Work Ethics
So I have a situation at work. My manager has explicitly instructed me to offer package deals (also referred to as wrap-rates) to people who show up at the counter without a reservation. What this means is that I'll quote someone a rate of, say, $36.90/day for a car and then tell them that it's a deal where our liability coverages for the vehicle come with it at no extra charge. But in reality the uninsured motorist protection (UMP) and supplimental liability insurance (SLI) cost $16.90/day and I'm only putting their rate as $20/day and telling them on the contract that that's because our computer system forces us to itemize everything.
The reason why we want to do this is because we get payed comission based on our sales (or don't get paid commission at all if our sales yeilds aren't high enough), and the yeild goals are unrealistically high so we have to fudge a little to be successful. Now this is fine, and I don't do it THAT often, but I have definitely been doing it- I mean, everybody wins! The customer gets coverages and I'm charging the same as I would have otherwise, my sales are higher, the average of all the sales agents is consequently higher, and my manager doesn't get in trouble. So right.
But apparently this all is illegal (I KNEW there was a reason I was uncomfortable with it initially). And furthermore, I found out the other day that doing this is grounds for termination and that all the managers who have EXPLICITLY been telling us to do this will not back us up if we get caught! Wow. So right.
Now to make matters worse, this Arabic girl who I guess doesn't wrap-rate at all (she thinks she's the only justified employee because she doesn't "cheat"- I wish someone would have told me it was cheating before today), approached me and confronted me on the issue without confronting me? Basically the way she worded the situation was such that she refered to those contracts in particular that I'd done and questioned my rates without identifying that she knew I was packaging the insurance to bring up my yeild... and asking who told me that was okay to do without saying what it was I was doing? Basically setting a trap so my response would catch me. It was disgusting the way she put it, actually. She clearly had spent a significant amount of time choosing her words just right to set up a trap. But anyways, it was awkward and I played dumb for a while, smiling pleasantly back and responding to questions with other questions trying to force her to accuse me when I knew she wasn't willing to because she was trying to force a confession to quote, but yeah. Then she just started to get frustrated and a little more insistent but still repeating the same things word for word. So finally I dropped my smile and just said, "Look, Najuwa. I don't want to play these games. If you want to talk to me about this, find the particular contract you're refering to and show it to me and we'll speak plainly." And then she got all red and angry and tried to play dumb herself but it was just pathetic, so I shrugged and walked away. But damn. I think I'm in for a problem at work tomorrow. I cannot have a situation until I get my incentive check for this last month. But I wonder- should I not be doing this in the first place? It just seems to be a situation where they don't leave us much other choice than to break their rules.
The reason why we want to do this is because we get payed comission based on our sales (or don't get paid commission at all if our sales yeilds aren't high enough), and the yeild goals are unrealistically high so we have to fudge a little to be successful. Now this is fine, and I don't do it THAT often, but I have definitely been doing it- I mean, everybody wins! The customer gets coverages and I'm charging the same as I would have otherwise, my sales are higher, the average of all the sales agents is consequently higher, and my manager doesn't get in trouble. So right.
But apparently this all is illegal (I KNEW there was a reason I was uncomfortable with it initially). And furthermore, I found out the other day that doing this is grounds for termination and that all the managers who have EXPLICITLY been telling us to do this will not back us up if we get caught! Wow. So right.
Now to make matters worse, this Arabic girl who I guess doesn't wrap-rate at all (she thinks she's the only justified employee because she doesn't "cheat"- I wish someone would have told me it was cheating before today), approached me and confronted me on the issue without confronting me? Basically the way she worded the situation was such that she refered to those contracts in particular that I'd done and questioned my rates without identifying that she knew I was packaging the insurance to bring up my yeild... and asking who told me that was okay to do without saying what it was I was doing? Basically setting a trap so my response would catch me. It was disgusting the way she put it, actually. She clearly had spent a significant amount of time choosing her words just right to set up a trap. But anyways, it was awkward and I played dumb for a while, smiling pleasantly back and responding to questions with other questions trying to force her to accuse me when I knew she wasn't willing to because she was trying to force a confession to quote, but yeah. Then she just started to get frustrated and a little more insistent but still repeating the same things word for word. So finally I dropped my smile and just said, "Look, Najuwa. I don't want to play these games. If you want to talk to me about this, find the particular contract you're refering to and show it to me and we'll speak plainly." And then she got all red and angry and tried to play dumb herself but it was just pathetic, so I shrugged and walked away. But damn. I think I'm in for a problem at work tomorrow. I cannot have a situation until I get my incentive check for this last month. But I wonder- should I not be doing this in the first place? It just seems to be a situation where they don't leave us much other choice than to break their rules.
Labels: awkward, fucking politics, this is all wrong, work
posted by mags at 12:20 AM
3 comments
