So, first part here is that I suffered a severe TBI a couple years ago, and I'm still in recovery from that. If I don't come across clear in my explanations of anything, please let me know so I can clarify the best I can.
Anyways, I'm someone who has held multiple positions in multiple companies. Some people call me a “job hopper,” as I rarely stayed longer than a year to 2 years between changing jobs. The reasons though were always either that the current job wasn't giving me what I needed at that point in my life or that I was offered a better opportunity at another company. – Please everyone, don't ever let loyalty cloud your judgement when I comes to an opportunity that presents itself. The best way I ever heard it put was by a payroll executive I used to work with that said “If you want loyalty, get a dog. If you want good employees, write a check.”
I've got over 10 years in high level management, mostly in sales related or team management positions. As is typical in business, management positions are typically salaried, and I was always compensated fairly well… or at least I thought I was.
One thing that I've been able to do since my accident is go back and really examine my work history as I prepare to hopefully return to the workforce soon so I can provide more for my family than basic disability insurance offers (went from making about $3-4k/mo to getting just over $1k… Yeah). As I started going through my resume, I noticed a few things that I wish I'd realized in the moment. I want to share these with you now so that you can understand my position and hopefully help some people make enlightened decisions themselves in their own lives.
Firstly, pay. While when I moved positions or companies, I always ensured I was being paid a higher amount by at least a small margin monthly while salaried, I failed to note until putting together my workload listing while reviewing my positions in each company the overall hours I was putting in due to workload expectations. An example would be where I was working on average around 50 hours a week, expected to manage a medium sized team of employees and be responsible for the location meeting sales goals. Bonuses were offered if goals were met, which amounted to around a 10% hike in pay monthly. However, the rest of the tasks I was given vastly made the pay disproportionate to the labor expected.
On a regular day, I was expected to maintain the store appearance (meaning keep it clean, restock merchandise, etc) , order any and all supplies needed for the store, including merchandise that was not indexed by the inventory system, do a daily inventory of all devices as well as a daily inventory of specific areas, 'enhance the customer experience' by communicating with the customer during the sales process (which really meant to recommend other products based on what they told me during our interaction that the sales rep might have missed), reporting progressing sales goals, keep the sales team appraised of their goal progress, do daily reports on an interaction for each sales rep by completing a 20 question form, review it with them post interaction and have them sign it and upload it to HR, review “conversion” metrix provided by an AI powered camera software that tracked who worked with what customer and tying it back to sales for the day to see how many sales were made for what value per hour per employee (myself included), personal sales, business outreach… there's more, but you get my point.
After calculating my pay per task per hour, it came out to around $3.80/hour average per shift compared to the regular hourly wage employees who made commission and hourly and got bonuses based on performance. I'm not even joking when telling you my top sales employees REGULARLY made more than I did each pay period.
This wasn't the most egregious case either, but it's the one I remember most because of the shock once I realized it.
So, the lesson from the first part here is to always evaluate your proposed workload compared to compensation, especially if you're salaried, and never let the employer value “proposed bonuses based on goals” into your employment proposal. If it's not guaranteed money IN WRITING that you'll be compensated, don't take it. Companies always move goals higher once you reach one, and eventually they'll hit a point where it's unattainable and refuse to lower their “expectations” and punish you either financially or via write-ups or termination when you don't meet their demands.
My second point for why I'll never work salaried is that companies will habitually add tasks for you to do without typically compensating you with an enhanced workforce, pay or even the necessary things needed to do it effectively.
My case in point here is related to when I was a Regional Sales Director for a company in which I was tasked with doing sales myself, as well as attempting to manage sales quotas for my region, travel all over my area doing meetings, proposals, B2B, checking in on installations of our product to ensure they were successful and positive, etc.
When COVID hit, we were dictated as essential workers, so I was still going out and having meetings in people's homes, businesses, hosting meetings at venues for open interactions with local residents that wanted to meet and ask questions, etc.
Now, where this comes into play is where we were still using carbon copy paper for our service contracts (White for our records, yellow for the customer, pink for the service order to give to the installer/technician) and when the world slowed down to a crawl, we started to run low on different materials.
My proposal to the company was to move to paperless and host all the documents online to e-sign and upload directly from mobile devices. (Keep in mind, most of the higher ups in the company were Wilform Brimley levels of cantankerous)
I was told I could test this out myself, however, I did not have any devices the company provided that would help me do this short of a budget printer/scanner that barely worked when I got it, and it certainly couldn't handle the overall size of the base contract we used, as it was about 1.8 sheets of regular paper long, and that was just the base contract, not even the itemized list of products and services sheet.
So, after inquiring about getting a tablet or laptop with which to do this, I was told they were going to be ordering laptops soon. Okay, that's fine. Fast forward a quarter and I'm still asking and still hearing that they're doing it “next month” or “really soon.”
Finally I got fed up and requested to purchase my own tablet and use that and expense the $10/mo it would be on my cell bill plus device lease costs. I got this approved and finally got step 1 of what we needed done. The next task was getting digital copies of the paperwork so they could be filled out.
After speaking with SEVERAL people in home office, nobody seemed to be able to send me a PDF of the latest version of the paperwork we were using, so I went to a store and had them do professional scans of all the paperwork and purchased the scans myself. That's step 2.
The lesson from here is to recognize when you're asked to do something or expected to complete a task, ensure your employer provides you with everything you need to be successful in that task before you're expected to complete it. Don't accept excuses or trivialities from those in control that push you to do something you're I'll equipped for, then chastize you for not being able to do it to their liking.
Step 3 was then going line by line and making them all editable and signable. I spent hours upon hours making them as professional as possible, adding tick boxes with pull down menus to ensure that everything was clear and concise with zero margin for misunderstanding. After I was done, I was DAMN proud of the work I did, and I even saved it all as templates and sent them out to other sales reps who wanted to try it out.
After all that, I ended up closing more sales, having more satisfied customers, saved the company money by not having to order highly expensive carbon forms and even streamlined the entire process for the entire company (side note here: that's always been my specialty and why I was sought out a lot in our area, as I've always been adept at analyzing processes and building new way to streamline things without costing people their jobs by outmoding a position). All it took was hours of my own time, my own money and my own materials to make it happen. Oh, and as a closing statement, I hear they're still going to be ordering either the laptops OR possibly tablets sometime next quarter…
The third and final reason I'll never work a Salaried position again though is the overall stress and pressure placed on salaried workers specifically.
When you're Salaried, expectations are typically much higher, as you're also typically in a management titled position and/or are tasked with managing an important part of the business model to the daily operations. You're held to higher standard… which typically is honestly extremely lofty, especially when you're in a situation where you need to deal with things outside of work and are expected to essentially be “always on.”
My example here is very difficult for me to talk about, as I've always struggled with my own self worth and depression, and this event pushed me to my limit and beyond, to the point that I had a nervous breakdown and actually had to take disability to get my head back on straight.
So, the position I'm speaking about was with a company where we provided security solutions and home automation systems. Let me tell you that this position itself was a great experience, as I got to meet a lot of really great people and try to help them feel more secure and confident in their home or business office… But with that also brings about regularly interacting with people recounting one of, if not their worst days and trying to not let their emotions affect you. “Stay professional” was the drum beat and while I always maintained it during the interaction, I always found myself dwelling on the details as I'd go to the next one, then the next one, then the next one.
I voiced my issues with my superior, who basically told me to suck it up and not let it get to me, but the more I tried, the more I felt like I was drowning in the evils man commits against itself. I regularly dealt with stories from the source dealing with feelings of fear, violation, trauma, loss and even death.
I soldiered on though, as I had a family of 5 to provide for and I swore I'd make it through for them… until I stopped sleeping and almost stopped eating all together. I poured myself into work, driving more than 3000 miles a month on average (Also, getting reimbursed 10% of the state milage amount with commission supposed to compensate the rest and more as an incentive to close the sale).
My breaking point was after an interaction (I'm not giving details as to specifics out of respect for the people affected and for my own sanity not wanting to relive all the details) in which a mother wanted a rather elaborate system to cover her home and was tight on money.
To be clear, our pricing for everything was rather frugal tbh, with barely any money made on the actual install and more made monthly via service contracts, but we charged upfront for estimated labor and overall equipment costs, which weren't cheap, especially with rising costs during the pandemic.
Regardless, this mother shared with me a story that absolutely destroyed me, and I was able to see first hand the damage that was done to both property and persons. My heart broke again and again and again as I saw things that made me physically ill and heard the things that happened to these people.
I watched as she cried retelling what went down, I saw her shaking in fear and rage, I felt the pain radiating off of her… and I finally broke. I hugged her and tried to console her, with her thanking me afterwards for “showing my humanity” in that moment and not being a salesbot.
I wrote up the quote for what she requested and she balked. She asked if we could do payments for the equipment along with the monthly service fees and I told her we could do 3 months direct payment for the equipment, but no more (company policy, I fought this so many times to no avail).
She said she'd get back to me, but I saw the dejection on her face knowing she wouldn't be able to afford it, even with payments.
I drove away and pulled over to the side of the road and called my supervisor. I explained that this family was in dire need of some peace of mind, and if we could do anything better. I was told “no.” I offered to give up whatever commission I'd have made to put toward the upfront cost to bring it down, meaning I'd make absolutely nothing from the sale, but that wasn't my concern in that moment. I was told “absolutely not, we can't make exceptions like this, otherwise everyone will be expecting it.”
After I hung up is when I truly lost it. I started bawling, shaking so hard I couldn't even hold my drink. I kept thinking that I was failing that woman, that I'd probably retraumatized her by forcing her to relive all that had happened and then walked away without doing anything for her to help. That was what sold me on working for this company in the first place, their internal motto of “we're here for the people, not the profit” spoke to me, and I shared that with my clients as a point of pride… and it all felt like a damn lie in that moment.
All of the struggles I'd been dealing with all seemed to hit me all at once, and as I was driving to my next appointment, I fell asleep at the wheel (again, I wasn't sleeping at all, max 1-2 hours a night and subsisting on fast food and a TON of caffeine to get though) and almost went into the ditch.
I thank God I was on a remote road that few people used, but that was my wake-up call to get help. I spoke with a psychiatrist who told me I absolutely had to take time off to get myself straightened out. I was prescribed a rather aggressive set of medications to help me sleep and regulate, but the true journey was to work through the demons in my head from all the trauma I had been exposed to.
Now, to the company's credit, the CEO himself was someone who had dealt with his own struggles in life with darkness and took my issue very seriously. He approved my PTO immediately and shuffled things around for my appointments I'd scheduled for the next few weeks to be covered. I'm eternally thankful for him, he helped me so much during the beginning process of taking time to get help.
One week turned into two, which turned into a month, which then turned into three months and my doctors still weren't able to approve my going back to work. It took almost 6 months before I had a return trajectory planned out, but by then I'd been moved to short term disability and then long term. I had an end in sight though and had worked through a lot of things I'd been dealing with… then I had my accident.
I fell off a rooftop over 12 feet and landed on solid earth on the top of my head. I was diagnosed with a grade 3 concussion, broken arm, loss of tissue between my skull to C1 (total loss) C1 to C2 (total loss) and C2 to C3 (partial loss) and pinched nerves/nerve damage and nystagmus (dancing eyes). The long term effects are that I have a headache 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without end for almost a year and a half now, traveling numbness and memory loss (I don't remember anything for year long spans of my life, for example, I don't remember anything of my time during my high school years).
The reason I'm laying all this out here is the response I've gotten when reaching out to my place of employment that I'm still attached to as I'm still technically on long term disability since I'm still dealing with the original issues, but they've been exacerbated by the injury… absolutely nothing.
I've reached out on several occasions to find out if I could do remote work such as paperwork filing or data entry (both of which I have experience with) as I couldn't drive for 9 months until I progressed enough through my rehab and got special glasses. No response.
I reached out to see if I could visit for the company Christmas party, as I was close with several people who had been reaching out to wish me well in recovery and wanted to see them in person and celebrate with them for the holidays… No response.
I've reached out several times to try and just get confirmation about if I was even still considered employed by the company… Nothing.
This has added more and more anxiety and stress, as I don't even know if I'm going to have a job to go back to once I'm green lit by my rehab team. The disability check I get barely covers the mortgage, and my wife is forced to work her ass off virtually every day at work to keep us afloat. I wanted to start doing part time work once I got approved for that at the beginning of this month, but due to the stipulations outlined in my disability insurance policy and my limitations my doctors recommend, I'm rather stymied on what I can do.
This is where I'm at currently. Barely making ends meet, being behind on bills and having to ask for assistance from local groups to keep the damn power on, let alone keep a roof over our heads.
I'm not asking for charity here, far from it. It took a LOT for me to even accept the local church's help to get our power bill backpay caught up so we didn't get shut off… But I accepted it for the grace they offered for the sake of my family.
I know I ranted and got a little off topic here, but my lesson for this part would simply be to recognize where you're at personally. Mentally, emotionally, physically… You're value is far more than a title or a paycheck. Don't let yourself get to the state I did and have it end up affecting you for even the short term, let alone the rest of your life. Your time here is short, and precious. Enjoy it every chance you have, and don't let a business tell you how to feel or react when you're struggling, especially due to things happening related to work. It's not worth it, at all.
Anyways, I know this ended up being a damn essay basically, but to be honest, it's been cathartic to talk about. I haven't really shared a lot of these experiences before, and I really truly hope my stories can help others avoid pitfalls I myself fell into, often without realizing.
To everyone out there, please, be well, be happy and most all, be who you want to be, regardless of “expectations” put on you by others.
Much love. ️