Andrew Aigner-MuehlerLIVING OVERSEAS from my eyes.. WORKING IN TORONTO
January 26th 2008 05:16
WORKING IN TORONTO
As I mentioned in the prior chapter, after returning from Lake Louise, I landed a job after a couple weeks. That’s if you call it a job. To land this job at 1 Reality Enterprises, I firstly had to go for a first interview on a Wednesday, which was a one on one with the owner, and if he thought I was good they invited me back for the second interview on the Thursday, which was spending a few hours out in the field with another agent, which was Mark (Convery). The second interview was a chance to see if this would be for me, and also a chance for Mark to see if I would be a fit for him. As, Mark would be my leader if I accepted a position.
It’s a very steep employment process considering the position as a independent contractor is a commission based job, earning $35 for residential and $75 for commercial for every piece.
Any way I accepted a position, only because Mark showed me $150 in a couple of hours, and I saw a chance of making some quick money. Mark made me promise to him to give a couple weeks, if it wasn’t for me then, then quit, but do not quit before hand. I always give things a few weeks any way. The following Wednesday I was suppose to start a two day training course at Direct Energy. I did, but it only lasted a day, because I was the only one there. They just told me the basics about selling electricity and gas, not what to do etc etc, and then gave me a little test, which we went through the answers before hand, and just had to remember them.
The following day and the Friday I went out into the field with Mark, to see how he does it, get any tips, and then Monday after the weekend I was by myself.
I must admit it wasn’t a bad job, I earnt some really great money, in the first three months I was making between $700 and $2600 per week, in the final month I was working there I was making between $300 and $1000 per week. It wasn’t a hard job, but Direct Energy did have a bad name, because of a few scams that occurred when gas first got deregulated, but it was actually a good thing for the customer. At the end of the day, you would be interested if you could save a lot of money on your electricity and gas bills, wouldn’t you? YES, but obviously not in Canada! All our job entailed was to make sure they had a supplier activated to their electricity or gas accounts, if they didn’t have a supplier activated they will be paying market rates, which they could be paying double at many scenarios, if they had a supplier they would be locked in at a rate for five years. As we know nothing in life stays the same, prices keep on going up and up and up. But, Canadians either thought we were scamming them again or they thought prices were coming down.
Any way, I was a bit of a success, I broke most of the office records in the first month, and shortly after broke them again, that’s my own records. I was able to duplicate what I was doing to train other people to make good money. I worked myself to a leader and then a team leader, and then everything started going down hill, had to sack one guy for not performing, warn another guy for not showing up in the mornings on time and he ended up quiting a day or so later, sacked another for fraud for basically misinforming customers and changing the contracts, had one leave because it wasn’t for her, couldn’t handle the rejections and one month after I left the final one I trained to a leader ended up quiting.
I will say I liked the job, it was great money, it was sought of a stepping stone for me and I liked working on behalf of the client, who was Canada’s largest energy supplier and expanding into Europe and they sponsor many professional and amateur sports. It was a good brand, yes they had their problems, but what good company doesn’t have their initial problems. Okay, the reason I left is because of office politics. The new people weren’t being told exactly what they were getting themselves into, we were told to watch what we say around the new guys, they weren’t told everything they needed or should have known, not even the established agents were being communicated to the way the should have been ie the managers holding information from us, and the one which pushed a lot of people away is, the way the owner use to talk to us. One minute were a independent contractor who is on their own, handle any consequences, problems and that, and then next we entering in to the owners training management scheme, if we didn’t like it or do what he says and then get out. We weren’t allowed to say anything negative around any one else, but it was okay for him to really put us down and embarrass out in front of everyone else. You can only take so much of being treated like shit and seeing your work mates being treated like shit, doesn’t matter how good the money is, eventually it shows in how much your making.
When I quit 1 Reality Enterprises at the end of November, I had a month off, went back to London and Dublin for Christmas, New York for new years. When I came back to Toronto on the 2nd January, I thought it would only take a couple of weeks to get a new and reasonable job. Oh my god, its not the easiest in finding jobs in Toronto especially reasonably paid jobs. Jobs in Toronto are either commissioned base or sales orientated, but you have to watch out for the scamming jobs, there are a lot of scams and I mean scams in Toronto, if its not sales or commissioned base they are very low based near minimum wage, if you want a good paid job, you need the degrees and then you have to fight for those positions, which are only advertised in the papers usually the Globe & Mail, and Toronto Star. Be aware when you are doing any job hunting on the web from Workopolis.com and monster.com the jobs do sound pretty good but are often not what you expect. If you are moving around Canada and want a hospitality or resort job summerjobs.com is a good site to go to.
I will warn you, there are a few things you got to know when applying for jobs. Companies will not get back to you if your unsuccessful, they will not get back to you if you ring up and enquire about a position or apply for the position, I think the gatekeeper holds a lot of power in employing people, if the gatekeeper doesn’t like your look or the sound of your voice, they will not call you back. When you ring up, the gatekeeper will say the person you need to speak to is unavailable and then will continue to take your name and number. At a interview, the interviews are fairly relaxed, you will think its going great, they are asking heaps of questions about you, and then they will say something like you are something what we are looking for, you have the job, I will call you on such as such a day, shake your hand and show you to the door, and guess what they wont get back to you. Apparently after talking to a few people, it’s a Canadian nice way of saying you have not got the job. A quick tip, keep on applying and going to job interviews until you actually start, if you have a got a job or part time job don’t quit it until the very last moment.
Any way I found another job after a couple of weeks, I thought it might have been the perfect job as extra cash and something to do while trying to make my acting career take off. It was working for Ipsos ASI a market research company. A minimum paid job at $8 per hour, working damn hard for you surveys, the company offered no incentives for getting surveys. The surveys came very scarce for many clients sometimes dialing 50 to 100 sometimes 200 or even 500 numbers for a completed survey, except for the media survey, where you probably dialed less than 50 numbers for the night. While most surveys lasted for ten to twenty minutes, the media survey lasted for an average of forty five minutes, surprisingly time went quicker with the media survey and people would actually be more freely to do it. But one thing I noticed as a telephone interviewer phoning the United States and Canada people are so rude, ignorant, uncooperative, and just wont listen to you. They think we are after money or trying to scam them, when we are just after their opinion. We all know market research helps all of us, and companies need our help to improve their service or business to us, they want to give us want we want, but North Americans meaning Canadians and the United States don’t think so, they are not willing to participate, but they all have their own opinion. Its probably why so they are so fucked up. My apologies to those people who do participate in the interviews.
I continued to work at Ipsos ASI on and off while I was working at the Skydome, oops, sorry the Rogers Center, which I started mid march. I had to work all the matches, as I looked after the media center. So, I was that person you could never hear or see, but had a little input in you receiving a good sports telecast. Those guys do a need a drink to keep themselves refreshed.
It only took me one Jays home series, for me to get to know what is going on, to get the timings right, and to know what to order. As the match days go on, I am remembering more and more of the guys names. Even so I am a server and they’re either broadcasters or writers or they work directly for the Jays, they all treat me like their peers. I must admit I show a little favouritism to the Sportsnet crew, that’s not because the have the rights to the English premiership, but I have had some good conversations with the likes of Pat Tabler, Jamie Campbell, and the floor manager Bobby.
I enjoyed all of the match days I had worked, except for one, and that was the match against Baltimore on the 27th April 2006, nothing against either teams, though. My mother had called me while I was going down to the kitchen, I had no reception on my cell, so, she left me a message. After listening to the message, I had sent her back a text message saying everything was cool with me and was at work at present time. I will admit, I sought off new there was something up. My mother then responded by sending back another text saying “thanks Andrew have some bad news uncle Kelvin has died will call you tomorrow”. This happened 10 or so minutes before food service began. After that I was upset, but not as much upset as when she told me that my grandma died, but it hit me! I tried to act like nothing happened, and be myself, as the food service went on, I was getting better, until when food service stopped , I wasn’t as busy, and started to think. Luckily when my grandma died, I didn’t have to work, this was the first time I had been at work while a family member had told me that another family member had died. It was a very hard for me to work. That was not all, I also lost my cell phone. Anyone who has lost their cell phone before today would know what it is like. Your cell phone is your life, it has all your numbers and everything on it. Luckily for me, someone picked it up, and handed it to Mal, who announced it over the PA in the media center. I didn’t hear it, because I was busy, and not with it. Thankfully Elizabeth the security lady heard it, and I got back my cell phone. That would have been the worst day I have ever had.
Just to go back on things. Having a death in your family is hard, and then you have to find a way of handling it. It’s a little easier when you are around other family members who are experiencing the same, you can talk about it, share feelings and thoughts, and give support to each other. But, when you are away, either living or traveling overseas, you have no family, talking over the telephone can help, but it is not enough, so you have to rely on your friends, who have been a addition to your family, but it a lot of ways you do not want to hassle then with your problems. With the death of my grandma, I was very upset, was very quiet, and kept to my self. I tried to just remember the happier times, and remember funny things. With the death of my uncle Kelvin, I didn’t really know him that well after my middle teenage years, so it was hard to remember the good times. Thankfully the night I initially heard the news, I bumped into a former work mate, and then went back to his place for a chat to catch up, but the next day when my mother called to give me further news on what happened, all I could think off was to go for a quiet drink at the Horseshoe tavern. Thankfully while slowly drinking a Labatts Blue I met Samantha, and that helped me to get over that night. I am not saying drinking your problems away is a good thing, I didn’t at all drink a lot that night, but I put my self into a atmosphere where I was relaxed, and hopefully could enjoy my self, to stop me from being depressed. And you have to do the same thing if you have no family around, and don’t want to bother your friends, keep yourself busy, do something what you enjoy and relaxes you, but just don’t think too much, its very hard not think of the negatives, and thinking of the negatives will make you depressed.
I must say working at the Rogers Center was made so much easier, when all the events I work is just for baseball, which is a love of mine.
As I mentioned in the prior chapter, after returning from Lake Louise, I landed a job after a couple weeks. That’s if you call it a job. To land this job at 1 Reality Enterprises, I firstly had to go for a first interview on a Wednesday, which was a one on one with the owner, and if he thought I was good they invited me back for the second interview on the Thursday, which was spending a few hours out in the field with another agent, which was Mark (Convery). The second interview was a chance to see if this would be for me, and also a chance for Mark to see if I would be a fit for him. As, Mark would be my leader if I accepted a position.
Any way I accepted a position, only because Mark showed me $150 in a couple of hours, and I saw a chance of making some quick money. Mark made me promise to him to give a couple weeks, if it wasn’t for me then, then quit, but do not quit before hand. I always give things a few weeks any way. The following Wednesday I was suppose to start a two day training course at Direct Energy. I did, but it only lasted a day, because I was the only one there. They just told me the basics about selling electricity and gas, not what to do etc etc, and then gave me a little test, which we went through the answers before hand, and just had to remember them.
The following day and the Friday I went out into the field with Mark, to see how he does it, get any tips, and then Monday after the weekend I was by myself.
I must admit it wasn’t a bad job, I earnt some really great money, in the first three months I was making between $700 and $2600 per week, in the final month I was working there I was making between $300 and $1000 per week. It wasn’t a hard job, but Direct Energy did have a bad name, because of a few scams that occurred when gas first got deregulated, but it was actually a good thing for the customer. At the end of the day, you would be interested if you could save a lot of money on your electricity and gas bills, wouldn’t you? YES, but obviously not in Canada! All our job entailed was to make sure they had a supplier activated to their electricity or gas accounts, if they didn’t have a supplier activated they will be paying market rates, which they could be paying double at many scenarios, if they had a supplier they would be locked in at a rate for five years. As we know nothing in life stays the same, prices keep on going up and up and up. But, Canadians either thought we were scamming them again or they thought prices were coming down.
I will say I liked the job, it was great money, it was sought of a stepping stone for me and I liked working on behalf of the client, who was Canada’s largest energy supplier and expanding into Europe and they sponsor many professional and amateur sports. It was a good brand, yes they had their problems, but what good company doesn’t have their initial problems. Okay, the reason I left is because of office politics. The new people weren’t being told exactly what they were getting themselves into, we were told to watch what we say around the new guys, they weren’t told everything they needed or should have known, not even the established agents were being communicated to the way the should have been ie the managers holding information from us, and the one which pushed a lot of people away is, the way the owner use to talk to us. One minute were a independent contractor who is on their own, handle any consequences, problems and that, and then next we entering in to the owners training management scheme, if we didn’t like it or do what he says and then get out. We weren’t allowed to say anything negative around any one else, but it was okay for him to really put us down and embarrass out in front of everyone else. You can only take so much of being treated like shit and seeing your work mates being treated like shit, doesn’t matter how good the money is, eventually it shows in how much your making.
When I quit 1 Reality Enterprises at the end of November, I had a month off, went back to London and Dublin for Christmas, New York for new years. When I came back to Toronto on the 2nd January, I thought it would only take a couple of weeks to get a new and reasonable job. Oh my god, its not the easiest in finding jobs in Toronto especially reasonably paid jobs. Jobs in Toronto are either commissioned base or sales orientated, but you have to watch out for the scamming jobs, there are a lot of scams and I mean scams in Toronto, if its not sales or commissioned base they are very low based near minimum wage, if you want a good paid job, you need the degrees and then you have to fight for those positions, which are only advertised in the papers usually the Globe & Mail, and Toronto Star. Be aware when you are doing any job hunting on the web from Workopolis.com and monster.com the jobs do sound pretty good but are often not what you expect. If you are moving around Canada and want a hospitality or resort job summerjobs.com is a good site to go to.
I will warn you, there are a few things you got to know when applying for jobs. Companies will not get back to you if your unsuccessful, they will not get back to you if you ring up and enquire about a position or apply for the position, I think the gatekeeper holds a lot of power in employing people, if the gatekeeper doesn’t like your look or the sound of your voice, they will not call you back. When you ring up, the gatekeeper will say the person you need to speak to is unavailable and then will continue to take your name and number. At a interview, the interviews are fairly relaxed, you will think its going great, they are asking heaps of questions about you, and then they will say something like you are something what we are looking for, you have the job, I will call you on such as such a day, shake your hand and show you to the door, and guess what they wont get back to you. Apparently after talking to a few people, it’s a Canadian nice way of saying you have not got the job. A quick tip, keep on applying and going to job interviews until you actually start, if you have a got a job or part time job don’t quit it until the very last moment.
Any way I found another job after a couple of weeks, I thought it might have been the perfect job as extra cash and something to do while trying to make my acting career take off. It was working for Ipsos ASI a market research company. A minimum paid job at $8 per hour, working damn hard for you surveys, the company offered no incentives for getting surveys. The surveys came very scarce for many clients sometimes dialing 50 to 100 sometimes 200 or even 500 numbers for a completed survey, except for the media survey, where you probably dialed less than 50 numbers for the night. While most surveys lasted for ten to twenty minutes, the media survey lasted for an average of forty five minutes, surprisingly time went quicker with the media survey and people would actually be more freely to do it. But one thing I noticed as a telephone interviewer phoning the United States and Canada people are so rude, ignorant, uncooperative, and just wont listen to you. They think we are after money or trying to scam them, when we are just after their opinion. We all know market research helps all of us, and companies need our help to improve their service or business to us, they want to give us want we want, but North Americans meaning Canadians and the United States don’t think so, they are not willing to participate, but they all have their own opinion. Its probably why so they are so fucked up. My apologies to those people who do participate in the interviews.
I continued to work at Ipsos ASI on and off while I was working at the Skydome, oops, sorry the Rogers Center, which I started mid march. I had to work all the matches, as I looked after the media center. So, I was that person you could never hear or see, but had a little input in you receiving a good sports telecast. Those guys do a need a drink to keep themselves refreshed.
It only took me one Jays home series, for me to get to know what is going on, to get the timings right, and to know what to order. As the match days go on, I am remembering more and more of the guys names. Even so I am a server and they’re either broadcasters or writers or they work directly for the Jays, they all treat me like their peers. I must admit I show a little favouritism to the Sportsnet crew, that’s not because the have the rights to the English premiership, but I have had some good conversations with the likes of Pat Tabler, Jamie Campbell, and the floor manager Bobby.
I enjoyed all of the match days I had worked, except for one, and that was the match against Baltimore on the 27th April 2006, nothing against either teams, though. My mother had called me while I was going down to the kitchen, I had no reception on my cell, so, she left me a message. After listening to the message, I had sent her back a text message saying everything was cool with me and was at work at present time. I will admit, I sought off new there was something up. My mother then responded by sending back another text saying “thanks Andrew have some bad news uncle Kelvin has died will call you tomorrow”. This happened 10 or so minutes before food service began. After that I was upset, but not as much upset as when she told me that my grandma died, but it hit me! I tried to act like nothing happened, and be myself, as the food service went on, I was getting better, until when food service stopped , I wasn’t as busy, and started to think. Luckily when my grandma died, I didn’t have to work, this was the first time I had been at work while a family member had told me that another family member had died. It was a very hard for me to work. That was not all, I also lost my cell phone. Anyone who has lost their cell phone before today would know what it is like. Your cell phone is your life, it has all your numbers and everything on it. Luckily for me, someone picked it up, and handed it to Mal, who announced it over the PA in the media center. I didn’t hear it, because I was busy, and not with it. Thankfully Elizabeth the security lady heard it, and I got back my cell phone. That would have been the worst day I have ever had.
Just to go back on things. Having a death in your family is hard, and then you have to find a way of handling it. It’s a little easier when you are around other family members who are experiencing the same, you can talk about it, share feelings and thoughts, and give support to each other. But, when you are away, either living or traveling overseas, you have no family, talking over the telephone can help, but it is not enough, so you have to rely on your friends, who have been a addition to your family, but it a lot of ways you do not want to hassle then with your problems. With the death of my grandma, I was very upset, was very quiet, and kept to my self. I tried to just remember the happier times, and remember funny things. With the death of my uncle Kelvin, I didn’t really know him that well after my middle teenage years, so it was hard to remember the good times. Thankfully the night I initially heard the news, I bumped into a former work mate, and then went back to his place for a chat to catch up, but the next day when my mother called to give me further news on what happened, all I could think off was to go for a quiet drink at the Horseshoe tavern. Thankfully while slowly drinking a Labatts Blue I met Samantha, and that helped me to get over that night. I am not saying drinking your problems away is a good thing, I didn’t at all drink a lot that night, but I put my self into a atmosphere where I was relaxed, and hopefully could enjoy my self, to stop me from being depressed. And you have to do the same thing if you have no family around, and don’t want to bother your friends, keep yourself busy, do something what you enjoy and relaxes you, but just don’t think too much, its very hard not think of the negatives, and thinking of the negatives will make you depressed.
I must say working at the Rogers Center was made so much easier, when all the events I work is just for baseball, which is a love of mine.
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