The Pole’s Revenge – part two

They can get fucked.

– The Pole

 

Following the profit share debacle in 2009, and despite Graeme’s threats, he heeded the advice of the ASB assembly and didn’t quit.  He didn’t do anything that gave Electrix a chance to sack him.  A text message on 17 March, 2009, tell Stevo he can have the customer list, went unanswered.  Stevo worked at a rival wholesaler in a suburb twenty minutes from where Graeme worked.  By virtue of convenience, electricians shop locally.  The customer list might’ve been interesting to Stevo but it was largely useless.

Throughout the following weeks, the Pole regularly offered his sentiment, they can get fucked, and I couldn’t argue with him. 

The electrical wholesale industry can be frustrating.  It’s repetitive as many jobs are.  Price drives the customers away and draws them in, as does the attitude of branch staff.  Selling to electricians is a constant grab for cash.  The supply chain is difficult.  Many suppliers are based in Melbourne or Sydney.  A large percentage of their products are imported.  There are gaps in supply.  Some electricians, if they can’t find a product on the shelf will go elsewhere.  In Brisbane there are eight rival companies with branches scattered across the region, all vying for the same customers.  Electricians have multiple accounts with different wholesalers.  Total loyalty is rare.

It is a cranky way to make money.  There are unavoidable clashes with customers and suppliers.  Arguments are common among staff.

A good branch is constantly busy, stock arriving each day at random times.  It goes out the same way.  A good branch can turn over six million annually.  There is money to be made.

When I started in electrical wholesaling in 1998, account customers were paying up to $10 for a two-gang power point, a piece of Bakelite you plug appliances into.  When I left the industry in 2007, two-gang power points were selling for $6.50.  A lot of products, common items like switches, fluorescent lights and circuit breakers were driven down in price because of the profligacy of wholesalers.  Many branches rely on rebates to make money. 

I worked at two wholesalers across a decade, Resource and Electrix, both difficult companies to work for.  In 2002, after four years, I hated working for Resource.  I’d been shafted in 2001, demoted from manager to sales rep at Geebung branch.  Two years later, when I quit and went to university, Electrix offered me a casual job.

The wholesaling industry attracts a lot of people, many who don’t have the aptitude or opportunity for tertiary education, some who plainly aren’t suited to the job and others who revel in the thrill of sales, the building of relationships and the rush of getting deals done.  There are people who don’t have much education beyond high school but are savvy enough, an aptitude for people skills, to perform above and beyond expectations.

The industry also attracts a lot of cunts.

There is no loyalty in wholesaling, from customers or suppliers.  The harried grab for cash becomes merciless.  Everything is a sale, dollars, another addition to the bottom line.  Sales reps servicing the industry offer beer, gear and a whole lot of love for an order.  Employees at branch level do the same.  Electricians pretend to accept that love then complain madly about an invoice that was two dollars too much.

When an electrician walks into a branch he wants to walk out with something free, a pen, a stubby cooler, a line level.  It doesn’t matter.  He wants, he gets.  If he doesn’t, forget about the cheque.  And that isn’t a criticism.  The average electrician can spend about $60,000 at a wholesaler annually.  Companies like TH Cock can spend hundreds of thousands.  Other companies involved in new high rise buildings or hospital upgrades can spend millions.

It is important to keep every customer satisfied, no matter how big or small.  I tried to treat them all the same, no matter how much they spent.

There are a lot of great people in wholesaling, mates of mine, but they get lost, forgotten, a name on a report, the number of sales done in a day, a quote won or an order of grand profit, all expected key point indicators of performance.

Sales clerks, counter jumpers, the good people of wholesaling, people like Graeme and Stevo often get lost in the grandeur of the grab.  For guys like that, it’s profit share that lifts the existence of a counter jumper from server to the served.  When that moment is denied, it’s the cunts that prosper, and the industry attracts a lot of cunts.

When I quit Resource in 2003 to go back to university, it was the ultimate fuck you, pure vengeance and revenge.  Two weeks before I quit I’d been asked to open a new branch at Wacol, a forty minute drive from where I lived.

The management position included a four thousand dollar pay rise to $42,000.  Ever since the demotion and having my performance as sales representative criticised badly after two months, I had plotted to leave.  Not being an electrician meant I couldn’t get a job with most suppliers.  I needed an out and found it with study.  When I quit, it set back their plans by six months.

I had my revenge.  It took a long time to get.  In 2009, I told the Pole to wait, others did too.  In the weeks after the profit share debacle, he remained angry, no smiles, the depression so bad he said he didn’t want to watch porn.

That’s a man filled with hurt.

Electrix had 88-thousand dollars in the pool for profit share in 2009.  According to company guidelines, the manager gets 35 percent, the sales rep and the second in charge get 15 to 20 percent and the rest is distributed at the discretion of the manager. 

Of the 88-thousand dollars in the pool, about 30-thousand would go to the manager.  The rep and 2IC shared about $21,000.  That left about 27-thousand for distribution among the remaining staff four staff.  There was no financial reason for giving the Pole $500.

At Electrix, the manager decides profit share.  If he likes your performance, the bonus is good. If he doesn’t, you get less.  The Pole is a good worker, knowledgeable and dependable.  One possible fault, one he’d admit, is he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.  The reality can be different.  He often suffers fools rudely and upset a customer when I worked with him, a big, genial giant who wore navy blue shorts and button up shirt.  The man refused to deal with the Pole.  ‘Anyone else but you,’ he’d say.

Then they’d argue about the reasons, allegedly a forgotten order of specialised downlights.  The Pole ordered the lights and they didn’t turn up on time.  The gap in supply angered the customer and he never forgave the problem.  It wasn’t the Pole’s fault, but it didn’t matter.  No other electrician, when I worked with the Pole, had issues like that.

The Pole’s argument with the customer is not unique to wholesaling.  Everyone working in wholesaling argues with customers.  Only a liar would suggest otherwise.  Arguments happen all the time, with suppliers too.  It is an industry that relies totally on transport, overnight planes, trucks from the other side of Brisbane, products from overseas.  Getting into an argument when gear doesn’t arrive on time is easy.

Like all industries, electricians pick their favourites, people they relate to more than others, people they can trust.  It takes one incident to ruin trust.

Consider this:

In 2005 a customer called John walked into Electrix on a Saturday morning, wanting a BR1M metering enclosure.  The enclosure, which is found on the flanks of most houses, is big enough to hold the meters that read electricity usage, safety switches and circuit breakers.  The going rate for all customers was $110, a net profit for Electrix of four dollars.  I put the enclosure on the counter and punched in the sale.  When John looked at the invoice he got angry.

‘That’s not the right price,’ he said.

I’d sold hundreds of enclosures at $110, to him too.  It was the standard price.  I told him.  John hit the bench with the meaty part of his right fist.  ‘You fucking cunts are ripping me off,’ he yelled.  He pointed at Wayne, my colleague who was sitting inside the office, looking at us, wide eyed, the fluorescent lights shining in his glasses.  ‘He quoted me a price,’ John yelled.  ‘Go ask him.’

I went inside the office.  Wayne didn’t want to get up.  ‘Just give it to him at the price he wants,’ he said.

‘What price did you quote him,’ I asked.  Wayne told me the price.  ‘You’re fucking kidding,’ I said. 

‘Just get rid of him,’ Wayne said.

John was agitated at the counter, jaw set, eyes narrowed, when I returned.

‘You’re right,’ I said to him.  ‘The price is wrong.’  I gave him a saccharine smile.  ‘Wayne quoted you $109 for the enclosure, not $110.  I’ll do a credit for the dollar.’  Eyes at the screen, I ignored his confused satisfaction that quickly shifted to shame.  Red-faced, he signed the invoice and the credit note.  I put them on the enclosure and pushed it across the counter so he had to grab it before it fell to the floor.

‘Next time you come in here you ask for someone else to serve you,’ I said.

John lifted the enclosure, gathered his paperwork and left.  He never came back, not when I worked there.  It had to be embarrassment, the ridiculous commotion over a dollar, wonderment how he could be so petty.

Consider another example:

At Resource we had a customer who built commercial kitchens.  The company spent about $300,000 each year.  The boss, a short man fond of profanity, ordered a flood light to illuminate the back of his building at night, so cars going past on the highway would see his company name.  The floodlight he wanted was stocked in Melbourne.  It was Tuesday.  He wanted it Wednesday.  By the time he ordered it, we’d missed the afternoon truck.  On Wednesday, the afternoon truck was stranded on the highway in New South Wales because of bush fires.  It would arrive Friday, if the cops opened the highway.

The boss didn’t like the news, showing zero compassion for the lives of people affected by the bush fires and the drivers camping in their cabins on the highway.  ‘If it isn’t here on Saturday morning I’m closing my fucking account,’ he said.  ‘I don’t give a fuck if you fly down for it.  I’ve got an electrician working overtime to install it on Saturday.’

He hung up. 

The cops opened the highway Friday afternoon.  Saturday morning I drove to Salisbury to greet the overdue truck and collect the floodlight.  I put the box in my customer’s hands just after ten.  Later that night I took a drive to see if it’d been installed.  It wasn’t.  I was angry.  It took two weeks before the floodlight was installed, for the cars on the highway to see the illuminated sign.  The boss had threatened to close his account, just because he could, because he spent a lot of money with Resource.  Instead of calling his bluff, I did what he wanted.

That is what can happen in wholesaling.  You can argue with customers and lose them because of a dollar.  Or because a product stocked in Melbourne didn’t make the overnight plane.  An irate electrician once demanded a credit from me and refused to pay a re-stocking fee on a product he ordered at the branch after finding it in a catalogue.

‘That’s what I ordered,’ he said.  ‘It wasn’t what I wanted.  I described it to you and you got it wrong.’

How does anyone respond to an accusation like that without feeling contempt?

At Electrix, the Pole routinely dealt with customers like that.  Everyone did.  Looking back, being denied profit share for performance issues didn’t make sense.  As the weeks dragged on in 2009, he kept fronting at work, often in a white heat, but doing his job.  The conspiracies continued, Electrix wanted him to quit and were forcing him out, giving Stacey his profit share staved off legal action.  We never found out the right answer.

I believe Graeme was screwed on profit share for two reasons – to keep Stacey quiet about the redundancy and as a desperate, petty measure to force him to quit, a shot at saving two months of long service pay and another chunk of profit share next March. 

Late in 2009, it seemed all the angst had been forgotten.  Electrix were due to open a branch in Warwick.  They were looking for someone to relocate.  The Pole wanted it.  Relocation promised a fresh start, semi rural living and the challenge of building a branch from an empty warehouse.

The Pole said he was sick of Brisbane.  His mates asked him why.  He had a brief childhood history in Warwick.  The move would be good, he said, holistically and for his career. 

It didn’t happen that way.  The Pole went to Warwick with good intentions and got shafted again, much worse than the profit share debacle, at a time when he was more vulnerable than he’s ever been.  Ten months after moving to Warwick, he was back in Brisbane again.

Long before he came back, we plotted his revenge…

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