Okay, here’s the deal. About a month ago I was looking for work as my temp assignment was about to run out. I attended an open interview at a place called Major Energy, which is an Energy Supply Company (or ESCO). The position was for a “registration officer”, which consisted of going to door to door in residential neighborhoods and telling people that I am here to save you money on your utility bills. If they bite, then I fill out a registration form and have them sign it. If the registration form gets turned in and the account gets approved, then the account’s supplier gets changed to Major Energy, I get $20 for the commission, and that customer’s bill total will go down (seriously, it will.). HOWEVER, if the customer doesn’t sign up (which 9 out of 10 times they will, since they either think it will RAISE their bill or that I’m just plain trying to scam them, or they don’t understand how it works—and I started a SDMB thread about this last week and nobody HERE understood either), or if they do sign up and something’s wrong with their account so that they CAN’T change over, or if they sign up but cancel within 4 months, then I get $0. Infact, 15% of my check gets reserved just incase somebody does cancel a month or two later. Anyway, that’s IT. I’m getting no salary, and no hourly wage. Just $20 per commission.
After my first week of doing this, and only having 4 registrations stick, I was already ready to walk (honestly, who wants to work 60 hours a week only to make less than $100?), but my boss, realizing that I AM the smartest guy he has working there, gave me a bonus if I’d give them a second chance for 2 more weeks, and said that I was strongly being considered for an office manager position. So I bit. So now it’s been 2 weeks of lousy “sales” and lousy pay (oh yeah, and really big turnover - most people come in and either do really well and stick around, or work 1 or 2 days and say SCREW THIS…and DON’T get the bonus) and it turns out that I AM getting promoted to an office manager, but the catch is that instead of getting an actual salary, I’ll be getting $25 per approved registration, and $5 per approved registration on new people who I help train. Or in other words, the actual office MANAGEMENT work that I do (which honestly is closer to my background, and where I would be most valuable to this company since I’m definitely NOT a salesman) I’ll essentially be doing for FREE. Fuck that, and fuck them (I haven’t actually said that to their face yet).
Anyway, now the hard part. How do I quit and make it stick? I was hired as an IC, and my only actual contract is a non-compete with other energy companies, so I don’t think there’s any obligation for me to even keep coming into work (especially since it takes me about an hour to get there from my home). I’m planning on calling in tomorrow morning and saying something along the line of “okay, I gave you a second chance, and this just isn’t working out for me. I give this company close to 60 hours a week, and I’m getting nothing in return–I’d make more money working at McDonalds! I know my sales are lousy, but I never pretended to be an experienced salesperson, and I can tell that they aren’t going to get any better, and I simply don’t enjoy any aspect of door-to-door. Oh btw, I still have 2 more lousy paychecks coming my way - will they get mailed to me or should I just stop by in 2 weeks to pick them up?”
**oh, and I won’t even get into the grey-scale legality of some aspects of this job, although it’s another valid reason for quitting.