I recently held a very temporary position with Kirby. I responded to an ad placed in the newspaper for a sales and marketing position and thought, well I really need a job, let's check this out. After arriving at the office a little early I had a 10 minute interview and was hired on the spot, no background check or reference check. I thought, ok this seems a little fishy but I'll check it out. I came in a couple days later and started undergoing unpaid training. Training is ridiculous. All they do is teach you how to pack the box and use all the useless tools. I thought this was even fishier but, since I really needed a job, I thought I'd pursue it a little longer.
I show up for the first day of work and they're singing songs and dancing to a Kirby song... How crazy is that? Then they set me up with someone I would shadow for the next few days and we hop in the car and drive to the site. We drove probably a total of 3 hrs in one day which started at 9 and we didn't get out of work until 10. When they hired me they said we'd be working until 6:30. Come to find out, they don't pay for your mileage, just give you a tax deduction of something like 9 cents to the mile.
The man they had teamed me up with was actually a nice guy; educated and well spoken unlike the gang bangers that they had hired. One of the employees actually carries a gun with him on a daily basis into peoples' homes!
So we show up at these homes with the stipulation that we're going to simply shampoo their carpet for free. They had no clue that we were there to try and sell them something though most people suspected it. You set up in front of the tv so they can't ignore you and you go through a demo. The whole thing takes anywhere from 2-4 hours to complete. After you've performed the demo and pressured someone into buying a $2240 vacuum you call the manager and they continue to pressure people into purchasing this. Now, I don't know about everyone but a lot of people are having trouble paying off their mortgages and cars due to the economy. The amount of pressure that's placed on these customers is ridiculous. The salespeople don't care one iota about your financial woes as long as they get a sale to help them win their elusive "contest." The cost of the Kirby is something that is also ridiculous because they try to sell it for several grand when they can actually reduce the cost to a number much more in the range of a Dyson. Then, they try to hook you into a payment plan that actually harms the customer more than benefits them. And the lies, oh gosh the lies!!! I had the guy tell us that he actually sucked up a 45 caliber bullet into the thing and it went off and didn't harm it one bit... I'd love to test that out myself. They also told me that they are indestructible and the factory throws them out of a 3 story window 10 times and then tests to see if they still run. The funny thing is, when we were undergoing training about three people walked in with a vacuum that was about 5 years old needing to be fixed. What happened to the 45 year guarantee?
After one day of working ridiculous hours and being forced to lie to customers I said I'd had enough. I didn't even bother going in to work today because I'm not going to sink to a new low of lying and scheming people into something that isn't worth their time and effort (like they advertise). I have morals and a code of ethics I stand by and Kirby obviously has none. I'm just glad I was able to get out of there before I wasted my life without seeing any pay or commission like a lot of people who have been employed by them.
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