Katin is a Cydcor company, and if you don't know all about that, go ahead and google it. You'll find yourself bathed in a river of flames from their former employees.
I won't repeat in detail all the usual stuff that gets said about Katin - the nonexistent pay, the total lack of benefits, the failure to compensate for basics like gas and lodging while on business trips, or the fact that the whole thing is a monstrous fraud. But I will mention something that nobody's run into yet: the cops.
I worked for Katin, which sends out unsuspecting liberal arts majors like me to knock on doors and sell AT&T crap. Beyond being a brutal, uphill battle, that's also illegal. And I don't mean man-that-sucks, I mean there are actual legal statutes forbidding it. If you want to sell door-to-door in the state of Wisconsin, you need a peddler's permit. Needless to say, our boss, airhead Nicole Skovgard, didn't provide us with such permits.
If you get busted - and you WILL get busted eventually - you can expect to, at the very least, get kicked out of the territory. That means no sales that day, and therefore no money whatsoever. You'll call the office and ask for advice, and they'll do everything they can to make sure you don't talk about it with other employees. Then they'll urge you to go sell in a different neighborhood... at which point you're now knowingly breaking the law.
If this is the second time you've been busted, the cop will dress you down verbally and write you a ticket for around $300. I know, because a decidedly gruff police officer in Kenosha was kind enough to inform me, shortly before telling me to "get [my] a*s out of Kenosha." Yes, Nicole will pay for the ticket. Yes, it will still be on your record.
I can't emphasize enough how often this happens. In two months, I had no fewer than seven run-ins with irritated peace officers, all of whom became progressively less patient with me - presumably because their stationhouses were being bombarded by complaints about naive Cydcor kids ringing doors and bullying people about their phone bill.
Having fun yet? Okay, now go confront Nicole about the issue. The lies will grow progressively thicker:
1) Oh, I'm sorry. That's just in that one town.
2) Oh, yeah, I guess it's actually a state-wide thing. We're working on getting those permits, though.
3) Yeah, don't worry - we'll have those permits next week, and then you won't have a problem.
4) Ha, sorry... I guess that permit thing just slipped my mind. I'll get right on that. What? Oh, yeah, I totally forgot to do payroll. You'll get paid next week, though. No worries!
Seriously. This company is why people hate America. Do. Not. Work there.
Attitude problem
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
U.S.A.