Could you quiet your Montessori kindergarten during working hours?

The BBQ Pit
1

The program operating across the aisle from me is incoming sales. The people working on it top out at about age 25, with most hovering around 21. For most of them this is their first non-food-service job and can be used by the wiser ones as a stepping stone into a real job.* They don’t get enough calls, and you know what they say about idle hands, especially young, poorly-supervised hands. They are loud and boisterous and uncaring that other people can’t do their work while they are yelling all day long and cheering and clapping when one of them manages to make a sale. One claps especially loudly, drowning out our customers. I’ve had to cut calls short because of him, which probably cheers you people who hate us [del]telemarketers[/del] inside, business-to-business, salespeople.** He also talks loudly and sings.

One very nice, but immature, young lady yelled across the room, “He told me that yelling across the room is totally Ghetto, but that’s me. I’m totally Ghetto!” I want to say, “Code switching is not selling out! You are good at your job and can be better at it. I left my Southern accent at the Virginia-Pennsylvania border because folks up here think it makes a person sound stupid. There’s a business way of talking that doesn’t involve speaking loudly. And lose the braying laugh.” She also sings, but she has a beautiful voice in that soft, whispery style that is made for gentle R&B and getting backed by a jazz combo, so I don’t mind. I might even suggest she try it as a side job.

Their supervisor is nice but ineffectual. It doesn’t help that she’s in charge of a set of cubicles about 30’x100’ and chooses to have team meetings on the floor, but that means she’s loud, too. We’ve come to log off when they have meetings because there’s no getting anything done while they’re at it. But she does nothing about–in fact, encourages–all that bloody noise.

Today, I couldn’t stand it anymore and confronted the clapper. I’ve done it before; he quiets down for a couple hours, but is soon back on form. Then it occurred to me that, as one team was temporarily broken up, I had my pick of workstations. I chose the one in a hidden corner. I’m happy now, or as happy as an underpaid telemarketer who has to give himself a crash course in SEC filings and procedures tonight so he shouldn’t be writing this can be. My Accounting 105 class is of no help whatsoever.

So, basically, I’m Pitting the unprofessional atmosphere they create. It annoys me because it’s disruptive, but also because I see that all of these people have potential to move beyond this place if they can learn some self-control. This may be a shit job, but its a proving ground where they can learn to act like stuffy, boring adults like me for eight hours. And yes, I’ve heard the, “They are doing what they can to enjoy and stay enthusiastic at a boring job,” crap. In my day we didn’t need to clap and cheer minor successes to stay enthusiastic. Making a sale was just “doing your job,” dammit, and satisfaction came from doing your job well.***

    • I adore one of them because she asks the supervisor to seat the new ones with potential by her so she can teach them good work habits. She is 21 and has substantial potential herself. I would happily work for her because she “gets it.” Wait, her family business is a restaurant she plans to take over, and I have a rule, “No restaurants; no retail.” Shoulda added “No telemarketing,” but it doesn’t begin with R. :frowning:

** - Shut up. We’ve been through all that and whatever you have to say is nothing new. I’m voluntarily enslaved (can you do that?) to the Prince of Darkness and I know it.

*** - FFS, no “And get off my lawn,” jokes. That was old when I was still young.

Addendum: If I hear ANYBODY say “baby mama” or “baby daddy” ever again I will scream. :mad:

2

quit?

3

Need to find another job, first. I’m thankful for this one because, when I got it, I was several months sober and still had some brain damage from a bad fall. Because expectations are so low here I had time to rebuild my reasoning, eyesight, and short-term memory. I am now as smart as a monkey, not as dumb as a chimp.

4

As the parent of a kindergartner, I sure as hell hope his classroom isn’t as unruly as the office you’re dealing with.

5

Quiet is for closers!

6

You guys have to put work on hold because of their noise? What does your supervisor think of that? Is he/she aware of the situation?

7

I await the first poster who doesn’t read the OP and tries to defend Montessori kindergartens. :smiley:

8

Across the aisle? Sorry I’m confused, are all of your working for the same company, or are a whole bunch of companies all mashed in together in one big room?

9

I’m guessing one big room with cubes - the people across the aisle from him are a different department of the same company.

To further explain - where I work, we have (hold on - I’m counting in my head :D) a row of about ten cubes in my section - four to a row - so four cubes, four cubes, four cubes (times ten) down the length of the floor in my area. Within those rows, there are about five different departments.

10

Cube Farm.

They suck.

11

If you are telemarketing, do you get paid to close, or to pass leads?

If the noise is hitting your numbers, and your incentive plan, then you talk to your manager.

If not, cheering, bell ringing, etc is part of the sales culture, especially when the game is a lot of deals a day. If, instead, the deals are 3-5 a quarter - you suck it up and deal with the cheering when something closes.

Sounds like a typical sales bullpen / boiler room though.

12

I’ve been waiting for that, too. It might have been a poor choice of words, or it was my subconscious trying to get people to yell at me for something other than being a telemarketer.

My sales consist of scheduling appointments by winnowing the leads. The client’s salesoids close (they are often already familiar with each other), so I guess that’s “passing leads.” Theirs are for having the people who call in sit through ten minutes of legalese, provide maiden names unto the twelfth generation, and pass a credit check. Some get impatient, some don’t want to answer intrusive questions, and, times being what they are, some flunk the soft credit check. It’s a tough and boring job, they are paid even less than I am, and there’s too damned many of them for the call volume. I try not to begrudge them their celebrations. I just wish they were quieter. Now that I’m hidden in a corner mostly out of earshot I’m as happy as an underpaid clam.

Their supervisor is now mine, too, my old one having been moved to build solid teams elsewhere in the company. She asked us if we wanted a morning recap of our previous day’s sales so we could cheer each others successes. We said no, we hear when one of us makes a sale and congratulate each other quietly, there being only three of us. I might’ve added something about how we’re professionals and don’t need that, but really I hate recognition, good or bad. Another guy said it would be nice if we got some of the gift certificates and stuff people on other accounts win. On one hand too much recognition is silly, but on the other we do respond well to bribery.

13

Buy boathorn. Or 3.
Wait for moron to make noise.
Go to moron, bring boathorn.
Blast moron with boathorn.
“What, everyone was doing it, I just wanted to be popular.”
Repeat as necessary.

14

I’ve been surprised they don’t do that in meetings and celebrations since I started there.

My new supervisor told me, in a tone of voice one normally reserves for pre-schoolers, that I should just ask and she’ll do anything I need to feel comfortable and effective. Except, of course, quieting the kiddies. Or allowing me to use a pen and paper. Or internet access so I can Google some of these companies to get the name of the person I need to talk to (“I don’t know why you are being so cagey about the name of your CFO. Yours is a public company and the names of the officers is supposed to be public knowledge. I have the name of the old one so why can’t you give me the new one? Y’know, not everybody who calls to talk to him is a telemarketer. If I had Google I’d show YOU!”). Or their street address. Or use a smart phone to get that. Or even my dumb phone. Or let me read at my desk at lunch instead of in the noisy, crowded lunch room because books are made of paper and I might take notes in it with the pen I’m not allowed.

After she left I asked the guys, “Did she just talk to me like I was five?”

“Yep.”

15

Jimmy, quit bouncing that ball and take your Ritalin!

Recent topics of loud conversation included sex parties and strip clubs. Today’s outfits include a top one woman was falling out of and a cootch-high skirt on another.

They are kids and this is the first big boy/girl job for most of them and it’s their supervisors’ job to guide them into the world of Workplace Appropriate, but the supervisors seem to be avoiding this bunch because they are simply too much for them.

16

Say what you will about those Montessori kids, but they resist the fuck out of weedkiller.

17

Quoi? What’s the rationale?

18

Sounds like a security thing. A STUPID security thing unless you’re only hiring people with eidetic memories…

19

Exactly, on both counts. When I started there I had memory problems from a fall. It’s better, but not good enough. Some teams, like theirs, I can see because they work with very sensitive data. My team, well, we don’t work with anything that isn’t on Google or the potential customer’s website. Which we can’t get to for security reasons.

20

Well…if the company is a government contractor (or even if only ONE division of the company is a government contractor) they may be having security procedures imposed on them rather than being personally at fault for having stupid security procedures. I know plenty of people who work for gov contractors or NGOs like the IMF who can’t even take their smartphones to work because they’re not allowed to have cameras on-site.