For sending myself and the two other sales people in our office an email blasting us for not doing a well enough job of $$$$ compensating our engineers on a job well done? I work for an engineering type firm and obviously we have several engineers in our office to design each project. Once the project sells, the sales person typically spends their personal money on a $100-250 gift card or outing as a thanks to the design engineer. In the email, our sales manager not only says that we should be spending MUCH more of our PERSONAL take home pay on the engineers (i.e. Motorcycle, all inclusive vacation, etc.) but then goes on to question our intent and character. Is it just me or is this complete bull shit?!! I work hard for my money and who the hell is he to say how we should spend our money. If he has an issue with the engineers compensation, then how about the company changes that instead of relying on the sales person to pay them with their post tax dollars. Not to mention this is a very large company so these engineers are still pulling in $70-100k annually. Am I wrong here?!!!

10/7/2014 6:42:21 PM

Sales people are expected to pay for gifts to engineers? Well...I'm getting fucked.

10/7/2014 6:44:54 PM

I dunno man. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around spending my personal $$ for work related things, in general.

10/7/2014 6:45:04 PM

There are plenty of "cut the folks in the back office in on sales/commissions" schemes out there, but unless the sales staff is pulling really high commissions, this is seem odd to me. This seems like the sort of thing that normally gets built into a commission system. Then again, what do I know. I just toil away in academia.

10/7/2014 6:47:24 PM

What field of engineering is this for?

10/7/2014 6:50:28 PM

I know nothing about your business, but it sounds flawed if that is how it runs.

10/7/2014 7:06:00 PM

How about you just copy paste the email.?

10/7/2014 7:20:16 PM

How much commission did you make?

10/7/2014 7:20:59 PM

man dafuq...My boss would give us a 50$ gift card each Christmas to Publix and that shit shows up on my biweekly statement TAXED.

10/7/2014 7:25:25 PM

I usually get my clients a $100 gift card to Angus Barn after a couple of successful transactions. I always thought anything above that amount was a kickback.

10/7/2014 7:33:14 PM

Quote :

"I work for an engineering type firm and obviously we have several engineers in our office to design each project. Once the project sells, the sales person typically spends their personal money on a $100-250 gift card or outing as a thanks to the design engineer."

I have never heard of this being the norm in any company, much less a large one. Why is it the sales person's job to pay a "tip" to engineering and not someone in support or marketing? Just because the sales person is paid commission when a sale closes?

I like to believe that years ago, some smart ass engineer jokingly floated the idea that they should get paid commission per deliverable, then some idiot manager decided to actually implement it.

10/7/2014 7:36:58 PM

Cool username

10/7/2014 7:51:45 PM

If the engineers are pulling in 70-100k, how fucking much are you pulling in? Sales people fucking suck. You were born with the gift of gab, a bit of sleaze, and probably good looks. You work is easy as shit and yet you make bank because...that's just the way it is. Without the engineers, you are NOTHING. Without you, their good product would eventually get sold.

10/7/2014 7:59:42 PM

Quote :

"Without you, their good product would eventually get sold."

Or the company would go out of business after the engineers with their boring personalities failed to sell the product.

10/7/2014 8:04:09 PM

What, you mean engineers can't do sales and marketing? No, I'm sure they'd do just fine...

10/7/2014 8:08:52 PM

Most of the good sales folks ARE engineers.

10/7/2014 8:16:44 PM

Just like any sales job, it has it's ups and downs. Most are ME's and EEs. For the sake of this argument, I will say that these are extremely technical sales not only from a scope standpoint, but also in dealing with politics in the public sector. Roughly 80% of sales either get fired or quit in the first couple years bc they couldn't make the grade. With that being said, those of us that survived are fortunate enough to do well. Good year would bring in $175-275k. Bad year would be south of $100k. I can assure you that it is not your typical sales monkey selling their latest and greatest product. Considering the nature of the business I don't think we should be penalized bc of the profession we chose.

10/7/2014 8:17:04 PM

Quote :

"Sales people are expected to pay for gifts to engineers? Well...I'm getting f***ed."

10/7/2014 8:18:30 PM

Think about it though. Say pretax I bring home $200k. Post tax that will be ~$100k. Out of that post tax money I am supposed to buy an engineer a $10-20k toy or vacation.

10/7/2014 8:21:02 PM

it's common practice in my company but more on the $100-500 gift card level and definitely not an expectation of anything more - the ones that give more get more help

10/7/2014 8:24:01 PM

You aren't taxed at fucking 50% you asshat. Just who the fuck do you think we are?

10/7/2014 8:36:39 PM

seems safe to assume he's single or at least not married - 200k puts him in the 33% bracket with another 6% state puts him close to 40 - then add in medicare / social security - possibly you could go as far as adding in other items like healthcare and 401k - 50% isn't incredibly far off but he's not quite there either

still an idiot for whining because likely the engineers are the only reason he's able to close a deal

10/7/2014 8:42:03 PM

Quote :

"I usually get my clients a $100 gift card to Angus Barn after a couple of successful transactions. I always thought anything above that amount was a kickback."

accepting that would get me fired, and i'm in the private sector

returning gifts at christmas time sucks

10/7/2014 8:51:54 PM

If you're making 2-3x the engineers, i'd say a measly $300 gift card per sale is a little slack.

Clearly the expectation from your boss is more than this, and the engineers are probably harder to replace than you sales people. They should be getting at least 10% of your commission depending on how much work they're doing for you.

10/7/2014 8:54:54 PM

if it's an expectation from your boss, why don't they pay the engineers a commission/performance-based bonus as part of their pay?

10/7/2014 8:56:03 PM

^x4 33% would be the marginal tax rate, not the average tax rate. It still amazes me that people don't understand the difference.

[Edited on October 7, 2014 at 9:00 PM. Reason : .]

10/7/2014 8:59:19 PM

I don't understand anything about this type of business

10/7/2014 9:07:06 PM

Not to mention he likely has a house, 401k, and likely a roth. My sig. other and I made about 150k last year and we paid 13% federal, 3-4% state or something like that.

10/7/2014 9:07:43 PM

It sounds to me that the type of jobs the sales person is selling require quite a bit of engineering. Somehow a custom has gotten started that the salespeople kick some major gifts down to the engineers for helping get the jobs sold?

It still seems flawed on the companies side though, the engineers should be bonusing off sold jobs if they are that integral to the sales process. That way the sales reps are not dealing with paying taxes on engineer "gifts" on the companies behalf.

10/7/2014 9:10:40 PM

I'd be pretty thrilled if the salesmen and capture management people chipped in to buy me a motorcycle, a hooker, and maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

10/7/2014 9:13:44 PM

the engineers should be getting a percentage of that commission, but it should be a pre-tax official company policy thing, not an off the books bullshit thing

10/7/2014 9:42:16 PM

you should buy them an expensive, but totally inappropriate gift

I recommend

http://sinthetics.com/delivered-gabriel-m1-sinthetics/

10/7/2014 10:19:21 PM

^^ agreed. Maybe they don't have the infrastructure in place to properly assign engineers to projects to pay them commission. In which case, it's the bosses job to lobby for this to put it in place.

10/7/2014 10:22:36 PM

Your boss is an asshole. Figure out your profit margin at the end of projects. Pay the engineers a certain percentage, say 5%, as a bonus.

10/7/2014 11:35:28 PM

That sounds like a shitty situation to be in. Doesn't the company have a credit card to use? My brother in law has done some good things at his engineering job and was rewarded with a spending allowance of about $250 using the company credit card.

10/7/2014 11:39:53 PM

Quote :

"33% would be the marginal tax rate, not the average tax rate. It still amazes me that people don't understand the difference."

Quote :

"the engineers should be getting a percentage of that commission, but it should be a pre-tax official company policy thing, not an off the books bullshit thing"

10/7/2014 11:51:00 PM

Yes your boss is wrong. That being said, give me your money.

10/8/2014 8:30:46 AM

no way in hell I would agree to that.

Also cuntpunter seems like he has some issues with sales people.

10/8/2014 10:14:07 AM

i am also amazed that people with 6 figure salaries don't know how income taxes work.

10/8/2014 10:59:13 AM

Quote :

"Sales people are expected to pay for gifts to engineers? Well...I'm getting fucked."

I just want sales to stop selling ridiculous new features or changes on dumb time and money requirements because they have no idea anything actually works.

10/8/2014 11:06:31 AM

Republicans intentionally try to confuse and mislead people about how marginal tax rates work

10/8/2014 11:06:48 AM

The engineers should be getting a percentage of that commission if that's whats in the contract says or that's what they were led to believe. Other than that, everything else on top of it is gravy.

Why the fuck should they be getting more?? It's not like they're getting peanuts. If they want to make more, they should get in sales or some other position. And fuck this, "this guy wouldn't be getting the sale if it weren't for the engineers". The engineers wouldn't have the fucking job if there weren't people to sell it.

Bunch of jealous engineers ITT. Don't know what you guys are bitching about....you've had a pretty solid job market throughout this whole shitstorm of an economy in the past decade. Sorry, but there will always be slick salesmen and other douchebags who will make a shit ton more money than you just because they have a personality. Be happy in your job security.

10/8/2014 11:16:27 AM

^damn son. It has to be a harmonious effort, else both departments stay pissed at each other.

As a ME who has actually gotten a $100 gift card for some unreasonable ass-busting, I appreciated the gesture. That was probably a once in a blue moon type of thing, though, as it's not expected or contractual at my company.

10/8/2014 11:41:51 AM

how would you have felt if they gave you a motorcycle

10/8/2014 11:44:12 AM

10/8/2014 11:56:59 AM

Quote :

"^damn son. It has to be a harmonious effort, else both departments stay pissed at each other. As a ME who has actually gotten a $100 gift card for some unreasonable ass-busting, I appreciated the gesture. That was probably a once in a blue moon type of thing, though, as it's not expected or contractual at my company."

I was mostly responding to CuntPunter.

I'm all for gift cards and taking people out to dinner for helping you make a ton of money. But the motorcyle and vacation shit is ridiculous.

10/8/2014 12:00:33 PM

Quote :

" Flaccid circumcised “gym dick”, 10 inch upgraded erect circumcised penis,"

what in the fuck is a "gym dick"???

10/8/2014 12:21:28 PM

so assuming in 2008 when he made his account and listed 20 as his age (could have changed it, I don't know) we'll say he's about 26 now and makes $100k on a bad year, and $200-275k on a good year? yeah, I don't believe that.

10/8/2014 12:59:46 PM

There are tons of people that have made big money early...especially when you combine real estate and sales. It's definitely not far-fetched.

10/8/2014 1:04:52 PM

I just think people exaggerate their salary on the internets in general.

10/8/2014 1:18:50 PM