A
Avidan
Guest
Hey you guys, I didn't know if you wanted to take a look at this or not. I'm just trying to make my thoughts known. I am very passionate in my words, so don't let them overwhelm you
. I just wanted to express myself to some caring and praying people.
Originally this was posted somewhere else, and it was deleted for reasons I don't understand. What I said should have been be okay to say in a group or community like this, in my opinion. But anyway, I took out the name of the company.
Sorry it's so long:
I want to vent out some frustration with the company that I previously worked for.
I am just a young man. I have a family, and many battles that I am facing that only my wife and my dad partially know about, and the Lord Truly Knows about. I worked for this company for quite a few years.
The first objective of their mission statement is to, Honor God in everything we do.
When I first started working for them I was injected with hopes and ambitions of what a great company they are, and how they strive to help their employee. I was hired on as a drain cleaner, which is a very disgusting and dangerous job. The man that trained me was very crude, and he treated me like a dog. He was a very bad teacher, in my opinion, and many others that I have talked to.
Drain cleaning pay is solely commission based. However if one did not make $8.80 an hour based on commission for the hours worked during the week, then the employee would receive that amount of base pay. But one would not receive base pay plus commission pay. This is where all of the stress would come in. People with families, doing very hard and disgusting work, can not afford to live off of 8.80 and hour. Not to mention that if one didnt make a certain quota repeatedly then they would be looked upon as the scum of the company. And all of the personal stats of the employees where made public to everyone in the company as well. They also threatened us with the accusation that if we did not make the company a certain amount of money, then we may not get paid.
I decided that I wanted to keep my job for at least two years, and I didnt care what they did to me, I just wanted to stick it out for at least that amount of time because it was a personal goal to finish what I start.
So, it was soon I found out that because I was so young, and because of other things I am fighting mentally and otherwise, it was very hard for me to make the sale and to do the work. It seemed like a better idea for me to become a plumber they are paid hourly and dont have to deal so much with raw sewage. So I applied for the apprenticeship program and somehow got on the list of 15 people chosen for the whole jurisdiction. However, again somehow, another guy from our store that applied was on the list too but he was lower in the line than I was . Now this guy was a buddy of the general manger. The GM came to me one day and told me that this guy had been waiting to get on the apprenticeship longer than I have been, and that he couldnt get him on unless I put it in writing that I gave up my spot. He assured me that I could have the next apprentice position which I was impressed to believe would be really soon.
So I am a nice guy, and then I was very gullible. I actually trusted people. So I did as he said for me to do. All in all, it crushed me. There was no other apprentice position available, and I lost out on the whole thing.
Now as time went by I held a couple different positions at the company that were hourly pay. I wasnt paid much, but the Lord made it enough to survive on. Soon I was asked to go back to drain cleaning. I didnt really have a choice, it was either that or get let go because my current position was coming to an end because of company changes.
So with much stress and fear I agreed because I had no other choice. And the Lord prospered my efforts and I was able to make good money for the first time in my life. The only thing was that I would not let myself put others above my family. Which is right in principle, but not when it comes to ripping people off, even though all but a few people there rip people off in major ways for the money.
The managers and dispatchers would make me do work for free. Some days I might make good money, and others nothing or two dollars an hour. I never complained. I just did what I could, and if there was an opportunity to make more money, I would take it. I didnt care about the people as far as putting them above my family or myself, I just cared about making money but the Lord knew that I didnt like doing that, because it goes against my character. I told Him that I didnt want to do it anymore. So I didnt. He still prospered me, but it became a little more stressful because of all of the free work and driving eating up my time. We were not allowed to get overtime, so I only had forty hours in the week to make enough money to support my family.
When three to four hours a day, or sometimes a whole day was taken up by me fixing someone elses mistake for free, or close to nothing, it becomes stressful. When the dispatchers would send me to calls that I wasnt equipped to handle, or to plumbing calls or to calls with no one home, it would become stressful. When I would drive from Forest Grove to East Vancouver in Friday rush hour traffic, maybe 50-60+ miles and up to 2hrs + one way, it would get a little stressful knowing that I wasnt going to see a dime for my time. But I just accepted that guilt that it was part of my job.
Ive seen so many people ripped off from the employees at this company, in so many different ways. Charging for cleaning a clean drain doing work on things that arent broken ensuring repeat business by not fixing something right the first time charging for more expensive equipment, but using the cheaper stuff charging extra hours for pretending to do work Ive seen things that just make me sick. I never went that far into ripping people off. I actually never ripped them off according to the companies prices and protocol. It was just ripping them off according to my conscience.
So I put up with all of this, and so many other things that I cant even begin to list, day after day. So what I did to alleviate some of my stress was this after gaining a certain amount of experience it all becomes pretty easy as far as the work and selling, especially with the Lords Help. Based on my experience and the calls that I would receive from dispatch in my pager I would decide on the right approach to honestly make the most money for my time. If driving time was over an hour, or it was a call that may require equipment that I didnt have, or if it was a call that may cost more money than expected by the average Joe, then I would give a courtesy call to my customer to find out all of this information before I started towards them. I would let them know general prices and procedures. I would let them know exactly where I was at and the traffic conditions and exactly when I would be there to the best of my knowledge. Everyone that I talked to greatly appreciated my efforts especially when they were only willing to spend fifty dollars and I absolutely knew that the right way to in fact fix the problem may be three hundred dollars or more.
Because the Lord would Help me in my customer service, even if the price was way out of their range, they would still have me come over do the job. Just because the Lord would Witness to them that I was being sincere I was being a real person. They would also greatly appreciate it when I let them know how long it would be before I got there.
I had caught the dispatchers on several occasions telling the customers lies about arrival times, delay problems, and much more which in turn would cause a whole lot of problems when I would tell them the truth like if I was on lunch right down the street, and they made me wait until my lunch was over before I could go and they told the customer that I was delayed at a job, or in traffic or so on that is just a light general example.
So with my efforts I was again doing very well, making myself and the company good money, consistently every week.
But because of all of the bogus calls I was sent to before all of this, cancellations, plumbing calls, and the such I had a good size pile of invoices stacked up that needed to be voided, months and months worth maybe even a years worth. I received a note from bookkeeping that they needed the invoices, so I gave the invoices to them.
The next day one of the managers talked to me about the invoices. He claimed that because I was calling my customers before hand, and because I had so many voided invoices that it look to him like I was doing side work off of company time. This was a great insult to my integrity that I try so hard to maintain by prayer, self discipline and the sparkle of courage that I do possess. At this same time my wife and I found out that our second child that we were greatly anticipating had died. Seeing his little body there with no heartbeat on the ultrasound was an experience that I had never felt before. I dont know how to explain it. But it scared me. On top of all of this, my wife had to go through the operation to suck out our lifeless child, and we found out that our company insurance policy had doubled our deductible and increased our premiums that we already paid around $400 a month for our benefits. And then the icing on the cake was the company decreasing our commission rates between one to two percent which may not seem like to much, but it is when everything is added up. Every little bit counts when youre trying to put food in your childs mouth.
I was very upset. But, I have the Lord and He keeps me standing even when I fall. I told the general manger that I would no longer work for free. And that if they were going to send me on a call that I deemed necessary based on my years of experience to contact before hand, then I would. Because I cant work for free. So they fired me. They also twisted all of my words around to the employment department so I cant receive benefits as well. I also assured the general manager that I had never even stolen batteries from the company and that I didnt understand why all of this was happening, as far as their motives.
So with all of this I have learned not to trust this world ever again. And they have played a part in yet another entity that has tried to snuff out my life. But I am still standing, even though I fall. And I am not doing this because I want charity. Prayers however I will take. They are worth more to me than all of the money in the world. Prayers for my wife, my daughter, my family and friends, for the Lords will to be done in my life and my enemies..........
So......, being in a group of believers, it is just my personal opinion that I should be able to tell you what company this is, just so you know... but they won't let me, and that is why the post was originally deleted..... And that was the only reason why I wrote it, because I wanted to help people and to keep them from getting into something that may end up hurting them, and to go in with caution. I don't know if I should even leave this up, I really appreciate the prayers, and especially David's words. But usually my 'burdens' just overwhelm people, and that is not my intent... I am not trying to "air my dirty laundry." As I was told I was doing, I just wanted make my opinion known.
http://www.christianforums.com/t1324549-my-jesus-my-savior.html
I Love you guys, and I am proud of you!!!
-Avidan http://www.christianforums.com/t1324549-my-jesus-my-savior.html
. I just wanted to express myself to some caring and praying people.Originally this was posted somewhere else, and it was deleted for reasons I don't understand. What I said should have been be okay to say in a group or community like this, in my opinion. But anyway, I took out the name of the company.
Sorry it's so long:
I want to vent out some frustration with the company that I previously worked for.
I am just a young man. I have a family, and many battles that I am facing that only my wife and my dad partially know about, and the Lord Truly Knows about. I worked for this company for quite a few years.
The first objective of their mission statement is to, Honor God in everything we do.
When I first started working for them I was injected with hopes and ambitions of what a great company they are, and how they strive to help their employee. I was hired on as a drain cleaner, which is a very disgusting and dangerous job. The man that trained me was very crude, and he treated me like a dog. He was a very bad teacher, in my opinion, and many others that I have talked to.
Drain cleaning pay is solely commission based. However if one did not make $8.80 an hour based on commission for the hours worked during the week, then the employee would receive that amount of base pay. But one would not receive base pay plus commission pay. This is where all of the stress would come in. People with families, doing very hard and disgusting work, can not afford to live off of 8.80 and hour. Not to mention that if one didnt make a certain quota repeatedly then they would be looked upon as the scum of the company. And all of the personal stats of the employees where made public to everyone in the company as well. They also threatened us with the accusation that if we did not make the company a certain amount of money, then we may not get paid.
I decided that I wanted to keep my job for at least two years, and I didnt care what they did to me, I just wanted to stick it out for at least that amount of time because it was a personal goal to finish what I start.
So, it was soon I found out that because I was so young, and because of other things I am fighting mentally and otherwise, it was very hard for me to make the sale and to do the work. It seemed like a better idea for me to become a plumber they are paid hourly and dont have to deal so much with raw sewage. So I applied for the apprenticeship program and somehow got on the list of 15 people chosen for the whole jurisdiction. However, again somehow, another guy from our store that applied was on the list too but he was lower in the line than I was . Now this guy was a buddy of the general manger. The GM came to me one day and told me that this guy had been waiting to get on the apprenticeship longer than I have been, and that he couldnt get him on unless I put it in writing that I gave up my spot. He assured me that I could have the next apprentice position which I was impressed to believe would be really soon.
So I am a nice guy, and then I was very gullible. I actually trusted people. So I did as he said for me to do. All in all, it crushed me. There was no other apprentice position available, and I lost out on the whole thing.
Now as time went by I held a couple different positions at the company that were hourly pay. I wasnt paid much, but the Lord made it enough to survive on. Soon I was asked to go back to drain cleaning. I didnt really have a choice, it was either that or get let go because my current position was coming to an end because of company changes.
So with much stress and fear I agreed because I had no other choice. And the Lord prospered my efforts and I was able to make good money for the first time in my life. The only thing was that I would not let myself put others above my family. Which is right in principle, but not when it comes to ripping people off, even though all but a few people there rip people off in major ways for the money.
The managers and dispatchers would make me do work for free. Some days I might make good money, and others nothing or two dollars an hour. I never complained. I just did what I could, and if there was an opportunity to make more money, I would take it. I didnt care about the people as far as putting them above my family or myself, I just cared about making money but the Lord knew that I didnt like doing that, because it goes against my character. I told Him that I didnt want to do it anymore. So I didnt. He still prospered me, but it became a little more stressful because of all of the free work and driving eating up my time. We were not allowed to get overtime, so I only had forty hours in the week to make enough money to support my family.
When three to four hours a day, or sometimes a whole day was taken up by me fixing someone elses mistake for free, or close to nothing, it becomes stressful. When the dispatchers would send me to calls that I wasnt equipped to handle, or to plumbing calls or to calls with no one home, it would become stressful. When I would drive from Forest Grove to East Vancouver in Friday rush hour traffic, maybe 50-60+ miles and up to 2hrs + one way, it would get a little stressful knowing that I wasnt going to see a dime for my time. But I just accepted that guilt that it was part of my job.
Ive seen so many people ripped off from the employees at this company, in so many different ways. Charging for cleaning a clean drain doing work on things that arent broken ensuring repeat business by not fixing something right the first time charging for more expensive equipment, but using the cheaper stuff charging extra hours for pretending to do work Ive seen things that just make me sick. I never went that far into ripping people off. I actually never ripped them off according to the companies prices and protocol. It was just ripping them off according to my conscience.
So I put up with all of this, and so many other things that I cant even begin to list, day after day. So what I did to alleviate some of my stress was this after gaining a certain amount of experience it all becomes pretty easy as far as the work and selling, especially with the Lords Help. Based on my experience and the calls that I would receive from dispatch in my pager I would decide on the right approach to honestly make the most money for my time. If driving time was over an hour, or it was a call that may require equipment that I didnt have, or if it was a call that may cost more money than expected by the average Joe, then I would give a courtesy call to my customer to find out all of this information before I started towards them. I would let them know general prices and procedures. I would let them know exactly where I was at and the traffic conditions and exactly when I would be there to the best of my knowledge. Everyone that I talked to greatly appreciated my efforts especially when they were only willing to spend fifty dollars and I absolutely knew that the right way to in fact fix the problem may be three hundred dollars or more.
Because the Lord would Help me in my customer service, even if the price was way out of their range, they would still have me come over do the job. Just because the Lord would Witness to them that I was being sincere I was being a real person. They would also greatly appreciate it when I let them know how long it would be before I got there.
I had caught the dispatchers on several occasions telling the customers lies about arrival times, delay problems, and much more which in turn would cause a whole lot of problems when I would tell them the truth like if I was on lunch right down the street, and they made me wait until my lunch was over before I could go and they told the customer that I was delayed at a job, or in traffic or so on that is just a light general example.
So with my efforts I was again doing very well, making myself and the company good money, consistently every week.
But because of all of the bogus calls I was sent to before all of this, cancellations, plumbing calls, and the such I had a good size pile of invoices stacked up that needed to be voided, months and months worth maybe even a years worth. I received a note from bookkeeping that they needed the invoices, so I gave the invoices to them.
The next day one of the managers talked to me about the invoices. He claimed that because I was calling my customers before hand, and because I had so many voided invoices that it look to him like I was doing side work off of company time. This was a great insult to my integrity that I try so hard to maintain by prayer, self discipline and the sparkle of courage that I do possess. At this same time my wife and I found out that our second child that we were greatly anticipating had died. Seeing his little body there with no heartbeat on the ultrasound was an experience that I had never felt before. I dont know how to explain it. But it scared me. On top of all of this, my wife had to go through the operation to suck out our lifeless child, and we found out that our company insurance policy had doubled our deductible and increased our premiums that we already paid around $400 a month for our benefits. And then the icing on the cake was the company decreasing our commission rates between one to two percent which may not seem like to much, but it is when everything is added up. Every little bit counts when youre trying to put food in your childs mouth.
I was very upset. But, I have the Lord and He keeps me standing even when I fall. I told the general manger that I would no longer work for free. And that if they were going to send me on a call that I deemed necessary based on my years of experience to contact before hand, then I would. Because I cant work for free. So they fired me. They also twisted all of my words around to the employment department so I cant receive benefits as well. I also assured the general manager that I had never even stolen batteries from the company and that I didnt understand why all of this was happening, as far as their motives.
So with all of this I have learned not to trust this world ever again. And they have played a part in yet another entity that has tried to snuff out my life. But I am still standing, even though I fall. And I am not doing this because I want charity. Prayers however I will take. They are worth more to me than all of the money in the world. Prayers for my wife, my daughter, my family and friends, for the Lords will to be done in my life and my enemies..........
So......, being in a group of believers, it is just my personal opinion that I should be able to tell you what company this is, just so you know... but they won't let me, and that is why the post was originally deleted..... And that was the only reason why I wrote it, because I wanted to help people and to keep them from getting into something that may end up hurting them, and to go in with caution. I don't know if I should even leave this up, I really appreciate the prayers, and especially David's words. But usually my 'burdens' just overwhelm people, and that is not my intent... I am not trying to "air my dirty laundry." As I was told I was doing, I just wanted make my opinion known.
http://www.christianforums.com/t1324549-my-jesus-my-savior.html
I Love you guys, and I am proud of you!!!
-Avidan http://www.christianforums.com/t1324549-my-jesus-my-savior.html
