People Explain How They Followed The Rules To Get Maximum Revenge

I bet he wasn’t expecting this one.

“I worked in sales back during the Great Recession. During that time, there were a ton of people looking for jobs and very few jobs to be had. Therefore, employers like mine often saw employees as expendable.

Our shop was visited biweekly by the corporate officers. They would hold sales data meetings that showed comparisons between how each salesperson did. Not only was this super embarrassing for those who were struggling to get sales during the recession, but you could almost always predict who was getting canned that day by corporate.

The store itself was run by some pretty cool people, but they too were under a lot of pressure to perform. We didn’t get commission until we “justified” our minimum wage paycheck. If you didn’t justify your paycheck, you had to be prepared for that private meeting with the corporate rep to get fired. Your justification was based on the commission rate of the item, so for example, if you sold a $700 item and it paid $14 commission, you just justified $14 of your pay.

This, understandably, put the employees on edge and created a desperate and cutthroat environment. Often times, you would be seconds from closing a sale and another salesperson would claim you poached their client (I sold them this $1 accessory two weeks ago; therefore, this $400 item is my sale). Sometimes clients would walk out due to the arguments this created.

Anyway, I was a relative newbie that year, which worked in my favor.

I didn’t have existing bad b***d with the other salespeople, even if they already saw me as competition. So I found a niche in the store, maintained the stock, and waited for the clients to come to me. I knew that clients could smell desperation on my colleagues and would decline help. So by the time they reached me, I just struck up a casual conversation.

This worked really well. Most people were willing to work with me because I didn’t pressure them to buy and I asked them about their day. I could tell the difference between browsers and buyers, but I treated both with courtesy. A browser could be a buyer tomorrow. So I started racking up sales this way.

I also noticed that the company required each employee to sell 2 service plans a week.

These were gravy and pure commission (or, in our case, “justification”). The problem was most salespeople would wait until closing the sale or ringing up to push these. By then, the client was unlikely to be open to add-ons. I tried a different approach.

I introduced browsers and buyers to our in-house repair person, who was a stand-up guy. I mentioned that no product was worth buying without the plan, so it was best to factor it in when shopping.

This worked extremely well. I started selling 15 to 20 plans a week.

This, of course, set off alarm bells with my co-workers. They would see client after client walk out with yellow service slips with my name on it. To them, this would only make the biweekly meetings even harder. I completely understood this.

Now, here is the thing. Could I have kept all of this for myself?

Sure. But the workplace was so toxic, the commission was so minimal, and I felt so bad for these people who were just trying to survive that I started trying to build goodwill. It was the Great Recession after all.

When my co-worker was in a sales slump or had a bunch of sick days I would ring some of my sales under them. They were often extremely grateful for this.

I also started doing coffee runs for my department – even though I was pretty broke. Over time, the toxicity waned and we began tag-teaming sales. Soon other department members would do the coffee runs, and we had a much more relaxed atmosphere – which helped keep clients comfortable and more willing to work with us.

The store manager was thrilled with this. He started doing coffee runs as well and patted our department on the back as the yellow service plan slips began pouring in.

However, all the while corporate kept showing up, asking for more and more.

Even though we actually almost met the previous year’s sales (pre-Recession) there was the inevitable terror: January. Anyone who has worked in retail sales knows that January is when returns happen. This counted against your justification. To make matters worse, the economy tightened even more, leading to post-Christmas layoffs in other fields.

So a huge wave of Christmas returns created a deluge of negative sales that just about destroyed everyone.

Corporate held their first biweekly meeting of January and chastised us for not preserving the sales. However, we all knew that people who were coming to us with returns were straight-up apologizing because they lost their jobs and every penny counted. Within days, two of our department members were canned and replaced with fresh-faced teenagers.

Corporate also noted that coffee drinking on shift was unprofessional and that no more drink runs would be permitted. (Even though we only did it when one of us was on break to get the coffee and the store was at or near empty.)

Within days, nearly all of the goodwill was completely undone. My co-workers were back to desperate sales tactics; fearful that they would get the ax next meeting.

By this time I had managed to get a job with another company to get a few more hours on the side. I had worked for the first place for about a year at this point, and I saw that there was no changing the system they used to bully workers.

So I asked my second job at night after the corporate meeting if they would be willing to put me on full time.

To my surprise, they agreed (full-time work was extremely hard to find) With that I had my out.

I went to my store manager the next day and gave my two weeks notice. He too was upset with how corporate basically steamrolled us, and he understood why I was leaving. Over the next two weeks I gave every single sale to my co-workers, knowing they needed it more than I did.

I also divvied up my client list and any unfinished sales to my department members.

Finally, this is where MC came in.

Two weeks went by and I was on my last day. It was also the corporate data day. However, I had strategically asked for early enough hours to be able to clock out before the meeting (I hated those things). So I clocked out, handed my badge to the store manager, and began walking to the exit.

In comes the corporate big wig. He was early. He stops me and says, “Can I have a word with you in my office?” I shrugged and said “sure.”

Now I was about dead sure he was going to try to lay me off for performance issues. According to my data, I had sold literally nothing in the last two weeks (because I had given it all away).

However, I was already clocked out on this – my last day, so it didn’t concern me.

He walks me into the reserved office for corporate visitors (yes they had that, and it is just as oppressive as it sounds) and pulls out my file for the previous year.

He says “You and I need to talk about goals” with a giant grin.

He walks me through my sales sheets.

He notes that service plan sales shot up tenfold since I had arrived. That I was often in the top sales numbers in the store. He enthusiastically started his pitch:

“Picture this: you become the top regional salesperson. If you could sell 15 more service plans each week, you would beat even the New York branch which has four times the volume! If you sold another $5000 worth of product, which would be easy for you, you would be our top performer!”

Ooo la la, a gold star. Thanks, coach.

He then said, “Now that’s our goals for you; tell me your goals for yourself!”

Now, when he said goals, he didn’t actually mean “my” goals. He meant, how am I going to up the ante for them. How many service plans or sales numbers did I think I could hit.

I, of course, had no interest in that.

“Would these new goals come with additional pay?” I asked.

“Well, we can’t increase your base rate; that’s against company policy. However, if you sold 15 more service plans and $5,000 more product, think of the commission you would make! So what are your goals?”

Enter malicious compliance.

“My goal is to leave the company. Today.”

The look on his face went from enthusiasm to surprise to red rage (the kind of face he used at most bi-weekly meetings).

“You DO understand that the job market is terrible right now. If you were to leave today, all of the great work you did for our company over the last year would be for NOTHING. We would NEVER give you a recommendation.” he said, barely containing his voice.

This confirmed a few things, not only was he out of touch that I was already quitting, he had no idea that I wasn’t even an employee anymore as of 20 minutes before.

“I don’t wish any ill will here, but you asked me what my goals are. Is it ok if I leave?”

He says, “I will escort you OUT.”

So he walks (storms) with me toward the exit of the store. He turns to the store manager and demands “Give me his badge and split any remaining unfinished sales; he doesn’t WORK for US anymore!”

To which my manager, confused, replied, “I know, he already quit two weeks ago.” He fished in his desk and handed the corporate officer my badge.

The officer got extremely flustered by this.

As I started to walk out he shouted, “YOU need to clock out NOW.” Again, my store manager said, “He already did. Is everything ok?”

That’s the last thing I heard from that corporate officer as I walked out the door and trotted to my car. It didn’t wreck the company; they are still in business. Last I checked, not a single member of my team is still left there, and the store manager gave me plenty of good recommendations though I doubt he is still there either.

Either way, it did feel good to hit my goal.”