So I was telling you the story of my interview when we last were together. In case you forgot or didn’t read part one, shame on you. Stop now and go read it. To recap I was about to be laid off by my employer in Atlanta after 8 years. I had an interview and then a presentation to deliver and the topic was Customer Service Excellence. Ya’ with me? Good, then back to it…
So I knew that most reasonable people would expound on the virtues of CSE, (that’s right, I shortened it. Wanna make something of it?), maybe have survey results or statistics to back up their belief that CSE was important to any business that wanted to be successful. But me being me, I decided to take a different tact. I decided to sell a total lack of CSE as the way to go. I was being ironic, tongue in cheek if you will. I wonder how that will go over in the Lone Star State. Take a guess.
I created a company I called, you guessed it, “Our Way Pizza”, where you will get it our way. I created an entire back story of a cranky old man founder that created the company to follow his core belief; his way was the best way. I used a picture of the old cranky man puppet of Jeff Dunham named Walter as the founder. I created a new hire packet that was essentially a training manual for how customer service should look if you wanted to be an Our Way Pizza employee. I also created some pie graphs that showed 78% of people want to be led and prefer to have decisions made for them. I was super proud of myself for thinking outside the box. I was expecting that everyone would get how clever I was; how I could take the exaggerated absurd stance, and use it to actually sell why CSE was so important. That didn’t happen.
I flew to San Antonio and rented a car. I went to check into my hotel, dropped off my luggage and wash my face (gotta clean that airline smegma off my face) and headed to the site. I got there early, as I am oft to do, and I figured they would be so happy to see me that they would move my presentation up, let me present, get my premise, and raise me up on their shoulders chanting my name over and over, hiring me on the spot. What happened was they let me sit in an unused training room for 2 and a half hours while they interviewed NO ONE AT ALL!!!!! I sat in there and did what I have been told I do best. I over thought the entire thing as time dragged. And did I mention it was Texas? Have you ever been to Texas? “But Steve, it’s a dry heat”. IT IS STILL HEAT AND HEAT EQUALS SWEAT AND SWEAT STINKS AND DOESN’T LOOK GOOD AS IT SOAKS THROUGH YOUR WHITE DRESS SHIRT THAT YOU WORE ON THE PLANE BECAUSE YOU ARE STUPID AND WEREN’T SMART ENOUGH TO WEAR A T-SHIRT AND CHANGE INTO THE DRESS SHIRT ONCE YOU GOT TO YOUR DESTINATION, DUMMY!!!! Oh, and they weren’t going to get it.
So I finally was told to come in the room and set up. It took me like 30 seconds to set up because I was all amped up on Snickers and Dr. Pepper. There wasn’t a seat for me up front so I stood there like a jerk for 14 minutes and 30 seconds as the trainers that I expected to praise me shortly, trickled in. (No, I didn’t actually count the time. It is an exaggeration. It is kinda what I do.) They all came in and sat there stoically, not helping me one single bit. As a trainer, more often that not there is one person in every class that stands out as the jerk. I can identify them pretty readily and that person becomes my focus point. I basically train the class to that person. I know once I have that person buying in to what I am selling, I have the rest of the room. I had a room full of blank faces staring back at me…and they weren’t going to get it.
So I began my presentation like I was meeting with potential new hires for “Our Way Pizza”. We went over the training packet in conjunction with the PowerPoint that I created. I was so proud of myself. I am a trainer, not a designer. The skills for one are not the same as the other. I am a delivery machine. I excel at delivering the message. I can break your design down and make it better. I can tell you where your material jumped the shark, but I had never created anything from scratch before. After we completed the introductory packet and my description of our founders’ vision, I had everyone form a circle.
I brought a Koosh Ball and planned a fast round of responses to possible customer complaints to pizza our way. The Koosh ball would be thrown to someone and I would pose a scenario. A customer called to say his pizza was cold, your response should be, “You should just be glad we delivered it to you at all”. If a customer complained that the toppings were not what they ordered, “We decided to send you what we felt went together better.” or “You got what we wanted you to have. It is better this way”. If one of the participants used an answer that was not “Our Way”, I told them that they might not be the right person for the job, but I would give them a second chance to display our core values. I asked one person to sit out for the rest and just observe, in the hopes they would be able to get the “Our Way” philosophy by watching those that were successful at it. Sometimes I would say that an answer was close but I was sure someone else could do better and they tossed the Koosh ball to someone else for the same scenario. I thought this was fun, interactive and innovative. I was sure that no one else would push the need for CSE by way of a business plan that sold a total lack of CSE. I was sure that they would get it. They didn’t.
I closed out the session as new hires and told them they were all hired and would be outstanding additions to the “Our Way Pizza” family. I told them to go out to the restaurant floor and make our founder happy. I thanked them for their time and they clapped and we ended the “new hire class”. I them asked what questions they had, fully expecting them to ask me how soon I could join their team. What I got was a little different. I was asked if I honestly thought that CSE was not important. I was asked if I really thought a company could survive with a philosophy counter-intuitive to everything we all knew about the customer experience. I was asked if I understood the meaning of Customer Service Excellence and did I understand the idea was to promote it, not say it wasn’t important. They didn’t get it, or me at all. They attacked me with stupid question after stupid question and then thanked me for my time and dismissed me to allow them to talk amongst themselves and decide my fate. I was pretty sure they had made it clear they didn’t get me, and I was equally sure they were not people I would be happy to work with every day going forward. I did, however, like paychecks on the 15th and the last day of the month, so I was willing to accept their lameness.
I had dinner with my friend that was a trainer and the only one that got it as far as I know. He told me that he fought for me, explaining that it was brilliant in his mind. He said they didn’t get it and he was pretty sure they were going to offer the job to an outside candidate. AN OUTSIDE CANDIDATE????? Seriously. I ended leaving the company for about a month. I received a call offering me a job back in the home lending area as a trainer and the saga continued….and they didn’t get me either. Lololololololololololol.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it…