I bitch about it a lot, but I really do like my job, because of the people. Most of the time.
When I leave at five, the office is closed. The computers are shut down for the day, and we are done.
The warehouse guys usually start shutting the computers down a minute or two before five. On the order desk, we tell the computer to shut down at five, and then leave - we figure the computer can reboot or shut down without our babysitting it. And it prevents overtime.
Last Friday, a customer pulled into the parking lot at 4:58, and was in the will call office two minutes later. The warehouse guys had already clocked out, but one of them clocked back in to help us take care of the customer.
Even better, he was a customer who is ... less-than-reliable at paying his bills and has an extremely thick accent, to boot. His accent is thick enough that I'm the only one in the office who can understand him most of the time. And he's behind enough that our system puts his orders on credit hold - we need someone in our Portland office to release them so that they can be pulled off the shelves by the warehouse team.
He'd placed an order earlier that day, but he places lots of orders, and only picks up a few of them. So we hadn't expected to see him.
When he pulled in at 5:00, I had to call the credit department to ask someone to wait. One of the warehouse team volunteered to stay a bit late to help. And I got to do the talking. And, finally, one of the keyholders had to stay here.
It took ten minutes to get the order released from hold (after he paid). While we were waiting for the credit department, I got to sit through a long tirade about how he's been a good customer for twenty years and why are we treating him like this? It was hard to bite back the obvious response of, "because the money you're paying now is going to invoices from two and a half years ago ... "
Then I went out to help the warehouse guy pull stuff off the shelves. It wasn't little stuff, either - it was almost a full pallet. While we were pulling it, the customer backed up to one of our bay doors.
The product he'd ordered came in largeish boxes - roughly two feet tall, three feet wide, and two feet deep. This meant that the pallet-load of product wasn't going to fit into his minivan.
While we were pulling the product, I heard him on the phone to another distributor - apparently we were his first stop that night. And those other guys? They close at 5:00, too.
Once his van was as full as we could make it, he told us, "I'll be back on Monday for the rest," and then he took off. At 5:30.
This means that my company paid a half hour of overtime for at least three people, not including the credit department people who hung out to assist. And all of us took a morale hit, because it was Friday at closing time. Who wants to give up weekend?
Was the sale worth it? Financially? Yes. Probably. But it cost morale. And it trained this customer that his behavior was acceptable, so he'll probably do it again.
And I really don't like that.
When he pulled in at 5:00, I had to call the credit department to ask someone to wait. One of the warehouse team volunteered to stay a bit late to help. And I got to do the talking. And, finally, one of the keyholders had to stay here.
It took ten minutes to get the order released from hold (after he paid). While we were waiting for the credit department, I got to sit through a long tirade about how he's been a good customer for twenty years and why are we treating him like this? It was hard to bite back the obvious response of, "because the money you're paying now is going to invoices from two and a half years ago ... "
Then I went out to help the warehouse guy pull stuff off the shelves. It wasn't little stuff, either - it was almost a full pallet. While we were pulling it, the customer backed up to one of our bay doors.
The product he'd ordered came in largeish boxes - roughly two feet tall, three feet wide, and two feet deep. This meant that the pallet-load of product wasn't going to fit into his minivan.
While we were pulling the product, I heard him on the phone to another distributor - apparently we were his first stop that night. And those other guys? They close at 5:00, too.
Once his van was as full as we could make it, he told us, "I'll be back on Monday for the rest," and then he took off. At 5:30.
This means that my company paid a half hour of overtime for at least three people, not including the credit department people who hung out to assist. And all of us took a morale hit, because it was Friday at closing time. Who wants to give up weekend?
Was the sale worth it? Financially? Yes. Probably. But it cost morale. And it trained this customer that his behavior was acceptable, so he'll probably do it again.
And I really don't like that.
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