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Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
So I'm going to post a bunch of poo poo at my job that really pisses me off and I would encourage everyone else to do the same thing. I mean, I'm quitting in a few days so its a good way to get it off me chest and share with others.

One of the things they do here in the sales department is pay our agents by retention. Retention is that the product has to stay "on the books" for at least 90 days, otherwise the commission earned is taken back and you lose that sale. Which makes sense, why should you get paid for something that isn't sticking around? I don't know any employee that wants paid for a product that cancelled. The rub is this: If you have too many cancellations then you get paid less for ALL products written for the month. The goal is to keep at least 90% of everything on the books for 90 days. For example if you sold 10 products this month, had 2 cancel, you're at 80% and you get paid on the lower tier. Your commission is capped due to missing that 90% mark. While this is kinda shady in and of itself, it gets better:

You're required to sell everything that comes through. If someone indicates they are going to cancel the product, doesn't matter. Gotta sell it. If it seems really shady and sketchy, doesn't matter you gotta sell it. If they cancel the product in favor of upgrading or downgrading, doesn't matter. So what has happened is you're forced to sell things you know are going to cancel out and actually force your commission check DOWNWARD via company policy. This has resulted in many employees seeing more sales, but getting paid less for them. Even if it is cancelled because they are ineligible for X product, but readily sign up for Y (Even with the same sales person), it doesn't matter. It cancelled, you get paid less.

So if you sell 10 $5000 products (pretty good!) but lovely McShitterstein cancels his 2 $50 products, upgrades to a $200 product, guess what; you get paid less on the $5000! Not only do you lose the commission for the 2 products, you lose the higher commission on the $5000 ones you sold.

gently caress that noise so hard. I consider it almost a form of wage theft, but what are you going to do on that. This post turned out longer than I had intended, but I have a ton more stories to tell, and can go into more detail if you have questions

What do you think? What kind of bad policies impact you negatively at your work place?

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ethanol
Jul 13, 2007



i don't have a job

Bobcats
Aug 5, 2004
Oh
We use a lot of Excel

symbolic
Nov 2, 2014

job in iowa is lovely, more at 11

Smelly Bohemian
Aug 20, 2015

by Lowtax
I'm really getting tired of masturbating this same retard.


Because, you see, I work from home.

ScratchAndSniff
Sep 28, 2008

This game stinks
We have to swallow

ghosTTy
Sep 22, 2008

Nothing at my job is stupid

social vegan
Nov 7, 2014



Posting

neato burrito
Aug 25, 2002

bitch better have my chex mix

Commission based jobs are just the worst. You should kill all management before you leave.

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

neato burrito posted:

Commission based jobs are just the worst. You should kill all management before you leave.

Hardcore.

ultimateforce
Apr 25, 2008

SKINNY JEANS CANT HOLD BACK THIS ARC
We have an internal ship date and an external ship date.

The internal one is set by management and is the basis for our bonus payout. The management bonus is based on the external ship date (when the product actually goes to the customer).

Guess which date is set about two days too short every time?

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy
i work for a public funded college doing computer stuff and every time i make a change it has to go to district legal so my work cycle is 1 week of doing things and 3 weeks of sitting around doing nothing

at least i know i have job security i guess but holy poo poo i need a job where i'm constantly doing things

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

ultimateforce posted:

We have an internal ship date and an external ship date.

The internal one is set by management and is the basis for our bonus payout. The management bonus is based on the external ship date (when the product actually goes to the customer).

Guess which date is set about two days too short every time?

A good point I can elaborate on here too.

So they calculated your 90 day retention rate at the end of the month, generally on the last day of the month. BUT, there is a rub. Your products sold can take anywhere from 1 day to TEN DAYS to process through. Now, commissions are based on tiers, so you sell 27 you're in a bottom tier, 36 you're in the next one up, 43, the next, 50+ the highest.

So lets say on October 30 you're at 42 products. One more sale and you can make it! But its entirely possible that by the end of the month only 35 have processed. This means you are really at the lower tier despite knocking on the door of the next tier with 42 sales.

The extra rub is that cancellations can be processed IMMEDIATELY. So if you're on the 31st and you dig deep, get those extra sales, if some folks cancel their products on that day, congrats. You just get paid less and there is literally nothing you can do about it because its the end of the month. Even if you are able to reinstate the products and get everything smoothed over, sorry. You get paid at the lower tier. Even if its an administrative error that shows a cancel when it was a modification, sorry, you get paid at the lower tier. Essentially they slow down the processing of sales, but process cancels immediately. Many employees are caught in this feed back loop with 89% retention rates because the cancellations are processed at the end of the month while the sales are processed at the beginning. This results in a lower over all commission despite the same amount of sales.

This company values its employees? Nah.

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3
Nov 15, 2003

Jastiger posted:

So lets say on October 30 you're at 42 products. One more sale and you can make it! But its entirely possible that by the end of the month only 35 have processed. This means you are really at the lower tier despite knocking on the door of the next tier with 42 sales.

doesn't this also mean you start the next month with 7 sales?

Dave_Indeed
Feb 22, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
I'm an engineer so I wouldn't know anything about lovely pay checks.

Sales commission schemes are your punishment for not doing your math homework you little bitch.

Modest Mauser
Oct 28, 2009

Bobcats posted:

We use a lot of Excel

This.

I love my job though. I just hate most of the people in my office.
Do we have a "post people you work with and hate" thread ?

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy

Dave_Indeed posted:

I'm an engineer so I wouldn't know anything about lovely pay checks.

Sales commission schemes are your punishment for not doing your math homework you little bitch.

did commission based sales for 5 years before going back to college and learning calc this is true

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

LegoPirateNinja posted:

doesn't this also mean you start the next month with 7 sales?

In a perfect world, yes.

In the real world its a constant shell game since its a way to keep pushing those sales into the next month. Often times it'll end up being split in such a way that you'll get credit for the prior month up to say, 40 (when you need 42 for the higher tier) with 2 policies ,and then 5 for the next where the same thing happens again. Its a situation where if you averaged 41 policies each month you'd get paid LESS than if you had one month be higher then the other two be lower. They ensure you get the lower pay out.


Modest Mauser posted:

This.

I love my job though. I just hate most of the people in my office.
Do we have a "post people you work with and hate" thread ?

Don't see why this can't go here.

ethanol
Jul 13, 2007



FordPRefectLL posted:

did commission based sales for 5 years before going back to college and learning calc this is true

Same down to taking calc again but I did editing before which is almost as bad or worse. The truth is the world hates everybody but engineers and my life is significantly improved by doing math homework

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy
we get too much free food at my job so everyone's fat and i'm terrified i'm gonna get like that because i have so little self control so i ride my bike for like 2 hours after work every day and don't have time for another hobby as a result

Big Bowie Bonanza
Dec 30, 2007

please tell me where i can date this cute boy
btw if you're ever wondering where a lot of your tuition goes it's to catering apparently

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

FordPRefectLL posted:

did commission based sales for 5 years before going back to college and learning calc this is true

Definitely in the future plans.

My biggest gripe isn't that its sales. Sales is sales, whatever.

Its that they make it intentionally suck rear end. Instead of it being a professional sales environment its "How can we pay employees less but make them sell more?" corporate horse poo poo.

spud
Aug 27, 2003

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN
Doing my loving expenses.

Give me a credit card I am sick of keeping receipts for everything.

thathonkey
Jul 17, 2012
Having to fill out weekly time sheets with all sorts of granular "buckets" like I'm supposed to remember that I spent 3 hrs on task 4 of 56 that make up the whole project, 2 hours on another, oops I got interrupted by an issue that there is no time bucket for that I spent 2 hrs on so I have to stop and ask someone where to bill the time etc. etc. at the end of each week OR stop what I'm doing and fill them out as I go. They're important but I feel like it should be a manager's job to do mundane poo poo like this.

I'm salaried non-manager so it's not like I give a gently caress where the hours go as long as I complete my assignments :shrug: I won't get more money for working over time or less money for working less hours and accomplishing the assigned work.

GORILLA BASTARD
Jun 20, 2005

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN
Spent 6 1/2 hrs on Friday in a lawful use of force class that broke down when/when not we can beat people's asses & not get in trouble for it.

Like I don't know after all these years already.

The rest of the day was spent either on a catered lunch/smoke/coffee breaks. Thanks Obama!

lonesomedwarf
Mar 22, 2010

sometimes i dont clean the floor properly. no one notices anyway

Pillowpants
Aug 5, 2006

thathonkey posted:

Having to fill out weekly time sheets with all sorts of granular "buckets" like I'm supposed to remember that I spent 3 hrs on task 4 of 56 that make up the whole project, 2 hours on another, oops I got interrupted by an issue that there is no time bucket for that I spent 2 hrs on so I have to stop and ask someone where to bill the time etc. etc. at the end of each week OR stop what I'm doing and fill them out as I go. They're important but I feel like it should be a manager's job to do mundane poo poo like this.

I'm salaried non-manager so it's not like I give a gently caress where the hours go as long as I complete my assignments :shrug: I won't get more money for working over time or less money for working less hours and accomplishing the assigned work.

I work in payroll and no salaried position has every required that where I've worked. You're getting hosed.

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe
My weekend job has a really Strict screening process so everyone is relatively really competent and nice to work with...
Except tech. Tech is beyond dumb and unhelpful.
Client sends me a detailed description of their problem, so I forward it to tech with a note "why is my client getting this problem?" Tech response "if you could describe the problem in some way, it would help."
So not only did tech not know that "..." At the bottom of an email is what you click to read a forward, they failed to figure it out from the "fw:" at the beginning and assumed I sent them an email which just read "why is my client getting this problem," with absolutely no other information

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe

Pillowpants posted:

I work in payroll and no salaried position has every required that where I've worked. You're getting hosed.

I've seen it a lot in jobs where the client is billed for hours. If the client questions some of the billing, it helps to have an absolutely specific record of what work was done and exactly when and exactly how long it took.
Still a pain though

Hashtag GBS
May 10, 2015

by Lowtax

Pillowpants posted:

I work in payroll and no salaried position has every required that where I've worked. You're getting hosed.

the only time i've seen this is when employees are working on stuff that has billable hours to different clients

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
Jastiger soaking panties ITT

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
Why don't they just pay you a flat commission on anything sold, and pay it out 3 months after the fact and remove any cancellations at that point?

I already kind of know the answer a little bit (boost absolute number of sales to make some exec look good regardless of the actual $ flow and also to screw employees as much as possible) but drat dude. It's almost like a union rep should re-negotiate your commissions for you.

ghosTTy
Sep 22, 2008

lonesomedwarf posted:

sometimes i dont clean the floor properly. no one notices anyway

why are the corners always dirty? i notice that the corners are always dirty. why can't your mop reach the corners? they're always dirty.

Crown Face
Sep 24, 2008
A coworker of mine regularly keeps perishable meat dishes sitting on the counter of our kitchen after leaving them sitting out at home overnight, then microwaves them so half of our office smells like rancid meat for the rest of the day.

I tried explaining food safety to her but she was backed up by a number of other employees in saying 'if I put this chicken in the fridge it gets dry, it's only been out for 12~ hours not even a full day and it stays tender this way.'

Also it's an online game company and I'm in marketing and our operations team refuses to tell anyone when server maintenance is happening so we just end up with a ton of confused and pissed off players every few weeks.

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Moridin920 posted:

Why don't they just pay you a flat commission on anything sold, and pay it out 3 months after the fact and remove any cancellations at that point?

I already kind of know the answer a little bit (boost absolute number of sales to make some exec look good regardless of the actual $ flow and also to screw employees as much as possible) but drat dude. It's almost like a union rep should re-negotiate your commissions for you.

Its a really messed up system actually. Certain products pay out more or less based on what they are. Once you hit that certain tier of products sold, you get a bump in percentage for all categories.

High risk stuff is paid at a lower commission (Which I've actually talked to some legal folks and I think that may be a form of redlining. The same thing that got Bank of America and Wells Fargo in trouble in 2009-also high risk insurance is MORE PROFITABLE THAN STANDARD INSURANCE), where as the standard or preferred is paid out at a higher rate. Since everything is paid at a different rate, they have to suss out what to pay you or not to pay you. Also remember, cancellations are processed FIRST, so those show up immediately. If you sell 100 policies and have NO cancels, then on the last day have 11 cancel due to "processing hold ups" well, lol, gently caress you, you get paid the less amount.

OK so as some of you may know I work in the insurance industry, so we do inbound sales here. I work for a company that is considered "preferred" or "Upper Tier". You have The General which is pretty much garbage and then you have preferred companies that are supposedly better.

But here is the rub. Remember, we're required to sell everything and offer our products to whoever calls in, despite us redlining them out to non-standard/high risk. Since we're preferred our guidelines are strict on who we can or cannot sell what to. Guess how our company chooses to market ourselves? As The General! People that are in downtown Detroit with auto theft on their record end up calling us, and we're expected to sell a policy to them. You know those ads on facebook:

10 THINGS YOUR AUTO INSURER DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

or

CAR INSURANCE, NO BACK GROUND CHECK, AS LOW AS $15 A MONTH!

You know, that click bait poo poo for idiots?

We buy that poo poo. We flood our people with high risk, no income people and then penalize them when their policies inevitably cancel.
Meanwhile, our competitors do NOT do this and if you look at the books we're one of the least profitable major insurance companies when you look at auto insurance.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
Jastiger you seem really upset about this and maybe like you have no one to talk to about it and while we're goons and we care I want you to stop for a minute and think about how you're making really long posts about the structuring of auto insurance commission payouts and realize that is the most supremely boring thing that there is in so far as boring topics go and I beg you to atone for your sins and post something funny or interesting the next time.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
Did you gently caress anyone in the office? Did you poo poo in/on someone's things? Pee pee doo doo? Dookie man?

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
Fault Finding in Fire Alarm systems, gently caress anything in Fire Alarm systems that isn't installing entire new systems. I loving LOVE it when I spend hours at a client's building tracing a whole bunch of faults through their lovely neglected building and then get a bunch of flak for it because since "nothing's changed" in the building what the gently caress is the Landlord getting billed for?

Had a job the other day at a cafe that decided to do a bunch of off the book modifications and hosed up the spacing on every Thermal detector by putting up a bunch of new walls. Spent four hours running new cable and putting up sensors while the Chinese lady that ran it kept telling me that her building didn't need the new sensors. Landlord refused to call accounts to figure out what was up with his billing and instead kept talking at me telling me the work had been done and he shouldn't have to pay.

Or there was that fuckin' Chinese-run flophouse where 3 of 4 bells didn't work and the landlord refused to replace them because "one was loud enough" and still wanted us to give him an all clear on his inspection.

THE WORST though are the loving flophouse landlords that let every problem accumulate over a year or two and want everything dealt with on inspection day. Of course the guy doesn't mention the panel has either a) been beeping b) been disabled c) is quite obviously irreparably hosed but he's sure to get the lowest quote possible because technically it's a tiny 6 bedroom house. Of course the boss doesn't bother having a look, and he'll schedule a gently caress ton of inspections in the same day. So you get to this loving house and because of lovely renovation jobs the wiring is hosed six ways from Sunday and the panel doesn't quite work and every sensor is absolutely hosed and the landlord guy in his loving leather jacket and BMW plays dumb and doesn't want to pay for loving anything, sometimes uttering some variation of "Well it's all part of the inspections, right?"

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Sheep-Goats posted:

Jastiger you seem really upset about this and maybe like you have no one to talk to about it and while we're goons and we care I want you to stop for a minute and think about how you're making really long posts about the structuring of auto insurance commission payouts and realize that is the most supremely boring thing that there is in so far as boring topics go and I beg you to atone for your sins and post something funny or interesting the next time.

Eh I think its interesting, but its not funny lol.

I was gonna save the "Insurance call stories" until after I got all my rage out. Because I talk to a ridiculous amount of goons every day.

No, not just regular goons. GOONS. Like, I'm-56-and-my-mom-pays-for-my-bills goons.

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raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
Hey you boring homos if your job is really boring at least lie about what happened enough that it's fun to read about it

Jastiger posted:

Eh I think its interesting, but its not funny lol.

I was gonna save the "Insurance call stories" until after I got all my rage out. Because I talk to a ridiculous amount of goons every day.

No, not just regular goons. GOONS. Like, I'm-56-and-my-mom-pays-for-my-bills goons.

It's interesting to you alone homie, you alone

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