Pacific Office Automation reviews

What are the downsides of working at Pacific Office Automation? First I would like to clarify some information in some prior posts that was not 100% accurate. Some posts by prior sales reps, regarding compensation, were inaccurate, POA, does not pay a salary. All sales people are COMMISSION ONLY, and commissions are based on the profit in your sales. You're paid initially on a "non-recoverable draw." I'm not going to explain what that is here, but prior to taking a position you should understand your compensation, especially as the industry is fighting against being commoditized. With that said, the real issues at POA begin and end with culture. Firstly, you are essentially selling a service, but the service department is constantly technically strained, poorly managed, and understaffed, these issues are euphemistically referred to as growing pains. On top of this, I take a moral objection with how well the technicians and admin staff are compensated based on the cost of living in Seattle. Honestly, the technicians should unionize, they would have amazing bargaining power; allow me to explain why. Often, if more than one technician out of roughly 50+ technicians in the Seattle office, you're customers WILL call and complain about service as the department will now run 2-3 days behind. Remember, as a sales person who is being paid to sell, you're also required to manage all of your clients, which the more you have, the better as some reps WILL have significantly more develop territories, as a rule, selling to your current customers is much more profitable than new clients. But, I digress, back to taking time off. To take time off, for sales people, you'll have to justify your PTO and why you're leaving, taking off any time during the end of the month was unacceptable and would almost never be approved. Accompanied with the "7-to-7" workday (7-to-7, refers to the mentality that everyone should, by default, be in the office at 7am and to stay until 7pm), it will start to feel like your office is running your life. Now, the part that truly drove me from the job. The language. I believe, how we speak to each other on a daily basis, especially in a positive team environment, is very important. Which is why constructive criticism from a direct manager and his manager comes bundled with being derided with expletives. Yelling, swearing, and public shaming (in the bi-weekly all-sales video conferences) are the norm for the management to communicate company values. When raising this as a concern with management will, you will be told to grow thicker skin and the HR department is non-existant On a non-cultural note, internal systems are antiquated, the internal CRM, was contracted and designed from scratch by a third party and rarely works, and you'll be stuck using an older hosted system that has not been updated in almost 10 years. The ERP and monitoring systems are rarely ever accurate and customer billing is terrible, I, on more than one occasion had a client that wasn't billed for over a year and you will be required to handle these issues with your client after the fact. Overall, as a career decision for someone seeking to become a serious professional, this is the sales job that you "get your feet wet" in. It's not much of a career decision, because they hire, or prey on young people freshly out of college. They open speak of seeking people with little or no other sales experience, because they don't want them to be spoiled and learn "bad habits." I would say that because upper management, with the rare exception, has never worked anywhere else. Imagine someone, hired right out of college, telling you that this is one of the best places in the country to work.