I Created a Monster

Some time ago I wrote about a part time job I got via an old friend of mine. It was about calling the German offices of Japanese companies, asking if I could send them information about the advantages of producing in a certain business park.

At first, I was just worried that maybe my Japanese would not be good enough to communicate with the Japanese bosses I was supposed to call.
HA! Turned out my Japanese is definitely good enough.

However, when I accepted that job, I was apparently unaware of what I had just put myself in.

Stage 1

First of all, when my friend first contacted me about the job, she actually wrote something like "I'd really need your Japanese skills at work, please contact me as soon as possible!" So in the beginning, I really thought that they sort of had a situation where they'd be in trouble. Maybe someone was sick and they needed some certain Japan-related work to be done? Maybe they were in a project and there was suddenly a client who could only speak Japanese? Or they had some letters there that they needed to be translated?

Stage 2

When I got further information on the job, I got to know that I was supposed to call Japanese company bosses in Germany.
That's when I got a little uneasy. I HATE telephone calls, especially when they are business-related. Nevertheless, as long as you have got a "reason" to call, I'm fine with it. At my TU job I did it countless times and though I didn't particularly like it I was ok with it. Now this telephone job seemed to be an opportunity to make some money as well as get some more routine in telephone calls.

My friend had said there would be a list of 25-50 companies to be called in december, and there MIGHT be a second list in January. If so, it would probably contain 60-90 companies. When she said it, the odds for a second list seemed about 50/50, maybe even less.

So I thought this would be a nice opportunity to make some money during those 2 months. No matter whether I'd do good or bad, it would be over after two months and then the whole thing would be over. For just two months, I could do two jobs! If it was only just two months....

Stage 3

I was so stupid. I considered myself lucky back then. I accepted the job. I signed a contract.
This is what it said: Contact Japanese companies. The contract is for up to 150 companies.
Try to call each company up to three times. Try to get the boss.
If you don't get anyone for three times, contact them via mail.
Try another call.

I kind of laughed at the naivety of my new bosses considering the translation of the letter. Those fuckers honestly believed that you could translate German into Japanese just as you'd do it with English. Sentence by sentence, word by word. Can they even imagine how long it took me to rebuild their letter in proper Japanese?



Stage 4

I was briefed by the client. What was I supposed to say at the telephone? What happened if someone I called wanted to make an appointment to visit that park?

When I think back I don't know why I had ignored the obvious for so long, but it's a fact: It wasn't until this briefing that I fully understood that I was supposed to do "lead acquisation".
I understood that I was really supposed to call complete foreigners who had never ever heard of the company that hired me, ask for their number one boss and then start telling that poor man about the opportunity to blah blah whatever.

It might be said to my credit that I did have the thought of "lead acquisation" in my mind for a split second when I heard about "calling Japanese bosses". Buuuuut, I had thought to myself back then, in lead acquisation they'd never expect me to call the top most boss. That would be just too retarded.
Hah! Turns out it wasn't.

Stage 5

I had to do the calls. Never in my whole life has a job been more disgusting. In the beginning I thought that I'd get used to it quite fast, but I didn't.
Call by call I felt more miserable. Trying to lure people into doing something I personally would NEVER want for my company.
Trying to make a secretary let me talk to her boss!!! Honestly, if I ever had a company to run and my secretary would let a stupid call center whore talk to me, I'd have that secretary put on termination list.

When I finally did the last of the calls to 36 companies that were on my first list (there were more than 70 overall, but I was only supposed to call those who had a German address, the others had their offices in the UK) I was so unbelievably happy that it was over. Only some more letters to write, and part 1 of 2 would be over. Maybe, just maybe, there wouldn't be a second list at all?

Stage 6

Some days ago I got a call that the client wanted an appointment on friday, to get to know the company I was working for. It was all just some talking, nothing to worry about. So let's do it!
I didn't really feel like spending time there, but of course I went there. Now that I have accepted the job I just have to get through the rest of it.

The schedule was: 10AM-11AM. One hour of meeting.

I arrived at 9:45 and waited for the whole thing to begin. The boss was doing calls to different clients all the time. He kept on mentioning that they were extremely busy at the moment and there was so much work to do. So, when we did some smalltalk inbetween his phone calls, I said with a very approving face "Seems like business is going very well, that's great.", to which he replied "Yes, we're really busy these days."

The client arrived at 10:20. He used the interphone to ask if he could please park his car in one of the parking lots in the yard. So they had to explain to their client that their company doesn't even own a single one of the parking lots in their building's backyard. The man had to drive around and search for a parking lot in Berlin-Mitte, close to Alexanderplatz. What an impression to make to your client....
The meeting started at 10:35. (The client turned out to be the new boss of the client company, who spent the last 15 years in Asia.)
It ended at 12:00. Not only does this mean that the actual meeting lasted for 1:25 instead of one hour, no, there's the additional time for the late beginning.
I had planned to start a shift at my TU job at 12:00. So I was about 30 Minutes late to that. Damn.

What was much worse was what they talked about during the meeting. It gave me an insight on the pathetic business world.

According to my boss, the company is doing different international projects. As the client had spent quite some time in China, the boss was very quick to ask if there might be future opportunities to do something China-related.
Ha. Ha. As far as I know I am the first external international-context-related coworker they have. I secretly grinned when I heard the boss telling stories like that.

The client looked at the excel sheet we had prepared so far and when they talked the whole thing over they agreed that it was quite strange that we were only supposed to send out the data files and then our job ended. The client was surprised and asked if it wasn't much better if our company would do another recall to make an appointment for a visit to the business park. How about a success fee?

The boss seemed happy to hear that.
His answer was great: He said that we still had some free capacities, we could easily add that part to our acquisition job, that was no problem at all. Also, it was only due to our lack of new addresses that we weren't much faster. As soon as we'd get new addresses we'd be able to do much faster!

WHAT THE FUCK???

Free capacities? I AM THE ONE DOING THE CALLS!!!! I had hardly managed to come up with enough time to do the calls up till now, so how can he just say that I'd be able to work much faster and more in such a situation when I can not even contradict him? Not only did he promise that I'd do very fast, he also obviously promised that I would disgrace myself even more by calling people again and try to make appointments??? This fucking retarded bastard, I am in no ways a professional when it comes to acquisiton, how can they expect me to do something like that???

When I accepted the job I had told them very clearly that my top priority is university. Next to that is my TU job. They are only third. I told them clearly that the telephone job must NEVER interfere with my other job.
So how can they make promises like that?

My boss continued to say that he was really hoping for more addresses. He said that in the beginning he and the client company had agreed on a minimum number of 150 addresses, because less than that would hardly be profitable, and that it could be up to 500 addresses.

I thought I'd choke.

They had told me in the beginning that it was 25-50 companies and MAYBE some more which would add up to appr. 140 companies.
Now I get to know that it was, from the very beginning, clear that the maximum amount they told me was, in fact, not even the minimum amount?

When I had accepted the job, 150 sounded like a worst-case scenario. Now it turned out that this was, in fact, supposed to be a huuuuuge project all along?

I was so angry!
And I still am.

Now I am stuck in this fucking contract. I have to somehow make my way through 150 companies. I will probably not be able to avoid the additional appointment call. (The boss said something about "We'll find an agreeable financial solution for this", but in fact I really don't see how they could ever pay me enough to make me forget that I do not want to do what I do.

If I was a hooker, I'd yell "We agreed on blow jobs, so stay away from my ass!!!"

This might sound really nasty, but it describes my feelings towards the situation I am in.

I hate the job so much and it's slowing me down in university. I can hardly do the work for my courses, although, in fact, I don't have much to do this semester. But this job, this horrible job is taking so much time and, worse than that, so much nervous tension that I'm exhausted whenever I did some of the calls.

Why, why, why, I seriously don't get it, why would someone I considered my friend offer me a job like this? Such a fucked up job? Why would she lie to me about the amount of work I was signing for? How could she think that I was the type to enjoy lead acquisation?

I don't even need the money! At the moment, I've spent so much time for preparations of the Japanese letters and phone guidelines as well as mental preparation time for the actual calls that, in the end, I feel like I'm not getting an income, but a mere expense allowance.
I don't get on with my thesis, I hardly did any preparation for my presentation that's due in 9 days, I confused stuff at my TU job --- all of this because I'm simply too exhausted.

In the beginning, I agreed to this job because I had the impression that my friend sort of needed my help. I didn't want her to look bad if she'd introduced me to her boss, and then I'd say that I wouldn't do it. The money sounded nice, but honestly, if it hadn't been for my friend, I would never have accepted the offer.
Stupid me thought I was helping someone.

Next time someone asks for my help, I shall listen to my brain, not my stupid loyal heart.