Nomad JuanCa's Report

Hiii, finally i am updating again... what a time without news huh?

Well, i have been working restless this month until today, that i had my first free day in this whole month. uff.. i was so tired.

Well, slowly i have gotten used to these guys that i work, even though they were my co workers, i never really had to interact with them cause i was working only on weekends, so working full time with them have been another experience, i think they are also sort of getting used to me, i have realised that i am really strict, like what they said in AIESEC, and it is funny because i don't ask them more than what they should actually do... arriving on time, fulfil their promises, and so on.. but in such a "flexible" country like Ecuador it is not well seeing.

My main troubles with these guys are....

Gary, is asking allowance to leave early ALMOST EVERYDAY, first days was ok.. but now is getting me really tired. I know his house is far but he has to finish with his schedule. Solution? Last Friday he asked me allowance to leave early again.. and i said. Let's ask everybody and let them decide. Off course they were not happy with it, but as he is a friend they allowed him and i said. Ok, you go early today but you will recover your working time on January 2nd, meaning you will work the whole day until the store closes (10am to 9pm). He accepted, hope he learns.

Shirley, i have been quite close to report her, she is arriving late everyday, sometimes an hour late. Today she arrived an hour and a half late, so i sent her an sms saying. "Shirley you are an hour late, we are waiting for you". I wasn't supposed to be at the store, but i did. I told Rosa, next time you have to come to the store when Shirley ends his turn,... arrive an hour and a half late. So she will understand how it feels. .... I hope she learns too.

Rosa, she says she is pregnant for third or fourth time of a guy who does not want to be father... i mean it sounds so stupid for me...sometimes i think this girl can't close the legs... sorry for the expression but it is something that bothers me. She had taken the costume of escaping and tell me she was going to the Dr but she was with her friends so last time she said "oh i feel bad and i want to go" i told her, ok, this is the last time. Next time you feel bad.. i will call your mother, because you know.. i get worried about you and you feel so bad.. it could be something serious, and i don't want anything bad to happen to you. The other day, she also told me i have to go Juan cause i have an appointment with the Dr. and i told her. You are not going anywhere, if you want to meet your Dr you do it out of working schedule. Looks like she has learnt a bit at least, but she keeps on gossipping about people.. something i hate.

Martha, she was getting same costumes like Rosa one day i let her leave the store for couple of hours and she came back almost 4 hours later. I got angry and that night i left her alone at the store so she would close it. I also made a comment the other day for her to come early cause she was arriving 1h40min belated. Looks like she is learning, hope so.. hope so

Xavier, he is the one giving me more troubles than anyone Elsa's. This guy does not fulfil anything he says, if he says i will be there.. he arrive too late or don't arrive. I have talked to him, told him not to do that and told him i know some of his excuses are not true.... but i think he has not learnt. He is supposed to open the store tomorrow and they whole day didn't show up to pick up the keys, also.. i called him hundred times and never answered his mobile. I had to even call his house to request his family to remind him not to miss the store opening tomorrow. As i am not sure if he will go or not i will have to wake up early tomorrow and call him home again just to make sure everything is fine... if he does not fulfil his responsibility tomorrow... i swear i will report him. I am tired of his though less attitude.

I know many of you might think i am too strict, but if you see it... i am just asking them to do the things the commit to do. Isn't it how it should be?

Sometimes i feel like i am crazy living in a world where your word and commitment have no value, but i hope i will teach these guys.. it does.

Well, this past weekend was a blast!! oh man... what a huge party!!

Well.. i have very short time to tell you about, i just want to say that lot of people was there, we had a great time, even the Alegro people came and joint us, and finally... i don't know how... i woke up naked.... (unbelievable huh? same i though) worst is that i don't remember a shit..... and even worst was that i had to go directly to work next morning with same clothe i had to use at the party... ouuuagh!! it was a disaster... but what a party. (The best of all is that i believe everybody was so drunk that they could not took pictures of me naked... ufff!! that's real luck man!.

Ok, here some pics of that night.

Well i wanted to post more pics but it seems it is going to be impossible, anyways if you want to check more pics you can visit this site

Apart from that i have to say i have been quite sick this week, and still with that i have had to do so many things cause pressure does not stop in my new position, sometimes feel tired of it, but i took it as a challenge and i never give up ... that's my nature.. stubborn ;)

Things at the store are a bit better, the relationship with the guys is better, even though i sometimes get pissed off with them, they seem to me some times so..... inoperative... there are small things they cannot do or they don't have the initiative in doing... damn... nothing like Aiesecers, believe me guys.. i miss working with you.

Ok, it is 2am, gotta go to bed there are still lot of things to do tomorrow.

hey you all, get ready for the alumni congress!!!!

Hi, today i want to talk about the Truth about being promoted to higher position within a company. I know it might sound like a great chance and a lot of luck, but at the end of the day it might be only a big amount of stress, lot of pressure, disappointments, and for sure lot of loneliness.

Since the last time i posted, lot of things happened, we kept up with high sales... but a problem happened, as i said before i am now in charge of the administrator job in the store but my salary is still the same, so i though i could sale and then administrate..... too bad decision.... i learnt the hard way, that i will have to be administrator (without receiving the right salary for it) and then salesman. Why? because i have been a step away of being fired this week. How come?

We kept up with high sales and all that, but the problem was that all the administrator job was getting accumulated, specially the financial reports, i know... it was my mistake, i tried hardly to get forward with it but there was always things to do... and the people of the store were sometimes useless... they wanted me to do everything for them, and as i told them to do things for themselves.... they started to gossip about me... that i was not helping them, that i was so late with the reports and they started to complain with everybody, my past boss, my new boss, everybody except me.

I admit it was my mistake, i don't know what i was thinking of when i kept over 2000 usd in the store without any protection, i just though nothing would happen....but i was the only one thinking like that (so silly i am huh?). On this past Sunday i talked to my new boss and told her about that i was having troubles with the people in the store, and she told me they were complaining and saying that i was too impossitive, i was not helping them and that i was so fucking late with the reports, we talked and agreed that i will dedicate to these reports only and will do no sales. Suddenly on Monday i got a phone call from the logistics person in the headquarters of Alegro PCS and within all the things she asked was this thing... what happened with the report? I told her i was working on it but she got quite angry... and well she was right when i realised i had like 10 days delay. I started to work hard on it. Then i got a message from a friend working at another Alegro PCS store letting me know that she had heard that my boss and my ex boss would come to my store to push me about this reports cause the accountant in the headquarters and the logistic girl had complained about my delay in the reports.

I had to work harder to get some things done before they arrived, also in the mean time i had to solve this internal problem with the people in the store, and had a meeting and talked to them and well tried to make things easier, but nowadays i know that there are some people who just simply don't like me, and that people know they failed this time cause there were unable to kick me out, but i know they will try again.So far i feel i cannot trust none in the store now.... how things changed huh? that's why people say that as you grow.... you get more and more lonely.

Well... about the pressure gotten from my boss and past boss.. we stayed they whole Monday making accounts, and preparing reports, sending money to the bank and at the end of the day we found out that there were 250 usd missing. I almost die.... i knew that none from the store would want to pay a part of it so it all would fall on me. Just right now i am totally broken and have been unable to pay my credit cards.... i though it cannot be... it cannot be.... we made accounts again and i started to check more and more stuff and suddenly, i remembered my first days i had found a mistake in a invoice... it was charged in a credit card but in the invoice it appeared to be in cash. In the hurry to get the money done, my ex boss didn't verified if the vouchers from credit card were same amount of those mentioned in the invoices. So i told her to check that up....she was not convinced but we did and on Monday night we found someone had done same mistake with an invoice of 172 usd. (can you imagine such a "small" mistake?), we found same mistake on day 11th... so then the amount was getting smaller, then we found some other amount missing... at the end of the day it ended up being about 120usd the amount missing. it was still a lot of money for me.

When everybody left i decided to take all the invoices with me to home so i could check them personally, My mother who is certified accountant came home and stayed with me all night, we checked invoices that night until 2am... i was so tired i had to sleep. We woke up at 6am to keep on checking invoices, i was checking December 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and saddest thing was that instead of reducing the amount of missing money it increased 20usd more. Then i though.... it has to be in the first days... where there was more movement, there must be something there.

Flew to the store, and tried to work hard on this... before leaving home mom detected a mistake i had done in a report so i had delivered 25 usd more in a report where they should not be, uff... at least it was something. Working on the store i found out that on December 5th there was same mistake for about 80usd. I talked to my past boss and she said she would come by midday to visit me and check it. Well... we did it, we worked until 7pm. Sent almost all the money to the bank except from days 10, 11 and 12 which i have to save today. At the end we found out a total missing of 26.97 USD. Which i said i would assume, cause at the end it was my mistake not to keep this accounting stuff up to date. I will make withdrawal from my credit card.

After finishing this we also counted, the pre paid phone cards and found following mistakes... there are 3 cards of 5 usd and 4 cards of 10 usd missing, but also there are 3 cards of 3 usd and 4 cards of 15 usd of more. In other words, the 26.97 usd missing is because these guys have done wrong invoices or they have delivered wrongly the pre paid cards. Well... i am planning to recover that during this week but i will have to pay from my pocket today, but i know i will recover it.

After fixing all that i got to know that i was saved from being kicked just by few... cause if we didn't finish with the financial stuff the accountant at headquarters was ready to "paper me", and expression we use when someone try and in fact screw you up in actions, words and also leave it set in paper. I also got to know that even the regional director got to know about this and he was pissed off and disappointed with me, ... but come on, what the hell... he was the same guy, who said he didn't vote for me to be placed in this position so who cares that he is angry or whatever (which i don't believe i think he must be laughing from inside).

Well... these first two days have been so exhausting............. it felt like two weeks in a raw... but finally it is over. Now i have to take a shower and get dressed.... i have to go to the bank to withdraw some money from my credit card. By the way.... sorry for not posting these days but as you can see... i have been a bit busy.

cya,

Hi, this is a short update to tell you all i am facing problems with my new job, this first week have been totally exhausting.... working from 9am until 10pm from sunday until sunday is killing me... i am so tired.

Apart from that the guys from the store kind of dislike the idea i am the new boss (wow... so lucky i am) and they are starting to give me problems, in fact they have been calling everywhere to complain.... tomorrow i have a meeting with them, where they have prepared a "surprise" for me, but they don't know that i know about it.

Damn... why can't life be just normal, that you get promoted and people congratulate you and share your efforts... i have to always face the hard side.... damn!

soon a long report, actually don't know when

My day started early today, got a sms from my past boss saying she would meet me at the store to fix money report as final step for transition... so it was a two days transition... better say 3 hours transition in two days... welcome to the Ecuadorian way. Not like the entire months we have for transition within AIESEC. So we did it and it was all fine. Then the day started, my past boss was very protective, so everybody got used that she would make everything... invoices, money collecting and all that... but the problem is that my boss was totally dedicated to administration duties, she didn't have to sell as well like me. So today i decided... everybody will stand by himself. You sell, you collect the money, you make the invoice and you deliver the package to the client. I am thinking in making them to have individual accountability during their time of working inside the store so we will consolidate it once they are finishing their working schedule, looks like good idea, lets see.

Today we sold about 40 mobiles, i think it is a record... but there are some problems now... there is this promotion who is hot selling right now and the mobiles inside this promotion are ... totally gone... i think i have only 4 for tomorrow, which is nothing, we don't even have plastic bags!! That's a big problem for tomorrow and worst will be that as it is Sunday there will be none working on headquarters to help us and once they realise the problem will take them 1 or 2 days to send the mobiles we require.

mmm... don't know what to do... i beg God will help me out tomorrow...

Talking about God, i always think that when someone talks to us about him (God) it is a message from him directly, it happened today... the neighbour next to me who is living permanently in Italy is coming back for vacations, and today she called me to chat (like never before cause we were not friends when she left .... so many years ago) and talked about the differences about living in Parma and Guayaquil and so on, she was quite a difficult neighbour when she left... and there she found God (to express it in a way) and became protestant, she is a totally different person now, quite opened, calmed, not aggressive and thankful. That's what i like about christians... they learn to be thankful for everything and find good reasons to keep on moving forward.. well the things we talked about and i think God wanted to tell me were...

- One has to always thank for everything that happens in life, there are always tests before good things happen. Like my work, i was thinking in giving up cause i was tired of it and then... they promote me.

- People can change, none is so bad not to be changed by LOVE and even more if God's Love.

- One has to forgive people, if we want to be forgiven by God. Does not matter what someone does to you, you should pardon him/her 70 times 7.

There were several more things coming in during the conversation, i cannot put them all as it is 2.30am and i am still here and have to work tomorrow,... but everything was about related to my life, if you read my previous posts.. you will get to know why. The last thing i remember this conversation reminded me was...God is always there, does not matter if you feel it or believe it, he is always there, it is just us that we don't see or don't want to see him in everything happening around us.

Have a good night.

I bet you cannot imagine what happened to me today....

It all started when my boss called in me in the morning to remind me i had some debts to pay at the store (3 usd), i was sleeping... ok ok... i was half sleeping, my plans for today were to deliver the application of a client for one of our internet plans and then perhaps visit Mom and relax until tomorrow... i have been working the whole week, one needs time for us.

The around 10.30am i got a phone call from our supervisor (as i work for a mobile phone company you cannot imagine how many phone calls to my mobile i get everyday). This supervisor is called Sabrina, she is the boss of my boss (Raquel), i answered and

• she told me: Juan i need you to go to the store right now.


• I asked... ok but what happened?


• She said: nothing, you just have to be there, i am on my way.


• I said: ok but is there anything wrong?


• She said: don't worry it is nothing bad.

I called my boss just to see if i could get any more info ( i though... shit.. what the hell did i do?) she didn't tell me anything. I arrived to the store, everything was normal... people were selling... i had nothing to do there...just wait. Half an hour later our supervisor arrived, together with Nancy from (HR) and Jennifer (Logistics) they talked to Raquel, looked at me and called me. I arrived and they told me

"Juan, since today Raquel will be moved to the store of Mall del Sur as Administrator there, that means that since today you are termporarily in charge of the Administrator position in this store."

I said.. what? what? what?. So that was it, i am the current administrator of the store, i have under my charge 2 internal salesmen, 2 external salesmen and 2 client service guys. It looks like when i was LCP, almost same amount of people, but AIESECers are easy to manage than these. It is going to be a challenge.

Rosa, is internal salesmen, or better say woman. She is a good in sales but we all believe she is helped by Raquel all the time, so she always have MUCH more sales than any other person in the store. Apart from that, it is a girl with lot of internal problems, have lied about being pregnate, is always gossiping about others, being the spy in the store for Raquel, and in clear opposition to Martha.

Martha, is internal salesmen, she is also good in sales but she is much more agressive. Perhaps it depends on the education. She is a money focused girl, i mean she is very ambitious (which is not bad) but you have to fight, almost literally for your clients with her. She is also egoist, like any person who was growth with limitations and gained everything in life by her own effort. So she does not like to share. Have internal problems with the guy she is living with.

Shirley, she is external salesmen and actually the best of them. She is mother already and hard worker girl, finds time for everything, children, home, work, and a problematic husband. But she is very strong, she reminds me my mother, giving their best all the time to keep on going forward. She is like me in the middle of all the gossips in the store, something i want to finish.

Xavier, external salesmen. He is an smart guy, good salesmen with lot of potential, but he has a problem.Useless syndrom. I mean he is the kind of latin guy who is always slow, he has to eat before doing anything and when doing it, he always look for the more confortable way to do it. Something Raquel has supported, both external are suppoused to sell outside the store but they are doing right now mostly inside sales, for exemple Xavier, stayed inside the store the whole day today. That's not the core of their work, i want to change it, but it is a sensible thing.

Gari, Client Service, i will be in charge of him but he is quite a cool guy, sometimes too... fast with girls in the store even though he is married with a very jealous woman, but well.. it is his life. I don't expect much problems with him

Wilson, Client Service, he is a quite a cool guy, calmed, seems to be sincere, easy going and we have found things in common like music, i think we can be good friends. Pitifully he is sort of strongly interested in Rosa, and Xavier too... so lets see what happens. I also don't expect troubles with Wilson.

Well that's my team, there are things to solve yet. Raquel left all in a mess and had to go inmediatly to Mall del Sur where they fired the Administrator and two salesmen because they were robbed inside the store a week ago. It is something silly, they were robbed the pre-paid phone cards.... ALL. Which means about 2.800 USD. Something i still don't understand. How can someone lost so many pre-paid cards. Not everybody is happy with this punishment and i was told about it.

I went to the Alegro PCS headquarters to fix my stuff with my client and took the chance to say thanks to Jose D. who is our Regional Manager, to say true i almost never talk to him, i used to talk to him before, but since he arrived to that position everybody started to say he has two sides (i have had many of two sides bosses in my life...) so i preferred to keep my distance, just hi and bye. Today i decided to go there and thank him for the opportunity (a bit of politics makes no bad). and he answered.

"Don't thank me, you are lucky it was your turn. Here at least i disagree with some measure taken from High levels of the organisation, there is some nice and good people who were fired and that left with a not so good taste. In any case, i will try to help him (to the Administrator of Mall del Sur). About you, calm down, enjoy your time in that position... until it ends because we are planning to give that store in cocession to another company requesting a franchise, this company is qute big, it is actually the biggest distributor of Movistar so you have a good chance to join them or if you want you can be moved to another of our stores, we'll see"

Oh yeah, Jose D was always so motivational, it is something that flows from deep of his heart. I learnt in Diplomacy about being in Russia to stay always cool, so i just said... ohh.. yes.. you are right.. it is true... i am also sorry for what happened to them. yes you are right Jose, yes... yes... oh wow.. what a big company.. ok, ok. well i guess it got to go.

When back to the store, and there was lot of things to do.. i am not still an administrator for them i am a salesmen in charge of the adminsitration of the store which mean i have all the responsibilities of the administrator and all the pressure it means, also the financial liassions ... but not the salary. oh wow... what convenient for them. I still have to keep on selling, so i means i might have to work from monday to sunday and see how can i keep up with my sales and help the others to increase their sales too while keeping their work properly.

My first thing will be to be updated witht he reports during weekend and also told everybody to meet on monday midday and bring with them suggestions about the way we can improve our work. Let's see how it goes. Rosa told me that Raquel might take her with her to Mall del Sur, uff that could be a problem less for me. If you have advices or any suggestion.. let me know. i am all ears.