spoiled chinese girl

I work for several different marketing companies, doing much of the same thing.  When they have a campaign come up, they’ll put the call out for who’s available, and we all march in on our appointed days, and our appointed hours, and stand on our appointed street corners, harassing the patrions of our fair city (Toronto.)  It’s not the *most* fun job I’ve ever had, it’s certainly not the least, and for mindnumbing and soul-crushing, it actually pays quite well on the whole.

But I have to laugh, and I have to laugh anonymously.  There’s a new company in town that apparently landed this massive contract. Problem being, they’re a new company, and they don’t yet quite have the huge stable of willing warm bodies to fulfill this contract.  And I’m not sure what fault in their marketing for people I should attack first.  In no particular order:

• The time. I understand the client’s reason for wanting 6:30am-9:30am, they want to “attack” the commuters.  But if I can get a 4pm-7pm shift, wouldn’t I rather take that, for the same pay?
• The pay.  They offer the same rate for 6am and 4pm.  But one requires much more effort and dilligence, and sacrifice.  Offer a premium!  And don’t hide the pay rate.  $/hr, $x3/shift, $x9 in total all equals to the same thing.  We’re not *THAT* dumb.
• The “training.”  I don’t know about you, but if I have to commute into another city to be “trained” on how to make people hate me, at least confirm that you’ll pay me for my time and effort.  The fact you would even consider having non-paid training would make anyone walk out.
• The current employees.  Why was this campaign not offered first to people who already worked for the company?  I found out I already worked for this company by the reply e-mail address, told the recruiter(?) that someone else already has my details, and he said it was fine.  But why not e-mail me first before posting the job everywhere?
• The potential employees.  You’re looking for a large group of young, energetic people who are strapped for cash.  Why are you not advertising on every lamp post near every university & college?  There’s TONS of them in Toronto!  And they’re close to the target locations ANYWAYS!

I laugh because I at first accepted this job, until I found out the time it would happen. (I’m at least a 30 minute drive in from the city, and then would have to pay premium for parking, or be an hour long commute by transit.)  They’ve since offered to pay for my travel expenses but even that isn’t enough to intice me to get up that early in the morning.  Tack on a 30% increase in the salary, plus my travel/parking expenses, and maybe we’ll talk.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 at 9:23 pm and is filed under general, work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.