Bait and Switch (21 page)

Whats good fam its your boi JR . . . Check us out you wont be sorry. Plenty of pics about $300 in U.S. dollars, but he has to spend $75 to $80 a and video, and guess what? We need new talent so you ladies in Washington DC, month for the products he sells—for a net wage, I calculate, of Baltimore, Virginia, Atlanta, Ga. and Houston, Texas that are interested in joining our team and ready to make some real money send me a short email along around $11 an hour.

with a photo or two.

AFLAC, however, is a highly reputable and successful organization, as far as I know. Everyone has seen its irritating comI have also been solicited to sell insurance against identity mercials, in which two people are complaining about their theft, and spent twenty-five minutes on the phone listening to a insurance problems while, completely unnoticed by them, a duck recorded "conference call" in which two male voices concurred keeps proclaiming the solution:
AFLAC.
In preparation for my happily that the problem is "growing exponentially." I got a bite interview, I visit the AFLAC web site, where I learn that the from Melaleuca, a United Kingdom–based firm specializing in eco-product is "supplemental insurance" to round out the no-doubt friendly cleaning products and cosmetics and now seeking sales inadequate health insurance your employer provides. Then I turn reps in the United States. In a phone conversation, Melaleuca's to Google and Nexis, where I hit pay dirt after less than thirty Steve assured me that "it's not one of those multilayer minutes: AFLAC has had problems with the training and marketing-type jobs where you have to put a lot of money up management of its sales force. I will stun my interview er with front. It's really a matter of spreading the word in your social life."

this information, followed by the unique management

"I get paid just to spread the word?" I asked.

contribution I am prepared to make. Furthermore, there are

"That's right; there's no pressure to perform. It's a word-of-suggestions that AFLAC has overplayed the duck. It's fine for mouth-type business."

attracting initial attention, but you need a more mature and I briefly try to envision a social life in which the subject of serious approach if you're selling insurance. That's me—serious cleaning fluids would naturally arise on a regular basis, but the and mature—the antiduck.

money aspect is less than appealing. Steve says he puts twenty It's a gorgeous drive over the Blue Ridge Mountains to hours a week into selling Melaleuca products and grosses Staunton, where the AFLAC office is located, but my perilous contains, in addition to a large photo of the post-9/11 Manhattan speed of fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit allows for no skyline, is a rubber ducky on what appears to be a receptionist's scenic appreciation. At the last minute before leaving desk.

home, I discovered a dim, archipelago-shaped stain on one What ensues is not what I would call an interview. Larry offers me sleeve of the tan suit, which required a quickie home dry-a blue folder containing colored sheets of paper starting with one cleaning session, but I manage to arrive only five minutes late.

titled "A Career Opportunity with AFLAC" and starts reading The office occupies a far more humble rural site than I ex-aloud from his own folder while I attempt to follow along in mine.

pected: half of a one-story building across from a rundown This seems to be the preferred method of corporate communication: shopping center. Only one car is parked outside, and its vanity reading aloud, either from paper or a PowerPoint, while the plate reads "AFLAC."

person being read to reads along too. Is there some fear that no Despite my tardiness, Larry greets me enthusiastically and one will pay attention unless at least two senses—auditory and ushers me into a windowless room containing a table and a half-visual—are engaged simultaneously? Occasionally, Larry departs dozen chairs. To enhance the entombment effect, he shuts the from the script, to tell me, for example, that although AFLAC is door behind us, although, oddly enough, there is not a soul

"huge," that is not something they dwell on anymore: "You know, around to disturb us. Where is the bustling, high-energy team after Enron and WorldCom, we don't emphasize the bigness.

promised by the AFLAC web site, the "fun" atmosphere and We're a family-run operation."

instant camaraderie? Larry is about fifty, with pale blond hair, Now to the serious part, beginning with a sheet titled "Immediate wearing a white shirt embossed with the word
AFLAC
and a Income/Paid for Past Efforts/Lifestyle." On the matter of yellow tie featuring many small ducks. Maybe it would be un-lifestyle, "I don't try to turn people into perfect AFLAC robots," he wise to bring up the company's alleged overreliance on its assures me, though the tie, the shirt, and the vanity plate would barnyard spokesperson, since the only decoration the office seem to suggest that the botlike approach can't hurt. There is a reason for this unusual level of tolerance, he explains: "If we were all mine could be, for all I know, the eleventh of the day.

the same, how could we open up new markets?" Also, I can work as On to the money part and a blinding sheet of numbers titled hard or as little as I want; it's up to me how much I want to

"Income Illustration" and showing that even a complete slacker

"produce." Low production, however, could lead to his flooding can make $32,000 in her first year through a combination of my market area with fresh, competing salespeople, and with this commissions, bonuses, and policy renewals. Also, Larry ad-libs, "we he gives me a narrow look. I will want to hit the ground have fun"—at company-sponsored trips to destinations like Las running, he warns, because the first few months' sales count for a Vegas, Honolulu, and San Diego. As he returns to the numbers, lot.

highlighting here and there in brilliant yellow-green, I ponder my role I remind him that, as I wrote in an e-mail, I am not interested in this "interview." Looking interested would seem to be the main in a sales job; I want to
manage
salespeople—motivate them, thing, and I try on various faces meant to convey agreement, mentor them, and work with them to devise a strategic approach to concern, fascination. I must look as freakish as Lisa—the volunteer our allotted terrain. This, I decide, is the moment for my with the ever-changing expressions at the McLean Bible Church—bombshell: the articles in the business literature arguing that just sitting here trying on masks.

AFLAC has had problems managing its sales force. But if Business can only get better, he's telling me. Why? Because health Larry is impressed by my knowledge, he does a good job of insurance deductibles and co-pays are rising steadily, and because concealing it, continuing on unfazed like a tour guide who's been

"people have less disposable income than at any other time,"

through this museum a few too many times. Yes, yes, I can be a meaning they can't handle those deductibles and co-pays manager, though this seems to require recruiting my own themselves. I nod cheerily at the good news. Here we are, in a weird salespeople to manage, just as he is apparently doing right now.

corporate niche created by the total failure of the American There are in fact about ten blue folders spread out neatly on the health-care system, and I am grinning with delight at the table, attesting to a strenuous series of "interviews," of which deepening misery.

There occurs now the kind of physiological breakdown that could just make an appointment for the second interview right now?"

sink a genuine interview. A headache starts pinching in from my So, just like that, I've made the cut.

right temple; my throat begins to itch. When I break into an uncontrollable fit of alternating coughing and sneezing, he DESPITE THE PROMISE that this second interview, which occurs two eventually notices and allows me to get some water from the weeks later, will be our chance to "get to know each other," it cooler just outside the room. Either I'm allergic to something in proceeds exactly like the first one. Larry, again wearing an the conference room, or carbon monoxide is being pumped in AFLAC shirt and duck tie, leads me through the still entirely through the vents. Fortunately, we have reached the end of unoccupied outer rooms to the windowless conference room, where the sheets in the folder, and he asks whether I have any questions.

the table is again stacked with blue folders. "I have a present Yes, I do, like what are we doing in this windowless room while the Blue Ridge Mountains undulate beckoningly out-for you," I tell him—a new hardcover book about the side? But instead I ask him something guaranteed to please: advertising agency that created the spokes-duck, sent to me by Has he made any inroads into the University of Virginia, which is a friend in the publishing industry whom I had told about my Charlottesville's largest employer? No, he says, and looks at me possible AFLAC job. I have read the crucial duck section, in for the first time with something approaching interest.

which a young ad man wanders the streets of Manhattan, muttering Good, I tell him. I have lots of contacts there.

"AFLAC, AFLAC" over and over to himself, until, in a The next step? Some of the people he is interviewing this stunning epiphany, he realizes he sounds like a . . . But Larry is week will be invited back for a second interview—"that's too baffled by this departure from the script to thank me. He where we get to know each other." He will let me know next glances at the cover, then pushes the book aside with one finger, week if I've made the cut. I tell him I'll be away next week but will as if rejecting a bribe.

try to check my e-mail, at which point he says, "Well, why don't we Out of one of the blue folders (and this is a more advanced set than last time), he takes a bunch of stapled pages titled "Fast be offering me, including "L.E.A.S.E. Secretary and Approach Track to Management" and begins highlighting phrases as he Memorization (DSC 1-on-1 Reinforcement)," and "Account speaks them. I can become a CIT (Coordinator in Training) if I Servicing, Billing Reconciliation, and NOI Networking."

produce "a minimum of $50,000 AP" in six months, open a There will also be training in cold-calling, Larry adds, though minimum of six new accounts, and recruit at least one other this is not written down anywhere, perhaps because a cold call is salesperson. Continuing with the "six" theme, I will have six the salesperson's equivalent of a cold douche; most people would responsibilities as a CIT, including "attending quarterly CDIs do almost anything to avoid having to make one. I note that the with the DSC, RSC, and SSC." I must in addition acquire calendar, in which almost every weekday is now highlighted, an insurance broker's license and become "Flex and indicates both full and new moons, and cannot help but wonder SmartApp Certified." Any questions?

what use an AFLAC associate might make of this information.

Now he produces a Xeroxed calendar for July and begins He has taken on an increasingly bosslike tone, which I highlighting the days I will spend in training classes, some of struggle to interpret positively. In the first interview, he was which will be conducted in another Virginia city, where selling the job; now he's directing it. There is the need to clear my AFLAC will pay for my motel room, assuming I am willing to share calendar immediately, the need to get cracking on the broker's a room. A laptop will be required.

exam, which will require mastery of a huge book. (Larry shows the

"Will the company give me one?" I inquire.

book to me, though I will have to buy my own, and even he admits

"No, but you'll make the money to pay for it in no time it's "boring.") "I hope you realize you've got the job if you want it,"

at all."

he says out of the blue, with nothing more than a quick upward So, not counting the laptop, that's an initial investment of glance from the folder in front of him.

about $1,900 for the broker's license and courses leading up to He should smile at this point. He should shake my hand it. We move on through the content of the courses AFLAC will and offer a hearty "welcome to the team." But Larry seems to be too emotionally defended to pause for celebration. In fact, he corporation to the general public, apparently on no other basis follows up with an implied put-down. Waving dismissively at a than my ability to sit still and listen meekly for two long and printout of my résumé, he says, "It's not about this. I don't even dreary hours. Or maybe I should give myself more credit for understand what this is about"—as if my career had been in appearance and simulated enthusiasm; it's hard to say. That, astrophysics. "I make my judgment based on how a person anyway, is the bright side. On the dimmer side, this "job" offers communicates. Whether they have people skills. Whether no salary, no benefits, not even an office with fax machine and they're a good listener." Then he gives me a little nod, for in-phones. I might as well have applied at Wal-Mart and been given a deed I have been a good listener, though this would seem to be a pushcart full of housewares to hawk on the streets. I never call pretty minimal requirement for an interviewee. He returns back, nor does Larry call me.

seamlessly to the need to "hit the ground running" and "make a total commitment." Any questions?

THERE ARE THOUSANDS—tens of thousands—of "jobs" like this

"What about health insurance?"

available to corporate rejects and malcontents. In 1995, 31

"We're independent contractors; we get our own."

percent of the American workforce found themselves in some So he has people selling health insurance who have none of their sort of "nonstandard" employment, characterized by a lack of own? More tactfully, I ask whether I will have an office to work out benefits and weak bonds to their ostensible employers, and the of.

number continues to grow.
47
Many of these people are pink-

"Umm, our associates use their home offices."

collar temp workers and blue-collar day laborers—lawn workers We shake hands and I set out to drive home, but some kind and housecleaners, for example.