Work harder, not smarter
I used to sell European rail passes over the phone. It was a good job at first, I booked itineraries and talked about travel in Europe which I had done a lot of. A new manager came in and gave us a list with questions to ask each caller. Then a new manager took over and we were given a list of questions to ask every caller.
They would be furious because they would spend 10 minutes saying “I told you, I don’t want any of that”. We would say, “I’m sure but I have to ask anyway”. In the peak seasons, this increased hold time to over 40 minutes because each call was taking 5-10 times as long as it should.
I left within a month, and in 6 months the Swiss owners found out and fired the branch manager.
