My Banking Days

Well, a positive experience? Some would say no.

On top of having a panic attack every single day that I was there, I persevered for almost exactly three weeks into the training before pulling the ripcord. I jumped out of the plane and into the air, once again, with no real safety net.

Some would be very happy and smug that my adventure has come to somewhat of a stalemate of an end. The fact of the matter is, I was doing OK. But just OK. If I had actually liked what I was trying to learn, I'm sure the outcome would have been different.

It seems that, the older you get, the less likely you are to put up with the bullshit that is often generated from work learning situations. It's either that or once you hit fifty you become incredibly dumb.

There was a  brief minute when I actually felt stupid in class. I wasn't being picked on, just picked out. Which was enough to freak me out and not be able to  answer the question asked. What a knob I am sometimes.

I will never purposely work in a call centre again, unless it is on the admin side of things with no headset. Even then, I find the atmosphere of call centres a negative buzz at best. Nobody wants to be there and the air smacks of employment dissatisfaction. At least in my mind.

Why am I  posting this? I talk to the Internet about my problems. It listens sometimes, judging from the stats I see. And ever now and then I'll get a comment. That's cool. Because I'm finding more and more that a  comment is worth more than many would lead you to believe. A comment indicates interest? Well, maybe.

I'm writing about my life. A 420 planet.

Remedy Radio On Twitter

A New Contract

I am about to embark on another new adventure.

I am kind of excited, as I have been fortunate enough to meet new friends on my past adventures into employment, some of which I am still in contact with to this day.

Ideally, this will be a contract that will allow me some precious off hours work time, so that I can develop my new project, Klevr Digital Marketing, into something of a known entity in the HRM.

Hopefully the work life balance will be OK and I will be able to endure the hoopla that usually comes with working for a larger organization.

But, if the interview process tells me anything, it's that where I'm going is growing fast and and has maintained a steady growth pattern over quite a long period of time. To me, this says get in while the getting is good and get established as someone who knows what they're doing really fast.

I can't think of anything going on in my life that could get in the way of my success. Family drama will be there regardless so I have to learn how to deal with that while getting use to a whole new work family.

To say the next couple of weeks is going to be interesting is putting it mildly. But I'm setting myself up for it to be a positive experience.

I Have Been Humbled

So, what I thought I was offering was a broad source of experience in exchange for some new experiences and maybe a good reference.

Now, I'm thinking to myself, what have I gotten myself into? This morning a lady came back to return a shirt. No big deal I thought. Just give her the size she wants and away she goes right? Not so. I had forgotten the fact that her purchase had to be swapped out in the computer for inventory purposes, and was reminded as such by one of my staff members. 

Once I realized what I had done, I immediately took chase of the customer down the hallway of the mall, apologizing and grabbing for the merchandise at the same time. I explained that the switch had to be recorded, and that she had to come back to the store. 

I was prepared to dig out the procedures manual and teach myself how to do an exchange, when from out of the dark came the employee, with fingers blazing on the keyboard. She was done in about ten seconds. She looked at me with almost a smirk and said, "that's how you do a return."

I'm very happy that my staff is that competent. Quite frankly, I was a bit nervous as to what a receipt would look like after I mangled it with my retail knowledge. But really, it was a relief to have the help. 

The moral of the story? I don't know if there is one really. Just a story I needed to tell and kind of an appreciative nod to the person who helped me out. Cool. 

I'm Being RETAILED to death!

So here's the story.

I have started my new journey into a basically new career for me. Failing to be able to handle anymore call centre activity in my brain, I figured that my love of helping people and my need to stay busy might be rewarded in a retail setting.

However, I never, ever thought that I would encounter the people that I have in the business so far. One person, my direct boss, seems to be a caring, ethical person with a liberal mindset and favorable personality qualities. The other, my direct trainer, is quite the opposite.

She, who I will refer her to as from now on, is an uneducated, socially inept, unskilled teacher with the boisterous laugh of a polar bear in heat and then some.

I am constantly being railed for stickers, stickers, stickers! I had no idea that forming clothing for sale could be so intrinsic, that the value of a well placed sticker could bode so well on the selling features of a garment. Apparently, or so I'm told, sticker placement is of utmost importance in the retail field and strict rules must be adhered to in order for that piece of merchandise to sell!

I hope you're getting the sarcasm that I am intending in this post, because, if you can tell, I'm neither fond of stickers nor the person directing me of their terminal importance. Please, I beg of you, if you go into a retail outlet and decide to try on a piece of clothing, please don't mess with the sticker.. it will doom the clerk to an eternal life of re-stickering and could lead to a reaction from that individual like spontaneous outbursts and the like.

Ofcourse, I am just fooling around with the sticker thing. I understand the importance on unification when it comes to a marketing scheme.. but the sticker nazi has got to go.

I'm trying to decrease the space in time between posts, but I get so busy that I don't know what I'm doing.

Currently I am working with numerous people to keep my life afloat and keep www.trancelogic.club, and www.klevr.ca on the air and on the web. I am looking for new clients, so if you know of anyone looking for an  adventurous marketing guy, please let me know. I can be contacted at darren@trancelogic.club any time.

My efforts can be seen at www.klevr.ca and www.trancelogic.club. Chances are if you're reading this you're well aware of what I've been up to, but wait! There's more!

I have just signed on with a store called "Cool As A Moose", located in Halifax's historic properties into a retail management position. For the large part, I took the job to keep my working resume up to date and to learn some new skills from a professional. It never hurts to have experience in multiple realms.

That being said, I remain and will continue searching for my ideal clients for www.klevr.ca and I will always be on the air with www.trancelogic.club. I have recently secured a new talent for www.trancelogic.club.. a very impressive dj by the name of Simon McCann. He is endorsed by some very big names in the EDM world including Judge Jules. I'm really looking forward to having him on, and hope that my listeners will enjoy it too.

My foray into retail management will being at the start of April. Somewhat of an Easter gift you might say. I've been getting some bites through online advertising with www.klevr.ca, but I think the only real way to harbor customers is to get out there and hoof it to the streets. Most digital marketers would have you believe this is the old fashioned way of doing it, but I believe terrestrial marketing still plays a big role in the success of a business. Including word of mouth.

For those of you who are already familiar with my pursuits, wish me luck. For those of you who are not, please visit my sites and take a look at what I'm doing - www.trancelogic.club is all about building an EDM ( Electronic Dance Music) community in Halifax, NS. It's not about raving, it's about the music - there is a huge difference between what you might hear at a rave and what you'll hear on www.trancelogic.club.

In the same respect, www.klevr.ca is primarily a site showcasing my marketing wares, but I am open for business suggestions all the time. Meaning, if you have an idea that you think will fly with some help, let me know and we'll look into it together.

I hope my various pursuits don't confuse you or what I am trying to do for either brand. www.trancelogic.club and www.klevr.ca are both my babies and I intend to nurture them to full maturity.

Cheers for now,

Darren.

Imagine that...

I am currently in the process of figuring out which advertising vehicle is best for my yet unknown website Klevr.ca .

I am considering a campaign. It's with a blogging outfit who are selling me an audience that would probably be right up my alley. It's a smaller budget project, but I'm a smaller business. 

The artwork for Klevr.ca was all produced in house. So I have to get past the publishing credentials for the website concerned. Meaning, I have to get my logo approved for use by a real editor. That's a bit nerve wracking. 

-Measuring Growth-

As my adventure into Internet radio continues, I am learning more and more every day about streaming and the tremendous opportunities there are for marketing and collateral development in the digital world.

As a newbie to the scene (I consider myself a newbie, though I have been at it for approximately six months), I had some idea about server latency and file structure, but I had no idea how directly my organizational habits would affect my process as a dj online.

I have been wading into the world of live streaming bit by bit, doing short shows peppered all over my clock, with no real schedule, mainly because my daytime job didn't allow me to commit to blocks of time during the day.

According to the stats produced by Centova Cast, the broadcasting software utilized by ShoutCast, my listener base is, for the large part, in Europe, Asia and China. This means adjusting my live broadcast schedule to the wee hours of the morning if I want to foster that audience. Though I'm sure that I do, I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to make the transition from daylight to darkness for my broadcasts.

Recording "live shows" is always an option - and I do have some ideas for a show rambling around in my brain which includes a show called "Remedy Radio"; though I'm not sure exactly what the premise of the show would be as of yet I am sure that I can come up with something compelling that may even be commercially viable.

I'm thinking that "Remedy Radio" could be a show on Trancelogic.club about the marijuana culture in Canada - not a "Cheech and Chong" type show, but something that is both entertaining and informative about the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana in Canada. Right now it's  just a shell of an idea, but I plan on developing it in the very near future.

Trancelogic.club is still a baby. I'm running on auto dj for the majority of the time because the reality of working a 9-5 job is sucking all of the energy I have out of me that could go into producing spots, shows and selling the concept of Trancelogic.club to appropriate interests in the business community. But I am determined to continue building on what I already have.

If you would have told me six months ago that I would be broadcasting live to the world via the Internet I may have doubted you. At the same time, if you would have told me that I would be conquering the use of Centova Cast and utilizing encoding software I may have doubted you. But the fact is, there has been progress, and that progress will continue on into the new year.