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FireCo Does Sleazy Business

A week or so ago, I was hired by FireCo in Asheville, North Carolina, to sell fundraiser concert tickets over the phone. They have been granted special privileges to cold-call people from 12pm to 9pm because they are a "non-profit." The office was full of 10 other guys making phone calls. Seemed pretty legit to me.

The first red flag was that the company doesn't have any information about itself online. What little information I did find was a complaint forum. People were mostly angry about the fact that they were receiving calls, but one lady had actually gone so far as to research the percent of her donation that might actually go to the charity and help the firefighters. She came back with a startling 15% that goes toward what the salesmen are trained to say over the phone.

I asked the head honcho about it, and he slathered his response in salesman speak, but didn't deny it a bit. If $22 comes in for a ticket, the first of the money goes to pay the rent for the venue and the performer, neither of which are doing anything for free. Then, the next of the money goes to pay the operating costs of the fundraising operation. What's left over is split 50-50 between the firefighters and Fireco. If you break that down, it comes out to less than $5 a ticket that's an actual donation for what the fundraiser tells you. But wait, there's more...

Most people don't even go to the show. 2,700 was a high turnout the last time, but many of those people had gotten the tickets for free from charities and businesses after the purchasers turned them back in and accepted this as the donation that the salesman will swear up and down that it is not, even though they probably don't realize that 85% goes to operating costs and executive pockets. But wait, there's more...

Not content to stop with those profits, the company has to swindle its "employees" as well. Of those 10 guys in the office last Tuesday, only 5 remained on the following Monday: The manager, the assistant manager, the letter mailer, the b2b salesman, and one other guy who had been there a while. The others had all recently started but either left or were shown the door pretty quickly. Basically, two tiers: The insiders on the scam and the outsiders brought in to man the phones with no training for a minimum amount of time before being shown the door because they weren't selling like champions in a week or a month's time.

I became the sixth in a week to receive the good-bye handshake, only realizing then that it's probably what happened to the first 5 guys, who were dismissed never to be seen again. Sure, my numbers weren't great after a week, but champion cold-calling isn't going to occur in one week. They knew they'd probably fire me this quickly when they hired me, but they didn't care. They didn't care that I had another job offer but instead am sitting umemployed. But wait, there's more...

I had accidentally left my cellphone in the office because I was slightly startled by the firing, so I went back in this morning to pick it up. It should be noted that they had already hired all of the replacements and had mine sitting there already. The manager was very cordial in handing me my phone and talking to me about picking up my paychecks. When I calmly said to him, "It's a lousy way to do business. I had another offer," his face dropped and he scooted back over to his new employee to wreak the same havoc on his life. By the time I had finished my other errands, he had left me a message instructing me not to come in, that my checks would be in the mail. Can't have someone coming in and blowing up the scam, right?

This has been your public service announcement about FireCo. Do not give them money for their lousy concert that you won't go to. Give your money directly to the Fire Fighters. It'll be put to better use.

Tetris

This is what life has come to.

After playing Tetris for about an hour, getting all sorts of lousy pieces that force - FORCE - me to either take a gap or pile sky high in the middle, you know, those pieces that just make you curse when you see them, well, after getting about 20 of those in a row and staying alive and getting all the way back down to manageable, where I can drop 4 lines at a time, I look over at the score...and it sucks.

This makes no sense. When you get more difficult pieces, you have to use a lot more creativity, and are prevented by the game from doing big drops, and get stacked high and have to move faster. If you are given a far more difficult challenge by the structure of the game itself, you'd think the score would be higher. That goes for pretty much any game you play.

Suddenly playing Tetris for a high score feels no different than life itself. If you have it tough, the garbage piles up and makes it harder on you. If you have no money, you go into debt and lose it even quicker. If you have lots of money, you sit back and watch it make more as you scam millions in tax write-offs, and get paid insane amounts of money to take 3 hour lunches and ride in limos courtesy of your father's business connections that got you the job.

I now hate Tetris.

On Baseball

A lot of baseball purists are going gaga for the old rules as Major League Baseball has been instituting many changes and dealing with steroids.  My take on the quirks I can think of at the moment:

• Replay - I remember seeing Paul Lo Duca go bonkers because he saw that what was called a double was actually a home run according to the Shea Stadium scoreboard replay in 2007.  He refused to go to the batter's box until the umpires conferenced.  They called it a home run.  The opposing manager went bananas.  Since then, there has been a lot of grandstanding and suddenly an explosion in missed home run calls.  Now there's replay.  It's fine as long as we leave it there.  No safe/out at first base, no ball/strike calls.  Leave the calls to the umpires when they're standing right there.
• Single-admission Double-headers - Greed has removed the let's-play-two double-header from baseball.  If there's going to be forced to schedule two games for the same day, owners now shoo out everybody who paid for the first game so that they can charge again for the second.  They did one at Shea Stadium (again with the Mets?) late this year due to scheduling conflicts that didn't give them enough time between games.  I say let 'em slide every once in a while.  Maybe every team could do one a year.  Give a treat to the fans who pay for more games than any other professional sport.
• The Mound - Baseball got "boring" in the late 60's because Bob Gibson (and some other guys, I guess) was so good.  So, they lowered the mound to give hitters the advantage.  We still didn't see somebody hit 50 home runs until 1991.  After that, also in part thanks to drugs and smaller ballparks, guys started smashing the ball at Ruthian rates.  They had to change the way they used pitchers.  Now everyone's a specialist.  Put the mound back up there and watch Ryan Howard's home run totals fall as his strikeouts get him benched.
• Closers - This year, Frankie Rodriguez set the "record" for most "saves" in a season.  He's so specialized that he only comes in for the 9th inning if his team is leading by 3 runs or less so he can help win the game and also get a stat.  It's about time for the Fireman to come back, a reliever like Goose Gossage or Bruce Sutter who came in whenever the going got tough and slammed the door.  Didn't matter what inning if the team needed him.  Didn't matter if he needed to throw 3 innings.  Teams should use their best relievers in the toughest spots, not just for the last three outs of the game.
• Interleague Play - I've now seen a fair number of interleague and non-interleague games live.  People like it, it doesn't hurt much unless you count the fact that the AL proves its supremacy and the Mets (yes, the Mets AGAIN!) are in the lead in the NL East instead of trailing by 4.5 games thanks to their bouts with the fellas from the junior circuit.  I like the interleague play.  Just don't expand it beyond the current 15 games.
• All-Star Homefield - Whichever league wins the All-Star game, gets homefield advantage for the World Series.  People piss and moan because this exhibition shouldn't count toward anything real.  Well, the MLB All-Star game is the only game of its kind that actually plays like a real game, maybe even a little better.  This is because there are players who make the game for their defensive abilities and their pitching, which means that unlike the NBA, NHL, or NFL, people are actually trying to play defense.  Nate McLouth to Russel Martin to gun down the AL catcher trying to score from second in extra innings because there's no one left on the bench to run for him is pretty awesome.  People also pooh-poohed about what an embarrassment it would be if the game went past the 15th and we saw outfielder JD Drew and third baseman David Wright pitching, but I have to disagree on that point.  Both guys were ready to go all out to try to win the game for their league.  I don't see how that's a mockery.
• Ballparks - Somebody figured out that you're not going to get 70,000 fans a game, used a little supply and demand, and created Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, which seats just enough people in an intimate setting so that everybody gets a pretty good seat.  This also meant bringing the outfield fences in, which also encourages more home runs, which sells more tickets, etc.  I don't really like short home runs, but I think the new parks are okay.  Maybe a raised mound and a lack of steroids will help to curb the number of cheap home runs.  I swear, seeing Cristian Guzman go yard as much as he has lately is like watching Charles Barkley hoist so many 3 pointers when the NBA experimented with moving the line closer.

I'm sure there are many more controversies I'm forgetting, but that's fine.  It's part of what makes baseball so great.  The debate over National vs. American League, is it better for a DH or a Pitcher to hit?  Has Bud Selig been a good or a bad commissioner?  Why are Red Sox fans such assholes?  The list goes on and on.  Why did you read this post?

A day in the life

Eyes open.  Too early.  Roll over.  No going back.

Stretch.  Drag.  Blink.  Awkward.

Bathroom.  Sit?  Stand.

Hands on the walls.  One stair step.  Another.

Breakfast.  Decaffeinated.  Vitamins, 16.

Terrible television.  Scores I knew last night.

Nothing.  Computer nothing.  

More stairs.  More nothing.

Gym.  Swim.  Drag.  Curse.

.05% better.  Perhaps.

More nothing.

Friends sometimes.

Rinse, repeat.

A Day in Boston

If you looked for me today, you would have found me...

• Lying in bed, late
• Cutting up half a banana on my cereal because it was no longer green enough to eat whole
• Drinking grape juice my parents brought me last weekend
• Watching a movie as an excuse to loaf more
• Taking a shower around 3:00pm
• Spilling burrito bits on my oft-complemented new shorts while at the Purple Cactus with Gabrielle
• Judging my exit by estimated bus arrival times
• Lying in another bed, trying not to take a second nap
• Not buying a hat because the many around Quincy Market weren't the perfect image I had in my head
• Limping down Atlantic Avenue
• Saying, "Whatever you're getting, only decaf and small" at Dunkin' Donuts
• Sitting near the dock of the bay, wasting time
• Relieving myself in an alley
• Fumbling with balloons that read "Bonnie" and "Clyde" so that they wouldn't smack me in the face while trying to eat my Crabby Balls at Dick's
• Drinking Miller High Life
• Not buying anything at Urban Outfitters
• Sitting on my porch, trying not to nod off
• Chatting with my sister
• Winning 1000 Play money chips with a nut full house online
• Blogging
• Paying tribute to Gabi for being there through most of this
• Falling aslee...