Well-Paid Professionals Draw Unwelcome Attention

Computerworld ^ | June 30, 2003 | Carlos Tejada and Gary McWilliams

[riri]

Neither did the other 3,900 highly paid commissioned salespeople

Now, we are supposed to believe that $54,000 a year is a highly paid post? That's nights, weekends, holidays and I would venture to guess not much in the way of benefits.

I guess he just got too greedy, too comfortable in that lucrative, cushy Circuit City sales job.

[billbears]

Well from experience at CC between '94-'00 I watched the 'high paid' salaries go from around 95-100K to about 65K. And to make the lower salaries by 2000 the person doing it was selling about 30% more than he did in '94. Myself I maintained my salary in the audio dept of mid 40s but before I quit I was working longer days, and selling about 40% more myself than I did in '94

[riri]

bump

[Hodar]

I'm not intending to flame Circuit City ..... but....

1) I was unaware that Circuit City employees work on commission.
2) My experiences at Circuit City have been negative at every shopping experience
3) The 'knowledge' at my local Circuit City's certainly does not compete with the 'knowledge' I have found at Best Buy. The guys at my local Best Buy know HDTV, and can tell the difference between 720p, 720i and 1040i.
4) The return policy at Ciruit City is 180 degrees opposed to Best Buy (in *MY* experience).

Bottom line, I don't like high pressure sales, from people who don't know the product they are selling, nor the features of comparable models. I don't like having to 'sell' the idea of a refund on a non-functional product. I shop at Best Buy, and have never had a non-positive experience.

[Southack]

repost: I walked into a Circuit City store last week to buy a new digital camcorder.

They had an entire display of digital camcorders in one section. I walked around this display only to realize that NONE of the camcorders were "plugged in" or set up to actually use them in the store in order to try them out.

After I had circled the display a few times, a store "salesperson" came by and asked me if he could help me with anything.

I told him sure, turn on the camcorders so that I could pick out the best one and buy it today.

Oh, digital camcorders, he said... We're getting in the "new models" of them next month, so until then we aren't hooking up our old models.

Then he turned around and left. No other questions. No other "Can I help you with something else". No anything.

I couldn't spend my money in there no matter how hard I tried.

Now tell me, if that anecdotal experience is in any way indicative of Circuit city stores/management/salespeople in general, just how long are they going to be around?

Sure, it would have been nice to try out a few camcorders firsthand before buying, but barring that option I was compelled to return home (a considerable drive) and order a camcorder sight-unseen via the Internet.

So there is at least one Circuit City salesperson who deserves to be laid off, as he was less able to make a sale than was a non-living, virtual internet page, but the web page made the sale instead of him, after all.

That's hardly the kind of recommendation that you want to put on your resume, that you are less talented and less motivated than an inanimate web page.

Sayonara Circuit City, your laziness is why Americans enjoy our free market system, as this system will clean out the low-performing dregs of our society from our marketplace.

In other words, you're gonna take it on the chin.

[Dianna]

I guess he just got too greedy, too comfortable in that lucrative, cushy Circuit City sales job.

But the real problem, it seems to me, is with the type of job it is. Is this guy REALLY bringing in that much more money than a new hire off the street? I don't let salespeople talk me into buying much of anything, so an experienced person could sell me the "whatever" I've chosen just as well as some new guy who has been there 10 minutes.

The lesson is not to have a job that can, or *looks like it can, be taken over by some guy off the street. Sad for the guy, he worked hard, I'm sure.

[KC_Conspirator]

Well, unless I mised it, the one thing this article does not mention is Cicuit City sales after the mass layoffs. That is poor journalism. All we have is a ten year comparison to Best Buy, which has cheaper employees.

[chance33_98]

I have seen the opposite many times in my field. Someone who has been working with the company for a few years and then they hire someone in new when a similar position opens and pays them more.

At my last job we had an excellent manager, a position opened up for a manager doing something similar, they offered him a lateral move - he was thinking about taking it when he found out they were also interviewing people and offering them about 20k more for the same position (and he was more than qualified for the job). These things happened on a very regular basis there, and has been the norm in other places I have worked. AT my current job they hired in a new guy, with no experience but had his ccna, and he makes 3k more a year than I do (with 10 years exp, ccna, scna, scsa). The reasoning? They were getting rid of the pay bands and just decided to be nice and give him the top of it before the change over.

Life goes on, my self training pays off, and I am moving to a new position as a unix engineer making 12k more. Sometimes you just have to shrug off the goofiness :)

[discostu]

Nothing unusual here at all. Layoffs are about salary, since management is generally immune that means high paid grunts get the axe. If you need to get rid of 2 million in salary it's faster to get rid of guys making 50 grand than guys making 30.

[1066AD]

If they were "highly" paid, based upon commissions i.e. sales, presumably they sold lots of stuff so why get rid of your best sales people ? This sounds more like a short term "fix" not long term. More fuzzy thinking from the ivory tower.

[Welsh Rabbit]

A few months ago I was at my local CC shopping for a new DVD player and some computer hardware. The salesman quietly advised me to go to Best Buy (which I did).

[CherylBower]

This also shows lack of loyalty in corporate America. My parents were very loyal to their employers. The employers seemed very loyal to them (my parents were actually very lucky). Corporations are loyal to the bottom line, interfere with that and bye bye. I am a free market capitalist, but I am as loyal to my employer and it is to me. I will look for the better deal all the time.

[Theodore R.]

This is the epitome of "No good deed goes unpunished."

One who warned about injustice of this kind was Patrick J. Buchanan, a critic of the "free-trade," multinational economy.

[Jeff Gordon]

It makes a lot of sense. During hard times every company wanting to go out of business should lay off their most productive employees.

[Cicero]

I don't know much first-hand about Circuit City, but this is a recipe for disaster. This guy sold $1,000,000 of equipment for a salary of $54,000. That's a pretty good deal for the company. So they fire all their best people and keep all the drones and idiots. They may get paid less, but they probably don't do any business, either.

If things are tough, the normal solution is to close the losing stores, shave inventory, get rid of items that aren't doing well, and maybe cut everyone's salaries across the board, including especially the bosses. If anyone gets fired it should be the footsoldiers who are least productive.

It must be depressing to work for a badly-run company where the bosses don't know which end is up.

[discostu]

A lot of that is just negotiating capability. In looser corporate structures it's all about what the person asks for, I was notorious for selling myself cheap a bad habit since I also tend to be the first member of my department, slowly I've learned to push for more.

[Centurion2000]

CRazy

[discostu]

This is retail none of Buchanan's concerns impact this. Circuit City is a notoriously badly run company that only lasted as long as it did because it had a head start on the competition, BestBuy and others have finally expanded to the point that they'll soon be putting CC out of business.

[Hodar]

"Loyalty" is a funny thing. I have heard managers tell me that come payday, we are square and that a new week means that the whole arrangement starts over again.

Then, I have seen Loyalty demonstraged at another company that I have never heard of before.

CRAY - US maker of Supercomputers is the ONLY company that has demonstrated loyalty to it's employees, the way I would if I were in a position of power. We had a woman (young, married with 2 kids) who worked in the shipping/receiving department. She had a brain anurism that had her completely and permanently disabled. AS she had only been with the company for a few months, she had neither vacation nor sick-leave to cover her the 90 days until her permanent disability insurance (paid for by Cray) kicked in. The good people in HR at Cray let it be known that people who desired to, could contibute a day of either sick-leave, or vacation to this person. Within 3 hours, people had donated enough hours so that this person could recieve 100% full pay, until her permanent insurance kicked in.

Unfortunately, that caliber of compaany is the exception to the rule. Loyalty to the company is a one way street. Companies expect it, but practically never extend it.