It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, featuring updates from people who had their letters answered in the past.
Remember the letter-writer asking how far “other duties as assigned” in a job description goes, because they were being ordered to do door-to-door sales — something unrelated to their job — in another city? Here’s the update.
First of all, commenters who suspected we might be something like a political campaign or advocacy organization were correct. But continuing to use the vacuum company metaphor from the original letter: while all employees might support the idea of having more of our “vacuums” out in the world, it does not mean that those hired as vacuum repairpeople have the skills needed to sell vacuums door-to-door — even setting aside the issue of weeks away from home with little warning.
Staff came together and attempted to push back with an email to leadership, but it was ignored. Then a smaller group staged a sick-out, and the ringleader was fired for misuse of company equipment in coordinating it. Shortly after that, the initial “all hands on deck” moment passed and things seemed to settle down, but with no acknowledgement from leadership that there was a larger problem, and no commitment to doing things differently the next time.
Then this spring, another — even bigger — “all hands on deck” moment hit. This time, staff were required to take on a second full-time job “selling vacuums” in the evenings and on weekends, on top of their regular full-time roles, for over a month. Some non-sales positions were exempted from this requirement while others were not, with no explanation given. There was no reduction in the regular workload during that period, and regular work items were not shifted to those without the “second job” requirement. Staff were pitted against each other to find the best sales areas, and only the very top performers received any praise or acknowledgement.
This created massive tension, anger, and bad feeling between staff and management, between departments, and among staff themselves. Non-sales teams also lost multiple employees during and immediately after this period.
Now other metrics beyond “number of vacuums sold” are starting to decline, and leadership has finally seemed to realize that there is a problem that needs to actually be addressed. They have started a process of staff surveys, with a promise that they want to do better. Staff are hopeful, but uncertain whether leadership will genuinely acknowledge the mistakes made — both in allowing repeated crisis moments to develop and in the way they chose to resolve them — or whether the good intentions will be abandoned as soon as the next crisis hits.
