Never been sent home for the day from a radio job

I was standing in my kitchen the other day and I chuckled, remembering being sent home from work a few years ago.

I’ve been sent home from work two times in my life: The first time was from a new car dealership in Phoenix, the second time from a call center in Pensacola, Fla.

Not fired, just sent home for the day.

It’s not like I was a teenager or wise-guy college student or something.

The new car dealership was a high-pressure sales gig in The Valley of The Sun.

One Saturday I thought I had my “car salesman’s hustle” on pretty good.

I was going after those “ups” when they hit the lot.

Oh yeah, I should share some big-city, car-salesman lingo: an “up” is a customer who has come on the lot.

Anyway, I was going after those “ups,” but I couldn’t nail a sale.

“MCGEE, COME HERE,” hollered the sales manager when I walked in after trying to land about my fifth customer of the day.

I walked up to the sales tower where the guy sat lording over the dealership floor.

“Go home for the day,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“Go home. You’re scaring away the customers. Go home, come back Monday,” he said, waving his hand in a “shooing” motion.

I didn’t last much longer at the Phoenix new car dealership. I sold a half-car that month and a half-car the next.

A half-car sale means I needed the sales manager to help me close the deal.

When The Lady of the House and I moved to Pensacola nine years ago (notice we’re back on the High Plains now) a good paying job was hard to find.

One of the top paying jobs in the area was at a big ol’ call center.

I got a job there and went into training.

On my second day actually talking to customers all the computers were running slow.

“You’ll have to hang on, our computers are running slow today,” I said to the customer.

Moments later, our instructor was at the front of the room.

“Everyone, finish the call you’re on and log off,” she said.

In a few minutes everyone was done.

“Class, we just had an incident we need to address,” the instructor said.

Then she pointed at me.

“Mr. McGee just told a customer our computers were running slow today. We NEVER want to say such a thing to a customer. Customers expect TOP service from us so we never allude to any computer problems,” Ms. Instructor said.

“So we don’t tell the truth to the customer, we lie to them for marketing purposes,” I said, looking directly at her.

This got a few laughs.

“No, we just don’t say anything negative,” she said.

When she was done she motioned for me to follow her.

I went with Ms. Instructor out of the classroom to the front entrance.

“Mr. McGee, it’s Friday. Go home, think about this job over the weekend and we’ll see you Monday,” she said.

With that, she turned and walked away.

I went home.

The following Monday I worked a few hours at the call center and realized it really wasn’t my kind of gig.

Then like some kind of miracle or something a radio job I applied for came through.

You know, in all the weirdness, listener complaints about me and such through the years, I never got sent home from a radio job.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

[email protected]