We are in the middle of the beginning of a ridiculous sales year on the road.
The builder bunnies are out in full force, the mass of product trucks are hitting nearly every day, our reps still haven’t figured out how to work a fax machine without shredding nearly every P.O., and The Boss is typically MIA.
…This time from an Ulna fracture.
…Because he fell over while playing basket ball with his kids.
Everyone knows that this totally incapacitates you from answering phones or logging into the internet…so it looks like we have 6-8 weeks of totally on our owness, here at the office. This changes nothing really. It’s just a different excuse from the other ones.
Meanwhile, all those early purchasers who bought around the Holidays to take advantage of sales, are starting to pop up for install dates. Put on hold of their OWN doing, it now exasperates them without end that they cannot cater-pick the EXACT date that they want to be built. Because, “Didn’t you know we get first priority? We bought this 5 months ago!”
…Explaining to these people that “first come first serve” means that people have meanwhile been booking up the calendar as they purchased THEIR buildings, (without putting them on “hold.”) This is a totally foreign concept to the leg-draggers. Apparently we should have no customers other than themselves, leaving a wide-open range for any date of their choosing from now until June, whenever they get their shit together and finally prep their land.
…Also, we are apparently idiots for building in the rain.
…Though the climate lasts for nine months of the year and always has. You’d think people would know this, owning land here, but it seems that they don’t. Or rather, they just don’t care, as long as we don’t build in it, but still on the day they want, so we should not inconvenience them, by making sure that this happens.
…And don’t even get me started with the Bouncers.
(A “Bouncer” is a customer who calls repeatedly, swapping dates back and forth, inevitably getting pissed off when sometime ‘tween change 5 and 6, someone else takes the earlier slot they’d already given up, but now want back again. Mostly only because now, they can’t HAVE it.)
All of this just further proves that people (most especially “customers”) are by and large, hissyfit-throwing-assholes.
(Those of us who work in any kind of sales industry already know this. But for those who don’t: here’s your little FYI.)
Everyone wants what they want, when they want it, and because we are a Capitalistic society…having all been taught that “the customer is always right,” will be thrown in your face no less than 700 times in any given week.
…But I am here to tell you, that this is a load of shit. And let me tell you why:
Because no one person is the center of the universe. Which is bad enough to negotiate on it’s own. But in our societal frame of mind, we EACH think that we are that “one” person.
…So, apply that concept to the entire U.S. population, and you would have 315,480, 016 centers of the universe, just right now. (according to the U.S. and World Population clock.)
…Which is 315,480,016 people, too many.
In this mode of thinking: money and a hissyfit will buy you anything. And it won’t. It can’t. Guess what, even Bill fucking Gates has to wait for an Amazon box to arrive. Just…like…you.
…And when that Amazon box happens to be an entire building, (for instance)…sometimes that takes even more time to wait for.
BECAUSE IT’S A BUILDING.
We’re not constructing cardboard boxes here. We aren’t filling bottles with Coke products on an assembly line that we can FedEx out to you tomorrow. These are two-ton and more dwellings. They are made by hand. From wood. Cut from a tree. In a forest. And shipped here. To our warehouse. Where we then re-load it. And drive it out to you. And a contractor stands outside all day long. In the rain, and/or snow. To build it. With their hands. For you.
THIS TAKES TIME.
And when you have 549 orders on the books…and 7 contractors…that takes MORE time.
…If you can see what I’m saying.
…Which I’m frankly starting to think would be a bloody miracle, as seemingly not one of our customers seem to be able to.
We have 549 suns who all want individual orbits according to their own laws of physics, time, place and schedule.
Which is not possible. Ask anyone.
…So this is what I’d like to call an open letter to the customers of the world. (Most especially mine, but even your average restaurant-patron will do.)
Dear (Enter Your Name Here),
We know you bought this thing. We know you want it now. But your hotdog/dvd/motorcycle/carpet/computer/garage/Hummer/imported-cigar doesn’t grow on trees. (And even if it does, it still needs to be cut down or picked by someone first.) Someone has to cook/package/build/make/deliver this item to you. This takes “time.” “Time” is this thing which requires scheduling. A schedule, means booking product-per-customer. A customer is one of many people…who also have schedules and times…and…(not to blow your mind here)… but prob’ly customers of their OWN who have times and schedules, as well.
…Taking this into consideration: you all are just going to have to man-up like a 5-year-old, and wait in line, like everyone else. Stop pissing your pants with rage-fits. Be responsible enough to pre-plan your potty visits NOW. And when I tell you our lead times are 4 weeks out, when you tell me you want to “hold it for a couple of weeks”…consider that the equivalent of: “Do you have to go to the bathroom now? Cuz the next rest stop isn’t until: ___.”
If your child can do this, I have full confidence that you can to.
Signed,
A Contract-Processing Representative, in the Building Industry
~D
