Teacher Summer Job in Telemarketing?

As a teacher, looking for summer work, I took a job pretty close to my home as a telemarketer for a rather large hotel chain that also sold vacation packages and time share packages. I was really only interested in the techniques used by telemarketers and wanted to see how I might someday apply this as a teacher to solicit donations for our school. The company had literally hundreds of workers at computer stations in stadium type rooms. We were all grouped into little groups and we received training through the computers on our desks. Potential customers were provided for us automatically and the system dialed the number for us automatically and had a method of keeping track of every call and responses.

The "lists" were supposed to be from people that were actually interested in the product, but in reality many of the people did not seem like they actually wanted the phone calls. Many were actually quite emphatic about not wanting to be called. You can imagine some of the language that some actually used. You were trained to be calm and polite, but I admit it was tempting to tell them what you thought of their language or rudeness. Because you were sometimes taped and monitored, you had to keep cool. The package they were selling was three or four days at a resort for about $125.00 (total for a family of four) and you would be given $50.00 to spend when you got there. You would have to listen to a one hour presentation and take a 30 minute tour of the facility. (I have been through these before and never like them, but some people are able to take the sales pitch in stride.) In any case if you could take it, the price was really good for a vacation.

We were told we would be paid $10.00 per hour and receive a bonus of $50.00 for each person that took the vacation and $150.00 if the person purchased a week of time share. From the first day, you had to dress appropriately and work pretty hard. After the first week however, everyone had a quota of 2 sales for the week. This only meant that the people had signed up for the vacation not the time share purchase. After the second week the quota was four similar sales per week and every was informed that they could not have earrings, tattoos, cell phones, and had to log in on time and out just after their shift. If you were late three times you were fired. Now if you did not make four sales per week you were also fired.

Well, after the third week I had decided this was not something I wanted to continue. I had now learned that I could make phone calls and I could sell a product over the phone, but I definitely did not want to work for this particularly company. This is not to say that others could not find it fine, but it was not my kind of thing. The thing I learned the most was that I didn't like it, so because I wanted to do the right thing, I informed my supervisor that I was going to leave and was giving them my two week notice. I went back to my computer station and went back to work and was working hard at doing my job. About five minutes later, my supervisor came up to my station and said she was going to walk me out of the building right then. I was fired immediately and a security guard met her at my desk (they had called him to meet us there). We all walked out together. She asked for my "key card" which I naturally gave her and she immediately punched some numbers into the keypad at the door removing me from the system. I was told that I could no longer be on the site anywhere at anytime. This was a bit of a shock, I had never been fired before and after being a teacher for over 25 years, I considered myself a completely honest and reliable person.

I found out that this was "standard procedure" for this company and was somewhat understandable since some people might have a serious attitude problem when fired. I was a bit surprised to get a check two weeks later that covered my two week notice. So they did pay me for the full time that I had intended to work, but actually didn't. I am certain that many telemarketing jobs would have a better approach, at least I hope this is true.

I may have been a teacher during the year, but I really got an "education" over this particular summer job.