fired
We had a bad mystery shopper report. Among other things, while 'browsing and relaxing', the shopper seemed disappointed to experience 'no sales pressure'. He or she seemed to be rather conflicted in this respect. Anyway, we are now meant to treat every customer as though they were a mystery shopper. The simplest thing, we find, is to ask them. 'Are you a mystery shopper? No? You can go fuck yourself then.'
This is just our way of being 'passionate'. 'Passion' is one of our 'core values', as we discovered a month or so ago, on TV.
The TV's arrived in all the shops, all at the same time. It was rather sinister, like something out of Doctor Who. But the TV's were seemingly procured so that we could all be shown this DVD, based around the company conference in Brighton. What would it be? Get Selling: The Musical? Sadly, no. Instead it involved representatives of head office sitting staring frozenly at the camera, eyes occasionally dropping to the script as they read the words that told us how passionate they were and how excited they were about the future of the company. It did seem a curious kind of passion that they were demonstrating: the kind of passion radiated by cold dead trout on the fishmonger's slab. Perhaps something was going on subliminally. Indeed, it was almost to be hoped for given the uninspiring quality of what we could actually see. The one exception, curiously, was the MD, who had an almost impish quality in comparison. However, he only appeared at the beginning and the end; the rest of the time, possibly, he was occupied in holding a gun to the other participants' heads.
I could see their difficulty, though. If you hold passion as a value, where on earth do you stop? Passion by its very nature must be unconstrained, and if it is one of your 'core values', then are you not obliged to yield to it at all times? How long before the company becomes one big orgy? So they wisely kept it in check; after all, it wasn't that kind of DVD. Which is just as well, I think.
Although at one point the word 'Engagement' was flashed up, to be succeeded by a shot of a man and a woman both sitting facing the camera, looking uncomfortable. Were they about to announce their engagement? If so, I didn't hold out much hope for the marriage. But no, 'engagement' meant something else, something positive about the company though quite what I'm afraid I don't remember, though no doubt it filled me with a warm glow of security at the time.
I mean, it could have been worse: the DVD could have shown us Alan Sugar pointing out at us and uttering his well-known catchphrase. The Apprentice came to an end this week, with Lee winning, his pterodactyl impersonation - unwisely performed in one of his interviews the week before - now apparently forgotten. I rather hoped that as soon as Sir Alan had uttered the phrase 'You're hired' the pterodactyl would make an immediate comeback, and Lee would start squawking and swooping around the room in triumph and everyone would start screaming and running away: a real Doctor Who ending. I was of course disappointed. Though no more than usual.
This is just our way of being 'passionate'. 'Passion' is one of our 'core values', as we discovered a month or so ago, on TV.
The TV's arrived in all the shops, all at the same time. It was rather sinister, like something out of Doctor Who. But the TV's were seemingly procured so that we could all be shown this DVD, based around the company conference in Brighton. What would it be? Get Selling: The Musical? Sadly, no. Instead it involved representatives of head office sitting staring frozenly at the camera, eyes occasionally dropping to the script as they read the words that told us how passionate they were and how excited they were about the future of the company. It did seem a curious kind of passion that they were demonstrating: the kind of passion radiated by cold dead trout on the fishmonger's slab. Perhaps something was going on subliminally. Indeed, it was almost to be hoped for given the uninspiring quality of what we could actually see. The one exception, curiously, was the MD, who had an almost impish quality in comparison. However, he only appeared at the beginning and the end; the rest of the time, possibly, he was occupied in holding a gun to the other participants' heads.
I could see their difficulty, though. If you hold passion as a value, where on earth do you stop? Passion by its very nature must be unconstrained, and if it is one of your 'core values', then are you not obliged to yield to it at all times? How long before the company becomes one big orgy? So they wisely kept it in check; after all, it wasn't that kind of DVD. Which is just as well, I think.
Although at one point the word 'Engagement' was flashed up, to be succeeded by a shot of a man and a woman both sitting facing the camera, looking uncomfortable. Were they about to announce their engagement? If so, I didn't hold out much hope for the marriage. But no, 'engagement' meant something else, something positive about the company though quite what I'm afraid I don't remember, though no doubt it filled me with a warm glow of security at the time.
I mean, it could have been worse: the DVD could have shown us Alan Sugar pointing out at us and uttering his well-known catchphrase. The Apprentice came to an end this week, with Lee winning, his pterodactyl impersonation - unwisely performed in one of his interviews the week before - now apparently forgotten. I rather hoped that as soon as Sir Alan had uttered the phrase 'You're hired' the pterodactyl would make an immediate comeback, and Lee would start squawking and swooping around the room in triumph and everyone would start screaming and running away: a real Doctor Who ending. I was of course disappointed. Though no more than usual.
posted by martin at 12:07 PM
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