My SO works minimum wage at a clothing retail store. A new system was implemented where employees now have to reach a sales target per day of work. Prior to this, the sales were shared with all employees. Now, there is a spreadsheet that is displayed only for employees that shows if the person doesn't meet their target and where the person does. This makes it all the more screwy.
The workplace is a competitive war zone now. My SO is very stressed out as she doesn't want to lose her job now, with the pandemic and everything going on. Colleagues are stealing customers from one another and she is pressured to help the customer which makes the experience all the more uncomfortable both for the employee and customer, how typical commision based workplaces work. I just found out that if my SO helped a customer with an item and returned to complete another duty while the customer continued browsing, another employee would take that customer to the register and state to the customer that they aren't being paid commission (which is technically true) and that employee enters their sales under their name in the system. Another example of stealing customers is being an employee and waiting at the door, solely for attaining sales. This is basically stealing sales for the purpose of looking good on this spreadsheet, and almost at the brink of lieing to the customer to attain sales.
Furthermore, if you don't meet your target then you get reprimanded by upper management, no specific word of being fired but hinting in that direction. The once friendly workplace is no more, all while still being paid minimum wage, but stating to the customer that this is “not commision based”.
My SO always had to worry about her safety in the store before, as I would hear the store is robbed nearly everyday, to the point of it being normal. There was one day she told me a man was being even more creepy with her to almost the point of sexual assault. I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to say except for her to leave and that this job isn't worth it.
I write this message as I think this system, this store and this work is completely and utterly horse maneure, and why this system is even worse than being paid commission. Are jobs even allowed to do this?