Complaint Review: SJC ACQUISITIONS - Internet

Well here's another one to add to the long list of these companies.  I had to write a report cause I couldn't find anything about SJC in Cleveland, and I wish I had before I made the mistake of going to work for them.  Funny part was reading some of these other reports is that its almost like reading a story I wrote with the names and locations changed.  A lot of it was a similar or exactly the same experience I had.  Anyways I'll start from the top.

Like many of these cases, in mid-december I had put in an application and resume and very quickly received a call and email from SJC asking to set up an interview, and a follow up email:

Congratulations on being invited in for an interview!

This email has been sent to you to confirm your appointment scheduled for (Day) at (Time).

When coming to this appointment, we just want to remind you to bring a copy of your resume and dress business professional. Below we have also attached directions to our location. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these directions, then please do not hesitate in calling us at the office (216) 328-0101.

Once again we are looking forward to seeing you at your scheduled time. However, if you notice that you are stuck in traffic and/or unable to attend and must reschedule your interview, then please call us and let us know in advance. Our hiring managers have very tight schedules and we try our best to keep them as orderly as possible.

See you soon!
 

(Name Redacted)

HR Director
Rock Run Center
5700 Lombardo Center Ste 290
Seven Hills, OH 44131
O: (216) 328-0101
F: (216) 520-3724
www.sjcacquisitions.com

  Having been out of work for 6 months at the point I was thrilled at the chance, little did I know how my enthusiasm would be dampened.  I had been living in another state but was planning to come home to cleveland for the holidays and search for jobs, so this seemed to work out just perfectly.  I drove back into town, toting my suits, hoping for the best case where I would need them to start my new career.  Preparing for the interview, I gleaned any information I could from their website, trying to figure out what they did, but it seemed rather vague.  I googled the business but no serious red flags came up, so I wasn't too worried.  In the end I figured at the very least i'd give it a shot, since I was in town anyways.

Come the morning of the Interview I dressed in my suit, freshly pressed shirt tie and the whole 9.  I had to drive a little ways across town to get there so I left plenty early to get their with time to spare.  As I pulled off the highway at the exit I saw a number of nice office buildings and felt a boon of excitement.. then as I followed the directions I passed these nice buildings.. to more nondescript ones, then down potholed side street to a small square building with a sign reading "Rock Run Center".  I looked at the sign and saw the businesses housed in the building, mostly ones i'd never heard of.  I was confused when I didn't see one for SJC Acquisitions, only one for Worldwide Marketing, vaguely reminiscent of Mainway Toys. 

"you've already driven 20 mins to get here" I thought "might as well go inside". Unfortunately I took my own advice.  I walked into the office and realized it was rather small, basically 2 or 3 offices maybe (one I would later find was a large conference room).  A friendly attractive receptionist, who turned out to be the HR person I spoke with on the phone, greeted me and asked me to sit down.  There was a large flatscreen tv on the wall behind the receptionist desk which seemed to be only playing some SBC promo video on a loop, and music was playing loudly from the computer.  Two other nervous and similiarly dressed guys sat next to me, I assumed the other interviews.  They didn't say much, so I made small talk with the receptionist.  She was friendly in a way that it occured to me to be too practiced, like she was sizing someone up.  As I waited I observed the few people walking in and out of the office, all younger guys in their mid 20s like myself.  And even then I only saw evidence that two other people worked at this location other than the receptionist.  She seemed to pick up on this and quickly commented "Oh we're in the process of moving to a new location so we don't have much going on here".  Nice save.

20 minutes after the agreed upon interview time the Hiring Manager appears.  He's wearing a cheap grey pinstriped suit and has spiked hair and like the others appears to be roughly my age.  Call me crazy but generally senior management at established companies aren't 24 year olds.  This man is the consummate salesman.  He speaks fast and in a way that seems like he found his father's suit (if his father was a pimp) and put it on and decided to speak in his "big boy voice".  He is fast talking and beckons me into a sparse office in the back.  Seriously, the cheapness of this seemed like the setup to one of those reality porn sites i'm sure we've all seen.  "Yea I have a position for you *in walks the receptionist who starts stripping*"  In retrospect that would have been preferable. 

We continue with the interview, he asks a bunch of questions and makes probably meaningless marks on my resume.  He feels me out by asking why I feel i'd be suited for this job.  "I'm not hiring, I have plenty of sales people.  I'm recruiting for people who have the potential for management".  He asks where I would see myself within the company, naming off a number of positions (of course it turns out there is only one that you will be placed in regardless of your answers).  He skirts any question of the actual operations of the company.  He explains that I would be starting from the bottom in sales, then if I made my quota for a certain number of days, I would become a team leader, leading several others in the field.  If I did well at that and my team was in the top of sales, then after 3 to 4 months I could become and asst manager, with came with a salary.  From there, he explained if you did well and paid your dues, you could get your own location.  Yea but who, I asked myself, would follow a 20 something branch manager who were career salesmen? The interview last about 15 mins and he guides me out the door while I was still enthusiastic and before any other questions came up.  He tells me that they are doing more interviews and I will get a call back after 4 to let me know if i'll be asked back for a second interview.  As I'm heading home, something just seems to be nagging at me.  On one hand i'm hoping I get that call back, but on the other something just doesn't seem right with this.  Why would they be setting up applicants for next week when they are letting me know today, among others.  Sure enough I get the call later that I was one of the few selected to come back for a second interview, to dress in my suit as I would be meeting with other senior managers, and to clear my schedule the following day until  4 or 5.  No problem, I thought, this is clearly a good sign.  Delusion is a powerful thing.

The next I went back earlier in the day, excited and nervous, again dressed in a suit, looking to nail the interview.  As I sat in the parking lot collecting my things, I noticed a trickle of similarly young, besuited individuals like myself filtering into the office.  More interviews? or maybe there weren't as few lucky ones as I thought coming back for the second round.  I walked in, greeted the HR/Receptionist and sat down to wait.  I heard raucous cheering coming form the back that sounded vaguely unfriendly, and the receptionist explained this was the morning meeting for the salespeople, and this was part of their morale building and motivation.  This did little to assuage my being wary of the situation.  I was expecting a meeting with several managers, instead when the meeting broke up out came a woman who shook my hand and introduced herself as a team leader, and stated that I was going to come with her to get the idea of what a day on the job was like.  This was when they broke the news that starting from the bottom in sales meant that I was going to be walking door to door to people's houses asking them to change their natural gas provider.  (Note: This office also does Business to Business and has another campaign that sells U-Verse products, but basically, its door to door sales, no matter what some plant rebuttal tells you)  I was dissapointed but I was already on the road so there wasn't much I could do.  Basically what we did is try to lock people into a rate for gas for the next 6 months by switching to direct energy as a gas supplier, regardless of what their current rate was.  The day started at 11am for me and she explained it typically went to about 730 pm (at 8pm you are no longer legally allowed to solicit door to door), but today since it was an interview i'd be returning to the office at 5.

We pull into a development and park, the other two girls who were in the car go their seperate ways to their territory and I am told to follow my trainer.  Now bear in mind, its colds as hell, roughly 30 degrees, and I get to walk around in a suit, and gloves and a hat.  My trainer, while seemingly nice, instructs me to watch and to practice openers (basically making small talk "hey I like your christmas decorations" or "what a nice dog you have") when really the person usually just wanted to know why the hell they are standing in their doorway and what we were doing there.  She acts as though she has some pearls of wisdom to give but really she just bowls over the person by talking at them nonstop, making most of the people we encounter uncomfortable.  Later I find out she also doesn't permit stopping after we've begun working for things like bathroom breaks, at least til we've hit all the 50 doors in our part of the territory at least once.  Some highlights included getting old people to show us their gas bills, and even if they had a lower rate than we could offer, explaining that because it was variable it would ultimately be higher than what we had.  maybe its true, but while I was expecting some actual training in product knowledge, that never came.  Basically I watched my trainer talk people into signing up, and coached them about the 3rd party verification call they had to make to confirm that they were changing their provider.  Some of these people really seemed not to know what they were getting into.  Honestly it was kind of sad that they trusted us to do the right thing, though really she was just out for commission. 

We returned to the office and I was given a sheet to fill out with questions, and told immediately after I would have a third interview.  I filled out the form with some questions that tested what we had learned or enjoyed the most, blah blah blah.  I was taken into the back again with the same hiring manager who told me that whatever I had done out there I had impressed my trainer and that he wasn't going to waste my time with phone calls and that he wanted me to come back the next morning and start training.  I felt good that I had done well, considering these guys seems to shrewdly judge people but still I wasn't sure about the nature of the job, if I could really make money that way, but since it was all I had at the moment I thought i'd stick it out and see if it got any better.  The following day was a saturday, so I was told it was business casual dress and a half day of work.

 The next day I got the full experience of SJC at the morning meeting.  I showed up at 1030 and was guided to "the environment", the conference room in the back across from the hiring managers office.  In there I was introduced by my trainer to a bunch of people with blank happy looks on their faces, clearly they had drank the kool-aid.  I heard prattling from many about what they would do when they had their own location, I think they truly believed all the hype.  Jesus, they really believe this tripe.. if i'd seen a group of more than 4 wearing nikes, I would have been running for the exits  More unnerving were the other type, like the hiring manager i'd met with before, they had a more hungry and mean look about them, they were the sharks.  These were the guys who seemed to realize just what this company was but didn't mind stepping on people to move up the ladder, either customers or fellow employees.  This meeting consists of hooting and hollering, team building exercises (I am not a harvard mba, but usually you don't play pictionary at a sales meeting). 

 I however work with my trainer practicing my pitch and learning their "system".  This consists of co opted psychological principles like Jones effect and Fear of Loss, or Indifference.  Utterly simplistic but creates the illusion they are imparting some great knowledge of the field only a college dropout with 3 months on the job can.  It's saturday so we won't be returning to the office after work.  To keep us honest the manager sets a quota.. at least 2 sales per person present on the team and 60 sales for the whole team and until these had been reached we could not return home.  Not too bad, I thought, we should be able to wrap it up and get back to head home by 330 as my trainer suggested.  After the meeting we head out to the field.  We walk around and its more of the same, dealing with people who seem bewildered by the concepts we present but can be convinced on a vague promise of saving 4 dollars on their gas bill after ineffectual banter about christmas lights.   One older man actually yelled at us because someone from our company (or one like it) had gone to his father in law's house and gotten him to change his provider, which ultimately cost him more money.  "You aren't out her doing a public service thats for sure"  that's when it hit me.  I knew I wouldn't be able to sell people in this way by giving them the hard sell and convincing them to switch, I couldn't take advantage of people like that.  I realized that the structure of the company was such that if you were to make it up the ladder you have to train people to do just that, otherwise your future in the company is jeopardized.  You either have to buy the company line or fake it well enough to keep your underlings 'motivated'.  We kept walking around, circling the same houses 3 times that day, it got later and later.. 4.. 5.  6.  around 630 we finally got the call that the team quota had been reached and we could return to the office.  Shortly after my trainer recieved a call from her roommate and our coworker saying that because she had only made one sale she was told by the manager to stay out until she had made another.. she actually feared being fired.  I couldn't put myself in a position to be jerked around like that,  I knew then I hadn't bought this line, nor could I fake it well enough to get ahead.  At the end of the day I told my trainer when she dropped me off at my vehicle that this simply wasn't for me.  She challenged my reasoning but I stuck to it.  She then became snarky and said "good luck finding a job then".  I had already said the last words i'd need to, and I got out of the car and left. 

And that was my experience.  If you are reading this and you have an interview with SJC, I would suggest you rethink it.  I know a lot of the articles like this one have gotten canned Rebuttals from members of the very company that they are written about so let me answer the talking points they seem to always follow pre emptively.

1) "This job isn't for everyone, sales and marketing jobs are tough"- True, but this is a dishonest way of approaching such complaints.  first, this job has no marketing involved, its purely sales.  They sucker you in with delusions of grandeur then slap you with the reality.  Sure its a tough job to walk door to door but some people do it.  The problem is that unless you are totally morally vacant, or a facile goon, you won't fit in or advance.

2) "These accusations are slander"- This one has been parroted several times, including by one guy who claimed to be a lawyer.  Before I get hauled in for an internet lawlsuit, let me remind them that in written form, its libel.  At least when you make empty threats, use the right terminology.  Also the definition of slander/libel is an untrue statement which lowers the perception of the person or organization in the eyes of community.  Intent is irrelevent, because the statement has to do some harm to the person about which is is being said or written.  Also, the truth is an absolute defense against libel, so if this is what happened to these people and they share their story, it's free speech

3) "You are just a loser who couldn't hack it"-  I know I couldn't do it, but mostly thats because i'm not a manipulable idiot who will do whatever he's told.  Also i'm not a blackshirt who will enforce draconian standards simply put in place to wring production out of the lowest tier of employs to make money for the upper echelons.

4) "This is not a scam, its a business opportunity.  It's for entrepreneurs"  Really?  someone who really wanted to do it on his own steam would start his own company, not get involved with a scheme like this.  The way it's set up, these companies are a dime a dozen and get these contracts from intermediaries of the fortune 500 companies they purport to work for.  They need someone to do the legwork so they find the gullible to do the sales, paying them on commmission (25 bucks a sale) while they collect the lion's share.  sure you can rise up through the ranks, but until you are an asst manager you don't have any salary and you aren't making much money.  And of all the people who come in, something like one half of one percent might make it to be the manager and possibly get their own location.  Sound like a great opportunity to you?  Me neither