I moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in December it was a move to be closer to family so it came quickly. I moved to the area seeking employment immediately due to the nature of my move. I answered an ad in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that was very general. At the interview I come to find that the company is a distributor of Kirby Vacuums. Right away I asked if the position was door to door sales. Justin Gonia, the recruiter at the time, stated that it was not.
I accepted the position with the understanding that my appointments were pre-booked for me. After my training, which required me to sell to my friends and family, my first day I was dropped off on the side of a rural road and told to knock doors and offer the person a battery powered mini vac in exchange for a carpet cleaning. Well, since my car was at the company office and I needed my job, I had no choice but the canvas the neighborhood as instructed.
I went in the next day and expressed my disgust with the lies by my trainer, and the owner proceeded to agree that he should not have lied to us to get us into the position. I was than promoted to the recruiter position and given keys to the office after a week of working there. My principle reason for taking the position was that I felt I could make the company more productive, non-deceptive, and more profitable.
I was excited about my position and trained day and night so I could know the product and so I was ready to train a new crop of dealers without being deceptive.
I was successful and brought in several new dealers my first week - the owner told me my recruiting techniques were successful and that he was proud of me.
The next day followed and non of my weeks recruits had shown back up for their 2nd day of work. I did not understand why they had not come back.
Later that week I was 'trained and coached' by Ramon Avila, the owner, on how to answer the phones. He than stated to me that I was not to interview anyone that sounded 'black' on the phone.
I told him that I would put candidates in the position I felt were qualified. So, I than continued to bring in prospects of all ages, races, and sizes. After seeing one of my training classes I was directly instructed to ask all the African Americans in my training class not to come back. I was never asked about their skills, I only tried my best to plead my case on why they were in my class, I felt they were qualified.
I was than instructed by the owner, Mr. Avila, to terminate the African Americans in the group because he would not send them on appointments. After trying a few more times to tell me not to bring in black candidates, he finally stated that, if I wanted to we can bring them in for several hours of interviewing, for telemarketing, and let them 'interview' (which required marketing surveys, which he would later profit from) we could but he would not pay anyone black for working for him.
I gave my letter of resignation to Mr. Avila on the 18th of March. He than proceeded to stop payment on payroll checks he had already written. I have filed complaints with the labor board and the human rights department. They say it may take up to 2 years to have this resolved.
I recommend no one work for RGA Distributors, LLC - or for that matter purchases anything from them (Ray does not care about customers either-just profit). They are unethical, immoral, and breaking laws!
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