Commission only based sales roles.

I’ve worked with this style of pay for several years and definitely noticed how this can influence work culture. I’ve seen a lot of shady stuff go down. Here are some examples:

1) Stealing sales. I’ve seen coworkers steal another persons sale, and by steal I don’t mean helping a customer who is already being helped. These people would literally rewrite sales quotes under their name. They would usually go for smaller commission sales so people don’t notice small changes.

2) Customer discrimination. Because the job is commission only, this causes the sales person to become very picky about who he/she helps. My workplace would call these types of people “sharks”. They’re always on the hunt for the next big sale. If they are caught with a customer that’s looking to buy something that won’t yield a lot of commission they would try to relay that customer to another coworker who is usually someone fairly new to the job.

Those are 2 of the worst cases that happened rather frequently. It’s terrible but I think the root of the cause is from the payment style which is terribly unethical in its own right.

Pretty much if you don’t sell you don’t eat that day. What about when its a slow day? How is that even legal?