Complaint Review: National Magazine Exchange - Clearwater Florida

It never occured to me that you might be an "old timer". So sorry about my responsibility diatribe Bob, that is directed to employees from August 25, 2003 to now, THEY have no excuses. I also worked at the Belcher complex in 1991-1992, in 1995 I was in their Countryside complex working in "Outbound". I remember the 100% coverage policy, it was complete chaos - true workplace anarchy, it would have made for a great reality TV Series "Hell's Phoneroom". However from what has transpired since then, not only within the company, but the degree to which they hold their own customers in utter contempt to make a quick buck, you may look back at that fondly as "the good old days."

I started working there in 1995 and didn't know Eileen Adams, unfortunately. I worked in the old building on Belcher Rd. You had to work 35 hours per week to be paid $8.00 per hour. If you didn't then you were paid min. wage, which I think at that time was $4.25. I had to work 6 days to work 35 hours. There were about 50 of us lined up against the wall like idiots waiting for a work station, because there weren't that many. When someone went to lunch or took a break, it was a mad dash to grab a phone and try to con some people into buying magazines for $400.00. Most of the time I worked 34.9 hours or so and got paid $4.25 per hour. Just give me a phone please or pay me to stand aginst the wall! What a joke. What a scam, What a fool I was. I feel sorry for the people working there. Not that they are just working there, but the fact that they honestly feel that they are working for a legitimate company and are proud to be there. It really is a shame.

Aren't Bill Hood and SDP EXPERT at making people BELIEVE, whether it is an employee or a mail recipient or Willis Stein who apparently bought the company from him or who knows who else? Aren't they all destined for the slaughterhouse because they BELIEVE what is shoveled at them? Regarding extra hours I have heard that call volume has nothing to do with the inner circle getting extra hours. They get huge extra hours every week as normal routine no matter what the call volume. It is only when call volume is extra extra extra high that anyone else gets extra hours. Bottom line is the inner circle gets extraordinarily high compensation. I think if they could they would let the elite have 100% extra hours and nothing else.

Aren't Bill Hood and SDP EXPERT at making people BELIEVE, whether it is an employee or a mail recipient or Willis Stein who apparently bought the company from him or who knows who else? Aren't they all destined for the slaughterhouse because they BELIEVE what is shoveled at them? Regarding extra hours I have heard that call volume has nothing to do with the inner circle getting extra hours. They get huge extra hours every week as normal routine no matter what the call volume. It is only when call volume is extra extra extra high that anyone else gets extra hours. Bottom line is the inner circle gets extraordinarily high compensation. I think if they could they would let the elite have 100% extra hours and nothing else.

Aren't Bill Hood and SDP EXPERT at making people BELIEVE, whether it is an employee or a mail recipient or Willis Stein who apparently bought the company from him or who knows who else? Aren't they all destined for the slaughterhouse because they BELIEVE what is shoveled at them? Regarding extra hours I have heard that call volume has nothing to do with the inner circle getting extra hours. They get huge extra hours every week as normal routine no matter what the call volume. It is only when call volume is extra extra extra high that anyone else gets extra hours. Bottom line is the inner circle gets extraordinarily high compensation. I think if they could they would let the elite have 100% extra hours and nothing else.

The pay has ALWAYS been discretionary to one extent or another. Think of it this way, is it smarter for an employer to hire two people at $10.00 per hour to work a 35 hour week to pay out $700.00 ($350.00 each) plus commission OR "downsize" one of the two, reduce that $10.00 to say $7.50 ($262.50 + commission), but ONLY if they have a 9.2% Conversion other wise it is $7.00 ($245.00 no commission). Oh, and they also reduced the commission amount with the pay cut. Why pay two when you can wring more work out one for less money with the same overall result? Do the math. As to extra hours, they were always available depending on call volume. The REAL question is the GATING of those calls, quality leads versus crap going to the chosen. That is where the quality of favoritism may have played in. What the Union could do is organize the work force to even the playing field a bit. It provides the individual worker with a voice. Without representation pay can be cut, benefits reduced or eliminated without restraint, favoritism employed for promotions etc. Employees in Florida are really no better than servants, virtually without any rights or recourse with employers. The strength of the Union would be proportionate to the contract negotiated. The strength of the contract directly proportionate to the backbone of the employees. At SDP the employees have been, for the most part I'm sorry to say, spineless suck ups, currying favor from supervisors, adult children, terrified of taking responsibility for their own lives, unwilling to stand up for themselves much less unite for their own futures - flat out cowards who have gotten everything they deserved. I have less respect for them than I do Bill Hood, at least you always knew what he stood for. There were notable exeptions, Eileen Adams, Elkins, Jim Lammermeier, Karen Bryant (who is STILL in there fighting the good fight) and many others. The employees of SDP/NME have had an opportunity for three years now to bind together and possibly prevent much of what has happened to them. The blind panic of Management when the Letter of Intent was presented should have been a BIG clue to the rank and file. They were TERRIFIED of Eileen's activities and have in my opinion spent HUGE amounts of money employing anti-union activists and agents advising management and maybe even infiltrating the rank and file to stop the movement for the last three years. The employees should have realized how afraid management was of them and drawn strength from it. Instead, they squandered the chance, believing everything Bill Hood told them no matter how big a lie. Too d**n lazy to do anything to help themselves. Could a Union have changed things? I don't know. Without one they had absolutely no chance at all, the fate of all chattle - the slaughterhouse. One mans opinion.

How would the union (or whoever) address this? While most people get low pay I have heard that the inner circle can get far more. Some as high as $20 and $30 and even more. I have heard it works like this ? if they like you then you get scheduled for minimum hours. Then every week they ask you to work lots of extra hours. The key is that extra hours are paid at a much higher discretionary rate, temporarily getting you much higher pay. I have heard that some people seem to consistently get HUGE amounts of extra hours every week

So Bob where were you when Eileen Adams signed the letter of intent to organize a Union at that dump? Did you sign one with Karen and Jim? Did you choose to sign it and stand up for yourself or did it take 3 years of spiritual, ethical, financial and legal sodomy to finally turn the light bulb on? If you signed, you have my respect and admiration, if you didn't because you were too "scaarrred" for your now $7.00 an hour if you don't make 9.2% conversion telemarketing job with no benefits and now no future - cry me a river. Bill Hood, in his recent letter of resignation was crowing to his managers about how SDP is "back on track" financially by amongst other things "cutting overhead". What is overhead to Bill Hood - human capital, the rank and file, the TSR's, in other words you Bub. On October 4, 2003 a pro-Union tract entitled 'Mr. Hoods Skoolhouse' (sic)was posted for you and everyone else to read; it said in part "...Bill Hood...you have placed SDP on the same plane as every other telemarketing boiler room in the area. Instead of inspiring us to be the best...you offer the same substandard wages and benefits as everyone else, while claiming to be "competitive". Florida competitive is the rest of the country's poverty level." It has gotten progressively worse since then, hasn't it? You were all warned about this THREE years ago, and it isn't as though the company doesn't have plenty of ethical competitors in the area I can think of three Harte-Hanks, Fidelity Investments and PRC in Tampa off the top of my head. I am sorry it took you so long to learn this lesson. Frankly the only person in that company left there who has any backbone what so ever is Karen Bryant, who has more courage than any other employee and 100 times the ethical core of Bill Hood, or ANY dozen of his stooges who still frantically profile (continuously monitor) her to desperately find a way to terminate her. Why is she still there? To get a Union in, at this point a daunting task at best. Karen my PUBLIC respect, Willie Hood - don't let the door hit you in the a*s on your way out.