Lessons I learned that got me to where I am today!
I cannot imagine working for someone else… but the previous jobs I worked all taught me important lessons and helped shape the way I am today.
I haven’t always been stubborn and opinionated (seriously!! Stop laughing!) My mom had a glorious 8-9 years of my life where I was quiet, shy, and accommodating — in kindergarten I painted with black paint because I would let everyone else pick their paint colours first and I would use whatever was left…which was usually black. Then my 3rd grade teacher came along, and helped create the outspoken, bossy delight you know me as today (thank you, Mr. Sparey).
I started working at a pretty young age! Throughout school I worked at Pet Valu as a cashier, as a babysitter (even had business cards), at Cutco as a salesperson (selling knives to strangers…not weird at all) …and of course I did a stint selling makeup business-to-business (which is hilarious since I don’t wear makeup).
I have learned a lot of valuable lessons, so for the purposes of making this blog as digestible as possible, I am going to focus on the jobs I have had as a full-blown, out of university, adult and break it into 3 parts (apparently, I am wordy when it comes to telling my story - who knew).
Part 1: Collections
Lessons I learned
Just because it doesn’t exist - doesn’t mean it can’t.
If you don’t ask, you won’t get it.
Your actions impact your direction (even if you don’t have authority).
Take initiative! Don’t wait for someone to ask you to help if you know you can help.
Sometimes, there isn’t “more”.
My Collection Journey
Fresh out of university, I joined my first pool team and one of my team members worked in collections. Since I was looking for a job, he referred me, which was the beginning of my long 9-year journey in collections.
Within three months of being hired, the company had performance meetings. EVERYONE had a meeting where they were told that they were great and getting a raise, OR not so great and getting fired. Everyone that is, except for me! I found out later that I was supposed to be in the fired group, but my pool teammate had gone to bat for me! (Thank you, Alex!)
I HATED being a collector. So, I did what I do best and found other things to do. Updated the collection boards that had everyone’s stats for the month... did shredding... helped plan any event that needed volunteers – pretty much anything that involved getting me away from the phone. Eventually even other departments started asking if they could borrow me to update their boards (I was pretty good at making straight lines with board tape which made me a hot commodity).
About a year later, when I returned from vacation, I was told that they had created a new role for me. A role that had never existed in collections before. It consisted of doing all the administrative work so that the managers and supervisors could focus their efforts on the number one priority… COLLECTING.
Lesson #1: just because it doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t. By leaning in to what I did like (or away from what I didn’t) I was able to SHOW my boss what I could do to help - and create a better role for myself.
Fast forward a little (I honestly don’t remember how long…) and my manager (who was now the director) got fired. Before leaving, he turned to me and said “Ask for more money, you deserve it”.
I. WAS. LIVID.
All I could think was “If I deserve more then why didn’t you give it to me?”
Lesson #2: This was a monumental moment for me and where lesson # 2 comes in: If you don’t ask, you won’t get it. From this moment I realized no one is going to come up to you and hand you money. You need to ask. The answer may not always be “yes” but you are guaranteeing a “no” by not asking.
I was not a huge fan of the way the collection agency started running things, so shortly after my director left, I left. I went to a different agency as a normal collector. No off the phone perks - just a normal collector. As you would expect... I hated it.
I wasn’t there too long because a couple months in, I got a call from my old manager asking if I wanted to come to the agency he was at and work with him again. He told me I would need to be a normal collector but that after I had been there for a little, we would try to get me back into an off the phone role (when I said this role didn’t exist in collections - I didn't just mean the 1st agency! We had to convince the higher ups of the benefits). I said yes, gave my notice and went to the next agency.
Well, going back to what I learned in lesson 1, I decided I would do everything in my power to get myself off the phones ASAP! I immediately started finding gaps in processes and taking them to my manager with my suggested solutions. I guess eventually I found enough because he said “let’s show the director”.
We showed the director. I was taken off the phone.
Lesson #3: Your actions impact your direction (even if you don’t have authority) I had successfully created my own role - again. Just by doing the things I knew I was good at.
Fast forward a couple years - I have settled in nicely to my off-the-phone role, I have made new processes that other departments adapted, I have become the first non-manager/supervisor on the collection floor with a company email (that was allowed to email externally)... it was a well oiled-machine.
In collections the company/bank you collect for hires multiple agencies to do the collecting, so we were just one of many. Each month they sent out a report with each agency's stats (who collected the most money which was important because it determined how much business each agency got). The reports they would send us were called scorecards.
**To make telling this story easier we are going to pretend the company/bank we collected for was called BANK (creative… I know).
After years of receiving the same scorecard over and over again BANK decided to shake it up. They had created a beauty of a report that was colour coded, detailed and streamlined. The problem was, we now had no idea how to tell what place we were in until we got the report.
I had previously been told “if you are not asked a question, don’t help” BUT I couldn’t do it… my brain wouldn’t let me! I naturally went into problem solving mode. I was determined to figure out HOW this scorecard worked so I could recreate it. Annnnd I did! SUCCESS!
I then sat there listening to them try to figure it out (in the completely wrong direction) until FINALLY the day came and they ASKED ME A QUESTION! TIME TO SHINE! I quickly explained how it works, why what they were saying was incorrect, how to pull the report and showed them the report I had made…
Pulling the scorecard to see where we stood became a part of my daily routine.
By the next time BANK sent us the report, I had done it at least 20 times and was a pro at it… but their report didn’t match mine… oh SH!T… 🤯 PANIC. What had I done wrong, omg everyone believed that I could do it… YIKES! Ok,.. redo it.. See if you made a mistake on today’s… I didn’t.
I checked, I double checked, I changed things, I went back to the original and I could still not find anything I had done wrong. So naturally, I told my boss to email the guy at BANK and point out the discrepancies we noticed and see if they could tell us the mistake we had made.
They emailed back an updated report. THEY had made the mistake. After that day the bank started sending it to my boss first to “proof” and then once we gave the thumbs up, they would send it out to all the other agencies.
Lesson #4: Take initiative! Don’t wait for someone to ask you to help if you know you can help. If I had waited for them to ask, I would have been stressed to figure it out and would have wasted a ton of time.
I really did enjoy what I did. I loved figuring out the issues and making things more efficient. What I didn’t love was the fact that I was in a role that had no room for growth and a TON of “standards” (or double standards) that I just couldn’t agree with.
I didn’t have a title for my position (as I mentioned earlier… it didn’t exist before I got there). And to be honest I was completely fine with that part. But what I had a hard time accepting was that I had to follow the rules of a normal collector, when I was doing the job of/helping half the managers and supervisors in the company.
I realized I wasn’t going to go anywhere not because of anything I did, but because there was nowhere to go! A company can only provide so much, and I had to decide if I was ok to stay where I was (position wise and financially) or if I wasn’t.
Easy decision. I wasn’t. I wanted more. Time to find something different.
Lesson #5: Sometimes, there isn’t “more”. What you want isn’t actually possible from the people you want it from.
It was 9 years into my working journey as a fully-fledged adult, and it was time for a change.
In part 2 I will share the lessons I learned in chapter 2 of my working life - at a staffing agency!
Next blog will be out on April 22 2024. Stay tuned!
