I mean if the Frenchman is 703 like most of your colleagues a broken foot is probably going to prove fatal.
I mean if the Frenchman is 703 like most of your colleagues a broken foot is probably going to prove fatal.
Is the Frenchman RL?
Paging RL.
This Frenchman was the unfortunate subject of one of my favourite boss (east end wideboy boss) moments a few years back. Used to run his company as a duo with his wife. The boss rings me one day and cheerfully says 'Mathieu's wife has only gone and committed hari-fucking-kari'. I assumed he meant a bad business decision so thought nothing of it. Turned out she'd actually gone out into the woods and shot herself.
He's been doing more business with us solo though and that's the main thing.
Ah, the Liam Neeson complex.
Yes, plenty.Originally Posted by Dquincy
I'm a twit
I'd like to set all your minds at ease by confirming I am not French.
Our manager put the word out that we're looking for someone to take over running the Irish market. This is a market worth about £100,000 in business at the moment and the commission offered is 2% of profit, so given we operate at a 40-45% margin you're looking at probably £1,000 a year in commission with a fair wind. For this the person will be expected to do three sales trips a year to (the island of) Ireland - one to do the north, two for the south.
Me and the two other team members who are in the running for this gig put our heads together and all agreed: it's a crap offer and none of us want to do it. I was probably the closest to thinking about it as I'm the only one of the three without a small child, but I have bigger fish to fry so it's a no from me as well. We went back to the manager and said that none of us want to add that gig because it's not worth it. He started having a good old cry and told us it was a great opportunity. I said how is it a great opportunity? Even if you double sales - which is bonkers unrealistic - you'd be putting in a ridiculous amount of effort running around Ireland for only £2,000 extra a year. Why would you do that? He knows deep down than I'm right, as I could tell on his face.
What I wanted to say, but couldn't, is that there's a reason you people (and thousands of employers like you) can only attract applications from Ukrainian immigrants and thick twats who get made redundant elsewhere - your offer just isn't attractive to any kind of calibre of person. Employers of course don't and won't accept this because they are so addicted, since decades, since their whole lives and worldviews, to cheap labour and being able to dictate the market. I wonder what it will take for that to change. It will decide my vote at the next election. Who is offering housing supply and high wage economy reforms? At the moment I'm seeing no one.
I have no idea what commission structures usually look like - is 2% of profit low or is that normal? I'm guessing low from everything else we know about your employer.
I have no idea (surely it varies massively across industries and individual circumstances) so all you can do is take each individual proposal on its merits, and the two I've had put to me in the last 12 months - £3kish to do four trips to Central America, and £1kish to do three trips to Ireland - I would classify as extraordinarily bad offers. You have to remember also that when I say 'trips' this isn't like a business trip where you go to one place, have a hotel room and go to a client's office every day for a week, this is doing hours of driving/flying every day and 3-4 meetings with different people in different places, then writing and sending back the reports in the evenings, and destroys you.
Now if you had 10 more valuable countries and had to visit them all once and you made five figures in commission, then maybe 2% is good - I don't know, you can only see the offer in front of you.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 09-01-2024 at 12:05 PM.
My previous company had their sales staff on 10% and they were well known for being cheap. But a completely different industry so apples and oranges.
Was that their industry?
I’d put money on the offer Jim talks about being crap whatever the industry.
Aye, so even as a new adviser in financial services you would expect around 10-15% of income as commission(not profit) regardless of it that is for mortgages, pensions etcetera.
The fact that Jim’s is based on margin is the first red flag before you even get to the numbers. Would love to know what costing model is used there as well and what else goes through gross profit. Are there rebates, for example, and are they included?
My previous company it was 10% of profit and sales staff generally ran at around 30-35% profit margin. Rebates weren't included in cost, sales staff had to suck it up with the inflated cost.
I think I mentioned this back when they offered me Central America, but: the structure is 1% of profit if you achieve 75% of target; 1.5% for 90%; and 2% for 100% or more. Profit is calculated as selling price minus landed buying price, and they also 'load' 4% in which the company keeps.
I should also say that that isn't consistent company policy - I know that the Arab is on a worse deal than that (because he has high value markets and they can rinse him as he's stuck here waiting for a UK passport), while his dad is on a far better deal.
I'm so glad I don't sell things.
I was on 5% of every ticket sold back in the day, could make over £100 a day sweetener just doing my job
Do you think she's into you, in that sense? And if you did, would you do anything about it?
Settle down quince.
Would a borderline or actual middle aged man have an affair with a subordinate young enough to be their daughter having met and flirted outrageously in the workplace? Nah, can't see it.
She’s only ten years younger you weirdo
I'm a twit
Take that as a yes then.
People in the office shagging and senior men copping off with younger Women are two of the oldest modern day working tropes going - you're dancing through this thread like you're completely unaware of either and I'm the weirdo.
Toggle Spoiler
Nah. We’re really good friends, that’s all there is to it.
I'm a twit
My 'best mate' at work is a twenty-five year old woman, and, even though we aren't, half the office is apparently convinced that we're having an affair (as half of us were convinced that another pair were for years - although they actually might have been). Worth bearing in mind then that half your office will think you're at it.
A lot of people can't get their heads around the concept that people with the complimentary bits and preferences might spend time together which isn't fucking, or a prelude to fucking.
I had that before too. Though, we were.
Maybe you should be.
To be fair, Baz hired this woman at least partly based on her being fit.
Oh my response was entirely in response to Lewis, I wasn't siding with Baz or commenting on whatever he is or isn't up to.
Nah this is completely false. I didn’t think she was fit when interviewing her (online) it just so happened when she turned up for work, she was nicer to look at than expected. She hated me at first because I didn’t bother with her, and I’ve since openly told her I didn’t want “support” because nobody is able to do my job as good as me.Thankfully I got past my narrow-mindedness, plus fancying her has almost completely subsided now.
I'm a twit
No better thread for it so here it goes. Went to some meditation thing tonight with some people from work. What a bizarre experience. Absolute cult vibes by the end, preaching about global warming. I’m either bad at meditating or the woman hosting it was rubbish cos I could not relate to anything she was saying.
Still, an amusing way to spend an evening and we got chicken selects from McDonald’s drive thru on the way home, so can’t complain.
I’m sure we’ll have fun in the office tomorrow reviewing tonight.
Also held hands with my sidekick at one point (we all did, in a circle, and had to chant lol) and my only thoughts were Christ her hands are colder than mine, and I’m bordering on raynauds.
I'm a twit
Your energy was so not Rainbow Rhythms.
Calm blue ocean.
Cold hands. Cold heart.
When it got suggested I couldn’t help but blurt out ‘it’s not rainbow rhythms is it’ and sent a gif of mark ‘dancing’. As promised it was indeed the complete opposite. Sitting in a chair, doing nothing. To be honest, it was right up my street.
I'm a twit
I don't need anyone to coach me on how to do that, I'm practically elite at it.
Last year we had a training session on dealing with difficult customers. Geezer had no idea what he was talking about in general and by the end of it he had us stood in a circle holding hands - The hand in my left hand wasn't cold, but she had been shoveling Wotsits in her face all morning, so I was straight on the hand sanitizer afterwards - chanting "MMMMM-BAAAAAAH". from the chest, not from the throat. Sound as confident as you feel. Like a demonic Hansen rip off.
Anyway, we all agreed afterwards that we'd rather be sat on a desert island with all of our worst customers than go through that again, so maybe he was on to something.
"Training" is such a grift for the most part.
Didn't know they did exorcisms in the civil service but I suppose the productivity crisis has to be solved somehow.
One of the things I had applied for as part of the big restructure recently was 'Training and Knowledge Specialist' which they painted as writing and composing material for training with only 5% actual training. The writing part sounded great but that 5% would still be enough to kill me
We had a suicide-baiting wifey do our Mental Health Awareness course. That was a sight to behold.
Any idea what her qualifications were to be discussing mental health awareness? Genuinely curious and I'm guessing absolutely none.
She was bipolar and clearly in a manic mood all session.
We had Dyslexia awareness training this evening. My favourite part was being invited to look at the different resources for 20 minutes, then the lady doing the training passing around the same things for another 20 minutes.
Baz have you slammed it up her vagina yet or not that's all I care about
no.
We discussed holding hands today. She joked that she wasn’t sure who’s were sweatiest, then said mine were cold and wet, referenced sweaty clam, and called me vagina hands. To which I responded ‘well they have been up plenty’ and she looked visibly repulsed and told me off, saying I need to remember I’m not in the pub with my mates, while clearly thinking I’m hilarious.
She also went out giving out suicide awareness resources to local businesses today including visiting the homeless support place I manage the contract for. Some drug user asked her for her number, so I said it must be the partially sighted guy who’s always in there. Went down even worse than my fingering comment.
Oh the banter. It’s a funny dynamic cos when we chat in the open plan office it’s all very polite basic office shite, but then we go into a meeting room together and it’s basically a two-way masterclass in flirting.
She knows I fancy her but I think she just enjoys my humour rather than wanting my clammy hands up her fanny.
Last edited by Baz; 16-04-2024 at 07:40 PM.
I'm a twit
Christ. Mike have a word.
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