Repairs department is run by a bunch of people at corporate that know absolutely nothing about guitar repair or what its like working in a repair shop. They never step outside their office and spend time in actual stores to understand what the real issues at hand are preventing the repairs department from increasing revenue. They don't care about the quality of our work or the level of customer service we provide as long as they aren't getting customer complaints. All they care about and look at are the numbers for each tech. How much money we bring in with repair labor. The pay and commission structure here is a joke. For starters, corporate doesn't think that techs deserve to make commission on any parts or products that we sell...including REPAIR parts that we sell while fixing a guitar. Not even any spiffs or other bonus for products sold. Commission is only earned on repair labor, and only if you meet a certain minimum sales total. Then because we can earn commission, our base hourly wage is very low. As in less than what a fast food worker earns. The other problem with the commission structure is that as a tech on a really good day you could complete $400 worth of repairs labor for the day (and this would be a good day). Meanwhile one of the sales associates (an unskilled, untrained college student in most cases) can spend 20 minutes selling a $3000 guitar. So even if the sales associate sells nothing else the rest of the day, he/she will still make more commission then the tech who busted his butt all day to earn $400 in sales. So in the end even though techs may earn a higher hourly rate then the sales staff, with commission the sales staff makes just as much if not more then a skilled tech who went to tech school and has more repair knowledge/skill then most people in this city. But corporate thinks this is a fair pay system. Techs are not treated fairly in other ways as well compared to sales staff. Sales staff almost always have some kind of spiff or incentive going on to reward for certain types of sales. This is often some sort of cash bonus or other similar perk. Techs on the other hand are lucky if we get 1 or 2 spiffs offered throughout the year. And when we do get one, the actual pay of our spiff is often lower and harder to achieve then what is offer to the sales staff. Another good example of unequal treatment of techs - as a tech you can bust you butt and honestly work as hard and fast as possible, but if you don't meet your repair sales goal, you will be frowned upon and even written up like you're not working and management thinks you're screwing around all day. Even when the reason you couldn't get enough repairs done is because the phone never stopped ringing for you all day, and 30 people stopped in to drop off guitars for repairs (it takes time to sign in a customer repair). But if you don't do these things you get written up as well. Meanwhile the sales staff is not busy so instead of helping out by answering repair calls or signing in repairs, they will sit and play guitar for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. Or stand around and BS with each other about their plans for the night. Does management ever say or doing anything about this? Of course not! After all it's acceptable behavior for a sales associate. But we better write up that tech who's working his butt off! My direct manager himself is guilty of doing some of these same things. He also frequently leaves the store's main safe wide open and unsecured, with no one in the office keeping an eye on it. The store is so lucky I am not a thief! He even left the rear receiving door wide open and unsecured at the same time the store safe was open and no one was in the warehouse keeping a watch on things. Anyone off the street could have walked right in, emptied the safe, then left without being seen. I know for a fact that this is not company policy and completely unacceptable. Yet does my manager ever get yelled at or written up for something like this? Nope. But that tech working his butt off is a far bigger problem. Good grief I could go on but I am tired and I'm sure few people made it this far. This may sound like a crazy rant but everything is true. I even have proof, which I may be sending to HR and Loss Prevention soon. I do not think I will be working here much longer.
