I’m a little confused as to what happened and why today.

Christmas is on the horizon and even though I’m only buying for immediate family this year (with a few minor extras), I’m going to need a bit of cash in order to maintain my Cool-Big-Sister / Generous-Auntie status come the 25th of December.  With writing and acting sadly not paying the bills as one would wish, we embark upon the task of finding ourselves a Christmas job.

Pretty straight-forward, you would think.  In fact, the perfect thing came up: Christmas Temporary to Permanent Sales Position.  Full or part-time, city centre.

Please remember how they advertised this, or the next part won’t make sense.

I turn up on time at the interview, so smartly dressed I even have a suit jacket (!) and am seen a few minutes after filling out a form.  Mike, as he introduces himself, whisks me through to a nearby office room, asks me to take a seat and then explains the ins and outs of it all.  He lets me know ‘the company’ (ConsultZee) are looking to hire 8-10 people to train them up to become managers of their own teams and offices over the next 6-12 months.

Well, for a start, that threw me a little.  I asked at that point if I was actually in the right interview!  Turns out I was: ‘We’re advertising it as a Christmas position, but we’re mainly looking for people who want to carry on with us after that as well’.  He continued, telling me about the basic sales training I would get, the marketing experience I’d benefit from and how awesome my earning potential would be this time next year.

I struggled again to figure out how I went from envisioning myself as a part-time shop girl (which was a wonderfully underwhelming thought in comparison to this) to suddenly being head of my own mini company.  All the same, I sold myself fairly well and was told I’d be called later that day.

I left feeling rather disappointed, not least because I had had an almost identical interview, again advertised incredibly misleadingly, back while living in London, at London Bridge, offering exactly the same thing within the above time frame.  But the thing these guys don’t seem to understand is – I don’t want to be a sales person.   I honestly don’t want unlimited earning potential, or to be in charge of everyone from Edgar to Bob.  I just want to earn a little and actually enjoy my job; not wake up every morning in a stress because my targets haven’t been met, which, from having worked in similar situations before, is all that ends up happening.

The call came through ahead of time – I had been successful, Hannah congratulated me, and I was to undergo my observation (oh, ye gods) for the full day tomorrow, where I would get to meet clients and customers and the company would see how I was within the role.

That sounded an awful lot like an induction to me and, if I remember rightly, inductions are paid.  This wasn’t.

I politely sent her an email explaining the situation and, as politely as possible, pointing out that what I had read as the title and in the accompanying description for the position, hadn’t been at all what I had been interviewed for that day, and I felt everyone’s time had been wasted as a result.

The fact that this has happened twice now – at completely opposite ends of the country – really worries me.  Might I again turn up for an advertised position, where I’ve been offered £7 an hour to ‘help out in an office’ (which was how the original one was advertised), only to be told I have the potential to earn thousands of pounds and have my own human minions doing my bidding from behind my office chair within a year?  Or shall I go to an interview in my best smart-casual, hoping to be a part of this year’s Christmas Market, only to have my dreams dashed and be told I shall be office-bound and target-driven forever more?

Some people may relish that, but why, with their horribly deceptive campaign, are they targeting the people who really, really won’t?

My mother made an observation about myself and my brother as to why we run into these kinds of trouble.  We are apparently far too honest and trusting, and we expect other people to be as we are.  But does it not say something really concerning about our consumerist society when corporations target people like myself and my brother, who aren’t interested in the material gains that are seemingly so craved by so many, and try to turn us into them?

My advice to others who suffer the same inconvenience as me by coming across these people is this: if you honestly want it, go for it because, never having tried it, I can’t tell you it won’t work out for you because I don’t know.  But if you don’t, don’t let them bully you around.  They seem to be masters of making things so whirlwind and appealing, you barely have time to figure out what it is they want you to sign up for, or what they mean to mold you into, before you’ve said ‘yes’ and signed a contract.