If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again

*6 min read*

I’m back, back at work surrounded by a fantastic group of people who have welcomed me in with open arms. As I walk towards the computer to clock myself into work, I can’t help but feel excited because I am back at work. How often do you find someone saying that they are happy to be at work? It’s a rarity, I know.

I was recently hired at Rogers a couple of months ago before the pandemic hit, and believe you me, getting this job was no easy task. I still think about how long it took me to get employed here. It took over 25 applications. Yes, I said 25 applications. I know most of us would have probably stopped applying after the second or third time, but not me. I’m determined to get what I want, and I will stop at nothing to get it.

It took a job fair for me to get in finally. Two job fairs were going on within that same week: one on Tuesday and another one on Thursday. As I was traveling to the Tuesday fair, I had the mindset of returning to the Thursday fair because that is how determined I was to get into Rogers. If I didn’t succeed at first, I would be back to try again.

I remember the day of the fair like it was yesterday because of the pain I experienced. I decided to dress formally so that I would look appealing. Everything I had on was lovely (you would have stopped and stared, trust me). I was wearing a black golf shirt, light grey dress pants, and a sweet black belt to hold my pants up, but there was one problem – my shoes were too tight.

The job fair was in downtown Toronto and by the time I left my house to go to the fair, it was far too late to turn back around. I was screwed. As I walked to the bus stop in these tight shoes, I had to walk on my tiptoes because of the pain. The tightness of the dress shoes began cutting away at the back of feet, and by the time I got downtown, my white Nike socks had blood on them (it was a madness).

The pain was excruciating, and I almost turned and went back home, but my godfather’s motivation made me stay downtown. My godfather Johnny told me to muscle it out and go home right after I finished at the fair. As we spoke on the phone, I knew that I couldn’t let him down, so I had to stay and at least try to get in. After all, he did fix up my resume for me (appreciate him a-lot for this) so it would have been a waste if I just turned around and went home. His words brought back my determination and even though I was in excruciating pain, I focused my attention back to the job fair.

I remember seeing over 300 plus people at the fair, and I instantly thought that not even half of us would be getting in. The odds were definitely against me, but I had to persevere. There were two separate interviews, a group interview and a one on one interview that you would move onto with a store manager if they liked you. I guess they wanted me because I ended up moving on to meet my store manager. He hired me a couple of days later, and man, when I got in, it was the best feeling in the world because of what I had to go through that day. I didn’t even tell anybody about my shoe situation at the interview because I wanted to stay focused and locked in.

I thank my manager a-lot because I was a young 19-year-old at the time that had no experience in the field whatsoever. I didn’t know how to be a salesman or how to be Rogers’s employee, but I guess he saw something in me, and I appreciate him for that. I believe only 10-15 people got taken from the 300 plus people who were there, and I am happy to be a part of that group of people.

The Life at Rogers

With being a Rogers employee, there is a lot to learn, some of which I cannot go into full detail with or else we will be here all day. Still, you need to know how to communicate, you need to adapt to the changes taking place, and you need to have a basic understanding of the systems.

Communication is probably the most important thing. This job requires you to communicate; if you don’t know how to speak, you won’t make it very far. You need to be able to express yourself accordingly so that customers understand you. It is also crucial that you have an understanding of all the changes taking place. Customer plans and promos are continually changing day by day and week by week. If you are not mentally prepared or are unaware of what is going on, it is easy to mess up things up and then you will have an angry customer trying to take your head off your body.

Every customer has a different situation going on within their accounts, so if you are going to perform a hardware upgrade or a price plan change, you better know what you are doing. Lastly, you need to understand the systems. The rogers’ systems are very complex and it takes a tremendous amount of training to understand them properly.

Unfortunately for me right now, training sessions are not running because of COVID, so I’ve had to learn from hands-on experiences in live scenarios with actual customers. Either way, it is still training, and I progressively get better each time I step foot in the store, but I cannot forget that there is still much work to be done.

My co-worker Mauricio gave me a piece of advice that has plagued my mind. He said it is either you sink, or you swim with this kind of job. It has plagued my mind because I cannot afford to slip, there isn’t time. Therefore, I will not sink, so I am continually looking for ways to improve myself as an employee. This job has been good so far, and I know that it will get better if I stay focused.

I do hope that better times are ahead.