Having just been laid off I was desperate to find work. I responded to an ad offering customer service work. The ad said job duties included interacting with customers, writing orders, offering warrenty information and light assembly.
I called the number and was given an interview the same day. I was told that we sold "home mintenance systems" and received a monthly salary of $2000. I was also told all the appointments were set for us so we just had to go in and do the demo. There were no selling quotas. We could sell nothing and get our salary but if we did sell we got commission. It seemed great. I was thrilled when I was hired.
On the first day of training I found out what we were actually selling were Kirby Vacuums. It threw me a bit but it still seemed ok. We were told again and again that our appointments were set and that we worked 8-10 hours per day.
Then I had my first real day. We started at 10AM with a meeting. Got placed in our teams to go out in the field. Turns out we don't go near our office but to somewhere an hour and a half away. Then I learned that our appointments were not set... We had to go door to door. We did have a canvessor on our team but it was one person for 5 people.
I also discovered that we teach not accepting no for an answer. I have been in sales before so I know that you generally disregard the first no as a knee jerk reaction but our canvesser kept trying even after 7 nos. I did get into a house of a lady who said a good 10 times before letting us in... She threw me out half way through the demenstration.
That first day we didn't get back to the office until 11PM. With the exception of a quick stop for lunch when we first hit the city we were working in that day we had no breaks. This job amounts to slave labor! And they get away with it because we are independent contractors not employees so they aren't bound by labor laws.
This job is horriable. It is physically exhausting and in order to hit your demo quota you need to work 6 days a week. It is not what they advertised in the job ad, interview or even the training. I didn't sign up for walking door to door and working 6 days a week 12-14 hours a day.
If you go to an interview or training and see Kirby anywhere run as fast as you can in the opposite direction!!! I understand they don't want to discourage people from the get go but they really need to be honest with people about what the job is. It would have saved us both a lot of time.
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