College Student’s Typical Day on the Bookfield
I have recently gone through the Southwestern Experience and came across this website. (I was doing some research in hopes to find some resources that holds truth behind SW so that my teammates would not feel so bad about quitting.) As I read the testimonials of others, I felt inclined to share my own story. If you would please publish the following paragraphs on your website, I would deeply appreciate it.
I was first recruited for the Southwestern Company when I was first-year in college. Every week after I was recruited, I had to go to these meetings with my student manager. It didn’t matter that I had homework, projects, and exams coming up; I had to go and I had to comply with her schedule, in addition to the weekly homework that she assigns me. The day after the finals, we were to drive our way to Nashville, TN to receive our one-week of training in “Sales School”. This training consisted of many inspirational speeches, lots of memorizing our “sales talk”, brief overview of what we’re selling, and lots of running.
Oh- I nearly forgot to mention all the hidden costs that come with this internship. The first hidden cost is the fact that the company DOES NOT pay anything for you. All costs ranging from staying in hotels to gas money is all you. On Sundays in the bookfield, they hold meetings in conference rooms at hotels, and guess who pays for that? Correct… you. As well as all the “fun” stuff you do on Sunday, your supposed day off. The second hidden costs are the selling materials that they distribute to you on your first day of sales school. It consists of a horrid green colored bag with all your samples and supplies needed to sell books, as well as paperwork and inspiration CDS/reading. However, what I personally dislike about the bags is that they are 40 lbs and I am not allowed to leave it out of my sight; that includes carrying it with me to the bathroom. Personally, I was told that $300 would suffice for the trip to TN and your territorial state, but I spent over $500 for just hotel money, gas money, conference rooms, and food.
Ok, now let’s talk about a typical day on a “bookfield”, or at least, my typical day. It starts at 5:59AM, when the alarm goes off and we are supposed to race to the cold showers. Then, we go through the usual morning routine before we leave for our breakfast spot. We eat, we do our silly executive exercises (which is basically a lot of yelling to get pumped up), and then we leave to our territory. I get dropped off at my territory at around 7:20AM every morning. I start knocking on door approximately that time and end at 9:30PM. A number of things can and has happened in those 14hrs and 10 minutes. I have been yelled at by annoyed homeowners, targeted by dogs as prey, pulled over by policemen, etc. If I’m lucky enough, it’ll t-storm on me and I would work in the rain. Also, one thing I would like to add is that I am a walker. I have no car, which means to get to places of longer distance, I need to bike there. I haven’t ridden one in over 7 years. Obviously, I fell off… in doing so, I skinned both my knees, each injury at least the size of a half-dollar.
One of the days in the first two weeks of selling, you HAVE to follow a student manager. I was fortunate enough to follow one the day after I fell. I was also lucky enough to follow someone who loves to walk. Even though she had a car, we jogged (and occasionally walked) for NINE hours. Now, my knees hurt throughout the duration of this time and I warned the student manager that I’ll lag a little behind due to that pain. Her response to me, “Don’t think about it. Just ignore it” and keep jogging. So, I spent most of that day trying to keep up with her speed while lugging that 40 lb bag with two bad knees. I will tell you… it was nearly infected and now, after one month, it still hurts to be on my knees.
They sell us on the idea that we’ll be able to make big bucks by working with them. In truth, we make next to nothing when you add in all the expenses that we had traveling, paying for hotels, gas, etc. Another thing they said was that as long as you work 75+ hours a week, you will be successful. In truth, most people work way more than that. My schedule was set up so that I worked, on average, 85 hours a week. I repeat, I was a walker and I have very low tolerance for physical activities so I would take 10 minute breaks every goal period. There being 6 goal periods in total, that means I spend 1 hour out of the 14 hrs resting. I was reprimanded for wasting one hour when all I needed was “one ten to fifteen minute break”.
When I had thoughts of quitting, they scheduled for me to follow a student manager again and talk to the sales manager. It is basically a tactic to make the job seem easier (because it always seems easier when someone else is doing it) and to get to you reconsider quitting. Talking to the sales manager was no joy ride because there was a lot of guilt-tripping there. They try to turn it so that you are deceived into thinking they actually care about your success while your support system at home is there to doubt your abilities. Well… needless to say, when I made the final decision to go home, they all gave me a hard time. They all looked down on me and did not bother hiding their disappointment at all. I went through four days of great emotional distress because I could not figure out the simple answer to a simple answer: Do I want to quit or not? It took four days because they were unwilling to let me go without a fight.
Received: June 20, 2007
