Dear Mr. John Edwardson:

 I’m writing this open letter to you in response to an email I received from Qualtrics, a third party webresearch company that CDW has hired to find out how to better serve your sales force in the future. While this company may serve as a way to assist CDW, I feel as an ex-employee of CDW,  if volunteered to answer these questions in this manner, my voice and concerns that I would like to express would fall into a stack of feedback statistics within the company’s Co-Worker Services department. I prefer a more personal and open approach which is why I decided to address my concerns to you in this format.

In a corporation as large as CDW, the little problems that a new account executive encounters goes unnoticed to a C.E.O. In time, these little problems escalate into larger problems that lead to poor employee morale and a high employee turn-over rate.

Management Support

Lets take my experience that I had with the prank that was pulled on me by my neighboring co-worker for the first example. While eating lunch, I opened my desk drawer to find someone had added a cicada to it. Now, the person that did this was eventually disciplined by co-worker services. However, my expectations I had for my first manager, T.K., would to have made some type of acknowledgement and apology to me for my experience when he came off of vacation. What I received instead was a sly comment about me being a “special employee” upon his return.

In addtion, there were the times, as a new employee that I had worked from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. to show my work ethic. Unfortunatley, the next morning, my manager T.K. would walk around to talk about yesterday’s “numbers”, see that I made over 100 dials, but only complain about something as small as me having not deleted my emails in Outlook.

From there, T.K. and I relationship became more strained. Out of the five new hires (including myself) that went to the small business department, I noticed one day, while walking through the hallway, out of the four other co-workers I was hired with, they were in a conference room with the manager, T.K. having a meeting. I had not been included or asked to join that meeting.

As time went on, I also noticed how accounts that would get assigned to the four other new hires. I watched how their sales volume and monthly bonus grew, while my sales trailed in comparison and monthly bonus seemed to be somewhat of a fairytale.

In another incident, T.K. pulled an account away from me after three months of initiating phone calls and leaving messages trying to “break in” an account only to have him assign it to an account manager in mid-large division. What became disappointing and discouraging was the account manager that it was given to never tried to make any contact after it was assigned to him. This was based on looking at the internal phone record log.

T.K eventually was assigned to another division of the company in the beginning of 2008. However, the impression I believed he left of me with the new incoming manager, S.H. was anything but stellar. This is based on our inital interaction I received.

There are many examples I could give you of the type of inadequate support I received from my new manager S.H., but I’ll just limit it to one.

The one that stands out the most happened closer to my departure. I was working on a large million-dollar deal with a Florida company that made software for smartphones.  After going through a number of internal challenges for permission to work the account, I was told by my now, 6 month new manager, S.H. on why this deal wouldn’t happen. After convincing him to call the company’s president to verify something about this deal to see if I could work it, (and it turned out I could) S.H. promised  the president and product manager a follow-up phone call within a few days about some specific questions as to the services that CDW would be able to provide. I checked with S.H. on a Tuesday, four business days later and a day before he was to leave with his manager to California to see if he had actually did follow up with the information that he promised he would provide. He had not. I had to reach out for unknown resources and make contacts that weren’t necessarily available to me to be able to provide the information that the customer had requested from my manager, S.H. It was not that it was a large deal that was at stake, but the fact that it represented tarnished view of the type of service and support that this customer would receive from CDW. It also gave validation to the type of support I felt I had been receiving from S.H. since he had taken over as the new manager.

Specialist Support

During my training at CDW, I was told that I would have CDW’s specialist and vendor support available to assist me with sales. What CDW trainers failed to mention during training was that there were a small ratio of specialists and vendors available to account managers. They also didn’t mention in training that it might take 24-48 hours for a specialist  to be available to assist with your customer. Or that CDW’s specialist might not have been trained in listening to customers. I can’t tell you how embarrassed I’ve been to hear a customer explain an I.T. problem to a specialist and only to hear him typing on the phone and not respond correctly to the customer question because he hadn’t been listening.  Think about it Mr. Edwardson,  for a moment. Think about all the time an account manager has invested,  prospecting business for the company, developing a relationship with the customer only to have it ruined by one of your co-workers who isn’t listening to the customer. And to make matters worse, an account manager can’t do anything about this because getting assigned to another specialist isn’t that easy because the company has so few.

Some of the vendor support is just as bad. From the response time, to them having the attitude that they’re the only game in town. This attitude soured a few days as well.  

I could go on and on about the internal problems and challenges that I had with CDW and the reason I decided to end our relationship but I think the point would be moot. My advice to you Mr. Edwardson, in this imploding U.S. economy, would be to stress the importance to CDW employees on providing superior service to the customers that you do acquire.  It might also be beneficial to “drop in” on a conversation or two that CDW employees are having with customers; especially the specialist. I can rest assure you that you’ll be in for a surprise.

In closing, I don’t think there could be anything done that could have kept me as an employee. The damage had already been done. What would be helpful to me is if someone would acknowledge that CDW actually had a business relationship with the law firm Strasburger LLC,  and that I was actually going to be terminated anyway. Co-Worker services and my manager S.H. deny my allegations.

Sincerely,

Eric P. Martin

Harold Washington College student, Shannon Crummy, has her hands full of activities. Not only is she handling being a full time art student, she also is juggling the position as President of Art Attack, the Art Club at H.W.C.  And she’s doing an excellent job at both.

Yesterday, Art Attack hosted a “Throw it on the Wall” art exhibit in room 1115 at Harold Washington College. Displayed on five brown metal folding tables were more than 40 pieces of art work from Harold Washington College students.

Artwork displayed at the H.W.C. Art Attack exhibit

Art Attack President Shannon Crummy and H.W. C. art student Catherine Mobley.

Artist Shannon Crummy stands next to her “Self Portrait” artwork.

H.W.C. student Cathy Mobley poses in front of her “Thirsty” exhibit.

 Risks, Rewards, and The Personal Pursuit of a Higher Education

Life itself is a creative process. Each day, we each are given the same amount of time. Twenty-four hours. And we are given an enormous amount of things to choose from in which we can fill-up those twenty-four hours. The choices we make will always involve a certain amount of risk.

I’ll use my recently life exploration as an example. I’m forty-four years old. I had been taking classes for the last two years in the evening at Harold Washington College while working a full-time job during the day time. My job consumed eight hours of the allotted 24 hours that is given to all of us. This doesn’t include the two hours it took to commute to and from home each day either. In order for me to be able to receive my associate degree, it was going to take at the minimum, 3.5 years at my current pace of taking two classes a semester. I would be forty-eight years old by the time I graduated.

Over the last two years, my academic aspirations have grown a little more ambitious to me wanting to obtain a doctorate degree. The time commitment would require another 10 years, attending school on a part-time basis. I would be somewhere around… well I don’t even what to think about it.

I had to make a decision; and a risky one at that for my age. Do I continue my educational pace that I was on or shall I re-create a new picture for my life by leaving my full-time job to pursue college full-time? With the pressures that were coming to me from my thirty year old sales manager, the deterioration of economic conditions in the U.S., and the idea of me not having any real competitive and marketable job skills if my company had decided to downsize, the choice I had to make became a no brainer.

My friends and family (who I’ll call my support group) weren’t  really that supportive of my idea of quitting my thirty-thousand dollar sales job to pursue my education career. Debating my explanation had fallen on deaf ears as I tried to express my discontent with Corporate America along with my yearning and fears of not being able to feel I was making any real contribution to the world. What seemed important and logical to them was for me to stay unhappy, discontented and employed.

The outcome of my decision and risk, while it is still in the process, has yet to be determined. However, I can say the educational trek has been most satisfying. I have started to nurture my artistic skills in the areas of writing, drawing, and photography. These creative skills have allowed me be able to, with confidence, have the ability to express and share with others a part of me in ways I’ve previously could not. It as if a sleeping giant has been awakened. 

While the process of balancing and maintaining my financial responsibilities is challenging, it has stimulated my creativity and help launch an exploration into alternative employment and creative college financing. It is my hope, as I continue to pursue and develop my writing interest, to leave a road map in the form of a non-fiction book for other adult students who might have the courage to travel the same road as I have.