When I first accepted the
"Sales and marketing job", I was
(kinda) excited and nervous at the same time. I was excited because I thought I found my dream job; a challenging marketing job in a internationally recognized company which promises a good salary and good career growth prospect.
Based on their website, the job description lead me to think of it as a job where clients will come to the company in search for marketing ideas to campaign or launch their new product to the masses. Unfortunately I was very very wrong.
Anyway, I will get back to that later...
The 1st day at work was uneventful as it was "Orientation and Training Day", I walked into the office expecting to see a group of aspiring marketer who, like me have just been recruited into the company.
Can you imagine how surprise I was to find the office empty, (except for a few senior staff discussing something in the corner). Where are the rest of the people who was suppose to attend training? Was I late? have everybody left for training somewhere else?
I was very disappointed when I found out that I was the only one who will be going through the orientation....
Just one lonely aspiring marketer (ME) =(
Anyway, fast forward to several hours later... I have completed the training and was allowed to go home after lunch to rest up for the big day tomorrow. (The day where I will actually be doing real work...)
I was so pumped and motivated after training...
How naive of little G-Devil... Little does he know what awaits him tomorrow.
On day 2 of the "sales and marketing job", I was LATE for work!!!
( I know.!!! what a great way for first impression right?)
Today, I was assigned to field work at Wisma Cosway,
(For those of you who do not know where Wisma Cosway is... Its on the left hand side of The Pavilion)
As I mentioned earlier, I thought the job requires 70% marketing and 30% sales skills, because the name for the job position was "Sales and Marketing Executive". Unfortunately, It turns out that the job actually requires 99.999% Sales Skill and 0.001% marketing skills.
Let me explain to you the daily routine of the "Sales and Marketing job"....
- Every morning,(At 8.30am) we have to go to the office for a briefing session before going out for field work
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- Then around 10am, we have to go to our assigned "STATIONS" located at most shopping malls and office areas.
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- At the station, we need to set up our station and get ready to make sales!
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- After that, we are suppose to stop any passerby to listen to our sales pitch and try to tempt him/her to sign up for our client's services/products.
This is what I was doing at my station....
It was after spending the whole morning stopping random strangers that it occurred to me that I have been conned (I would describe it more as "marketed") by one of the oldest tricks in the Marketing Handbook. The one where they make the things they are trying to market sound grander than it is....
For example, instead of using "Cleaning Lady" to describe the job, they change the job title to "Hygiene Operator Officer". Basically, the job tittle "Sales and Marketing Exec" is just a fancy name for a "annoying salesperson" job.
Hi sir! Can I annoy you till you buy something from me?
In addition to that, the job does not give a basic salary or does it give any EPF and SOCSO benefits. You only earn money if you can successfully close a sale.
In other words... No SALE, No Money!
Finding out that this job is not suitable for me, I sneaked away around lunch time and "SMS-ed" my resignation to the boss and my superior (I was too chicken to tell them face to face). My superior took the news quite well... He even wished me good luck in my future endeavors. Wish I could say the same for the Boss...
My Boss's reply ;
How can you do this after all the effort we put into you?
(I only worked for less than 48 hours in with you... How much sweat, blood and tears did you pour into me?)
Seriously, what goes around, will come around.
(I'm have already gone around and I'm not coming back EVER!!! Especially after the SMS you sent )
Bye.
(Hope NOT to see you again!!!)
Although I have no regret quitting the job, I can't help but feel depressed for being such a failure at not toughing it out,,,
Hopefully my alternative "office job" will not be as misleading as this job...
