Workplace Bullying

boncho

tw0330
I have both witnessed and been a victim of this both by the management and other employees, in fact, it is often encouraged in many atmospheres.

I sold cars for one of the largest dealers in the country.

Here's how it went:
-Hired 28 workers all at once to sell cars and may the best man win (on average the dealership sold maybe 2 to 3 cars a day)

-pay $250 for sales training and after 6 months you would be reimbursed.

-You get min wage pay if you do not sell a car, but must pay that back with the cars you do sell.

-We were not encouraged to lie, but we were encouraged to not tell the truth. (example: when I would be honest with a customer about a car, I was often brought into a conference with the manager and was always told this "why did you tell them that, they never asked about it")

-many times you would spend weeks working with a customer only to find out that they had talked to another sales associate a few weeks, months or even years (had been a previous customer of another sales associate) before and the sales associate would take the sale from you. Often it was a veteran sales associate who had worked their for years.

-Other sales associates and managers would degrade you for doing "what is right".

-You would be required to work 60+ hours per week and if you needed a few hours off to take care of a family situation, you were subject to harassment from the managers then would lose your day off.

-NO one was allowed Saturdays off, you were let go if you ever asked for one.

-The biggest form of harassment came from the financial person. He often berated you and would often give the customer something for "free" that he got commission on, but in reality it wasn't free, it was taken off your commission check.

-Last but not least, if you complain about anything, you get fired

I will never work for another car dealer - EVER and I was damn good at it too. But my morals keep me from it. I regret to say that after several months working there, I started to change and not for the better. But eventually it got to me and I reported many of the things going on and was fired for doing so, but not before they belittled me and told me how bad of a person I was for "blowing the whistle" on them.

edit on 11-10-2013 by tw0330 because: (no reason given)

Wow, holy crap man, how long did it take you to realize you are not cut out for a sales job? Those are all the basics. You can't fight an industry or the proper way to do a job. Any informed consumer knows exactly what is going on, they will trip up any good sales agents, the rest are oblivious and just want you to make them feel good about their purchase, cause they are gonna buy something regardless if it's a piece of junk or not.

Why do people fight to be in jobs they are not cut out for? Christ...

Sure as hell hope I don't run into any company that a person like you runs. It is obvious by many of your posts that you have zero respect for any of your customers, or workers.

That being said, It is possible to run an ethical business and sell things without withholding the truth. I have now owned my own business for nearly 6 years, and 90% of my clients come from companies who had lied to them or done shotty work for them. Most of my business comes from word of mouth, and I prefer it that way.

Though I will admit that often a potential client will be lost due to the fact that another company had ethics like yours and would do all they could to get the sale, even if it meant lying to them. I guess that makes me a bad business man, because I refuse to fall into business practices.

Knowledge, honesty, and going above and beyond for my clients, have become the corner stone of my business and it has worked out great.

Maybe, just maybe, if all companies practiced ethical business practices, then we wouldn't have the problem we have in Washington.