Shady Solar Business
A True Story by Janis Chaffin
November 2016

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“I know of one gaming company in Los Angeles that had a stated goal of turning over 15 percent of its workforce every year. The reasoning behind such a policy was that productivity shoots up when you hire smart, hungry kids fresh out of school and work them to death. Attrition was inevitable under such conditions, but that was okay, because the company’s needs outweighed those of the worker. Did it work? Sure, maybe. To a point. But if you ask me, that kind of thinking is not just misguided, it is immoral.”
-Ed Catmull, Creativity Inc

“To deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible. That’s my motto. In other words, an unhealthy soul requires a healthy body.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

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Prologue

“Janis, where have you been all my life?”

“Right here waiting for your call, Zandra!”

That went well I thought. In fact the whole process had been surprisingly easy. Apparently solar was a booming business and I had gotten in at just the right time.

This would be my first full-time job with benefits in over eight years. With my opportunity funnel shrinking from top-tier management to minimum wage sales, I was grateful for a chance to make some real money again. SolarCity was sort of my Hail Mary career lob.

Every company has it’s own aura and allure. For me, the allure of working for SolarCity was Elon Musk and alternative energy at it’s most funded – the best of all worlds. I knew the odds of enduring and succeeding were slim but I found myself buying into Zandra’s cheerful reality distortion field, agreeing that it would be easy to stalk shoppers in Home Depots and book at least one appointment every four hours, eight hours a day every week, month after month. And not to worry, I would never have to stay in stores longer than that, I could get promoted to go into homes and close leads set by people like me. “That sounds easy huh? But what we really want are people who think one an hour is doable.”

Despite repeatedly asking about upward versus outward attrition ratios, SolarCity squirmed like mercury starting with Zandra who instead asked “You do want to be promoted, don’t you?”

It seemed one metric was a fact: you lived or died by how many of your leads closed each month-in other words, how many out of the thousands of people you talked to actually agreed to schedule an appointment to meet with a solar professional, and were actually qualified as far as electric rate, roof type and sun exposure, and then actually kept the appointment and finally, actually signed up for a solar installation.

There was one catch: you weren’t allowed to close your own leads, just generate them. You depended on someone else to go close the leads you set. You were paid commission for each installation but it could be taken back if the customer was disqualified for any number of reasons such as inferior roof, bad credit or sudden lack of interest (yelp reviews sucked). So you lived or died by metrics you couldn’t control.

So what. I knew I could sell and, bolstered by a naïve sense of self-confidence, I gave myself at least a year there. Because I had been successful at the Monterey Bay Aquarium up-selling promotional plush sea animals to giddy and willing tourists, I planned to be among the promised majority who were promoted within six months – usually more like three or four, swore Lance, my boss-to-be.

Chapter One – August 10-September 1, 2015

“Payment Declined: See Manager Inside”. Not a good start. I needed to fill the tank to get to my first day of training in Morgan Hill, an hour away over the infamous Highway 17 “death track” that connected Santa Cruz with the rest of the Silicon Valley.

After a few calls to my bank, I discovered my account had yet again been a victim of fraud and the bank had terminated my debit card for my protection. But it seemed they hadn’t let me in on the plan yet. Luckily, I had my Auntie card (another debit card linked to a savings account with my Aunt’s dwindling legacy funds). Gassed and ready, I started the drive in my shabby-mobile to begin the first day of my new career as Field Energy Specialist for SolarCity. I was 58 years old. To be clear, I was a very fit 58 because I obsessively ran every day everywhere; I even ran my errands. I picked up that habit about 13 years ago and have been deeply addicted for the past four years.

Early, as always, I arrived well before 9am. My new boss, Lance, zoomed in a few minutes after the hour. He was about 30, tall and had piercing blue eyes that I remember locking gazes with during our interview stare-down-after he had asked “You do want to get promoted, don’t you?”

He congratulated me, all smiles, and handed me a shiny new Surface Pro 3 with my name attached to it. Wow. I had arrived! He then began the corporate download. Afterwards, our small orientation group (me and another younger woman) began on-line training with scripts for pitching solar and tools for looking up rooftops. We were taught to build the pain of our local PGE utility company’s pricing tactics and the excitement of a cleaner, more affordable option without giving away too much information. We were even coached on the inflection of our voice: drop at the end – insist instead of ask.

I flashed back several years to my twenty or more identical retakes of a local commercial with the director pleading with me to go down at the end of the sentence not up and me, dressed in an equestrian suit, holding a riding crop promising I’d nail it this time and, again, I perversely inflected up on the name of the realtor-“Where can you find a home with room for horses? Sherman and Boone.”

Over time, I realized that my own stubbornly diametric tendencies pulled me towards the exceptional while pushing me towards sabotage. Self-destruction was like a dare. I didn’t need to emotionally invest in this company or that opportunity. I could still prosper and beat the odds, I just had to keep working.

Now I wonder if any of us actually have a choice about what we invest in emotionally. Is belief optional? I look back and ask could I have given more, committed more and tried harder? I don’t think so. I ran around neighborhoods with my opp pad and pencil on my evening jogs asking people if they’d considered solar. My friends ducked in Home Depots (and even socially) when they saw me coming to avoid committing to appointments.

And yet, I never gave up my grandfathered Anthem pre-Obama care private pay $321 a month health insurance despite getting full coverage under SolarCity’s health plan. All in? I guess not. Even then I didn’t totally trust or believe in them.

For three days, I commuted back and forth to the modest office and warehouse in Morgan Hill, only to slide into a tiny cubby and take online training courses through headphones all day. Every few seconds the giant door between the office and the solar panel warehouse would open then SLAM shut as workers came and went. BANG! It was intense but no one noticed. I finally propped it open for a while. The next morning, the door was shut again and as people entered and exited, it resumed slamming every few seconds. Turns out, I could have just taken the training at home, Lance tells me at the end of day three.

By day four, we were deemed releasable into Home Depots and Best Buys, fully trained and pumped with solar excitement. Each of us had our own reason for joining the solar crusade and SolarCity did a good job of engaging our “why”s. We would have to punch in and out each day, but Lance assured us, we would get our full base pay of 30k a year (or 14.43/hr) plus uncapped commissions.

Determined to hit the ground running, I crushed my first day. I talked with hundreds of Home Depot customers with fearless conviction and infectious enthusiasm. By day’s end, I had bested my two more veteran workmates, and amassed a record number of appointments – seven. No one had ever gotten that many on his or her first day. Wow. A solar sales superstar was born!

The entire rest of August, I led the Salesforce dashboard in appointments. Soon, I experienced the giddy rush of seeing my appointments close. But for a technical glitch that prevented me from entering my first appointment on my first day, I had achieved ten closes in my first month and was on the fast track to promotion. We called appointments “Opps” and closes “CW”s or “Closed Won”s and ten closes for two months in a row was the current requirement for promotion, according to Lance.

Day after day, I was praised by my boss and claimed the MVP prize and points for most opps. We would receive frequent emails from Lance challenging and incentivizing us and sometimes admonishing us if we fell short. I won all sorts of promotional “spiff” prizes and cash. It seemed almost too easy.

We were measured by opps set and CWs. We had to set a minimum of 30 opps a month and two had to close each month to keep our jobs. Otherwise, we would be put on a verbal warning for a month and if we didn’t make our goal, we were put on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan). Failing that, we were terminated. Our ranking was stacked for all to see. We knew who was doing well and who was in jeopardy. During my first month at SolarCity, two FES team members were let go for failure to meet their numbers. No one on the team had been there for more than seven months. No one had been promoted in that time.

I knew I would be promoted. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do: promotions, non-profit “sun-raising” or some other marketing position. I didn’t especially want to become FEC (Field Energy Consultant), the ones who closed our deals, because they weren’t paid any more base salary, got no overtime as salaried employees, and didn’t receive commissions until much later in the installation process. The payouts were larger, but longer coming and the hours seemed endless. They were required to run opps from 8am to 8pm each day according to what we scheduled for them. During my first month, I noticed none of the FECs took a single day off. Often, we would book an appointment at 8pm that day, and an FEC would be obligated to be available if we assigned him or her to the opp unless they were already running another opp.

Surely that isn’t our only promotion choice, I thought! Now I question if I was too desultory; would anything have been different if I’d fully committed to the FEC path to promotion and embraced the challenge of non-stop on-call 12/7 drive-a-thons.

For a green energy company, we seemed to consume lots of fossil fuels driving from appointment to appointment alone in a company car sometimes traversing as many as 300 miles in one day. Each person. Times thousands of persons driving those little green and white cars around 20 states and counting.

Elon Musk has achieved the status of legendary visionary despite much skepticism. His mission seems to be saving the world or at least a particular portion of it, either here on Earth, or more likely, on another planet after we trash this one. He’s managed to buy an elite electric car company and design rockets that can be re-used and cost a fraction of what NASA spends to send one up only once. And ten years ago, when his hippy cousins Pete and Lyndon Rives decided to form a solar company at a Burning Man festival on July 4 2006 (or 2007 depending where you look on the website), he once again kicked in funding. As kids, they’d played together at being entrepreneurs and ruling the world while I’d played at being Tarzan alone down by the wooded creek bed in my secluded neighborhood.

The SolarCity culture was an odd combination of over-zealous, over-achieving data-driven management and attractive young idealistic neophytes who had little sales experience and felt lucky to have a decent sales gig right after college. SolarCity had its own internal TV station and would broadcast almost daily inspirational shows featuring various luminaries in the upper echelons of management. “One Team One Dream” was the manic slogan that our fearless leader rallied us behind.

I discovered that SolarCity was a dynamic company and was constantly adjusting its policies. Although the company had what seemed to be an excellent corporate  infrastructure and leading edge operations, it still struggled to achieve its goals.  So, what was a fact last week was not the way it worked this week. What was written in one place did not match the policies practiced in another. Despite being a total obsessive-compulsive control freak, I decided to just roll with it and let myself adjust as needed. I wanted to succeed and to like SolarCity and in fact did like the company, at least in part.

What did a typical day consist of as SolarCity Field Energy Specialist? My eight hour day started at 8am. I would immediately clock in at Home Depot, then set up my podium if it wasn’t already standing from the night before. Next, I’d check emails and texts if I hadn’t already since they arrived day and night on my personal phone. Then I’d usually check the Salesforce dashboard to see how I stacked up against everyone else and if I had any site visits today. Next, I set up my tablet to be selling-ready with the solar roof lookup and Salesforce lead gen forms and PDFs with Talking points. At first, we didn’t carry our tablets throughout the store but policy shifts mandated we carry all our tools with us as we walked the isles. If store traffic was heavy, I’d stay at the podium which was usually located near one of the entrances.

Before the Home Depot greeter showed up at 10, I could greet, help folks find things and pitch solar all at once. Then, after a fashion, I’d detach my tablet from its power supply and keyboard and wander the isles looking for lost souls to help and pitch to. We had a rigid dress code but the climate in Home Depot was controlled from a location in Atlanta so air conditioners would gush cold air blasts down from evenly spaced locations through out the store, resulting in me being cold all the time and display signs flying through the air.

We were trained to approach shoppers and ask if they knew about SolarCity and our free panels. I disliked this invasive hard sell approach and opted for the customer service approach. It worked well for many months. Sometimes I’d spend more than the recommended amount of time helping someone I knew wasn’t qualified for solar rather than “pitch ‘em and ditch ‘em”. I sometimes ask myself was I just cowardly or considerate. Both probably. I noticed once I started feeling apologetic for pitching to people, it became almost impossible to do the job properly.

If we worked with other FESs, our strategy would shift to taking turns walking and standing by the podium or taking turns pitching from the podium if we were too pooped to take a lap. At times, against all policies, there would be as many as four SolarCity employees in the store at once.

Home Depot is a big store with an upstairs appliance section and a large outdoor garden section. A “lap” around the entire store could take almost an hour if it was busy and people were engaging with us.

We were encouraged to take frequent coffee breaks but we didn’t have an office or break room to call our own. I usually just sat in my car unless it was too hot outside. During one break, I counted the number of steps it took to walk from one side of the store to the other. And so the day would slowly go. Surges in traffic would cause excitement and panic in equal parts but after about 3pm, it was usually a ghost town.

My “lunch” would consist of either a run through nearby scenic Capitola Village or a few quick laps around the parking lot, depending on whether I thought my boss was due to visit or if I needed more opps. The work itself was not hard. Lance was the first to say, it’s all mental. Indeed. It takes courage to keep asking everyone after being rudely rejected several times in a row. But it helped to have physical stamina to stand on hard concrete floors all day.

If I engaged with an interested customer, I’d always feel the anticipation as I moved through the pitch to ‘the ask’. If I could get their address and the internet worked well enough to allow me to look up their roof and it was a good one for solar, I still had to convince them to let us visit them in their home.

So often they needed to consult with their husband/wife first, or said, ‘do you have a card?’ or ‘you’re here all the time I’ll stop back by’, ‘I’m too busy today’, or ‘just call me’. None of those responses would keep us employed, so we had to pin them down to an appointment time, ideally that same day. And that was always the hardest part. Try to ask too quickly, and they smelled greed, too slowly and some interruption or change of heart usually ripped the opportunity away at the last possible second. The timing had to be perfect and the universe had to be smiling a little. The near misses were heartbreaking but after a few months, I just shrugged and regrouped for the next free-fall on the Solar Coaster ride.

The teeming consumer sea of humanity sometimes became unbearable. Wave after wave of similarly camo-clad, baseball-capped, balding big-bellied middle aged middle Americans would pour in, all looking alike to me; I couldn’t tell who I’d asked and who just looked like everyone else I’d just asked. I hated those days and made an effort to remember eye color if not tee-shirts sporting Giants, Raiders, Warriors or 49ers logos. Because it was after all a mental game, nothing else.

Despite valleys of doubt and fatigue, I usually kept my momentum up throughout the day and sometimes even finished strong with a last minute ‘walk-up’ as a reward. There is no greater manna from heaven than a walk-up, but as odds have it, most walk-ups (those who actively sought our services) were not qualified for an appointment, much less for actual solar panels on their roof.

Just how desperate I was to pimp my numbers dictated whether I would sign this unqualified opp (or ‘flopp’ as I called them) or whether I’d say, sorry. I was also still learning and erred on the side of optimism. I’d add notes to the opportunity page like: ‘This is a long-shot, but customer deeply loves Elon Musk and it is his dream to go solar. Let’s see if we can help this kind fellow go solar despite the odds!’ I now understand how irksome these bookings were to the FECs who had to pointlessly run them.

My day was made if I booked a ‘same-day’ who had two or three residential properties all with great roofs and high electric bills. I’d watch the dashboard during the appointment to see if the FEC closed any of them and jump for joy when I saw one or more CWs next to my name for the day. Solar Coaster!

Chapter 2 – September 2015

I was off to another great start in September. The RSM Justine stopped by to introduce herself and invite me to a top performer BBQ; she was excited and couldn’t wait for me to become an FEC. Several of the FECs vied to take me to lunch almost daily on SolarCity’s dime and time and Lance was paying the tab for my expensive Saucony running shoes. We were all doing the SolarCity fist pump. Most importantly, I had filled my pipeline with bookings from late August extending into September and was daily booking new opps at a record rate. I was on track for 50 opps and 10 CWs that month.

However, instead of appointments closing, the customers were canceling, or worse, “porching” the consultants (not there) on their visits. My closes dropped from nine (really ten) in August to merely three in September. So much for my fast track to promotion; I would now have to reach 10 CWs another two months in a row. It was the first time I had to deal with not doing as well as expected and the vibe changed ever so slightly. Worried I might just be a one-month wonder, my peers and superiors seemed a little more cautious about doing business with me – a little less willing.

My situation was not unique; it turns out September had been the worst month in company history for cancellations with over 50% falling off. A crushing blow followed, when SolarCity had to shut down all of its solar operations in Nevada due to a contentious ruling by their Public Utilities Commission making it too expensive to go solar. It was becoming apparent that the solar business might not be as booming as it had seemed just a couple of months earlier. Timing is everything.

After much speculation, it was decided by senior management that as a company, SolarCity had to emphasize different business models and approaches. We were promptly retrained. Our lead gen tools were modified so we would no longer be able to choose who we wanted to run our opps. A smarter algorithm would choose for us. I remember cringing as I entered opps into our Salesforce backend, crossing my fingers it wouldn’t be one of the “dud” closers who never managed to successfully close any of my opps. Sometimes, it seemed these FECs didn’t even actually go to the visit Why, I wondered…

Chapter 3 – Ten Years Earlier – October 2006

Turning in my E-mu Systems keycard badge was probably the hardest part of my departure after 30 years of developing sounds and managing digital synthesizer projects. I’d advanced from circuit board solderer to Sound Design Manager and from youth to middle age without needing to apply for a job or ask for a raise. I’d made enough doing what I loved to buy a house in Santa Cruz in 1999. After looking at one of my paychecks, I remember my Dad once remarked that he hoped E-mu never closed down because I’d never find another job that paid as much.

And now the company was shutting it’s doors in what was later termed the Big 2006 Recession of Silicon Valley which preceded the bigger financial upheaval of 2008 when Obama bailed banks out of their criminal loan fiascos.

My Dad died in 1998 so he never witnessed any of that. Nor did he get to see me buy that 120year old fixer. I missed his opinion, but doubted he would have approved the risk. And yet, it’s been a great house so far.

I think of my Mom and Dad as long-suffering yet buoyant spirits. My Dad was a WWII tank driver on Omaha Beach. He taught himself jewelry and became a gemologist to put me through the finest schools. My Mom fell in love with him at first glance and they married at 18. Her family was disrupted by her Dad’s infidelity and the eight kids were dispersed to live among relatives after he died. She stayed with her Mom when they moved from their family farm homestead into town next door to my Dad’s family.

My parents survived 59 years together. They ran a jewelry business in our home and always bent over backwards to accommodate their customers, evenings, meals, weekends, whenever. They believed working hard was its own reward. Part of me still wants to believe that. I was their only child and they frequently reminded me they had to try for sixteen years just to have me. Mom nursed Dad through ALS. After his death, I returned to California and left her alone to grieve. She became ill and when her hip spontaneously broke (FOSOMAX?), her life upended. Since I didn’t want to return to live with her, she had to sell the house my Dad built and move into assisted living with her favorite but bossy older sister. I swore I would never put her in a home and then I put her in a home. A very nice one, but still… She transitioned from a demure wife into a self-sufficient and gracious widow because she willed herself to surmount any and all obstacles. And now she was again selflessly helping will me through my hardships, telling me to “Take this opportunity to try something you love, even if it doesn’t make you any money.”

Following my Mom’s unexpected words of empowerment, I pursued my dream of acting full force and accepted a job acting all summer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for Louis Valdez’ son Keenan from El Teatro Campesino. My dream came true. Three times a day, I danced and sang with two others to a precisely synced original soundtrack while changing roles and outfits from Surfer Dude, to Country Bumpkin to City Gal to, yes, a full-suited sea otter named Ollie, who pulled sea gull, turtle and fish puppets out of her belly one at a time.

Oh my, it was delightful. And it changed my life forever the day I saw a real baby sea otter swim with its mom into the tide pool just beyond the outdoor deck where we performed. The pup didn’t make it and I began volunteering with the Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation program. I’ve been helping care for stranded and injured pup and adult otters for almost ten years and it’s the real reason I want to sell solar.

Chapter 4 – January – June 2015

I was working two part-time jobs anticipating the imminent ending of one. It had been a tense bad fit; an ultra-conservative little telescope company had taken a chance on me after E-mu folded and the summer otter-suit gig had ended. EDD had actually paid me to go to school to learn web computer systems and I had spun that into a web admin job. But we never really got along. As soon as they could hire my replacement (nearly seven years later) they laid me off. I’ll never forget how I felt clearing out my desk and being escorted from the building while the rest of the team was strategically in a meeting. Ashamed, angered, afraid.

I had reached out to SolarCity once before and started to reconsider it again since it paid about 50% more than the job I had now. I loved being a sales associate for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Gift Shops. But the pay was lousy and the 45minute commute became almost untenable in the summer with all the tourists clogging the sleepy one lane conduit through Moss Landing. Some evenings, it would take almost three hours to get home.

Chapter 5 – July 2015

My third and final interview with the Regional Director of Marketing for SolarCity had been delayed; he had been transferred to another region and Bev, the replacement had not arrived yet.

When the time finally came to seal the deal, Bev asked me “You do want to be promoted, don’t you?” “Of course”, I answered. I then asked Bev the burning question I asked everyone: how many people got promoted versus fired-in other words, what was the attrition rate? She referred me to my manager for that answer.

Chapter 6 – October 2015

I was beginning to establish fairly good relationships with a couple of the FECs, and more of my opps were closing this month. It seemed September had been an unfortunate anomaly for the company as a whole, according to LiveTV!.

FESs are all in direct competition with each other despite all the team-building laser tag and bowling nights; the lowest ranked were the first to go. I coined us ‘frenemies’. Some of the newer FESs didn’t get it. There were fewer fist pumps. Lance was enforcing the policy that kept us all separated except to fist pump so we wouldn’t grumble too much. Meanwhile, more of our team came and went. Some were especially engaging and I made fast friends with a couple of them, carpooling to corporate events and even occasionally hanging out socially. Kyle was a sweet soul I felt I’d known forever; he left several months later. One unlikely new FES was a walking contradiction: a shy extrovert with a great singing voice who had the worst sales pitch I’d ever heard. He was also a stand-up comedian and apparently, an experienced salesman. He started a team band and let me help out a little and it was fun to talk music and synths again after so many years. But he sucked at selling solar for SolarCity. On the heels of a PIP he jumped ship to another solar company ironically. His buddy got him the job. I never knew what happened to him.

I’d watch the arc of productivity repeat itself over and over. Mostly young and earnest men and sometimes women would start off either with a vengeance and sustain it for a few months then taper off and quit or be fired. Or they would never get the hang of cold selling solar at all. It was almost never the case that an FES would start off slowly and build the skills to excel over time. The competitive, stack-ranked nature of the position as defined by SolarCity (and many similar solar companies like SunRun) made learning on the job an unlikely luxury.

Morale would devolve and the amount of downtime would increase for many and some were less honest about hours worked than others.  Once fired, there remained a permanent blight on every employment record. Should any future employer ask if SolarCity would hire their candidate again, the answer would of course be “No”.  Quite a price to pay for trying to save the planet.

Chapter 7 – Funny Business/Shady Solar

FECs lying ABOUT RUNNING OPPS, STEALING FOR SELVES-PREMIUMS, TAKING TO OTHER COMPANIES, SELLING LEADS, FECs being fired as commissions were coming due (no payouts after separation – illegal?)

REREAD JOURNAL AND EMAILS FOR DETAILS

Chapter 8 – November 2015

Lance used my commission check as an example at the November team meeting. He called us Leviathans for the mythical sea monsters. This is what you can make if you keep up your energy level, talk to everyone and book qualified opps. I’d be promoted in no time to FEC he told the team. This is what we wanted wasn’t it, he asked us.

I was leading the team. I could pick my shifts. I asked Lance if I could have Saturdays off so I could resume my otter shift so I wouldn’t lose it after nine years. He said no. I lost my otter shift and had to resort to sub status-grabbing shifts when I could to keep eligibility. But he gave me a gorgeous Nike running shirt when I had my personal best day ever booking eight opps.

Chapter 9 – December 2015

Lance offered me Saturdays off after hiring a minister who got Sundays off. But it was too late to get my otter shift back. Did he know he had orchestrated a disappointing near-miss?

Patricia, a south-county FES was finally promoted to FEC. This marked the first promotion since I started five months ago, yet I couldn’t keep track of the departures and new hires during that time.

To address some incidences of property theft-leads being stolen by former employees and sold to other companies, senior management decided we would do away with all paper notes and input our opps and leads into Salesforce directly. I made copies anyway, just in case.

The local RSM had now changed from Justine to Wendy. Lance sung Wendy’s praises. During our December Team Leviathan meeting, Lance took me aside and said that Wendy was looking for FECs. In fact, they were desperate. Now would be a good time for me to move up. He promised to sponsor me even though I hadn’t technically achieved the minimum 30 CWs with ten or more CWs each month for three months in a row (when did the quota change?), I had closed more than 30 opps and was technically qualified. I told him I was having second thoughts about FEC and was interested in other corporate jobs also in terms of promotions. He laughed and said go ahead and apply and get overlooked if I wanted to. He went on to say he didn’t necessarily want to be an FEC then CAM but it was what the company needed so he stepped up. Not to be outdone, I agreed to talk with Wendy about being promoted. He encouraged me to do it right away so I could get promoted by the first of January. It seemed like a done deal.

Wendy came to Home Depot that same day and we small-talked some. I was wearing a ridiculously festive musical elf hat and took some iPhone video footage of her wearing it. She agreed we should meet right after Christmas.

Meanwhile, I composed my first Christmas letter ever. I bragged about finally procuring a career job after years of skimping and working for chump change. I even wrote that I was eligible for a promotion.

Chapter 10 – January 2016

Lance never mentioned the FEC role again. Wendy dragged her feet about a meeting. Finally she agreed to meet and asked if I really wanted the FEC role. I was losing my voice, perhaps from the off-gassing Holiday Home Depot scented pine cones, freezing weather and blowing air conditioners all over the store as well as customers’ winter colds and flues. I said I was also interested in other options but very much wanted to own my own business from start to finish and was quite competitive. She seemed pleased by my competitiveness.

It was true, I did want to own the business from start to finish. But I didn’t like the terms of this “promotion”. I didn’t want to work twice as many hours for the same pay and I wanted set days off. In other words, I wanted a life. I got sick for three days and lost my voice entirely.

A couple of weeks later, my co-workers were all asking if I was getting promoted. Only later did I hear from Wendy that her boss wouldn’t let her promote any senior FESs because they were all needed on the floors of Home Depots. Meanwhile, new FECs were coming (hired from outside with no FES experience) and ‘old’ ones going weekly. Lance never offered an explanation why he had said one thing and she another. I felt foolish and used. I was getting a little tired of the run-around and began to doubt I would ever be promoted. I saw the inevitable arc of my own success cresting and falling, and knew it was probably only a matter of time before I’d be inched closer to the door.

But since my numbers were still good and we had too many people, he offered me four 10hour days mostly at Home Depot. That was a great deal because I was paid overtime for two of the ten hours each day and got an extra day off a week. I got along well with staff [describe associates somewhere] and came to know the store well. My customer service was unparalleled but my numbers didn’t crush for long.

Chapter 11 – February 2016

Sure enough, February was a tough month. With six months under my belt, I was tired of the same routine. Without realizing it, I was exerting less energy and effort talking to folks. In fact, some days, I’d greet customers and perform customer service, but only ask if they wanted solar after helping them find something. I wouldn’t have the heart to ask them while standing near the podium. I recall sobbing for joy when my favorite FEC closed my needed 2nd opp just a day before the month ended. As each month approached the end, we would either panic and rush in to overdrive or kick back a little depending on if we’d made our quota. And each month the same grueling ordeal started all over again.

SolarCity was continuing to have a rough time financially; numbers of installs did not meet forecast goals and costs of acquisition were way too high. In summary, business was failing. Social events, spiffs and paid lunches were cut and our every minute was watched and tracked. Lance would appear unannounced and spy on us from the second floor then call us out on our transgressions. I once snuck up behind him and caught him spying on the podium below. “Who watches the watchman!” I exclaimed. Probably not a good career move, but my bridges were already smoking if not burning.

A new division of SolarCity (Small and Medium Business) was rolled out and we were encouraged to book commercial leads as well as resi opps in HDs. Although they wouldn’t count towards our finals and we couldn’t track them to see if they closed, we were promised we would get paid. But, as always, we should focus on resi, of course. The sales lead Gene courts me and another FES and I am taken with the idea of closing big solar accounts as a career option.

Chapter 12 – March 2016

During my tenure at SolarCity, Lance hired about twenty FESs and fired about ten. Another ten quit on their own. Three of the newer FESs were fired for sexual harassment (two males, one female). Additionally, one FES was accused of assaulting a Best Buy employee in Home Depot. I was asked to testify and we reviewed the camera footage. Despite being a sexist pig, he didn’t do anything wrong in that case. He was cleared, but banned from HD and BB. He left the company for several months for greener pastures only to be allowed back into my store just as I was settling in.

Despite losing some steam, I was still making my numbers and always at least in the middle of the pack, not the lowest so as not to be fired. I was mostly biding time, tolerating the job but not enjoying it and not making active plans to go elsewhere. It is announced that SMB has been dissolved and we learn that Gene is demoted then removed.

Lance the trickster always joking- at the start of one team meeting said he was leaving us for a while and we’d be reporting to someone else for a few months. Kidding he said with a grin after watching our reactions. You never knew exactly where you were with Lance…

Chapter 13 – April 2016

‘Team, be sure to open your emails from corporate and sign the new employment agreements before noon today. This is mandatory in order for you to be paid!’ I glanced at Lance’s group text and shook my head. This was the worst blow yet. Big fanfare had preceded the announcement that in response to our requests, management was restructuring our commission payouts.

What had been a very lucrative arrangement was replaced by a much less lucrative plan. What made it unbearable was the deceptive way SolarCity promised FESs and FECs. We had been forced to watch an internal TV broadcast that assured us our commissions would be bigger and only about two weeks later on average. But we knew this wasn’t true and we knew they knew we knew and they didn’t care. It was chilling to realize how little the truth mattered to management.

New contracts were promised earlier in the week but did not arrive until an hour before the cutoff to sign them. In other words, we were unable to even review the terms of the new 30 page agreement and were given no choice; we were forced to sign under duress.

Business is still sucking. According to SolarCity Live! TV updates, there was 120% turnover in the FES role in 2015. Good grief. How do you have more than 100%? Management made a big deal about wanting to correct this number and promote from within. Nothing changed despite their official concern. At this point, my numbers are still good. Unless Lance catches me in violation of some policy or other, I can’t be fired.

During one of those seemingly endless days when I was stuck in the techno wasteland that was Best Buy, I helped pass the hours writing Haiku poetry. I no longer was very motivated, and worse, I no longer believed the company had much integrity. I’d given up otters and bonuses and the one, possibly only real chance of being promoted and had delivered the most CWs on the entire team. Where was their end of the bargain?

And then came Steven. Again. Lance re-hired the FES who was cleared of wrongdoing with a Best Buy employee although he was still not allowed back in Best Buy. Because his numbers had been good when he left, Lance catered to him and let him work only in the Soquel Home Depot, not the slower stores such as Watsonville. He was invading what had become my Alpha dog turf and I knew it would be hard to get along with him both professionally and personally.

Chapter 14 – May 2016

My numbers were still good. In fact, they had improved a bit over the past couple months. There was even more promotion talk and Wendy called me to schedule an official interview for FEC. I was excited in spite of myself. This was it. If I didn’t move up I would be forced out, so I truly had no option but to try to succeed in an impossibly difficult business role.

I double clicked the email from Wendy. ‘Sorry Janis, I spoke too soon when I scheduled your interview. You aren’t eligible for promotion until you improve your close rate. I will have to cancel the interview until your numbers improve but you are on my radar.’ Twice now, I had been bated by their promotion trap. Cancel an interview? I’d never heard of such a thing. Even Lance agreed that was ridiculously unprofessional.

“Her face looks like it melted then froze wrong.” My co-worker loved to comment on every person entering the store. He took pride in being ‘politically incorrect’. Rude and crass is a better description. Often, his comments were within customers’ earshot and frequently he would be reported to management. But he always got away with it. We were supposed to walk around and not stand behind the podium but he never ever budged from it and barked at every single person “Hey, are you a homeowner?” He would pitch the exact same way all the time with the finesse of a typhoon. His co-workers were at a disadvantage because he never let them get a word in. Remarkably, due to the sheer volume of pitches and some bizarre brand of charm, he would always do well. That’s why he got away with everything.

When he stole an opp right out from under me, I exploded. But I realized it would be me not him who would suffer. Sure enough, my four ten hour days reverted to five eights and three of the five were spent working ‘with’ Steven. My numbers plunged as did my morale. Eventually, we made our peace, however uneasy. He’d lived a very colorful and full life and seemed to know just about every Bay Area luminary from the sixties. I couldn’t resist laughing at his stories in spite of my moral aversion. It also helped pass the time.

Another FES on the Leviathan team was arrested for domestic violence, put up by boss (and me for a night) then resigned to go to sell cars after his interview was cancelled at the same time as mine. His fiance had also worked for SolarCity as part of a Friends and Family referral program. Nepotism was encouraged in this company, but she was fired quickly when she refused to aggressively sell to shoppers and decided to just sit in the break room and watch the big screen TV at Best Buy instead. He is apparently still homeless since being arrested and sleeps in his car before arriving at work every day in a three-piece suit.

Chapter 15 – June 2016

Because business was down, our quotas were raised from two to three CWs per month minimum. Commissions were non-existent although seven of my opps closed that month.

A big shake up occurred in the higher echelons of SolarCity and lots of major stakeholders were fired. Patricia, our only promoted FES was fired. Justine, the RSM and for years unbeatable, was fired. One new FES was promoted to FEC within his first month. He didn’t meet any of the requirements, but senior staff had apparently really liked the cut of his jib.

A new warehouse had opened in Salinas and we were required to make the hour drive from Santa Cruz each time we had a meeting. It was always deserted and we learned there had been a massive layoff shortly after it opened. For some reason, more and more meetings were scheduled for FES and FEC teams at the same time we needed to be out in the field getting more opps. One among many inconsistencies in policy it seemed.

Policies had always been fluid at SolarCity but lately the speed at which they changed was accelerating so quickly we no longer knew which protocols to adhere to and which to dismiss. First, we had to ask customers if they were on a discounted electric plan, then we weren’t allowed to ask. Next, we had to ask how much they spent on electric, until we weren’t allowed. We had to get email addresses for our opps to be considered qualified until we were mandated to stop asking. FECs were supposed to call the customers within 24 hours of the visit until it was decided not to call the customers at all, just to show up.

These rapid corrections were fairly transparent attempts to stabilize SolarCity’s crashing business plan but until Elon decided to begin merger proceedings with Tesla, SolarCity’s financial future looked grim.

Chapter 16 – July 2016

Wendy was married in early July and soon afterwards she relocated to the East coast. She was replaced by Penelope who brought her own regional FEC team to add to our tiny FEC team of three. Our FECs were surprised by the suddenness of the announcement. I was surprised by less and less at this point!

I was excited. I was going to Virginia to see my friends and family for two whole weeks! Lance approved my vacation time and encouraged me to relax and enjoy the vacation because I’d earned it. I told him I didn’t think I’d make my numbers for once, but would rally back in August. Since I was leading the team in sales and always had made my numbers for the past 11 months, he seemed fine with it. Sure enough, instead of the new quota of three CWs, I only got one in July.

Chapter 17 – August 2016

On my second day back from a fabulous vacation, Lance showed up and asked me to take a walk with him. He informed me management at Home Depot had reported to him my lack of effort. He told me if I didn’t make a dramatic improvement, I would need to find another job. In fact, he said, if I didn’t make enough CWs to get promoted (at least seven), I would only have a month or two. I would be “too bitter and resentful” to stick around. He put me on a verbal warning and gave me one month to improve.

This was a brutal reversal of the good will and faith he extended two weeks earlier. I led the team in closes… I knew he had some discretion about when to tighten the screws. The past few months, I had watched the former team leader linger with one or no closes and Lance never even put him on a verbal warning. Another FES had been on a verbal and failed to make his quota but was given a reprieve because an FEC stole his closes and kept them for himself as premium, higher paying opps. Yet, I was shown no such mercy. despite still leading the team in sales. For whatever reason, Lance wanted me out sooner than later and he’d rather I quit now than have to be fired eventually.

I get 5 CWs not the seven I needed to get promoted. Meanwhile, SolarCity announces merger layoffs are happening company-wide. My August commissions are about one fifth of what they would have been under the old structure.

Chapter 18 – Dark Side of Solar

Not hiring own crews but day workers
Not honoring issues with roofs (customer service bad)
– net metering 2.0
– Nevada
– PUCs raising rates
– Florida private “PUC”
– Solar Bonds
– Stock Trades
– Selling lists
– Stealing opps
– Delaying DQ site surveys
– Ubiquitous industry untrustworthy
– Lease vs buy – who makes money? (SunRun and SC etc)

RESEARCH! And also admit addressing those issues isn’t within the scope of this effort or my intentions.

Chapter 19 – September 2016

FECs were now allowed back in stores, at first to work with us, then to compete against us. A new FEC ranking system and even more knee-jerk policy shifts were implemented in desperate attempts to improve business.

FECs were being fired at an unprecedented rate. And they were taking business with them. One FEC stole a CW right from under me. When he happened to walk into to Home Depot, I called him out on it and he confessed then offered me $200 cash. I said, I would rather keep my job and he had made that more difficult with his theft. This was not an isolated incident.

Business was still drying up but I made good numbers and was off my warning. Somehow I now owed them $400 in commissions from clawbacks as long ago as last November…??

Several FESs on our team resign or get fired so now there aren’t many of us to go around and there is a hiring freeze. Suddenly Lance’s story changes to I can stay around a couple months if I want to…

Chapter 20 – October 2016

We get a new Regional Marketing Director (again!). Her name is Randi. She has been tasked with bringing the Bay Area teams up from the basement of national rankings, or else…

“Believe me, when a merger happens, you do NOT want to be in the lowest 20% of rankings. And take my word for it, you DO want to stick around after we become Tesla Energy. Exciting times are ahead. I need each of you to give me everything you have for the month of October. This is do or die.” She was speaking before the entire team, admonishing Lance and each of us. Lance begged each of us in private phone calls afterwards to give it our all for just one month to prove to Randi we were worth saving, or we would all need to find new jobs. I had a hunch that we will all be laid off soon.

“What would it take to motivate you to get seven CWs this month?” Randi is not threatening me. She is actually incentivizing me. She will give me sneaker cash each day I get 6 opps (haha 6 is no more likely than 600 most days).

“I understand you have been up for promotion twice but was given the runaround. Do you want to be promoted? I will guarantee you an interview in early November and I will coach you. But in order to be eligible you will need at last 7 CWs.”

I give it my all in October. I pitch to everyone who walks in the store. I call all my leads. I beg FECs to close my opps to save my job and I book 30 qualified opps in October. Certainly at least several will close. But instead, I proceed to have the worst CW month in my career history. Uncannily, NONE of my 30 qualified opps close…

On a whim, I apply at Sears to sell appliances. I get an interview and am hired on the spot, part time a few hours a week.

Chapter 21 – November 2016

As Lance walks in Home Depot November 1st. I shake my head “I tried, Lance.” He says, “OK, so we’re good, you know what’s coming. Randi didn’t want me to wait. She wants you on a PIP starting today. And instead of a month to improve, she has given you a week. You have to get 10 opps and 1 CW each week of the month. If you get seven CWs, you could get promoted.” Unreal, even while issuing a death sentence, SolarCity still dangles a promotion carrot.

I work as hard as I’ve ever worked for that week. I get seven good opps and expect any one of them to close. I schedule same and next day appointments and work on my day off. When the final opp of the final evening of the final week doesn’t close, I concede.

The day after Election Day of one of the most contentious and disgusting races in history, Donald Trump became our new president. I email Rod that I can meet him wherever he wants. I need to return the tablet with my name on it. He emails back that it has to be Home Depot. I don’t want to face the HD associates or my co-workers and ask if we can meet elsewhere but he says no way – company policy. He is playing hard ball. OK, I agree to meet him at Home Depot in two hours. He emails back that we can meet wherever I want in an hour.

BOSS-X
At 2pm I meet him in a Trader Joe’s parking lot in downtown Santa Cruz. It is sunny and I am wearing shorts and sunglasses. Despite trying to keep cool, I shed a tear. “This is the end. Bittersweet”, he says. I thank him for everything and tell him I hope he finds a company to work for that has integrity. I tell him SolarCity isn’t honest about opportunities to move up. He tells me not to give up on being FEC; he still thinks I’d make a good one, just not at SolarCity. I tell him I’m a bit burnt on solar, haha.

Lance then confides he too might be gone soon. I really have no idea if he is on the level or not. You just never know with Lance. We hug and drive our separate ways. No paperwork is signed, no guidance is offered. An hour later, I receive a group text congratulating me on a CW. An FEC finally closed one of my 36 qualified opps. TIMING IS EVERYTHING.

Epilogue

This was my experience at SolarCity. It might not be everyone’s but I saw enough folks go through the same cycle to believe it’s standard operating procedure to exploit gullible candidates and deceive them into believing they can succeed, and instead, to wring them dry and toss them aside leaving them, like me, feeling ashamed, angered and afraid.

Fifteen months at SolarCity and no FECs and only three FESs wished me well. I’m back where I started. One thing about the solar coaster ride, it always ends at the bottom.

Maybe things will improve after the Tesla merger. I hope so.
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