Pages

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Wonderful World of 'Chemical Sales': I Gave Up Leisure For This?

     Recently me and Sumner have not been so friendly. I wonder what ever could be the matter? He seemed particularly scornful when I divulged I was out of work much of 2009. I guess because he's never actually met anyone unemployed before and perhaps believes it's catching or something.


     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/10/yes-scott-sumner-one-certainly-should.html

     Also if you really want a reaction just suggest that maybe the liquidity trap really is real-Sumner as well as his loyal henchmen like Mark Sadowski will literally have a cow right before your eyes. Don't you realize Switzerland pegging the franc the euro settled that for all eternity? There's no such thing as a liquidity trap and the Fed is literally capable of doing anything-to suggest that it has any kind of limitation makes you somehow 'unhinged.' It's that serious: to doubt Market Monetarism is no longer a difference of opinion or even an intellectual error on your part but-simply insanity. Only a nut job who eats tin foil all day can doubt that the Fed can totally stabilize the economy on its own and that no amount of fiscal austerity is capable of harming the economy.

    Recently I wrote a little about the life and times of yours truly, your humble blogger who's just hear to serve the public. Sumner effects not to be a fan of Diary-he claims I shouldn't be allowed to have a blog as I don't understand econ like he does-credentialism anyone?

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-latest-major-happenings-in-life-and.html

     As I told you in that post, I was looking at leaving the two jobs-an appointment setter for home improvements in the morning in Melville and then doing the same thing with mortgages in the evening.  for this one job in Farmingdale where I do what they call 'chemical sales.'

    It's interesting-they literally want you to just give their pitch word for word. You call hotels, apartment complexes, etc. and you try to get the maintenance manager on the phone-you have to get past the gatekeeper. Once you got him you read word for word to get him to agree to let them ship this stuff to him. I did something like this in my first sales job back in 2010 in Middle Neck. That was a 'chemical sales' job as well based on the ad. There too they wanted you to read word for word.

  The one big difference is that here you don't get the money from them up front. You basically tell them its a free trial or something like that-the key is that we tell them the bill is backdated that they can use it first-we then bill them in like 3 months-or so we say on the phone. I have no idea how it really goes down. I've already got an inkling that there's more to the story than this. For that reason we don't collect the commissions up front.

  Anyway I'm doing pretty good so far. I got 13 sales my first full week and the last two I've had 21 sales each time. Of the two other guys who are still here who started with me one got 11 sales last week the other one had 7 so that's 18 for the two of them-I beat them singlehandedly. I know competitive, however, there is a $200 bonus for whoever sells the most and then another $150 for whoever sells second and then $50 for third each week. So that I'm doing well-beating many who were hear for awhile is a good thing.

   What can I tell you, it's the world those of us who had been opting for leisure swim in. I mentioned before the bad taste I have in my mouth from when Slomin's canned me in June after working there for 10 months because I had a slow 3 weeks even though I had always been consistent in the past. So I've been sort of determined not to be the one left holding the bag next time I must admit. I don't want to ever be in the position of having the rug pulled out from under me again like that.

  A friend of mine that still works at the home improvement company in Melville told me they just fired this woman who had worked there for a year-she was there longer than most of us. Why? She hadn't been getting leads lately. So this happens. What I notice is that the people who get fired in sales jobs aren't always the ones who might seem to really deserve it.

  I know I told you I'm beating both my co-workers that started with me, this doesn't mean I don't like them. One of them is literally homeless-a man of high leisure. The other guy is a very nice Haitian gentleman who worked at the Post Office his adult life-32 years most of the time a manager. Prior to that job he was in the U.S. army. After he finally retired from the PO his sister got him a good job at a company she ran.

  Talk about culture shock! From working for the govt-where you basically can't get fired unless you do something really stupid like get in a fight or come in on drugs or something; you can''t get fired for simple incompetence-to the world of telemarketing, where you see the best of the market incentives of job insecurity if not downright desperation.

   I gave up leisure for this?! In all fairness Mark Sadowski: if I'm 'unhinged' can you really blame me?

  P.S. Sumner keeps trying to convince me I'm somehow 'not qualified' to write a blog about economics. Wow, somebody is frustrated. Doesn't he know that this is motivation enough for me to keep this going for the next 50 years? I found the comments of Daniel interesting as well:

   "You know, as much as I love taking shots at the Austrians – they’re actually harmless. They’re just a bunch of kooks with zero influence."

    "It’s people like you, with your mindless repetition of “ZLB means no traction for monetary policy”, who are the source of today’s ills."



    

2 comments:

  1. I'm just full of ideas. How about this: Your a man at leisure, stuck in a liquidity trap, ever since we've hit the ZLB? :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well it's all the fault of the liquidity trap if you believe the MMers. Here's an idea-when we going to Popeyes-LOL.

    ReplyDelete