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Wednesday, Jan 7, 2009
I can barely bring myself to do my job, the reprimands are getting serious, my co-workers are getting fired. How did I get here? More important, how do I get out?
Jan 9, 2004 | It's a Friday. I get called into Bonnie's office. She claims there's a customer who complained that I was too curt and hostile and wasn't very much help. "We can't have that ... We cannot have that ... " The old me would have offered to call the customer and apologize to them. But I can't do that anymore. I simply say that I remember the woman growing angrier with every "this one's not in stock and there's no due date" that I gave her. Bonnie nods wearily. Fire me. Fire me. Fire me. Fire me.
I am excused.
People here are now "written up" regularly, more last year than this. Being written up is tantamount to getting slapped on the hand. Allegedly the progression is "written up," being given a "warning," and then being "fired." But so far, I've never known anyone who's gotten fired.
Heather didn't get fired when she showed everyone her new nipple ring last summer. Or Shelly, who openly tells her tales of sexual debauchery to anyone who will listen. I learned my first week here what her favorite sexual position was, that she met and mated with her current husband while married to her first, that her two teenage daughters were unwed mothers, and other fun minutiae. Once you prove you can take a call, all is pretty much forgiven.
Complacency is the corporate philosophy here. There are hungry book retailers and Internet warehouses that ship books in 24 hours. Here, an order placed Aug. 1 will not arrive until September. This happens every day. Customers call every minute pleading for some information. They buy books as gifts. They ship books to relatives. Or friends in prison. And we simply cannot stay with the demand, the predictable, reliable, seasonal demand. "Where is my book?" I don't know. Once an exasperated man called to say that we ruined his daughter's birthday by not shipping her book (a present) for four weeks, way too late for the event. Sorry. Thank you for your patience.
I like servicing customers. I enjoy making people happy. When I hear relief in a person's voice after telling them something, it's a reward to me. Here's the line I use in interviews to get this across (please read aloud in an English accent):
"I put myself in the place of the customer. We may have hundreds of customers on a given day, but every one of them relies on us to make their ordering experience a pleasant one ..."
Sounds great. I don't believe it anymore.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Today, a temp agency called. Its cryptic message belied its advertisement, which was for a specific marketing position. The nice representative says that she got my résumé, and will call if she "finds something for me." This happens frequently. Temp agencies seem to advertise compelling, available positions that require less experience than I have, only to lump me onto their slag heap of disposable office staff.
The "queue" light is flashing again, this time there are nine calls on hold. There are three of us answering them.
The phones do not stop.
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I'm getting my morning coffee when I strike up a conversation with Joanne, who works "upstairs," in one of the dark recesses of the building. She tells me she's been here for four years, but has met very few people outside of her own department, production. I tell her it's because of the subliminal messages they pump out through the P.A. system, telling us to resist the urge to engage in interdepartmental conversation. She thinks that's funny, but there is a strange sadness to this truth for both of us.
When I was in orders, I worked next to Hanna. Hanna was educated, funny, literate and very different. She came in to work wearing what ostensibly were children's clothes, she was that small. Trendy shoes with harshly arguing striped shirts or flowered tops, and always a vast array of big barrettes clipped in a haphazard fashion throughout her boyish bob. But I enjoyed her company. So much so that I spent some time outside of work with Hanna and her husband, a computer consultant. He made enough money for both of them, which made me wonder why she stayed here as long as she did.
Hanna was sensitive. Too sensitive for this place. She would argue with customers on a daily basis, breaking out in tears after the more taxing calls. She took on the thankless task of answering mail. The mail was like the phones in that the mail never stopped coming in. She never got close to catching up. Neither did her predecessor, or the one before her. Hanna often argued with me, too, about nothing. She was too much like me for us to get along for long stretches. I miss her. She just decided one day that she should go. Why is it that they who go feel no pain?
Another aberration from the usual human fodder hired here is Gina. Gina defies the company norm in that she is astonishingly beautiful, in-shape, smart, funny, and hip to everything that goes on in the office. I get along with Gina better than anyone here because, to me, she's a link to the living. Unfortunately for Gina, she's an aberration to others, too. Particularly the warehouse workers who gawk at her body as she glides through the cafeteria. She sees them. One has offered to buy her flowers, but she declines, as she is married. That must be it, I'm thinking; we hire ugly people to prevent harassment lawsuits.
Gina is debating whether she should work in Customer Service. She'd certainly be hired immediately, I tell her. But she's wary about the hassles from customers. She also tells me that she's starting to realize how messed up our warehouse is, and that this is what's keeping her in orders. Secretly, I wish she would move over here, mostly because I'm selfish. When Hanna left, I felt like I had lost the only friend I had here.
The main problem in the warehouse seems to be the workers' inability to count. Most of my day is spent correcting short shipments, and other seemingly elementary functions. The wrong books going to the wrong address is a daily occurrence. There are salesmen shipping books to people who do not want them, on the assumption that if enough people keep the books they're sent, and pay for them, this strategy will pay for itself.
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