Mike32ct said:
Backbreaker, I totally respect your posts and generally agree with you in principle. But just to play devil's advocate (and remove any remaining doubts in my mind), what is to stop an employer from taking advantage of an employee that busts their a$s? I think a lot employees are afraid of working themselves into the ground and having very little growth in income to show for it.
Are you saying it's because of #1 or #2 or some other reason?
1. It's not possible for a truly valuable employee to not rise up.
Or
2. Even if you had a stingy employer, their competition would want to hire you and offer you more money.
I'm not trying to put ideas/words in your mouth, I'm just genuinely curious about this one. Thanks.
it's a very valid question.
What you have to understand is that, there is NO way you are not going to be paid in some way shape or form. Sometimes it's not in money as cliche as that sounds.
As I have stated, I never will be rollo or some others when it comes to my penmenship, thats' not my gift. I relate through stories and I have one that can best convey what I mean.
When I was 20 years old, as stated I sold cars and I was damn good at it. I worked for Crain Mazda in little rock. You have to understand the dynamnics of the auto industry.. Mazda's don't really sale themselves, it's really a "starter job" if that makes sense, they will take anyone and see who sticks. We were on a row of car dealerships that had a nissan, honda and toyota dealership, the guy at nissan who ran it told me flat out i could have a job there, selling cars that do sale themselves. If you can sale 20 cars at mazda you can sale 35 at nissan and that's not exaggeration.
At the time I was running my business with my business partner, but one of us had to take a job, to put food on the table until we knew that our business could support us. Also we met with banks and venture capital people and even flew out of town to try to raise money, and that required having money and a half ass decent wardrobe which I did not have at the time. But, about this time... business was picking up. We hadn't "arrived yet" but in the back of my mind I knew i could quit anytime and not starve though it would have served in the companies best interest if I could stick it out for another 3 or so months, we wanted to save up for a marketing campaign and or more inventory.
Well this particular month I sold i think it was 17 cars, which is enough to get 3 bonsus, a 10 car bonus which retroactivly takes your percentage from all cars sold from 25% to 30% (so for instance, if the company made 2400 dollars on a car deal that I sold, i would get paid $720 instead of $600.) Then you get a $200 dollar bonus for saling 13 cars and another $500 for saling 17 cars. Anyway I get my comission check, and they are trying to tale me I did not earn any one bonus.. lol, with the freaking bonus structure sitting smack dab on the GM's window. Not only that i wasn't new, i ahd earned bonsses before. I knew almost to the penny how much I was supposed to make and i was like 1200 short. yes, freaking 1200.
And you want to talk about working to the bone, everyday, 6 days a week, 8:30am, to 8pm on saturdays i would work later than 8pm on a car deal I was closing and a few additional days in there. I worked F and I for 3 days that month, didn't even ask for anything I just did it becuase I liked the F and I guy alot and he really needed some days off. I had been living off a min wage draw check and I needed my money. and it's not like I would come home, plop up my feet and watch TV, no i had more work to do with my other company. I would go to bed around 2am every morning. I got NO sleep, no rest. You want to talk about someone pissed off.
So I confronted them.. no mas. IN hindsight I know what was happening. they were cash strapped and were trying to take advantage of the sales people. I wasn't the only one that got shorted. The GM pulled me aside and told me he would get it taken care of.l This went on for a week. Crain owns 12 dealerships or something like that, he wasn't the man writing the check. I kept asking, he kept calling i know he was calling i saw him, they were putting him off on everyone else, then I get on the phone with the HR woman finally and she tells me no it's right deal with it.
At that point I got my **** and just walked out and went home and went to sleep lol. I was done. to this day, never saw a dime of that 1200 dollars. I even filed a complaint with the attorney general.
But you know what. while i didn't get any money, I was paid. I assured myself, promised myself that when I did get to the point that I ever had employees, I would never treat them the way I was just treated by that company. You take care of your talent and your talent will bend over to work for you. AS long as they paid me what I was worth and on time, they had NO problem out of me, i would do anything they asked. Hey BB go work car wars, no problem. Hey BB go work at this other dealership to cover no problem. hey I know it's you day off but can you come in and close this client, this new guy has no idea what he's doing and the client knows you. no problem let me get dressed. But when you don't value your employees, they wont' value their jobs or you. I dont' ever argue over money, ever, even when I know I am overpaying. If I like the programmer he will get paid what he feels he is worth. Same when I had my computer company. I pay on time and I usually pay bonuses for doing great work. And you know what, if I hire a freelancer to cover some of our slack, and he is working on 2 jobs, guess which one is going to get done first. when I hire my grahpic guy who charges, a grand a pop for a design, if I submit him a request for a design today it will be usually in my inbox by the time I wake up the next morning. Clients **** bricks when they see that type of efficiency and I have no qualms or problems trying to collect money. But you know what, i don't even wait until I see the work until I pay him, i know he's going to do what he needs to do, the dude is unreal (albeit high). IN other words, the importance of taking care of your talent, even when it costs you to do so, was well, well worth that 1200 dollars which i was going ot use to buy some clothes probably and some video games becuase I had no form of entertainment at the time.
1. It's not possible for a truly valuable employee to not rise up.
Nope. It might not be on your time table, it might not even be with that company but the cream will always rise to the top.
2. Even if you had a stingy employer, their competition would want to hire you and offer you more money.
Here is a follow up to that story. The next day after I quit, i ended up not taking this job but literary next door, was the largest nissan dealership in the region. I walked in, the guy, Chris Brown I think his name was, said what can I do for you. I walked in, had all my deal sheets printed and just threw them on his desk. he looked at them, looked at me, said you got a reference, i told him to call next door, the F and I guy told him i was the best guy there, he told me to go take a piss test and fill out the employee stuff i was hired. took 5 minutes. That dealership, not a person there was under the age of 30, maybe one guy. that's the dealership you KNOW you are going to be making 60-80-100k there a year easily, they cherry pick their sales people and I walked right in and got a job, that I didn't even want or take, at the age of 20.
(referring to the employee)
