Opinions needed:am I being completely unreasonable?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Backstory:

I work for a small, 5 person software and web design company. I am the web designer. I also do tech support, help man the phones, do the graphic design and the marketing materials for the company, am project manager for a major software project-for-hire, and on Fridays, I order pizza.

In other words, I do what I was hired for (web design), get to do what I like to do (graphic design) and do very well everything else that is asked of me (project manager, marketing, tech support, order pizza).

This has made for a happy job scenario for me for over a year and a half. Now things have changed. My boss has a new lackey, poor kid, and he wants me to do follow up calls (which I have no problem doing) and cold call telemarketing (which I have EVERY PROBLEM IN THE WORLD doing).

Follow up calls for our business is calling companies that have requested our demo software, make sure everything is working OK, and putting a great face on the company so they’re swayed into purchasing. I have no problem with this because they’ve requested the software on their own - they’ve demonstrated an interest in our product - so I’ll follow up every other week or so until they A. purchase, B. say no thank you, or C. I’ve left them 2-3 messages and they haven’t returned my call.

The lackey wants me to continue to call prospects until they flat out tell me no way in hell are they purchasing our software. I believe that ignoring my 3 phone messages is a good indication they aren’t interested and any further contact will only serve to aggravate the prospect and damage our friendly reputation.

The cold calls I flat out hate to do. I’m not a telemarketer, I wasn’t hired to telemarket, at any given time I have three to four major projects that I’m constantly contacted on to find out when I’m going to be finished, and I find it asinine that the lackey wants me to drop everything for two hours in the afternoon and make cold calls to companies that have never requested any information in us and, IMO, would probably never request from us after we cold-call them. Top it all off with the fact that I HAVE done telemarketing in the past, when I had no other job recourse, and it made me feel so shitty about myself I always quit within 2 weeks and found something more life-affirming to do for money, like waitress.

My other female co-worker also flat out refuses to do these cold calls, but since she’s planning on leaving soon (getting her degree in environmental science), she could give two whoots what the lackey says to her. I was silly enough to take the initiative with the followup calls so keep my boss quiet, and now all of a sudden I’m the cold call queen.

So, while this has been brewing on and off for the last few months, the lackey has barely spoken to me for the last two days because of our latest confrontation. He wants to know what the big deal is about me doing these cold calls. I tell him the big deal is I hate them, I wasn’t hired to do them, they’re annoying to the potential customer, I am in no way/shape/form a salesman, and they’re a colossal waste of time considering I have three projects with billable hours on my desk that need to be done ASAP. He gets huffy, mumbles something about how he’s the only one that loses any sleep over this company, and walks off. I do make my followup calls, and send out two purchase proposals, which must have really cooked his goose.

I don’t mind making $11.50/hour for what amounts to two or three different job titles. I like working for a small company and being generally my own boss. I do NOT like doing cold calls. NO ONE likes doing cold calls, which is why telemarketing jobs have such a high turnover rate. I don’t think I’m out of bounds by flat out refusing to do them.

My co-worker and I have discussed a meeting with my boss, the lackey, and us two regarding this issue. I know the boss is giving the orders to get sales up, but methinks the lackey isn’t seeing the forest for the trees.
Opinion time: am I being totally unreasonable? Should I shut up and just make the cold calls while work piles up on my desk (work that actually makes the company money)? I’ve accepted every additional responsibility that’s come down the pike at my job - should I accept the cold calls as well, or draw the line at what I consider piss poor business practices?

Some outside perspective on this issue would really be appreciated.

2

So, let me get this straight: he expects you to ignore work you are already under contract to do, which is guaranteed to bring in money, so you can do something that probably won’t bring in any money at all and which has a tendency to alienate potential customers? Sounds like a really good way to run a small business into the ground, to me.

Now, if you were sitting on your ass a couple hours a day piddling around the Dope, I could see him wanting you to spend that time trying to boost sales any way you could. But you’ve apparently got enough more productive and profitable things to do to fill your days quite adequately, so he’s way off base here. I’d simply tell him that you’ve got all the profitable work you can handle at the moment and simply don’t have time to do cold calls.

3

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all. Cold calling isn’t what you were hired to do, you don’t like doing it, and you have lots of useful work to do which is actually related to your job description. Also, if you don’t stand up for yourself when unreasonable requests are made, your role in the company could easily morph from web designer to personal slave/doormat. Have something unpleasant to do? Give it to [b[The world’s most deadliest…**! He/she will do it!

4

Hmmm.

Well, you hate it, so the bottom line is you should either tell them you don’t want to do it, or look for another job elsewhere. Life’s too short to be unhappy in your work, and you should be able to find the rate you make elsewhere, likely a higher rate if you sell yourself a bit more (which, not ironically means taking an interest in this selling skill you don’t have an interest in.)

Talk to the boss (with or without the lackey). Don’t bring in the other employee. She isn’t relevant; this is about you and what you want to do.

However…

I disagree with the notion that somehow you’re not making money for the company because you’ll make potential customers unhappy, or not do the billable work you’ve got. In fact, sales is pretty key, typically more key than building the product you’re selling. (believe it or not). These are just rationalizations you’re making to back up your position, but they’re not real. The real reason is good enough, which is that you don’t want to do it. I wouldn’t bring up the “not in my job description” bit either, that just spells “bad attitude.”

I also disagree with the notion that you’ll be stepped all over if you cave in. In fact, I believe that if you’re the one solving the company’s problems, you’ll be the one that people turn to, you’ll be more necessary to the company, and you may be able to increase your compensation by taking on more responsibility.

But all that is aside. If you’re terribly unhappy doing this new task, then tell them you’re terribly unhappy doing it, or look for another job.

5

You are not unreasonable. What is the lackey doing with his 8-hour day besides following you around? He should be spending 7.5 hours doing the cold calls since he likes them so much and has such faith in them. That way there will be consistency in the sales approach and only one person to blame when it doesn’t work.
I hate cold calls too.

6

What is your boss’ take on this? I see that you and your co-worker have discussed setting up a meeting with him, but is he even aware of the situation?

I’m going to venture off into WAG-land here, but I’m thinking that if you’ve been a productive, helpful employee in a small business, then your boss is probably going to bend over backwards to keep you happy. I could be way off on that, but that’s been my experience in these types of situations. It may cheese off LackeyBoy, but if you let the boss know how strongly you feel, he may tell LB to drop it.

So, my opinion? Don’t do it. LB can walk up to as many customers as he likes and give them a swift kick in the nuts, but there’s no reason you should make people hate you too.

If you’d like to get the message across subtly, then tape June 26th and July 6th to your cubicle wall.

7

Does your boss know this is happening?

I once had something similar happen. I did the job for a while. Eventually went to talk to my boss. My boss looked at me, stood up, said “That’s what I hired HIM for, you already have a job” and went and had a chat with him.

He then made my life miserable. See, he’d decided he could have me do my job and his, while he took regular smoke breaks and read Sports Illustrated and he’d gotten called on it. I left shortly thereafter, I hear he didn’t outlast me by much.

8

Well, I don’t know if this will work in an office as small as yours but it’s always worked for me. I always do exactly what the person I report to tells me to or rather, what that person wants (it is sometimes not expressed). After that, if I don’t want to do it, I don’t do it. But I don’t say I won’t do it. I say something like, “sure, as soon as I get this brush fire off my desk.” What I mean is, “when hell freezes over–or when the person who can fire me tells me to do it, whichever comes first.” This only works if you only report to one person. As I’ve aged, I’ve arranged it so I never report to more than one person.

Come to think of it, I should recast this whole message in the past tense because I am now working in an office so small that I don’t have to play these games. Very refreshing.

(Oh, and cold calls are just not very effective. Most people regard them as an intrusion, I believe. But I guess somebody has to be a rainmaker.)

9

You’re being altogether too reasonable. $11.50 an hour is too little to put up with that kind of aggravation. You’re being a valuable contributor doing what you’re supposed to do, and Mr. Tinpot Dictator wants to improve things by having you do something else. I’m guessing he has no idea what you really do, but is fairly convinced that it’s not that hard, so you should have plenty of time left over for doing cold calls.

What the hell is he doing with his time? He’s not doing the web design, tech support, project management or customer follow-up calls. What’s left?

As **Dangerosa **notes, there is the danger that this asshat will make your life miserable if you call him out. Then again, if he does, you can escalate all the way to quitting. You have marketable skills; he apparently does not.

And as to Bill H.'s point that “it’s not in my job description” makes you look like a whiner… I suggest simply framing it up differently. “This is not what you pay me to do. If you want to change what I do, I’m there – but you’re going to need to find someone to do the things I’ll be leaving undone. Which are, by the way, billable.”

10

What is the relationship between you & the boss, the boss & the lackey? What are the politics, what is the chain of command?

You might want to talk to the boss directly before Lackey arranges a meeting.

Telling your boss you hate cold calls, the customers may be put off, etc, are probably bad reasons. Tell him that cold calling is just not your strong point. Your strengths are in production, both technical and project management, and you have plenty on your plate. Sure you’re doing marketing, and some customer contact as well, but marketing and sales are not the same thing.

He should be aware that the 5-person outfit is heavily dependent on your strengths. Changing the job description, with the potential to lose you, is maybe not what he really wants to do. If he is unaware that this could be a problem to him, somehow that idea should be allowed to enter his mind.

PS, IMHO, I think you’re doing responsible work for below-standard pay.

11

And try working up a resume. It should be good for morale. Work with someone knowledgeable about resumes, or a headhunter. You may not realize what your are worth.

12

I would kill to make $11.50 an hour.

ahem.

I would take your concerns to the boss ASAP. Don’t put up with lackey boy any longer than you have to.

13

Ask yourself objectively if the cold-calling is useful. Are there any better marketing strategies? If there’s a good business case for something, I’d recommend putting it together, and going to the bos with it. Whether this works depends how much he trusts you, but at a small company it probably should be tried.

If you decide cold-calling is the best approach, are you the best person to do it? If not, try making the case to the boss “Look, I’m doing X, Y and Z. If I take time away from those, you’re losing money W. Why doesn’t A do the calling instead?”

Otherwise… I don’t know. Refusing is reasonable, but your boss isn’t likely to see it like that…

14

You’re not being unreasonable, not by a long shot. You are being far too accomodating, being a multi-role key worker for that wage. The suggestion from MaryEFoo is good: talk with the boss if you have a good relationship with him and suspect the cold-calling thing comes out of the lackey’s dumb head.
Whatever happens, don’t be forced into taking on more work if you already have too much on your hands, and most of all don’t take on extra roles in that case! I did that mistake when I was working in Liverpool, and ended up mightily stressed.
By the way, you might also want to challenge the lackey’s opinion that pestering uninterested customers while neglecting paying ones is a good policy. What a stupid idea! If it works, you might get too much to handle; if it doesn’t, you risk building up a bad reputation (the word spreads about these things, let me tell you); in both cases, the current work gets less time than it should.

15

Thanks to all for your perspectives on this issue. In the interest of brevity, I didn’t include some additional information in the OP that may or may not be relevant:

LackeyBoy was appointed Operations Manager, a fancy title for getting done what the boss wants done. The boss is also part owner of another business and as such isn’t there all the time. I think he’s grooming LackeyBoy to take over when he retires, and since he just hit 60, that may be coming up very soon. LackeyBoy also handles tech support calls (the ones that require a programmer to troubleshoot), and is in the midst of trying to reorganize the entire office. (Organization was never a strong suit at the company until he came along.) I’ve also laid out all my responsibilities to LackeyBoy numerous times, but his stock answer is “One hour a day isn’t too much to ask of you.” Man, I already don’t have enough hours in the day to finish what I have to do! (I also find his stock answer somewhat degrading - an hour isn’t too much to ask of me, but its apparently too much to ask of anyone else that works there.)

Basically, we’re all overworked. Finding anyone to fit this in their schedule would be nearly impossible.

I plan on meeting with the boss solo when we return to work next week. Being a salesman himself, I know he’s very persuasive. I want to get my ducks in a row before I meet with him, and your responses have helped greatly in deciding exactly how I’m going to phrase things.

I really do feel for LackeyBoy - this is his first real job in his chosen profession, he was given a whole mess of responsibility he didn’t originally account for, I know he doesn’t feel comfortable standing up to the boss for a number of reasons (first job, relatively recent immigrant that has no family in the area so he’s probably insecure about his position). I know I’m lucky to have a job at all in this economy and in this area, but LackeyBoy really makes it sound like he has no idea why I would refuse this additional task or even find it distasteful, since it’s for The Good Of The Company. Sorry kid, I’m a little too much the self-absorbed American to freak out about work 24-7.

What I want to convey to my boss is: I love my job as it stands right now. I know I am an important part of the company. If my job is altered to include doing cold calls to the exclusion of the projects I’m supposed to be working on, then I will quickly grow to hate my job and will look for another. I don’t want to hate my job and I don’t want to quit, and forcing such a small and potentially wasteful task upon me is, I think, an unwise decision. So let’s all work together to find more effective ways of marketing (like spending a little money once in a while on marketing) that pisses off neither our potential clients nor the staff.

Also, the resume suggestion is a good one, both as a morale booster and as a safety net. Although everyone’s responses do make me feel better about my skills and what they’re worth on the open market. :slight_smile:

Thanks again everyone!

16

You are not being unreasonable. Approach the boss. If that doesn’t work, start a job search.

17

“I really do feel for LackeyBoy - this is his first real job in his chosen profession, he was given a whole mess of responsibility he didn’t originally account for, I know he doesn’t feel comfortable standing up to the boss for a number of reasons (first job, relatively recent immigrant that has no family in the area so he’s probably insecure about his position). I know I’m lucky to have a job at all in this economy and in this area, but LackeyBoy really makes it sound like he has no idea why I would refuse this additional task or even find it distasteful, since it’s for The Good Of The Company. Sorry kid, I’m a little too much the self-absorbed American to freak out about work 24-7.”

Hmm… so, is the pressure coming from lackey or boss? Here, you make it sound like it might be lackey is a bit out of his depth and doing the best he can. That could be good; if you come up with a good solution that doesn’t require him to back down, would he go for it? You’d have to do some thinking, but it might be worth it.

18

I am a sales professional and have been a commercial real estate agent for the past 18 years or so. Before that I sold cars for a year or so, and before that I was a radio Shack clerk and manager for 5 years. I have been in sales of one kind or another practically all my working life.

As an agent I have been involved in hard ball negotiations for multi-million dollar properties that that try the patience of a saint and curl your hair. Having said this cold calling is one of the most difficult things that person can do, and I only really did it to a limited extent when I was selling cars.

You are essentially barging in to a person’s workday, unasked and uninvited, and seeing if someone wants your wares. There is nothing wrong with this in principle, as aggressive salesmanship, and “asking for the order”, is an essential part of what makes the big capitalist wheel go round and round, and keeps people like yourself employed via product sales.

The wrong part is that it takes a specific mentality and personality, and goal directed approach to do this professionally and effectively. Most people squirm at the thought of cold calling because it is about as close as you can get to being a door to door brush salesman. It’s a huge psychic toll for those not inclined to be natural and aggressive salesmen. To ask the office web designer and general girl friday to step into this high stress role “for an hour a day” is abusive, ineffective, counter-productive, and generally moronic on so many levels it defies description.

Your soon to be boss is an idiot WRT to what it takes to be an effective salesperson. I don’t think his cavalier and ignorant attitude re this issue bodes well for you, the company or your continued employment there. Brush up your resume.

19

THANK YOU! This is exactly how I feel about the situation. I lack that specific mentality you speak of. More than that, I generally detest that type of mentality. I can’t even fake it which makes me a horrible choice for the task.

When I did telemarket for those brief 2 week stints in the past, I was constantly berated for not being aggressive enough - ‘you don’t want Product X, that’s cool, goodbye’ was my attitude. I’m far too empathetic to the potential customer. This kind of attitude is no good in the cold-call world, and I’ll be damned if I change it now.

My goal is to make my big boss see that I won’t do this not because I don’t Care About The Company - its because its counterproductive, a waste of my time and the company’s time, it runs counter to every aspect of my personality, and I’m just no good at it so why do you want me to do it in the first place?

The boss wants more sales - the lackey decided that cold calls are the way to go. (As far as I can tell.) My first inclination is to suggest a marketing program targeting these cold call clients in an unobtrusive manner - a mailing with our full color brochure offering a discount if they try the demo and order the software. Everybody wins. Just keep me off the damn phone until they want to talk to us.

I’ll post the results of my meeting with the big boss about this on Tuesday, at which point I’ll know if my resume will be getting the brush up it deserves.

20

astro, when I said I detest that type of mentality, I should have followed up with a “no offense” or “nothing personal”. While I dislike being subjected to sales tactics and cannot relate one iota to the sales mentality, I hold no ill will against someone whose strong suit is sales and is sucessful at it, as you apparently are. More power to you and thanks again for putting so eloquently into words my deep fear/abhorence of cold calls.