I once worked in a European office of a big US company a while back where I negotiated a fair salary, they agreed, and then on the first day the contract arrived and fully 25% of it was a “bonus target” that I was assured everyone always got every time so I shouldn’t worry about it.
Inevitably, it was the first thing to go as soon as a new CEO came in with the task of improving Earnings Per Share, giving me an instant 25% pay cut. What’s shittier is they announced it after the period it applied to, so it was a retroactive 25% pay cut as well.
Luckily I wanted to leave anyway for other reasons, so I took them to a tribunal and got paid, cause you can’t pull that sort of shit in Europe. My US colleagues didn’t fare so well.
I once worked for a company that had a weird policy that your commissions couldn’t be more than 75% of your pay. At the end of the year, if your commissions were more than 75%, they would raise your base pay to reflect the proper ratio.
For most people, it didn’t matter, because commissions were so low. But I’m a commission whore, so I was constantly scheming to increase my commissions. First I went to every one of my region’s clients, and figured out who wasn’t buying products from my division, and got them to start.
Then I started going around to large regional companies who weren’t customers, and got them to start buying my products. Since I had gone to the trouble of becoming a vendor, they would start buying from our other divisions,too (unfortunately, I didn’t get commission on the other divisions’ sales). A couple of those new clients grew huge, and one of them became a national chain.
My commissions got so high, that my base rate was getting adjusted every year, until I was making double over the other sale managers in my division. That means I should have been in line for a major promotion, right?
Nope, some accountant noticed that I was making more than anyone else on my job, so I got laid off.
I once worked in a European office of a big US company a while back where I negotiated a fair salary, they agreed, and then on the first day the contract arrived and fully 25% of it was a “bonus target” that I was assured everyone always got every time so I shouldn’t worry about it.
Inevitably, it was the first thing to go as soon as a new CEO came in with the task of improving Earnings Per Share, giving me an instant 25% pay cut. What’s shittier is they announced it after the period it applied to, so it was a retroactive 25% pay cut as well. Luckily I wanted to leave anyway for other reasons, so I took them to a tribunal and got paid, cause you can’t pull that sort of shit in Europe. My US colleagues didn’t fare so well.
I once worked for a company that had a weird policy that your commissions couldn’t be more than 75% of your pay. At the end of the year, if your commissions were more than 75%, they would raise your base pay to reflect the proper ratio.
For most people, it didn’t matter, because commissions were so low. But I’m a commission whore, so I was constantly scheming to increase my commissions. First I went to every one of my region’s clients, and figured out who wasn’t buying products from my division, and got them to start.
Then I started going around to large regional companies who weren’t customers, and got them to start buying my products. Since I had gone to the trouble of becoming a vendor, they would start buying from our other divisions,too (unfortunately, I didn’t get commission on the other divisions’ sales). A couple of those new clients grew huge, and one of them became a national chain.
My commissions got so high, that my base rate was getting adjusted every year, until I was making double over the other sale managers in my division. That means I should have been in line for a major promotion, right?
Nope, some accountant noticed that I was making more than anyone else on my job, so I got laid off.
A very similar thing happened to me a while back. Mine was “only” a 10% pay cut but it was extremely demotivating.
Of course, since I was in the US I had no such thing as a tribunal