. They grew really tired really quick of getting their paycheck and being shortchanged. Who can blame them?
So, I can’t stay at this place. It’s one thing to have the debtors hate your guts...but I am NOT going to engage in twisted little games of oneupsmanship in order to gain a few extra dollars a month at the expense of a colleague. I’m just not going to do that. It’s wrong and it should go against any decent person’s moral code.
After I quit, which will probably be tomorrow, I am going to apply at various little shops and stores in my neighborhood. Will it be less money? Yes. Will I receive less hours? Probably. But will I have to cut someone else’s throat for an extra buck? Hell no. And that suits me just fine.
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