During the first few months I worked at NDC, I would frequently see that they were looking for people to become Lead Dispatch Agents. At first, I wasn't interested. The difference in pay was only 50 cents an hour and you didn't qualify for the bonus. The only advantage was that you didn't have to be on the phones all day long.
But in July of 2000, we got a new operations manager. Her first order of business was to change how the bonuses were determined. They had been tracked by the number of revenue units that each agent produced. However, this had to change because a lot of pager companies were changing their plans to include one price for all messaging. (This should have been a sign that our business model was rapidly changing and would never return to the "good ol' days.") She decreased the Average Handle Time and put some other stipulations into place. I looked at this and figured it was going to be a lot harder for me to make bonus every month. I had started to rely on that income and had just moved into my own apartment. I figured now would be a good time to go for that promotion. The odd thing is that Dispatch Agents were eligible for promotion to LDA after three months of working for NDC, but benefits still didn't kick in until after six months. (But I was already on my path to getting benefits.)
They were looking to promote five new LDAs. The only problem was that there was only one that had a shift with a differential. My current 3:30am shift had a $1.25 an hour differential. The 5am shift offered a $1 differential. This meant that my increase would only be 25 cents an hour for the promotion. I couldn't take any of the other shifts because they didn't offer differentials, meaning the promotion would result in me making less money. That just made no sense to me. (I should add there was a shift with a 75 cent differential, but that would have resulted in me making the same amount. I needed to feel like I was moving upward.)
I submitted my application for the promotion and listed 5am - 1:30pm as my preferred shift. One of the best things about it was that it would be at the Balboa location and I only had to work Monday through Friday. It would be nice to have my weekends off. I figured my chances would be pretty good with this many positions available. Hopefully, everyone else applying worked regular hours without a differential, so any promotion would mean a 50 cent increase to their wages.
I had to interview three times. I met with someone from HR, a Call Center Manager at Chesapeake and the Balboa Manager with the Supervisor I would be supporting. I recalled meeting the Supervisor (whose name is Camd) once before when I worked a holiday and he was on duty. He had to assist me with an issue when I arrived at work that day. I mentioned this to him, but he didn't recall. I remember they asked what I thought made me stand out from the other applicants for the position. I responded by saying I didn't know anyone at Balboa. I would be able to come in and be recognized as authority, instead of someone's buddy who got a promotion.
One of the things I was able to ascertain at the interviews was that I could still work overtime on the phones. Every once in awhile, the scheduling department would have overtime available. I was glad I could use that to supplement my income and likely wouldn't need to rely on the bonuses.
All the interviews went okay from my perspective. I was rather optimistic that I would get the promotion and the shift I wanted. A couple of days later, the Chesapeake Manager I interviewed with called me into his office. He said that I got the promotion and the shift I wanted. The only issue I had was when I would start. Normally, I had the next two days off. He said I could have Wednesday off and report to my new Supervisor on Thursday. I would then work on Saturday and train with the person who used to be my LDA. This was also before Labor Day weekend. I asked if I was supposed to work on Labor Day (since I knew Balboa would be closed that day). He said I didn't because they already had the schedules set for Supervisors and LDAs that day. I wasn't on the schedule. Okay, cool.
He also told me not to tell any of my co-workers that I had gotten the promotion. However, I had to tell Maurd because that meant she was going to have to find someone else to carpool with starting on Sunday. (She already had someone to drive her on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so it wasn't going to be an inconvenience.) I also told her that if she was in a bind to go ahead and call my house and I could give her a ride so that she could get to work on time. Fortunately, she never had to do that.
On Wednesday, I got a call from the Chesapeake Manager. He said that I had previously been scheduled to work the phone on Labor Day, so that meant I had to work that day. I wasn't going to get it off. I was fine with that. We got paid extra on the holidays.
On Thursday, I showed up at Balboa before 5am. Balboa was not a 24-hour call center. They started at 5am and closed at 6pm Monday through Friday. There were a lot of people gathered near the time clock, waiting for 4:53am when they would be able to punch in for the beginning of their shifts. I didn't recognize any of them and they likely didn't realize who I was, either. The time came and everyone punched in their employee numbers. (They could only do this one at a time.) After I punched in, I went over to the Supervisor station and waited for Camd to arrive. He came in a few minutes after everyone else. He was pleased to see me. He started by introducing me to everyone on the team as the new LDA. Everyone seemed happy that Camd had a new LDA because he had gone a few weeks without one dedicated to the team.
He set about showing me what my duties were. These included checking for call outs, looking to see what time the agents clocked in, keeping track of the attendance for each agent, running daily reports, preparing written warnings, setting up the reviews. There was a seemingly endless amount of work to do. After time, I would get adjusted to the schedule and was able to do everything very efficiently, much to the pleasure of Camd.
One great thing was that in January of 2001, the LDA position changed. We were going to be called Assistant Call Center Supervisors, received a lot more pay and a better benefits package. This continued my streak of making more money than my previous job after one year of leaving.
As it turned out, NDC would not have any more promotions available after I received mine (at least for a year). The number of Dispatch Agents was steadily decreasing, we weren't doing as much hiring and Supervisors, LDAs and teams kept getting moved around. I felt sorry for anyone who happened to be waiting for the next round of promotions to apply because it just didn't happen. I considered myself lucky that I applied when I did.
But ultimately, it did cause a big problem for me. I'll get to that in a future post.
Monday, September 10, 2018
Friday, September 7, 2018
Flip This House!
After the 2016 Presidential election, I was expecting to see something like this:
Instead, we just get a bunch of Democrat challengers asking for money in their ads.
Instead, we just get a bunch of Democrat challengers asking for money in their ads.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Heart-stopping news
During the period in which my car was in the body shop, I moved into a new apartment, two doors down from where I lived with Abed and Qued. This meant I didn't need my car or any other vehicle to move. While we were at it, we decided we needed to have the carpet in the two-bedroom apartment professionally cleaned while we were moving furniture around. (The management company would not replace the carpeting even though they were raising the rent.) Abed and Qued temporarily put all their furniture in my apartment while the cleaning took place. It felt like we were all getting a fresh start with new homes.
After putting everything back in their apartment, I had to get ready for work the next day. This would be the first day that I would carpool with Maurd. She would come by at 3am to pick me up. I gave her my phone number and told her to call me if there was any problem coming to get me. (This was in the day before cell phones were common. Neither one of us had a cell phone.)
I was very nervous about what was about to happen. Somehow, I was aware that Maurd did not have the best attendance record and I was afraid she was going to decide not to go to work and leave me high and dry to suffer the same attendance consequences that she did. I had a hard time sleeping that night worrying about this. I couldn't wait to get my car back.
Around 1am, the phone rang. I thought it was going to be Maurd flaking on me. She had previously told me that she lived with her boyfriend. Still dazed from waking up, I picked up the phone. A woman was telling me something about someone having a heart attack. At first, I thought Maurd was telling me her boyfriend had a heart attack and she wasn't going to be able to take me to work. But the woman kept mentioning my brother Loyd. That didn't make sense. I interrupted her and told her I had just woken up. I asked who she was. She was Loyd's roommate. I asked her who had the heart attack. She said it was Loyd. GASP! I had to take a moment to digest this. Loyd was only 33 at the time. I knew about our Mom's family history of the male members dying from heart attacks, but I never figured either one of us would succumb that early in life. She told me that he was okay and was recovering at the hospital. She said he would probably be able to call me the next day and tell me what was going on.
I couldn't go back to sleep after that. It was still going to be a couple of hours before Maurd was going to come pick me up. If I had my car, I probably would have seriously considered calling out that day. But since Maurd was coming to get me, I was obligated to work, even with this heavy on my mind.
I did get to talk to Loyd later to find out what happened. He told me that when he was in truck-driving school, he was required to watch a video that explained the symptoms of a heart attack. He said he could feel the tingling in his left arm and knew what was going on. He went to one of his other roommates and told him that he needed to drive to the hospital because he was having a heart attack. The roommate didn't believe him. Loyd insisted he was serious and was able to get that ride.
Loyd recovered just fine and only ever had one other incident later on. Today, you wouldn't be able to tell he had a heart attack. I don't know how I would react if that happened to me. It's something that's been in the back of my mind since then. I hope I'm as lucky as Loyd and will have other people around me if it happens.
After putting everything back in their apartment, I had to get ready for work the next day. This would be the first day that I would carpool with Maurd. She would come by at 3am to pick me up. I gave her my phone number and told her to call me if there was any problem coming to get me. (This was in the day before cell phones were common. Neither one of us had a cell phone.)
I was very nervous about what was about to happen. Somehow, I was aware that Maurd did not have the best attendance record and I was afraid she was going to decide not to go to work and leave me high and dry to suffer the same attendance consequences that she did. I had a hard time sleeping that night worrying about this. I couldn't wait to get my car back.
Around 1am, the phone rang. I thought it was going to be Maurd flaking on me. She had previously told me that she lived with her boyfriend. Still dazed from waking up, I picked up the phone. A woman was telling me something about someone having a heart attack. At first, I thought Maurd was telling me her boyfriend had a heart attack and she wasn't going to be able to take me to work. But the woman kept mentioning my brother Loyd. That didn't make sense. I interrupted her and told her I had just woken up. I asked who she was. She was Loyd's roommate. I asked her who had the heart attack. She said it was Loyd. GASP! I had to take a moment to digest this. Loyd was only 33 at the time. I knew about our Mom's family history of the male members dying from heart attacks, but I never figured either one of us would succumb that early in life. She told me that he was okay and was recovering at the hospital. She said he would probably be able to call me the next day and tell me what was going on.
I couldn't go back to sleep after that. It was still going to be a couple of hours before Maurd was going to come pick me up. If I had my car, I probably would have seriously considered calling out that day. But since Maurd was coming to get me, I was obligated to work, even with this heavy on my mind.
I did get to talk to Loyd later to find out what happened. He told me that when he was in truck-driving school, he was required to watch a video that explained the symptoms of a heart attack. He said he could feel the tingling in his left arm and knew what was going on. He went to one of his other roommates and told him that he needed to drive to the hospital because he was having a heart attack. The roommate didn't believe him. Loyd insisted he was serious and was able to get that ride.
Loyd recovered just fine and only ever had one other incident later on. Today, you wouldn't be able to tell he had a heart attack. I don't know how I would react if that happened to me. It's something that's been in the back of my mind since then. I hope I'm as lucky as Loyd and will have other people around me if it happens.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
A very inconvenient accident
I was driving down Adams Avenue close to the Kensington area of San Diego one day, when I noticed some guy on the sidewalk wearing a t-shirt that said "Heroes & Villains." I was trying to figure out if it was connected to the Beach Boys' "Smile" song and tried to get a better look. The next thing I know, BAM! I struck the car in front of me. Traffic had unexpectedly come to a stop along that busy road.
I got out of my car. The car I struck was a 1975 Volvo. It didn't seem to have much damage to the rear end. However, I saw was that my hood had crumpled up. There was a woman in the Volvo. She got out of her car. I then found out I had caused her to hit the car in front of her. This turned into a three-car accident. She had a cell phone and called 911. We were instructed to move our vehicles out of the road if we were able to drive them. If everyone was okay, we needed to exchange insurance information. Fortunately, it appeared that no one was injured.
While I was trying to get my car out of the road, I nearly hit three more vehicles as they were trying to drive around the accident scene. I'm surprised that no one else got their cars damaged by doing this. I was mad at myself for getting into an accident because of some guy on the sidewalk. I'll bet he doesn't even know the accident happened like it would if some woman was running around topless. I also noticed that my airbag didn't deploy, but I wasn't aware if there was a minimum amount of impact that had to take place in order to activate. At any rate, I was glad I didn't get injured by having that smack me in the head.
I was able to drive my car home. At first, I wondered what I was going to do. The accident was my fault. Even though I had full coverage, I would have to pay a $500 deductible to get my car repaired. I went down to the Daewoo dealership. They could only give me an estimate on the cost of the parts, but I would have to go to another body shop to get a full estimate of the repairs. After getting the parts list, I started thinking that maybe I could live with having a bent up car. I mean, all my other cars had major issues and I was still able to drive them. This was going to be like driving those cars. However, on the highway, I noticed that my hood was rattling around REALLY badly. I knew I couldn't live with that for the rest of my life.
I happened to live next door to a body shop. With the parts list. I was able to get an estimate from them. I don't remember the cost, but it was going to be more than $3,000. With this information, I was able to call the owner of the Volvo. She wasn't angry when I talked to her, but she did say that the Volvo, which they'd had for 25 years, had been totaled. I immediately apologized. She said it was okay and damage was minimal on the other vehicle, but it was still more than $1,000 worth of damage.
I was able to fill out the accident report and send it in. I remember accidents I'd had in the past and how they involved police. I always wound up getting a ticket, which meant I had a damaged car and had to pay even more money out of my pocket. I was relieved I didn't have to deal with that issue.
I tried to plan the repair of my car around my work schedule. I wanted to drop the car off Tuesday after work and pick it up Thursday afternoon. The body shop said it should be completed during that time. However, they called on Wednesday and said they were having trouble getting the parts in. They wouldn't have it ready on Thursday. I groaned. I had no way of getting to work at 3:30am. The buses didn't run at that time. I couldn't ask Abed to drive me to work that early in the morning. I asked Fraz if she would let me borrow her pickup for a few days. She said she would loan it to me. (She wasn't able to get around that much due to an issue with her foot.) We made arrangements that I would call her up the next day before I came over to get the vehicle.
On Thursday, I spent most of the afternoon trying to call her. She never picked up her phone. Finally, around 7pm, I got a busy signal. I figured that meant that she was home. I immediately got Abed to drive me over. Now, I was furious at this point. She hadn't said anything about being out of the house all day or that I was going to have to wait that long to come get the car. I really hoped she wasn't going to flake on me.
We got to her apartment. She was home. I knocked. "Hey, Fayd! I thought you were going to call me before you came over!" "I did call. The phone was busy. I figured you were home, so I thought I'd come over now." "Well, I don't appreciate you just showing up here!" "You said I could borrow your pickup and I have to go to work tomorrow! Can you give me the keys?" "No, I'm not going to let you just barge in like this! I'm not going to let you have the car!" "YOU PROMISED ME!" "I didn't promise!" "YES, YOU DID! YOU KNOW I NEED THAT CAR TO GO TO WORK! AND AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, YOU OWE ME!" "I don't owe you anything!" "JUST GIVE ME THE KEYS!" "No! You get out of here of I'll call the cops!"
I didn't need to get the police involved in this, so Abed and I left. On the way back the house, I had no idea what I was going to do. Abed still did not offer to give me a ride the next day and I still did not want to ask. When we got to the apartment building, I realized I had one final chance. Our next door neighbor, Mr. H, owned a SUV. He had also recently bought a motorcycle. I could see him in his living room though his screen door. With my head hanging down, I said, "Hey, Mr. H. I need to ask a huge favor and it's okay if you say no. My car's in the shop and I can't go to work tomorrow. I was wondering if I could borrow your SUV to drive to work."
Mr. H immediately got up, grabbed his car keys and came to the door. I was so relieved. We made arrangements that I would only need to borrow the car certain days of the week. (Abed did agree to let me use his car on the weekends.) And I figured I might be able carpool with a woman I knew at work named Maurd. She lived nearby and worked the same shift, so I really only needed his vehicle two days a week at most. I just had to pay for the gas. He knew it was important that I needed to get to work.
I should point out that Mr. H used to be a drill instructor for the Marines and served in the Vietnam War. I've always seen how mean those guys are in the movies, but he was really nice and I was very fortunate that he took a chance on me. He also ran a locksmith service.
I was able to get Maurd to give me a ride a couple of days a week so I didn't have to worry about borrowing Mr. H's car all the time. But I was nervous when I drove it because I was afraid something bad would happen to it, too.
It took more than two weeks for my car to get repaired. I was so relieved to have my own car back. I felt like I was in control of my life again.
Fraz and I didn't speak to each other for more than a year.
After my car was fixed, Maurd had car troubles and I wound up having to drive her to work.
Sadly, I found out that Mr. H passed away in 2012. He was 70 years old at the time.
And as it turns out, that would not be the last time I would crumple the front end of that car. As usual, that's a story for another time.
I got out of my car. The car I struck was a 1975 Volvo. It didn't seem to have much damage to the rear end. However, I saw was that my hood had crumpled up. There was a woman in the Volvo. She got out of her car. I then found out I had caused her to hit the car in front of her. This turned into a three-car accident. She had a cell phone and called 911. We were instructed to move our vehicles out of the road if we were able to drive them. If everyone was okay, we needed to exchange insurance information. Fortunately, it appeared that no one was injured.
While I was trying to get my car out of the road, I nearly hit three more vehicles as they were trying to drive around the accident scene. I'm surprised that no one else got their cars damaged by doing this. I was mad at myself for getting into an accident because of some guy on the sidewalk. I'll bet he doesn't even know the accident happened like it would if some woman was running around topless. I also noticed that my airbag didn't deploy, but I wasn't aware if there was a minimum amount of impact that had to take place in order to activate. At any rate, I was glad I didn't get injured by having that smack me in the head.
I was able to drive my car home. At first, I wondered what I was going to do. The accident was my fault. Even though I had full coverage, I would have to pay a $500 deductible to get my car repaired. I went down to the Daewoo dealership. They could only give me an estimate on the cost of the parts, but I would have to go to another body shop to get a full estimate of the repairs. After getting the parts list, I started thinking that maybe I could live with having a bent up car. I mean, all my other cars had major issues and I was still able to drive them. This was going to be like driving those cars. However, on the highway, I noticed that my hood was rattling around REALLY badly. I knew I couldn't live with that for the rest of my life.
I happened to live next door to a body shop. With the parts list. I was able to get an estimate from them. I don't remember the cost, but it was going to be more than $3,000. With this information, I was able to call the owner of the Volvo. She wasn't angry when I talked to her, but she did say that the Volvo, which they'd had for 25 years, had been totaled. I immediately apologized. She said it was okay and damage was minimal on the other vehicle, but it was still more than $1,000 worth of damage.
I was able to fill out the accident report and send it in. I remember accidents I'd had in the past and how they involved police. I always wound up getting a ticket, which meant I had a damaged car and had to pay even more money out of my pocket. I was relieved I didn't have to deal with that issue.
I tried to plan the repair of my car around my work schedule. I wanted to drop the car off Tuesday after work and pick it up Thursday afternoon. The body shop said it should be completed during that time. However, they called on Wednesday and said they were having trouble getting the parts in. They wouldn't have it ready on Thursday. I groaned. I had no way of getting to work at 3:30am. The buses didn't run at that time. I couldn't ask Abed to drive me to work that early in the morning. I asked Fraz if she would let me borrow her pickup for a few days. She said she would loan it to me. (She wasn't able to get around that much due to an issue with her foot.) We made arrangements that I would call her up the next day before I came over to get the vehicle.
On Thursday, I spent most of the afternoon trying to call her. She never picked up her phone. Finally, around 7pm, I got a busy signal. I figured that meant that she was home. I immediately got Abed to drive me over. Now, I was furious at this point. She hadn't said anything about being out of the house all day or that I was going to have to wait that long to come get the car. I really hoped she wasn't going to flake on me.
We got to her apartment. She was home. I knocked. "Hey, Fayd! I thought you were going to call me before you came over!" "I did call. The phone was busy. I figured you were home, so I thought I'd come over now." "Well, I don't appreciate you just showing up here!" "You said I could borrow your pickup and I have to go to work tomorrow! Can you give me the keys?" "No, I'm not going to let you just barge in like this! I'm not going to let you have the car!" "YOU PROMISED ME!" "I didn't promise!" "YES, YOU DID! YOU KNOW I NEED THAT CAR TO GO TO WORK! AND AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, YOU OWE ME!" "I don't owe you anything!" "JUST GIVE ME THE KEYS!" "No! You get out of here of I'll call the cops!"
I didn't need to get the police involved in this, so Abed and I left. On the way back the house, I had no idea what I was going to do. Abed still did not offer to give me a ride the next day and I still did not want to ask. When we got to the apartment building, I realized I had one final chance. Our next door neighbor, Mr. H, owned a SUV. He had also recently bought a motorcycle. I could see him in his living room though his screen door. With my head hanging down, I said, "Hey, Mr. H. I need to ask a huge favor and it's okay if you say no. My car's in the shop and I can't go to work tomorrow. I was wondering if I could borrow your SUV to drive to work."
Mr. H immediately got up, grabbed his car keys and came to the door. I was so relieved. We made arrangements that I would only need to borrow the car certain days of the week. (Abed did agree to let me use his car on the weekends.) And I figured I might be able carpool with a woman I knew at work named Maurd. She lived nearby and worked the same shift, so I really only needed his vehicle two days a week at most. I just had to pay for the gas. He knew it was important that I needed to get to work.
I should point out that Mr. H used to be a drill instructor for the Marines and served in the Vietnam War. I've always seen how mean those guys are in the movies, but he was really nice and I was very fortunate that he took a chance on me. He also ran a locksmith service.
I was able to get Maurd to give me a ride a couple of days a week so I didn't have to worry about borrowing Mr. H's car all the time. But I was nervous when I drove it because I was afraid something bad would happen to it, too.
It took more than two weeks for my car to get repaired. I was so relieved to have my own car back. I felt like I was in control of my life again.
Fraz and I didn't speak to each other for more than a year.
After my car was fixed, Maurd had car troubles and I wound up having to drive her to work.
Sadly, I found out that Mr. H passed away in 2012. He was 70 years old at the time.
And as it turns out, that would not be the last time I would crumple the front end of that car. As usual, that's a story for another time.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
I try to become a stadium announcer
In 2000, the San Diego Padres' stadium announcer decided to resign from the position after having held the permanent position for 14 seasons (and had been the backup announcer for the 13 seasons before that). The Padres decided to hold open auditions to find his replacement. I thought it would be a great opportunity for me. However, it was going to be strictly seasonal and part-time. I didn't know how I was going to be able to do that and my new full-time job. This was only a couple of months into my employment with NDC. I didn't think they were going to give me any leeway to run off early every other Sunday to do this. But I figured I would only worry about that if I got the job. This was not an opportunity I was going to pass up.
The Padres had announced what time the auditions were going to begin at Qualcomm Stadium. They were supposed to start at 5pm. I arrived about an hour early and there were already more than 200 people in line. I struck up a conversation with the person behind me. Neither one of us really knew what to expect.
I figured that for this many people, they weren't going to have us audition one at a time. I thought they might have us each read a script for a few people who worked for the Padres or have banks of recorders set up so we could provide airchecks of us reading. As we soon found out, this was not how they were going to do it.
They had staff handing out numbers. My number was around 200. The guy behind me went to another person and got a number around 300. At this point, we still didn't know how this was going to go, but they were shepherding us into the stadium. We all took seats. A member of the Padres management was there. (He was someone I had seen numerous times from monitoring news for six years.) After most of the people had taken their seats, he grabbed a microphone and started talking. His voice came out of the public address system. There was a one-second delay between the time he said something and the time that it came out of the system. I was sitting far enough back that I couldn't directly hear him, but I could see his lips move and they were not in sync with what I could hear from the system. He even stated that the delay in the system made it difficult for him to concentrate on what he was trying to say.
He explained how it was going to work. We would each come up, one at a time, read from the script we were given and speak into the microphone so we could be heard over the system. We would line up according to our numbers. I figured that it was going to take a little less than one minute for each person to audition. Taking this into account, I knew it would take around three hours before I would get my chance at the mic. And the guy behind me? Probably five hours for him. He said, "I knew I should have gone back and gotten another number!"
The Padres guy also told us about their expectations for whom they were going to hire. They were looking for someone who would just make the stadium announcements as written on the script without adding a lot of flair. Some stadium announcers at other locations act like they know the players personally and add some comments when the players come to bat or pitch. They didn't want that. He also said that they weren't ruling anyone out, that they would be interested in hiring a female announcer or even someone who spoke Spanish. He also mentioned that the old stadium announcer did the same thing for the Chargers games, but there would be no guarantee they would hire the same person they hired.
He also let us know that they had the concession stands open. This was good in that it meant I could get something to eat and drink while I was waiting for my turn. He also admitted that more people showed up than they expected. He was optimistic that they would be able to audition everyone that evening.
They started having people line up for the mic. The script consisted of an announcement of an upcoming Padres event, introducing the batter and introducing the pitcher. Everybody got a different event, batter and pitcher. That meant we couldn't memorize and practice the script ahead of time. Sometimes, when a particular name was announced, they would play that player's entry music.
Among the first 20 people in line was this one guy. He did a GREAT job with the event and introducing the players. He announced with a lot of energy without adding flair. He was so good that a lot of other people applauded. I was suddenly aware there was very strong competition for this job. And I wasn't the only one. I saw another man nearby throw up his hands and say, "How am I going to compete with that?" That guy definitely set the bar.
I noticed there were a lot of TV news crews and other media covering this event. I also saw that there were a few TV news people who auditioned. I could hear other people yelling out, "Ringer!" when they saw them approach the mic. I thought that they were just doing it for a story that would appear on the news and didn't really consider them serious competition. (But no, I found out later they were all serious about becoming the Padres' stadium announcer.)
Another unusual thing was the number of children who auditioned. Some were probably as young as eight years old. At first, I thought it was cute and that they were also doing it for the TV cameras. But it got really irritating because there were probably 50 of them who took to the mic before it was my turn. AAARGH! They could have easily reduced the number of auditions if they had restricted the participants to adults only. To me, they were just wasting everyone's time because there was NO WAY the Padres were going to hire a child to do this job.
Finally, I got my chance at the mic. After watching everyone else audition, it was clear that if someone didn't have experience with the one-second delay from the system, they didn't do very well. I didn't have experience with that and tried to figure out how to compensate. I had to hold the script with one hand, so that meant I couldn't just cover up my ears while reading. I cupped my left hand around my ear, hoping that I would mostly hear myself and not the delay. It worked well while I was announcing the event, but I started having problems when announcing the players. It wasn't a very good audition from my perspective. The guy who had been behind me earlier in line asked me how it went and if cupping my hand helped. I told him it helped a little, but I wasn't used to dealing with hearing my own voice come back at me louder than I could have ever expected.
I had to work the next day, so I went straight home. The next morning, I got the newspaper and read a story about the auditions. Apparently, more than a thousand people showed up. I think they were only expecting about 400. They had to shut it down at 11pm and try to have everyone else return another date. I honestly don't know if that ever happened. The story mentioned that one guy who did real well. He was a professional voiceover announcer and wanted the job. The story reported that he received a standing ovation from the participants. I will admit there was a lot of applause, but I didn't see anybody standing up. This guy was competition. I applauded his performance, but I wouldn't have stood up in a show of support for him and I doubt any of the other participants would have felt that strongly about it, either.
I did not receive a callback. I don't know who got the job. It could have been that guy for all I know. I went to a couple of Padres games during the 2001 season. The stadium announcer was male and did not have a Hispanic accent. But even if I had gotten the job, it looks like I wouldn't have had it for very long.
In 2004, they held auditions for a stadium announcer for the new Petco Park that was going to be opening in Downtown San Diego. It looks like the Padres learned a lesson from the 2000 auditions as these were invitation-only. However, in 2014, the Padres fired that guy and held open auditions again. Some commentary I read about it said that he should have been angry that they went the open audition route because it meant that anybody off the street could have done his job. I can assure you they hired a pro to do that job and open auditions were the best way to find those pros. In fact, for the 2000 auditions, the previous stadium announcer actually went on TV to talk about the auditions to find his replacement. He seemed excited about the prospect. (But of course, he was leaving of his own accord.)
From the news reports in 2014, they held the open auditions the same way they did in 2000. Everybody went up to the mic one at a time and read from the script over the PA system. But I didn't see any children this time. I did see that someone flew across the country to audition. He didn't get the job.
But I have to admit that being the stadium announcer for a professional sports team was never a dream of mine. I just liked the idea of being a part of something that a lot of people enjoy.
The Padres had announced what time the auditions were going to begin at Qualcomm Stadium. They were supposed to start at 5pm. I arrived about an hour early and there were already more than 200 people in line. I struck up a conversation with the person behind me. Neither one of us really knew what to expect.
I figured that for this many people, they weren't going to have us audition one at a time. I thought they might have us each read a script for a few people who worked for the Padres or have banks of recorders set up so we could provide airchecks of us reading. As we soon found out, this was not how they were going to do it.
They had staff handing out numbers. My number was around 200. The guy behind me went to another person and got a number around 300. At this point, we still didn't know how this was going to go, but they were shepherding us into the stadium. We all took seats. A member of the Padres management was there. (He was someone I had seen numerous times from monitoring news for six years.) After most of the people had taken their seats, he grabbed a microphone and started talking. His voice came out of the public address system. There was a one-second delay between the time he said something and the time that it came out of the system. I was sitting far enough back that I couldn't directly hear him, but I could see his lips move and they were not in sync with what I could hear from the system. He even stated that the delay in the system made it difficult for him to concentrate on what he was trying to say.
He explained how it was going to work. We would each come up, one at a time, read from the script we were given and speak into the microphone so we could be heard over the system. We would line up according to our numbers. I figured that it was going to take a little less than one minute for each person to audition. Taking this into account, I knew it would take around three hours before I would get my chance at the mic. And the guy behind me? Probably five hours for him. He said, "I knew I should have gone back and gotten another number!"
The Padres guy also told us about their expectations for whom they were going to hire. They were looking for someone who would just make the stadium announcements as written on the script without adding a lot of flair. Some stadium announcers at other locations act like they know the players personally and add some comments when the players come to bat or pitch. They didn't want that. He also said that they weren't ruling anyone out, that they would be interested in hiring a female announcer or even someone who spoke Spanish. He also mentioned that the old stadium announcer did the same thing for the Chargers games, but there would be no guarantee they would hire the same person they hired.
He also let us know that they had the concession stands open. This was good in that it meant I could get something to eat and drink while I was waiting for my turn. He also admitted that more people showed up than they expected. He was optimistic that they would be able to audition everyone that evening.
They started having people line up for the mic. The script consisted of an announcement of an upcoming Padres event, introducing the batter and introducing the pitcher. Everybody got a different event, batter and pitcher. That meant we couldn't memorize and practice the script ahead of time. Sometimes, when a particular name was announced, they would play that player's entry music.
Among the first 20 people in line was this one guy. He did a GREAT job with the event and introducing the players. He announced with a lot of energy without adding flair. He was so good that a lot of other people applauded. I was suddenly aware there was very strong competition for this job. And I wasn't the only one. I saw another man nearby throw up his hands and say, "How am I going to compete with that?" That guy definitely set the bar.
I noticed there were a lot of TV news crews and other media covering this event. I also saw that there were a few TV news people who auditioned. I could hear other people yelling out, "Ringer!" when they saw them approach the mic. I thought that they were just doing it for a story that would appear on the news and didn't really consider them serious competition. (But no, I found out later they were all serious about becoming the Padres' stadium announcer.)
Another unusual thing was the number of children who auditioned. Some were probably as young as eight years old. At first, I thought it was cute and that they were also doing it for the TV cameras. But it got really irritating because there were probably 50 of them who took to the mic before it was my turn. AAARGH! They could have easily reduced the number of auditions if they had restricted the participants to adults only. To me, they were just wasting everyone's time because there was NO WAY the Padres were going to hire a child to do this job.
Finally, I got my chance at the mic. After watching everyone else audition, it was clear that if someone didn't have experience with the one-second delay from the system, they didn't do very well. I didn't have experience with that and tried to figure out how to compensate. I had to hold the script with one hand, so that meant I couldn't just cover up my ears while reading. I cupped my left hand around my ear, hoping that I would mostly hear myself and not the delay. It worked well while I was announcing the event, but I started having problems when announcing the players. It wasn't a very good audition from my perspective. The guy who had been behind me earlier in line asked me how it went and if cupping my hand helped. I told him it helped a little, but I wasn't used to dealing with hearing my own voice come back at me louder than I could have ever expected.
I had to work the next day, so I went straight home. The next morning, I got the newspaper and read a story about the auditions. Apparently, more than a thousand people showed up. I think they were only expecting about 400. They had to shut it down at 11pm and try to have everyone else return another date. I honestly don't know if that ever happened. The story mentioned that one guy who did real well. He was a professional voiceover announcer and wanted the job. The story reported that he received a standing ovation from the participants. I will admit there was a lot of applause, but I didn't see anybody standing up. This guy was competition. I applauded his performance, but I wouldn't have stood up in a show of support for him and I doubt any of the other participants would have felt that strongly about it, either.
I did not receive a callback. I don't know who got the job. It could have been that guy for all I know. I went to a couple of Padres games during the 2001 season. The stadium announcer was male and did not have a Hispanic accent. But even if I had gotten the job, it looks like I wouldn't have had it for very long.
In 2004, they held auditions for a stadium announcer for the new Petco Park that was going to be opening in Downtown San Diego. It looks like the Padres learned a lesson from the 2000 auditions as these were invitation-only. However, in 2014, the Padres fired that guy and held open auditions again. Some commentary I read about it said that he should have been angry that they went the open audition route because it meant that anybody off the street could have done his job. I can assure you they hired a pro to do that job and open auditions were the best way to find those pros. In fact, for the 2000 auditions, the previous stadium announcer actually went on TV to talk about the auditions to find his replacement. He seemed excited about the prospect. (But of course, he was leaving of his own accord.)
From the news reports in 2014, they held the open auditions the same way they did in 2000. Everybody went up to the mic one at a time and read from the script over the PA system. But I didn't see any children this time. I did see that someone flew across the country to audition. He didn't get the job.
But I have to admit that being the stadium announcer for a professional sports team was never a dream of mine. I just liked the idea of being a part of something that a lot of people enjoy.
Monday, September 3, 2018
NDC: The bad
Even though you may love a job, there may be some major drawbacks to it. NDC was no different. Some of these (dealing with disciplinary issues) didn't really apply to me because I was a good employee. But if you were a mediocre to bad employee, some of these could be devastating. Here's a list of reasons why:
1. Turnaround was rampant. Judging by the number of people in my training class, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that there were as many people leaving as there were coming in. It was hard to make connections with other people at work because you didn't know from one day to the next if someone was going to be sticking around. People got fired more often than they quit. But even those who quit really weren't very happy with the company on a whole. One of the main reasons for the turnaround will be discussed in #6.
2. There weren't a lot of choices for lunch. We were in an area with a lot of office buildings, but not a lot of restaurants. And we only got 30 minutes for lunch. It took about 10 minutes to drive to the nearest fast-food place (with a lot of stop lights along the way). So you were left with bringing your lunch from home or buying food out of the vending machines. (And bringing your lunch from home created a risk if you had to use the refrigerators. There were too many people who had no problem with taking someone else's lunch.)
3. You had to wait more than six months for your benefits to kick in. Yeah, it was great to finally have a job with benefits. Unfortunately, HR had trouble keeping track of who had been there how long and made no effort to reach out to those who hit their six-month anniversary. (And keep in mind that agents did not have access to internal e-mail. This was a perk only enjoyed by Supervisors and Lead Dispatch Agents.) When I finally got my six-month review (at the seven month mark), I asked my Supervisor when I was supposed to get my benefits. He said he'd have to look into it. Two weeks later, he told me I had to attend a meeting to go over the benefits. At the meeting, I found out it would take at least two more weeks before the benefits would kick in. This meant that NDC got two extra months in which they did not have to provide benefits. (And I have a feeling that if I hadn't said anything at my review, I never would have gotten signed up for benefits!) A few months later, the company tried to reduce its turnover by allowing employees to have benefits after working for only three months. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER COMPANY IN THE US!
4. There were issues with the way reviews were handled. It was great that we got a review and a raise at three months and six months and every six months after that. However, as will be discussed in #8, some employees never got those reviews. I found out that there were several employees who had been there a couple of years and never received a review or a raise. How did that happen? How did HR let that happen? This probably meant they never started receiving their benefits, either. Even though they all received retroactive pay in a lump sum, this had to have made things difficult for the payroll department to calculate how much each of those employees should have made. I guess I should consider myself lucky.
5. There was inequity in sending agents home early. The woman in charge of the scheduling for the call centers (I'll call her Mond) was the one who would make the call to send people home early if call volume was low. Her office was at the Chesapeake location. When I worked at the Balboa location, I found out that she almost NEVER contacted the Supervisors over there to send people home. She only went to the Supervisors at Chesapeake (because it was apparently easier to talk to them than to call over to Balboa). The problem with this is that everyone at Balboa could tell that call volume was low and would keep bugging the Supervisors to find out if they could leave. That call from Mond just never came. And the Supervisors were not permitted to call her. ("If I'm going to send people home from Balboa, I'll call you!)
6. The attendance policy was very strict. This was the number one reason for the turnaround. When I first started, you were not supposed to get more than two absences in a three-month period. If you did, you got a verbal warning. Three more absences would mean a written warning, followed by a 2nd written warning. After that, you were fired. That three months was a fixed period of time based on your date of hire. It wasn't uncommon for me to see agents call out on the first day of their fixed three month period. I couldn't help but wonder about the logic in this. I could understand it if they were sick and were just holding out for that, but I almost never saw these agents showing any symptoms the day before they called out. I couldn't imagine that they would risk getting one third of the way toward a warning on the first day they were eligible. Later, the fixed period was changed to a rolling period, but we still were handing out the written warnings and terminations just like before, so that didn't really make a difference. The stupid thing is that the same Supervisors who were lax in completing reviews in a timely manner seemed to have no problem dishing out the discipline when it came to attendance. In fact, it was so bad that I saw that they had issued a written warning for attendance to someone who was working the last day of his two-week notice. I felt that was unbelievably petty and uncalled for. He also felt that way and let that be known in his comments.
7. If your Supervisor (or Lead Dispatch Agent) didn't work on Sunday, you were out of luck. This only pertained to the low call volume on Sundays. If I signed up to go home early that day, I would usually get to go. The problem was that other Supervisors would hold team meetings on Sundays to help increase call volume. A group of ten people would get taken off the phones at one time for about an hour. And the meetings weren't really about anything in general. They just featured everyone talking about anything and everything. It didn't even have to be related to work. So, if you didn't have your team's Supervisor or LDA there on Sunday, there was no one else to call you in for a meeting. I always got furious at this and there was nothing I could do about it.
8. Some Supervisors had no clue what they were doing. In the previous post, I explained that NDC prided itself on promoting from within. However, this led to people moving up the ladder much faster than expected or than what they were prepared for. It appears that a lot of people became LDAs and Supervisors simply because they wanted to get off the phones and make more money. This is what led to reviews, raises and benefits being late. (There were also people who had been there for years and never received their Welcome packets.) I was fortunate in that the Supervisors I worked for were somewhat on the ball (but as I discovered later, still behind the curve).
A lot of these issues could have been solved by having upper level management work harder at their jobs, instead of treating their positions like lifestyle enhancers. I was looking to help be a part of the culture that changed that. I'll go more in detail in a future post.
1. Turnaround was rampant. Judging by the number of people in my training class, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that there were as many people leaving as there were coming in. It was hard to make connections with other people at work because you didn't know from one day to the next if someone was going to be sticking around. People got fired more often than they quit. But even those who quit really weren't very happy with the company on a whole. One of the main reasons for the turnaround will be discussed in #6.
2. There weren't a lot of choices for lunch. We were in an area with a lot of office buildings, but not a lot of restaurants. And we only got 30 minutes for lunch. It took about 10 minutes to drive to the nearest fast-food place (with a lot of stop lights along the way). So you were left with bringing your lunch from home or buying food out of the vending machines. (And bringing your lunch from home created a risk if you had to use the refrigerators. There were too many people who had no problem with taking someone else's lunch.)
3. You had to wait more than six months for your benefits to kick in. Yeah, it was great to finally have a job with benefits. Unfortunately, HR had trouble keeping track of who had been there how long and made no effort to reach out to those who hit their six-month anniversary. (And keep in mind that agents did not have access to internal e-mail. This was a perk only enjoyed by Supervisors and Lead Dispatch Agents.) When I finally got my six-month review (at the seven month mark), I asked my Supervisor when I was supposed to get my benefits. He said he'd have to look into it. Two weeks later, he told me I had to attend a meeting to go over the benefits. At the meeting, I found out it would take at least two more weeks before the benefits would kick in. This meant that NDC got two extra months in which they did not have to provide benefits. (And I have a feeling that if I hadn't said anything at my review, I never would have gotten signed up for benefits!) A few months later, the company tried to reduce its turnover by allowing employees to have benefits after working for only three months. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER COMPANY IN THE US!
4. There were issues with the way reviews were handled. It was great that we got a review and a raise at three months and six months and every six months after that. However, as will be discussed in #8, some employees never got those reviews. I found out that there were several employees who had been there a couple of years and never received a review or a raise. How did that happen? How did HR let that happen? This probably meant they never started receiving their benefits, either. Even though they all received retroactive pay in a lump sum, this had to have made things difficult for the payroll department to calculate how much each of those employees should have made. I guess I should consider myself lucky.
5. There was inequity in sending agents home early. The woman in charge of the scheduling for the call centers (I'll call her Mond) was the one who would make the call to send people home early if call volume was low. Her office was at the Chesapeake location. When I worked at the Balboa location, I found out that she almost NEVER contacted the Supervisors over there to send people home. She only went to the Supervisors at Chesapeake (because it was apparently easier to talk to them than to call over to Balboa). The problem with this is that everyone at Balboa could tell that call volume was low and would keep bugging the Supervisors to find out if they could leave. That call from Mond just never came. And the Supervisors were not permitted to call her. ("If I'm going to send people home from Balboa, I'll call you!)
6. The attendance policy was very strict. This was the number one reason for the turnaround. When I first started, you were not supposed to get more than two absences in a three-month period. If you did, you got a verbal warning. Three more absences would mean a written warning, followed by a 2nd written warning. After that, you were fired. That three months was a fixed period of time based on your date of hire. It wasn't uncommon for me to see agents call out on the first day of their fixed three month period. I couldn't help but wonder about the logic in this. I could understand it if they were sick and were just holding out for that, but I almost never saw these agents showing any symptoms the day before they called out. I couldn't imagine that they would risk getting one third of the way toward a warning on the first day they were eligible. Later, the fixed period was changed to a rolling period, but we still were handing out the written warnings and terminations just like before, so that didn't really make a difference. The stupid thing is that the same Supervisors who were lax in completing reviews in a timely manner seemed to have no problem dishing out the discipline when it came to attendance. In fact, it was so bad that I saw that they had issued a written warning for attendance to someone who was working the last day of his two-week notice. I felt that was unbelievably petty and uncalled for. He also felt that way and let that be known in his comments.
7. If your Supervisor (or Lead Dispatch Agent) didn't work on Sunday, you were out of luck. This only pertained to the low call volume on Sundays. If I signed up to go home early that day, I would usually get to go. The problem was that other Supervisors would hold team meetings on Sundays to help increase call volume. A group of ten people would get taken off the phones at one time for about an hour. And the meetings weren't really about anything in general. They just featured everyone talking about anything and everything. It didn't even have to be related to work. So, if you didn't have your team's Supervisor or LDA there on Sunday, there was no one else to call you in for a meeting. I always got furious at this and there was nothing I could do about it.
8. Some Supervisors had no clue what they were doing. In the previous post, I explained that NDC prided itself on promoting from within. However, this led to people moving up the ladder much faster than expected or than what they were prepared for. It appears that a lot of people became LDAs and Supervisors simply because they wanted to get off the phones and make more money. This is what led to reviews, raises and benefits being late. (There were also people who had been there for years and never received their Welcome packets.) I was fortunate in that the Supervisors I worked for were somewhat on the ball (but as I discovered later, still behind the curve).
A lot of these issues could have been solved by having upper level management work harder at their jobs, instead of treating their positions like lifestyle enhancers. I was looking to help be a part of the culture that changed that. I'll go more in detail in a future post.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Tomorrow I will be 54
You're probably glad to see that the blog is finally up and running again. I'm glad, too. I hope that I can pound out a few more stories before my workload catches up with me. Fortunately, I haven't had any major life changes in the last few months.
Yes, I have my next birthday tomorrow. I will now only be one year from being considered a senior citizen as far as some restaurants and movie theatres go. I will also qualify for AARP. I have to tell you, I don't feel that old at all. That's one of the things that no one ever tells you. When you get older, you never feel like you really are. You feel like time is standing still for you while everything else is changing around you. But you know you are pretty much the same person you were 40 years earlier. And another thing: The dreams you've had about what you want to accomplish in life. They never really go away. You still want to do them, but reality may be an obstacle in many cases. However, you don't completely forget them.
I remember, as a child, spending a lot of time with my parent's aunts and uncles, who were in their 50s and beyond. To me, they looked and acted their age. But even though I have reached that same age, I don't feel like I am at that level of adulthood yet. Even though I am a parent, I am still a child. Did my parents ever feel this way while their parents were alive?
There are several factors that lead to this thinking. The first is that I didn't get married and have a child until I was in my 40s. My relatives and parents accomplished this in their 20s or earlier. I also didn't have the responsibility of my own home until I was nearly 50 years old. From my perspective, accomplishing these things at an early age could make someone seem significantly older. But I do wonder if children between the ages of 6 and 18 see me the same way I saw my older relatives back then.
When I was 28, I met an 18-year-old man. When he learned my age, he asked, "Shouldn't you own a house by now?" Yeah, I felt old and worthless at that point.
A goal early in my life was to live to be 100 years old. While I might not make it, it's nice to know that I'm more than half-way there.
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