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Gardenialand Comics 1-55 Explained
3 years ago
General
Bally Total Fitness, man, what a joke. My first collections job. They trained me for a week and just threw me out there.
A little explanation. Ballys had a 90 day "Free trial" period, and they'd "get you" on Day 91. I don't know what happened at the clubs. Maybe they intentionally processed the cancellation forms a day late. Maybe they had to mail them to headquarters or fax them and just couldn't prevent them from being processed on Day 91. But people got on the hook for a $50,000 gym membership and nobody wanted to pay for it. If I'd been a more experienced debt collector, I would have been able to pitch credit bureau benefits or something, but all they told us to do is "sell healthy living" and these people had every excuse in the book.
Honestly, I think at least one person really did step in a club on Day 90 and yell "I'm cancelling my membership" and slam the door, believing that everyone knew who they were and what their gym membership number is.
Only one manager to handle all those calls.
She came up with the plan to have us write down all the escalated calls, but it pretty much filled her inbox to the ceiling, so she stopped that.
The woman had a relieved smile when she stepped out to the break area and smoked like a chimney. Considering the nonstop calls she took all day, it's not surprising she was a nervous wreck.
The manager was so busy, you sometimes had to wait an hour for her to have an open line to connect to. And I was supposed to collect money! Kind of hard to collect money when you're sitting with one non paying person for half the day.
Being an inexperienced agent to begin with, I got desperate waiting for a manager and did stuff like fibbing to customers about stuff we'd do for them and I seriously considered transferring them to pizza places and bible phone numbers just to get rid of them. I called myself Smith in hopes of avoiding getting in trouble, but they kept coming back. I wrote down my lies in a journal so I could keep track of them all. I'd tell them anything just to get them off the phone.
They'd call back, and my coworkers would transfer the call to me. Every. Damn. Time.
Everyone wanted to talk to the cancellation department, but they don't actually have a number. Why? Because each customer would call the department day and night until their gym membership contract was completely nullified and removed from their credit report. Nobody gave me the number, so I couldn't give it to anyone. It's probably one person, the CEO.
People made jokes about how my manager had horse teeth, making whinnying sounds behind her back. That's where the horse boss came from.
So yeah, I'm basically like Cupcake. But when she gets no-nonsense, I also partially based her on some African American girls I knew from work.
And they did fire me, by the way. Frankenbob wasn't involved.
Frankenbob's character actually came from a different job. When I worked at the Grandview Sunfresh supermarket, I had a coworker named Wade George. He used to snort coffee beans and make Pillsbury doughboy noises. I also combined his character with a hyperactive childhood friend of mine (the same one that inspired the Jewish mouse). He always did Cookie Monster impressions.
A little explanation. Ballys had a 90 day "Free trial" period, and they'd "get you" on Day 91. I don't know what happened at the clubs. Maybe they intentionally processed the cancellation forms a day late. Maybe they had to mail them to headquarters or fax them and just couldn't prevent them from being processed on Day 91. But people got on the hook for a $50,000 gym membership and nobody wanted to pay for it. If I'd been a more experienced debt collector, I would have been able to pitch credit bureau benefits or something, but all they told us to do is "sell healthy living" and these people had every excuse in the book.
Honestly, I think at least one person really did step in a club on Day 90 and yell "I'm cancelling my membership" and slam the door, believing that everyone knew who they were and what their gym membership number is.
Only one manager to handle all those calls.
She came up with the plan to have us write down all the escalated calls, but it pretty much filled her inbox to the ceiling, so she stopped that.
The woman had a relieved smile when she stepped out to the break area and smoked like a chimney. Considering the nonstop calls she took all day, it's not surprising she was a nervous wreck.
The manager was so busy, you sometimes had to wait an hour for her to have an open line to connect to. And I was supposed to collect money! Kind of hard to collect money when you're sitting with one non paying person for half the day.
Being an inexperienced agent to begin with, I got desperate waiting for a manager and did stuff like fibbing to customers about stuff we'd do for them and I seriously considered transferring them to pizza places and bible phone numbers just to get rid of them. I called myself Smith in hopes of avoiding getting in trouble, but they kept coming back. I wrote down my lies in a journal so I could keep track of them all. I'd tell them anything just to get them off the phone.
They'd call back, and my coworkers would transfer the call to me. Every. Damn. Time.
Everyone wanted to talk to the cancellation department, but they don't actually have a number. Why? Because each customer would call the department day and night until their gym membership contract was completely nullified and removed from their credit report. Nobody gave me the number, so I couldn't give it to anyone. It's probably one person, the CEO.
People made jokes about how my manager had horse teeth, making whinnying sounds behind her back. That's where the horse boss came from.
So yeah, I'm basically like Cupcake. But when she gets no-nonsense, I also partially based her on some African American girls I knew from work.
And they did fire me, by the way. Frankenbob wasn't involved.
Frankenbob's character actually came from a different job. When I worked at the Grandview Sunfresh supermarket, I had a coworker named Wade George. He used to snort coffee beans and make Pillsbury doughboy noises. I also combined his character with a hyperactive childhood friend of mine (the same one that inspired the Jewish mouse). He always did Cookie Monster impressions.
