A long hard, look at myself. Long Entry.

Hello All,

Well, as you can see this is my third entry for today. I just feel like writing, I guess.

I had my sales training today at work. It was really useful and I am glad that I went. Plus, they took us all out to Cheesecake factory. Gotta love that. I had the grilled halibut with brocoli. They gave me so much brocoli that I thought I was eating a forest. But at least I can say that I got my recommended serving of vegetables. I also had the Mudd Pie for desert. It was so good.

I chose working for Enterprise because I need sales experience, and they have a very good training program. They work with us a lot and I need to prove to myself so that I can sell well.

In our sales training they taught us how to sell ourselves for promotion as well as improving our sales stats with customers. My sales stats aren't that bad, but I know that I can do a lot better. I have some stiff competition that is kicking my ass. And I wanna beat them. Really bad.

There are two reasons why I'm not beating them. The first reason is myself. I have low self confidence on the job, although I am improving every day and getting stronger. I am also afraid to succeed and afraid that people won't listen to me and reject me. Because I have faced rejection before and I got scared. I am used to people not taking me seriously and I have to start making people listen to me.

Everyone gets laughed at and rejected at some point in their lives. People lose at some point. So I just have to accept that sometimes I am gonna hit rough spots. And as long as I keep pushing and trying, I will succeed. I remember when I was a telemarketer in Spain how many calls I would make. I got rejected and laughed at so many times. But eventually I did get a lead or two. Luckily selling at Enterprise isn't as impossible as finding serious investors willing to divulge personal information over the phone.

The second reason why I haven't been doing well is that my branch manager hasn't been training me as well as he should. He is dedicated to doing his job well and making sure that we make our quotas in the office. But he wasn't dedicated to developing me as an employee and listening to my input. in fact, he was doing everything for me. He might as well have been wiping my ass and spoon feeding me. And as a result I was starting to feel miserable and useless.

So I finally stood up to him and expressed that I should be writing more rental contracts and dealing with the customers. Of course then he told me that everything has to be perfect because we're in a small branch. I felt so insulted that he didn't trust my judgement.

So I decided that I was gonna stand up for myself and not back down and I went to the top manager and told him in an email that I was unhappy and didn't like being babysat. I am a very hard worker, willing to go the extra mile, and that if Enterprise can't develop me as an employee then surely some other company will.  I also told my district manager and his boss.

And they completely agreed with me and told me that they hired me because of my attitude and work ethic. They also went to my branch manager and told  him that his promotion depends on how well I do. They care about how good I make him look and how well I do. And if I am not the one bringing in satisfied customers and high sales, then he won't get promoted. And I am willing to work hard and make him look good. So I was left to my own devices yesterday and guess what ? Yeah, I made mistakes but I also got all of our cars rented out took our cars to get repaired.

I am glad that I realized that I was unhappy and stood up for myself and did something about it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be making any progress in my career.

Now I will get better training and take on the challenge of bringing more profits into the branch. Being fearless, hearing lots of "no's", building a rapport with all my customers, and not prejudging my customers will help me get there.

Okay, that's enough for now. I'll continue later. Ciao.