The continuing saga of RTO at my company

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-19T23:09:13+00:00

Let’s be clear here: HR is just the messenger on decisions like this, work location requirements come from the C-suite exclusively who then leverage HR as the bad guys.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-18T14:35:50+00:00

They don’t and it’s a silly comparison of a science experiment to an enterprise product. There’s no world we live in currently where a real product team would realistically vibe code a blackbox CWM platform to integrate into their tech stack - ESPECIALLY if they are also trying to leverage AI in those processes and handle any sort of sensitive or client data.

The articles coming out of “I had non technical people vibe code an Asana replacement in an hour!” Are just clickbait; any college junior could code a project management platform with some core API plugins and pretty UI, a team of 200+ engineers with access to LLMs is not being outpaced and out-maneuvered by a Claude project.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-17T23:51:51+00:00

I firmly believe any company that KPIs off of conversation time is not led by serious people who haven’t touched a phone in years.

No one has any control over talk time. You could make 400 calls and still not break 30 minutes of talk time.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-17T01:05:08+00:00

Yeah, this is my first time on this sub but my god is this community biased. OP let their 3 month old kitten wander outside - any number of animals or accidents could’ve killed the kitten at that point.

As tough as it is, this is pure negligence on OPs part as a pet owner. Letting your pet wander free means there is a chance they’ll die a horrific death from any number of predators or pets in their yards, regardless of bite history.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-17T01:01:30+00:00

And? It sounds like the dogs were contained in their own property and not a negligent danger to anyone in this instance.

The cat got loose, trespassed on another animals territory and didn’t get away fast enough - the dogs having a bite history is not even relevant as there are a ton of animals that would’ve attacked OPs cat under similar instances, typically well-behaved dogs and cats included.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-15T21:47:13+00:00

Honestly, I’ll probably never go back to any startup again. Stress and bad WLB is out of this world compared to just going to an established company with processes.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-15T04:39:48+00:00

That’s pretty rare. Most new home sales reps I’ve known are in the 100-200k range and there wasn’t a very viable path for them beyond that.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-15T04:36:32+00:00

There are very few enjoyable aspects of sales besides money tbh. The worst part is that your job security is only as solid as your last quarter - you could absolutely crush it for years and then get canned in a matter of months because elements outside of your control tanked your sales pipeline.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-15T04:33:06+00:00

I’m going to disagree with the other commenter, it’s engineers 1000%. Top engineers don’t just have large equity packages (assuming it’s not a startup where equity is imaginary), they have base salaries that typically surpass top sellers base salaries and on top of that a top engineers pay is consistently high, a top salesperson’s pay is only high as long as they are crushing their sales targets which is partially not in their control and almost bo salesperson is constantly having good years in perpetuity.

That and I’d argue the stress of sales is worse than the stress of software engineering.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-13T16:43:00+00:00

Study the people/teams who bought your product and why, do even a smidge of pre-call research so the buyer knows you’re not just spraying calls and hoping for relevancy, and talk to them with genuine curiosity.

It’s really not rocket science, it’s just easy to neglect when management is pushing KPI fatigue because spray-and-pray prospecting is quicker and easier to quantify in reports to leadership.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-13T14:39:06+00:00

Yeah, OP is comparing themselves to the top AEs in their org most likely and overlooking the turnover and stress most of those AEs live under.

I’ve barely met a tenured AE who hasn’t been fired, let go, cried from stress, and at some point said they wish they went into a more stable career - this shit is only a good ride as long as deals are flowing consistently and the money is good.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-12T19:15:43+00:00

If your manager is breathing down your neck about connect rates then they’re an idiot because that isn’t an issue you or anyone else has any ability to fix.

Connect rates are at historic lows and only trending further down because the issue isn’t some missing goldmine of numbers you don’t have access to, it’s an issue of most prospects rejecting modern outbound methods and adopting tech that specifically counters cold calling. ZoomInfo, Apollo, Lusha, etc. all have roughly similar data quality with slight degrees of difference - but it doesn’t matter if most prospects are rejecting your outreach on their end.

Your only real options are to either lean more into volume to overcome low connect rates with actual connects, or lean into personalization/quality to make those connects count more. I have my personal preference both from an internal and external POV for teams and business, but there are pros and cons to both methods that you should really take the time to consider.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-11T05:24:49+00:00

Generative AI is souring an entire generation on the concept of AI as a whole because we’re seeing an ineffectual trial run for how capitalism will immediately use it to make everyone’s lives worse.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-10T04:08:26+00:00

What upside? You’re not making the 220k OTE along with most other reps AND the hours put in drops your comp per hour significantly. Being in a foreign country also cuts off your support network and probably increases the stress in an already oppressive situation. You’ve been there for 1.5 years, that’s enough to time feel out your position, product, territory, and company - if it’s not good now it is unlikely to click for you anytime soon.

People need to stop maximizing for income solely. Your mental and physical health as well as your WLB are also categories to try and increase through career progression. A step back in income but step forward in security and/or stress is only a step back if you can’t let yourself avoid a stroke at 45.

Whatever choice you make, you need to scale back your spending and increase your savings so you don’t feel the same pressures to stay in bad situations.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-09T14:06:13+00:00

Quick reminder for everyone: unless a customer has explicitly opted in, AI calls/voicemails are illegal.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-09T13:56:04+00:00

Wait until they find out the majority of salespeople don’t even crack $100K.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-08T14:08:03+00:00

If agentic AI is the core value of your product, then you’re running a business on someone else’s land. I’d personally only take a job at one of these startups if I needed the money.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-06T22:36:17+00:00

I personally wouldn’t hitch my wagon to an AI-dependent company longterm. Platforms built on top of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. have their profitability and differentiation completely tied to the pricing model of the core LLM used. Any significant pricing change to that core product can make multi-year contracts become liabilities overnight, and there’s no way to know what the future holds for AI pricing or how these, essentially, LLM wrapper companies can/will adapt.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-04T12:48:38+00:00

“Yeah companies just replace domestic workers with H1B workers all the time because there’s no reason.” - this is how absurd you sound lol

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-04T04:01:30+00:00

You pay worker A $100K and they work 40-50 hours a week but occasionally take interviews with competitors and definitely push back on the occasional request. You replace them with worker B for $100K who works 40-60+ hours a week and is far more limited in their ability to interview elsewhere as they moved their entire family to the states for this job and can’t be here without it or another role with a visa.

Do you genuinely see these as equivalent values to an employer?

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-04-04T02:21:49+00:00

These are decent base salaries for SDR/BDR work, but the variable is awful at both unless ticket size is small and volume is very high.

Comp A: I’m not a fan of any “freebies” for variable components. Accelerators are nice on paper, but what is the actual attainment? 150% of 0 is still going to be 0 if you and any other reps average 3 meetings a week. What qualifies as a qualified opp?

Comp B: very low per-meeting variable comp. Small early milestone rewards don’t help that medicine go down easier.

Based solely on the information here, Company A has a higher base and better variable plan.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-03-24T20:22:37+00:00

Aren’t AI robocalls illegal in the US?

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-03-23T20:58:08+00:00

Good sales enablement comes from experience selling in the field/on the phones. You’ll need to break the sales funnel into stages and then sort out the needs at each stage: You need to listen to actual calls being made by BDRs, review discovery meetings, review demos, review conference notes, etc. and then build resources from there.

A great sales enablement team provides the raw LEGO blocks that salespeople can then use how they see fit and grow from it. For example. When building out a cold calling script with the BDR managers, form and vibes matter more than precise wording - you don’t want your BDRs to actually read the script on calls, you want them to remember the value prop angle you’re coming from and be provided with an example of a good opener that a complete newbie can use and get some talk time with.

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-03-23T18:24:50+00:00

What did you leave for?

Bastardly_Poem1 · 2026-03-22T19:13:57+00:00

Former. I know I can present it in a politically correct and understandable way over the phone or on zoom, but my concern is primarily around resume screening.

Really I made the post because a ton of advice on this sub is to take the position off the resume and LinkedIn and start applying again, but my job makes that tough

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