| Originally Posted by jrctivri Stressfree I know who you are, but of course will not be giving your name away in the chat room. Great post Stressfree. I was just freed today and I am now stress free. I began my career at ERAC on June 20, 2005. My first manager was a cool guy that I actually consider my friend. He was my manager for about two and a half months. In my first month we struggled getting to know eachother, but in the begining of my second month I sparked. I sold a great package, got in my corporate leads, and we had a good enough ESQI score to put me on the top of the MT/MA matrix in Augest. In that month I was also group 49's number one BCAM. Everything seemed great to all those around me, I mean I was number one all round in the company, I was the last one anyone expected to do that for that month, but little did they know that in order to do that I had to work everyday, every Saturday, I would work well after six sometimes until 10pm. I would continuously tell myself I loved this place, but the entire time I was just kidding myself. At this time I worked at 4919. My manager and I had over 80 cars and it was only him and myself, a car prep and driver both only worked part ime. In September my manager decided to go on vacation. He told me to be careful because my ARM would be leaving me on my own after the labour day weekend. Just to let all of you know the Monday after labour day is one of the busiest days of the year. Sure enough I go back to work after labour day and their I am all alone. Remember I am still a new guy at this point. That Tuesday the branch was nuts. The customers where all the scum bags of Fall River. I kept getting calls from this guy who is a body shop account of 4919's who kept swearing at me and harrassing me telling me that he was going to take his account else where if me and my manager do not start doing what he ask. He kept sending customers that day which in no way qualified. The dealerships kept calling. The insurance customers just kept coming in. My ARM also wouldnt supply me with cars. I may have been a top performer at this time, but in no way was I ready for that kind of environment without some help. My manager and I asked for another part time cust. service rep because we needed it for me to improve and grow our business. All our ARM would say is he was working on it. He never did come through.
Eventually October came and I was told I was going to 4916 by my ARM. 4916 is a satelite to 4908. Again my manager was a cool guy who I consider my friend. I was told by my ARM that 4916 would be this great learning experience. Yeah right, this was a great learning experience in slavery. First of all in my first week the fleet dropped from 32 cars to 22 cars. This had a lot to do with all the accounts hating us because we were so understaffed, and the fact that it was the middle of October. The middle of October is the slow season. I walked into an office that was just not functioning due to low staff, and pissed off accounts. When the fleet dropped to 22 cars my ARM actually blamed me for this. I told him why this had happend when he called me into a meeting. I told him this was impossible, I never could have done this because I had only been their for 5 days. He said that I had probably been saying "no" to people. My ARM then asked me in this meeting if I wanted to go to the airport. When I said no he then became pissed. Needless to say the meeting was total garbage and he made me feel like a total asswhole for nothing. After this meeting I was so pissed that I began to search for new job opportunities. In the mean time I found out that for the September matrix I fell to the number 2 spot, and was once again the number 1 BCAM. This motivated me again and I wanted to keep improving myself so as I was job searching I could add all of this success to my qualifications for employers to see. At 4916 to make things worse I worked with this driver who just up and quit. Now I was all by myself after the fleet just days before dropped to 22 cars. I came up with a great plan. I had so much down time that I just went out marketing. I just made friends with all of these people. They would tell me that ERAC sucks, and I would reply "your absolutely right." We would laugh eat some pizza and then a day latter they would send me a deal. I kept doing the same thing to account after account after account. All of a sudden the ESQI went up a few points, my manager was getting all kinds of compliments about me, I was still in the top half of the matrix, and my fleet increased to 45 cars. I even won back our FED EX account who had also been using budget. The manager and I became friends, I convinced him our deal was better than budgets, he agreed, which instead of putting 5 cargo vans on the road over the holidays we now had 11 on the road. I did this all by myself. Delivered vehicles you name it I did it. I had to have my accounts sometimes drive vehciles back to me that had been dropped in their shops, and Fed Ex I would have to have them give me rides back to the Branch. This was pathetic customer service but since my ARM wouldn't staff us this is what I had to do. The next MT that was sent to 4916 had it easy, and also gained a cust. service rep, and the driver that quit came back. Two days after I left the branch had over 50 cars. Today they sit over 40 cars. I turned this piece of crap around, and my ARM didn't give a shit about it. It showed by the way he marketed to the accounts probably like once a year.
To gain more success on my resume I decided that I would get myself involved in the Best Persons Program. I knew I would be hired for the spot that was opened at the inskip dealership 4925/26 because of my fast track success. In the back of my mind I still knew this was just temporary. I ended up gaining the position and working again with a great manager. I once again sold a good package, got my leads in, walked into a good ESQI and put myself back at being number 2 on the MT/MA matrix. At the end of December after another accomplishment I woke up one mourning and said to myself "I just can't do this anymore." The customers had finally pissed me off to the point I thought I might kill one of them with my bare hands. I succeeded enough and their was a company in Providence that had been very interested in me that I had been wanting to seek employment with. Today was my last day at ERAC and I am happy to say that I have found a new job with a good pay, a lot of vacation time, great benefits, and I can say I am now stress free.
I found this site when I started at 4925/26. I have to thank this site for all the great insights. Some of the post are inappropriate, but this site is a real wake up call for many employees. I am thankful for my ERAC experience because without it I could not have landed the job I just did right out of school. My suggestion to MT's is to get at least six months in and be as successful in those six months as possible. Make sure to visit this site to ask others about job opportunities, and use those achievements at ERAC to tell other employers. Make sure you post unregistered. Make sure when you quit you give two weeks, that way you can keep them as a reference. When you quit and they try to talk you out of it do not be fooled by phrases like "I feel like its my fault", or " you made a 2 year commitment" this is a guilt trip strategy, do not let it work. Also, do not get burnt out like I did, and do not let low life service advisors, body shop owners, and adjusters talk to you like your trash. I let this happen until my last month with the company. Getting burnt out and letting pieces of shit advisors, shop owners, and adjusters talk down to you just isn't worth it. They are trash, you are not. Do not let them take advantage of you. Remember from Stressfrees post that being on the fast track means nothing. I know what he is talking about, I worked for him :) Do your best, get out, and soon all of you that are thinking about leaving will also be like me, finally stress free. |
2006-04-19 
Re: Think you're on the Fast Track? GP49 
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