Don’t just sit there.
Congratulate me!
I have just received a surprise email offering me a sensational new job as a “Logistics Supervisor” in a booming, dynamic company that offers excellent pay, superb benefits and is 100 percent committed to my success.
I will admit that the fact that I don’t know the person who sent the email, Beverly Davis, nor, really, do I know anything at all about her company, but let’s face it — any business that would offer me a job has to be full of people who should be committed.
I do know the company name, kind of. The email in question is from the “TM. Company.” Doing my due diligence I Goggled this name. I learned that I could be being courted by Telecom Malaysia, which, as I’m sure you know, is “Malaysia’s Convergence Champion and No. 1 Converged Communications Services Provider.”
Wicked, right?
Unfortunately, TM could also stand for TM-Company GmbH, a communication company in Hamburg, Germany, or TM Logistic, a division of the Hodge Company, in Dubuque, Iowa.
Call me a snob, but I’d sure rather be working for a company whose headquarters are in Dubuque, the Paris of the Midwest, but wherever company headquarters is located, I’ll be working at home, so what’s the diff?
As to working at home, that’s one of the major perks of my new job as Logistics Supervisor. As Davies’ recruitment email explains, “owing to the fact that this is a distant job, you will be able to work with a rigid or flexible work schedule during your business hours according to your convenience.”
Naturally, I would prefer a “rigid schedule,” as that is what I have now. I never get up before noon, always eat a healthy pizza or two, and wouldn’t even think of starting my afternoon nap until I have checked all the new arrivals on Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Hulu, Fandor, Starz, Showtime and RFD-TV.
Though I will be able to work at home during my “probation period,” Davies explains I will “have an excellent opportunity to work in one of our warehouses.”
This will be good news to my spouse, whose wish for me to get a decent job plays a distant second to her fervent desire to get me out of the house.
When I think about it, working in a warehouse does sound really exciting. The tottering towers of shipping crates, the roar of the fork-loaders as they race around the warehouse floor, the camaraderie of my fellow warehouse workers as shove me into the break room and give me power wedgies until it’s time to go home.
Why, for a job this good, I wouldn’t even expect to be paid, yet the letter details an excellent compensation package, consisting of “a competitive salary and extra bonuses.”
Don’t hate me because I’m going to be super-rich, but we’re talking about a salary of $2,600 for my first month, rising to $3,300 a month after I ace the probationary period. There are also “supplemental incentives,” like “extra bonuses with each processed package,” and a “solid benefits package, including full health coverage and paid time off.”
The only real question remaining is — what does a logistics supervisor do? And what exactly is in the packages I will be processing?
The email is a little sketchy on these details. I will have a “virtual control panel with daily assigned tasks online.” These tasks are to “pack and repack, ensure quality management and dispatch of orders,” and “to deal with receipting of deliveries and checking goods in.”
I still don’t know exactly what kind of “goods” I will be checking in. And why do I have to repack what I have already packed? And when do I unpack what I will eventually pack and repack? And after I have unpacked, packed and repacked, what do I do with these goods? Take them directly to the dump, or the Dollar Store, or keep them in my Man Cave until Davies comes to collect them.
But that’s just nitpicking. The email from Beverly Davis only asks for my “current cell number” and notes that “applications with valid phone numbers are given priority.”
I’m not giving out my real phone number, but I am emailing the TM. Company my credit card information, so they can withdraw $10,000 as a sign of my good faith.
Yes, it’s a lot of money, but this is one job I don’t want to slip away.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company, but he finally wised up and opened Bob Goldman Financial Planning in Sausalito, California. He now works out of Bellingham, Washington. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
