Process Essay #4 Page 1

The Culture of Bean (Process Essay #4)

The sea of faces awash with a mix of fear and excitement and a buzz of sound a few decibels above a whisper as many chat and try to remember passwords. We generally work July 1st until end of February if you are the best of the best. You have to have the highest statistics in calls per hour, orders per hour, customer service resolution, after call time and have a perfect listening score to get the longest seasonal assignments. This year we are coming back for training early in April because we have launched a new line with LLBean Signature and the call volume is bouncing too high for the number of available agents. We are a band of brothers to say the least we all share the commonality of losing our primary jobs over the last 3 year period and have not been able to find another full time job so we keep coming back to Bean as seasonal workers. The other quality we all share is that we all hope to get a full time position year round but since we started hear in season 1 the economy has been and continues to be in distress. Each season we have hoped for them to hire but each season there have been no positions but we do know we would be at the top of the list. This is a cohesive group but very competitive since the ultimate goal is long term employment with a great company with excellent benefits. For my cohorts this is more than a job it’s a lifestyle we embrace and believe in living. We cohesively believe in the brand and the company. The smell coffee, food, and soap wafts passed my nose and the room hushes as the instructor arrives in a flurry. . Russ is welcoming us back to LLBean for early start of Peak 2010. He is reviewing all the terms of the position all the incentives and prizes available this season. You can feel the energy in the room as all eyes come to attention as the competitive beast comes alive in all of us and so it begins Peak 2010.
Step one is as usual the mundane paperwork of being a rehire. This is my fourth season as an LLBean seasonal worker. The one thing that I don’t look forward to is all the paperwork. It is not that it’s hard it’s tedious. All the W2’s, computer security form, privacy forms, secure information forms, sexual harassment statement, vdt statements so that is encompassing the majority of our day. We move through the forms at a snail’s pace and I’m figuring my hair might finally go straight before this day ends. We have to wait for each person to finish before we move through another form. It never fails we get that one person who is a poker not a typist and it takes them forever to fill out an electronic form. My friend Beth says good that will slow down his transition time so he will be no competition this season. The beast in Beth is already awakened as she is counting incentive money already in her mind. By lunchtime my hair is standing on end. I get to see all my old partners in crime and we discuss what we have done since Feb 28th that was the final layoff date for the best workers. They have 3 start dates and 3 layoff dates and our goal is to start the earliest and end at last layoff each year which we have been successful at all 3 seasons. The next ramp up of workers will be September then October and first layoff is the day after Christmas, then the day after New Year’s and then end of February if business holds out