You: "What's this? Two posts in two days??"
Yessir. Though unrelated to yesterday's server move (which was quick and successful, by-the-way), I felt the need to inform you of the newest silliness from "that one company".
This organization is starting up a "work-from-home" program to augment their newest domestic call center. The word is that they're planning to hire up to 140 individuals to call their clients' customers that have forgotten that they owe people money, but is placing responsibility of acquiring a particular piece of telecomm hardware on the hiree him- or herself.
You: "Wow. This is some recession." -or- "What a cheap-ass company!" (or the xkcd version).
The least expensive version of this particular item I was able to find with a quick search was $5 and one of less unscrupulous craftsmanship was $15.
Lemme see if I can organize this in a manner to convey my thoughts on the whole thing the instant I saw it (these are not facts, just assumptions and guesses):
3 week in-house training course ×
40 hours per week ×
$8.50 per hour ×
140 trainees |
$142,800.00 |
| 3 weeks' salary for trainer at $40,000 per year |
$4,615.38 |
3 weeks' salary for trainer's assistant or
paid intern at $30,000 per year |
$3,461.54 |
3 weeks' salary for human resources agent
at $50,000 per year* |
5,769.23 |
Miscellaneous supplies of unknown quantity,
quality, or purpose |
$1,000.00 |
| Total |
$157,646.15 |
| * |
Money saved by having your 140 new employees buy their own equipment on top of the other equipment costs they've already incurred to get the job: $700 (or $2,100 for the well constructed items).
Percentage of total cost of the 140 pieces of equipment out of the hiring and training cost: 0.444% (or 1.332% for the better ones).
And this assumes that they can gather and train all 140 people at once. Unlikely. So the total training costs are going to go up and the percentage the equipment costs out of the whole are going to go down.
What's worse is they (the company) is offering this item for purchase from themselves! It's almost as bad as a fast-food (sorry, "quick service") restaurant making their employees buy their uniforms.
My overall, obfuscated point: If you're a multi-million dollar company, pony up at least five bucks for a piece-of-junk telephone headset so your new employees can do their jobs and get you that fat commission check from your clients for calling their customers in the middle of dinner using their (the employees') own personal telephone you cheap ass-bastards.
-Some Rando