We essentially no longer have vacation time or sick time. You must average 8 stores per day, regardless of your personal life outside of this. If you take a day off, you’ll need to make that up another day to keep your average up. Sick? Figure it out. You need a weekly AND monthly average of 8, so don’t get sick on Fridays. Questions on this? Your guess is as good as mine about who to ask. No one knows WHY this is going on. All we know is we are being judged on reports constantly. At this point, the field is in a toxic environment where they feel they can’t take time off.
I tried to count the new SKUs we have launched in the past 12 months. I lost count somewhere around 30. This is an unprecedented amount of new product compared to our competitors. Retail partners are starting to lose their trust in me as a category advisor. I am constantly apologizing and putting out fires on behalf of the company. Add on top of that the unrealistic expectations and workload that others here have mentioned. The workload is currently so heavy that even the best TMs can’t execute it all. This used to be a great place to work and we all felt motivated. The BAT takeover has made this such a toxic work environment that I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
The company car costs you $150/month but it is so full of required POS no one can ride in it.