Day 2: New Job

Day 2 of my new job is complete and today I had a 300% increase in productivity over yesterday! Well, in other words I signed up 3 accounts today whereas yesterday I signed up 1. At first I felt a little let down because I'm supposed to be trying to set up about 2-3 accounts an hour meaning that I should have already set up 12. But here's the thing...yes, there is a thing. For those of you who don't have a clue what I'm talking about (and actually care), I am calling libraries across western Canada, starting with Saskatchewan and directing them to the Solomon's Porch website. My goal is to get them to set up an account so they can buy books at discount prices.

But alas, I have discovered that Saskatchewan's libraries do not buy their own books the way they do in Manitoba. Saskatchewan has 10 major Regional Libraries that each have 20-50 small public libraries under them and these regionals do the buying for all their libraries in their sector. I caught on to this after calling 40 libraries and getting the same response. I finally tracked down the regional buyers and...VIOLA...I had some takers. So the 4 accounts that I have set up thus far are actually going to be buying for their whole territory. So that makes me feel a little better. Not to mention lots less time spent on the phone and a whole lot more area covered (although if you're counting hours to get paid by this isn't necessarily a good thing!). So that in a nutshell is my new job.

I've gotten over my phobia of phones quite quickly and found out that I'm actually pretty good at it. Happy phone voice...that's all you need. And when you realize that the majority of people you're talking to are nice little librarians (they are a dying breed!), it takes some of the danger out of it!