Abio 25: Selling Phones and Meeting Susan my Future Wife for Benicia Herald June 2
Abio 25: Selling phones and meeting Susan
“If you can’t speak the language, or are a new refugee, your bill might be $$100 a month If you can speak the language, but you don’t understand our sales techniques, your bill might be $50 a month. If you know the language, and you understand our products and sales methods, your bill might be $12.90” -- Berkeley Bob, multiple award winner for sales competitions and free trips to Hawaii.
Ma Bell, AT&T, a beloved monopoly of service and support, got a divorce from herself in the ‘80s. She divested. Things changed. Sales not service took front seat. We became Pacific Bell Telephone. Gone were the Operator days of waking up a random customer at 5 a.m. with Dial a Joke.
When we transferred, Janet and I, from Modesto to Berkeley, our jobs changed. Janet delt with service and billing on Shattuck and Rose and I was in sales down on Webster Street in Oakland, separate departments.
It used to be, when a person moved, they could unplug their phone and take it to the new house. Divestiture changed that because the new company wanted all those old phones back. They were packed with precious metals. Customers had to trade them in for cheaper phones with more plastic.
When a customer moved, they were now required to bring their heavy, solid phones back to the Phone Center in person to be upsold to new light-weight Trimlines, Princess or Mickey Mouse phones. All new customers opened service in person from trained sales personnel like me, who attended a month of Wilson Face-to-Face sales training. We were taught to shake hands and smile, “overcome objections,” and introduce new products and services, like Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, and Three-Way Calling. Lester, our trainer, even taught me how to tie a tie and shop for high-thread-count cotton shirts, creased trousers, and slick new sports coats at Brooks Brothers.
If a stubborn customer didn’t want the new designs, and is already satisfied with their old boxy black dialer, they got a look-a-like black dialer that was lighter and easier to handle. Gone were most of those heavy precious metals.
This shift in procedures lead up to how I met Susan, my wife of 30 to 40 years.
The mandatory policy that all customers, new or those just moving, had to come in person to be sold new service. This caused the Phone Centers to overflow customers, sitting on the floor, sitting outside on the steps, waiting for their name to be called.
Lines were so long, customers got restless and some angry. The only reason any one of our customers was happy was because it was their turn, finally.
Our unspoken motto was to sell everything to everybody because everybody needs everything we sell.
Complaints increased. Rumor had it that the Phone Center at Richmond’s Hilltop Mall had the worst wait time for any store in the Bay Area. Because I knew how to do my job – and that’s honestly all I knew – Pacific Bell promoted me to become an Efficiency Expert. It still makes me laugh.
My first assignment was to report to Hilltop Mall with my clipboard and track employee movements, their techniques, sales pitches. Find bottlenecks, suggest shortcuts, but keep schmoozing and upselling those customers.
I arrived to find a huge crowd of waiting customers filling the store, and sitting in the hall along the stairs, blocking the railings, making it difficult for mall traffic to progress. Mall officials started complaining, thus the pressure to act.
To sum up my approach at reform, if I had a megaphone, I would have yelled to staff, “Close the deal. You are a turnstile, not a style turner.” Some people employees conducted business like they were at home having a cookout.
At Penn State I minored in consumer psychology where I studied effective pitch lines, sales techniques and persuasion tactics. I did a semester-long term paper on slogans, like Bayer’s “Not all aspirin is alike.” (It is, Bayer just grinds it finer to release faster.)
At the Richmond Mall, I met Susan. She was returning late from a 15-minute break, and strolling casually through the mall with a non-employee girlfriend. She was 10 minutes late! I summoned her to me with a wiggling finger. She had red hair. I love red hair, by coincidence, and preferred redheads when dating. Her beautiful long hair hung over her shoulders. “You were ten minutes late. Can’t you see we have customers waiting?” I said with great authority.
She saw the bag of See’s Candy that I was holding, because I was making a good example by snacking on the job instead of leaving the store.
Her first words to me were, “Marzipan. I love marzipan.” Then she reached into my bag holding one last piece of chocolate, my favorite, marzipan, and she took it, and bit into it. My jaw dropped. I forgot my admonishment.
She said, “Mmm. So good,” and then turned away from me, causing her red hair to sway across her alabaster shoulders and neck in slow motion.
I said,” Hey, get back here. I’m yelling at you.”
She partially turned and said, “I can’t. We have customers waiting.” And she was gone.
As her temporary supervisor, I did what I had to do, I married her.
When we started dating, she would not introduce me to her kids, Kristi and Adam. She wanted to make sure I was trustworthy, so we would only meet at my one-room Berkeley apartment on Haste and MLK Blvd. We went to dinners and parties frequently.
One time, with a babysitter, Susan spent the whole weekend with me. It was a blast. Rafters shook. Saturday night Susan, Pam the landlord’s wife, and some other friends went to Henry’s Bar at the Durant Hotel, where they serve one of the most powerful cocktails I’d ever tasted, the Golden Bear.
So many times, I had advised her, “One is enough, one is enough.” That night Pam scoffed at my temperance. “Ah, two is no big deal.” Thus, Susan joined the Two-Golden-Bears Club. Pam’s persuasion overpowered my experienced sales training. Susan ordered a second Golden Bear. The remainder of the night became predictable.
I remember so well escorting her back to my apartment and holding her by her belt as she barfed out the window.
Finally, I got to meet the children. We did it up right. Moms and neighbor kids, we all went together to Golden Gate Park and climbed on statues, walked the tea garden trails, ran across the stage at the music concourse, entered the heavy dampness of the Conservatory to see exotic flowers.
As far as me raising kids, I’ve never made one of my own. I witnessed my sister’s four pregnancies producing four blonde partially Polish girls, and actively participated in their infancy and upbringing. I even did diaper duty. The girls grew, learn to speak and play outside. Now I was helping raise Kristi and Adam at about that age, a smooth transition.
We had raucous good times. Once, Kristi, Adam, and I walked out into the Emeryville Mudflats along I-80 through knee deep muck that could suck off your shoes because the kids wanted to climb on the driftwood sculptures. We all got caked in mud from the knees down, and I wouldn’t let them back in the car. They had to climb in through my Tercel’s back hatch and hang their legs out to dry. I sat on magazines, and drove up Marin Street to Grizzly Peak to admire the view and ride the miniature trains. Mom wasn’t with us for that trip.
Comments
Post a Comment