Commission Impossible

Long, long ago, I worked for a business that made personalized/custom items for folks. Back then, uploading your own artwork for printing was still a novel concept, so lots of folks needed help with the process, from creating a .jpg/.png file to understanding why printing black ink on a black shirt will result in an invisible image.

I specifically worked in bulk sales because I was willing and capable of explaining these things over and over. For each sale I made, I spent several days explaining everything, sending photos, hopping on conference calls, tracking down corporate sponsors, etc., etc. My pay was minimum wage hourly, with commission based on a percentage of each sale. 

The commission was based on the cost of materials, supplies, and labor. I was given a formula, and I used it the way I was taught. Even with my commission, the company was making a hearty profit. 

One day, the owner of the company caught wind of the fact that my paycheck was higher than his. This was because I’d just brokered a glorious five-digit print deal with a celebrity conference. I’d also figured out how to sell deadstock to a charitable non-profit, which resulted in tax benefits beyond declaring the deadstock a loss. 

The owner, however, didn’t care about what I did or the benefit it provided. He saw a bigger number on my check than on his own and decided it must stop at once.

This is already an aggravating story, but it gets worse. I was asked to create a document that tracked all expenses per order. We already had a system that did that, and I submitted these records to the owner, VP, accountant, and payroll each week.

When I was told, “No, we need the specifics,” I assumed I was being asked to jump through hoops for a good reason. So, I broke all of my expenses, profits, and commissions down by client, hours I worked on that account, how many pieces they bought, the per-piece rate, the number of hours spent printing/customizing, the gallon rate of the printing ink we used, shipping rates, etc.

I walked into the accountant’s office feeling pretty impressed with myself. I’m not great at math, so I taught myself a whole bunch of Excel in order to make the report detailed. 

Unfortunately, the meeting began with the accountant berating me for not creating the chart he wanted. Mine was too complicated, and he didn’t understand it.

Me: *Shaking.* “Okay, I apologize for misunderstanding.”

Conflict wasn’t really my thing, and I’d already fled two tyrannical bosses at this point, so I wanted to do things correctly.

Me: “What would you like me to include? I can grab my laptop right now and put together what you’re looking for.”

Accountant: “Well, I want the first column to display the client’s name.”

Me: *Smiling.* “Okay, well, looks like I got that right.”

Accountant: *Frustrated.* “No, because some of these are names and some of them are companies.”

Me: “Because some of my customers are individual purchasers, while others are corporate.”

I wasn’t sure how to explain this. We let anyone who was willing to pay for a bulk order make one, so I worked on everything from family reunions and softball teams to corporate outings and official swag/merch.

Nope. Didn’t make sense to him. Everyone should have an LLC if they’re buying 20+ items of merch. Finally, I told him:

Me: “That’s the name that was on the payment, so I’m using it on this spreadsheet so it lines up with our payment records.”

That settled, he wanted to make the next field the total amount of the order.

Me: “Okay, cool.”

I said, clicking around on my laptop.

Me: “Right now, I have that as Column K, labeled Total, so you can see the sum of all of the expense fields, which are Columns B-J right now. But it’s absolutely no problem for me to move that.”

Click, click, click.

Me: “How does that look?”

Accountant: *Refusing to look at my screen.* “I don’t see it anywhere.”

So, I got up, took my laptop to his side, and pointed to each column.

Me: “The total here is the sum of [fields]. This field shows how much we spent on each item in the order. This field shows the total print hours. This field shows how many…”

So on and so on for each field.

He sadly refused to listen to me, instead telling me over and over again that he didn’t understand. Finally, he threw me out of his office for “being a smart (donkey).”

The VP then called me into her office, wanting to know why I was bullying the accountant. In his version, I refused to do the project, made up fake data, and tried to present it to him without having it organized.

At this point, I lost it. I handed her the printout I had made. I showed her the changes I had made based on his requests. I demonstrated my calculations and formulas. She nodded enthusiastically the entire time, and I slowly pulled myself together with the understanding that I had, in fact, done the assignment correctly.

After a little more discussion about what I could and could not do to make the report more transparent, she called the accountant in. He sat at her desk while she explained my spreadsheet to him, line by line.

Unfortunately, he didn’t understand, because it was absolutely impossible for me to make more than the owner of the company. I couldn’t possibly make that many sales, either, because I wasn’t drawing in business. I was simply working the organic flow of what came in through marketing.

I was excused from their office and got to enjoy weeks of nervous guts before I was called back to discuss my pay. Despite my figures being sound, the owner would not permit someone who didn’t hustle to make more than he did. I was given two choices:

1. I could only receive commission on orders I pulled in externally (no commission on orders from customers who contacted me through our website). I would be expected to fill out reports on every business I contacted and present my figures and failures each week in a sales meeting with the owner, VP, and accountant.

2. I could work for a flat rate that was two dollars more than my current rate, no commissions ever.

As an incredibly shy person with no hustle whatsoever, I chose Option 2 with a side of Searching for a New Job.

While I didn’t exactly love the job I took next, I learned my former coworkers came in to work one morning to find the building padlocked with no explanation and no final paycheck. I understand there was plenty of disgruntlement from not just the newly unemployed workers, but from customers who had been promised pricey orders only to receive nothing.

But really, what good can come from a business when the accountant doesn’t understand numbers?