Giving up your values to advance in the workplace?

[rudeguy]

I need some input from you guys.

A lot of you know about the journey I have been on and a big part of that has been holding myself to a higher moral standard than the average person. 100% rigorous honesty is the biggest part, another is focusing on my actions rather than that of others. If I am frustrated by others' actions, I keep it to myself. Its not my job to critique others.

Now that I am working in sales for a large company, my morals are being treated as a handicap rather than a positive thing. My new supervisor has the exact opposite mentality as me. She prefers to bitch about others and is all about doing whatever you have to do to hit your numbers. Supervisors at my job are the ones who decide your future with the company. They interpret our sales numbers based on our performance. Since my current supervisor doesn't have the same mentality as me, she sees a lot of flaws in what I am doing. Keep in mind that I have been in the top 50 out of 800+ sales people since I started. However she has decided to start me on corrective action which is the first part of a 3 month process that could result in me losing my job. She is basically saying that I need to act more like her which would mean loosening my moral standards. Those standards saved my life and got me out of the alcoholic hole I was in. The thing that really scared me was her choice of words. Verbatim she said, "You're problem is that you do what's right for the customer and not yourself." Well yeah!

So what do I do? Throw her under the bus and talk to her boss? Start looking for a new job, in this bad economy, in Michigan? Start cutting my cost of living in case I need to live off unenjoyment again?



cliffs:
olds touched me in my naughty place

 

[lxskllr]

Never compromise your standards. You were looking for a job when you found this one. A job is just the bullshit you have to deal with for 8 hours a day, your standards are with you forever.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Hopefully your in a public company -

Do you sign a qtrly confirmation for your internal audit team? if so - call the hotline and complain! Time to go over her head.

Sales is the cmost corrupt org from any company - the shit thye do everyday amazes me.

 

[kranky]

Can you give an example of what she meant when she said you do what's right for the customer instead of yourself?

 

[rudeguy]

Can you give an example of what she meant when she said you do what's right for the customer instead of yourself?

She expects me to tell a customer that the best deal I can get them is full price, even though we have promotions that the customer is eligible for. Nothing illegal, just immoral.

 

[mizzou]

$ can buy happiness, but make sure you don't sell your soul to not make the $ worth it


Selling your soul for no gains is a recipe for disaster

 

[lxskllr]

She expects me to tell a customer that the best deal I can get them is full price, even though we have promotions that the customer is eligible for. Nothing illegal, just immoral.

That's why I can't do sales. Good salesmen are inherently dishonest. If you aren't fucking the customer, you're doing it wrong. I could sell things I truly believe in, but that's such a small niche, I'd have about as much a chance of dancing in the Moscow Ballet, and I hate dancing :^D

 

[DrPizza]

She expects me to tell a customer that the best deal I can get them is full price, even though we have promotions that the customer is eligible for. Nothing illegal, just immoral.

Ethical companies tend to do better long term. When you do something positive for a customer, that good will often goes a long way. If your business has a monopoly or is part of an oligopoly, then you're fine screwing customers. If your customer has other choices, then you've lost a repeat customer.

Sadly though, your manager sees short term gains and forgets about the long term picture; and that's too common in business these days.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Advice is always caveat emptor, but I'd suggest you keep an ear out for other positions. I've been in your situation and it's not enviable. Leave yourself an out.

 

[rudeguy]

Advice is always caveat emptor, but I'd suggest you keep an ear out for other positions. I've been in your situation and it's not enviable. Leave yourself an out.

Yeah...that's the good thing about sales. There are always sales jobs out there. My problem is that I like the company I work for, just not the way my current supervisor thinks that it should be done.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Curious, what is she asking you to do that you find morally questionable?

 

[olds]

People with values or morals probably aren't suited to a sales job.

 

[rudeguy]

People with values or morals probably aren't suited to a sales job.

I've been doing sales since '99 and I can completely disagree with you. Good salesmen don't need to lie or cheat. Bend the rules once in a while maybe...but that is usually in the customer's favor.

 

[Jadow]

She expects me to tell a customer that the best deal I can get them is full price, even though we have promotions that the customer is eligible for. Nothing illegal, just immoral.

ohh god, cry me a river.

 

[theevilsharpie]

She expects me to tell a customer that the best deal I can get them is full price, even though we have promotions that the customer is eligible for. Nothing illegal, just immoral.

I fail to see why this is a moral problem. As a salesperson, your job is to sell your company's products with the highest margins possible. If you're providing unsolicited discounts to customers, you're doing it wrong.

 

[olds]

I've been doing sales since '99 and I can completely disagree with you. Good salesmen don't need to lie or cheat. Bend the rules once in a while maybe...but that is usually in the customer's favor.

Uh, how's that working out for you? In case you forgot:
Link

 

[punjabiplaya]

there are values in the work place?

 

[God Mode]

The better money might make you happy in the short term but in the long, you will be a shell of your original moral self and become miserable and grumpy. Overall, people that dump their principles because of some twisted "everyone else is doing it" mentality are not people but instead selfish savages that'll do or say anything to justify their bastard ways.

 

[kranky]

Given that your moral standards saved your life, I don't see how you can compromise. In the example you gave I see nothing wrong with telling a customer they are eligible for a promotion. If you don't do that, then how is it even a promotion? Just call it "discounts nobody can have".

Sadly, if the "corrective action" means that if you don't compromise your standards then you will lose your job, then by all means find another one now, unless you think that others higher up the ladder will fight for you if your supervisor is determined to can you.

 

[IcePickFreak]

I wouldn't "adjust" your own values for a job. Unfortunately it often times can hold you back at a job. All part of the "who cares if we're making a profit, do whatever it takes to make a BIGGER profit" mentality.

Last place I worked at we built our products for another company and branded it with their name etc. So working in application engineering we'd have to deal with partner company when it came to custom units. Instead of them asking their customer what conditions they needed to meet, they'd just ask "What do you need?" Needless to say they'd come up with all sorts of impractical and physically impossible solutions, instead of letting us do our job of designing out units around what conditions they needed. Doing it this way always meant me having to re-quote the same job five times. I'd always go back and forth with this partner company that they need to get actual operating conditions info from their customers for custom units. They literally would tell me "We don't ask our customer what they need, we ask them what they want." Of course they'd come back and bitch at us when it doesn't work, despite us telling them it wasn't going to work the way Joe at ACME suspected. They'd bitch to upper-management, which was all pulled out of the Sales side of our company so they didn't understand either.

In fact, I'd get a 1200 page packet of specifications for a job, upper management would say we need an itemized, 10 page quote in 3 or 4 days. When you would explain that it's likely not going to happen in that short of a time frame when there's 10+ other quotes also in progress, the GM would tell us "Fuck the details, just make a quote." Ummmm, yeah I'll just wing it and hope I hit their 1200 pages of specs on the head. :/ Turns out a lot of these big quotes would sit on a sales guys desk for 1-2 weeks, then they'd finally turn it over to us after their customer asked how it was going and we'd have only a few days to do it. Who got bitched at for it? Engineering, of course. lol

Bottom-line is, sadly, you're not going to get anywhere in the majority of companies if you work with a conscious. I have to hope there are a few out there that still have any interest in building a proper product. It always irks me when people say "Businesses exist to make money!" Whatever happened to "Businesses exist to make money in exchange for a product and/or service" I guess they figured you can increase your profit margin by selling junk disguised as a "quality" product.

 

[olds]

Given that your moral standards saved your life, I don't see how you can compromise. In the example you gave I see nothing wrong with telling a customer they are eligible for a promotion. If you don't do that, then how is it even a promotion? Just call it "discounts nobody can have".

Sadly, if the "corrective action" means that if you don't compromise your standards then you will lose your job, then by all means find another one now, unless you think that others higher up the ladder will fight for you if your supervisor is determined to can you.

/thread

 

[PsiStar]

I have a friend that graduated from a moderately well known business school in the Eastern US. I graduated from a small well known engineering school in the Midwest. I can definitely say that each school's teaching of the concept of ethics is nearly diametrically opposed:\ ... if ever the term could be used.

 

[WildHorse]

``

 

[Zebo]

top 20 and she's sweating you? fuck that bitch. Find another job or go above. If you're a salesman you should be networked up the ying yang. Tell em just what you say here.


Personally you sound like a leader, leaders always lead by example.

Sales has some fundamental problems though lies starts small then it becomes an art.

 

[arcenite]

Values don't pay the bills