I've recently started working for The Source By Circuit City after a great deal of trouble of figuring out exactly when and where will I start work.
I was interested in the position since it promised "above average income", "competitive benefits packages" and "career advancement" (all quoted from their hire pitch). I mean, who wouldn't want that right? Well, there's a reason why there are mostly new immigrants working at this chain. It's because everyone else has figured out what a rip off this company really is.
Allow me to blow the whistle on this place. The "Above average" salary is truly as low as one can legally get (and even lower, apperantly). The actual salary is $7.45/hour (minimum salary for Ontario) commission... What kind of commission?
At the open house of the company it was mentioned that basically you can double your salary by selling the equivalent of a digital camera per hour (exact salary given was $17/hour). I mean, who wouldn't like that. Truth is, however, commission is a mere 2% of the pure profit for a product. So let's take a digital camera - $299 Fuji A320. Pure profit is ~$54. That works out to about $1 in commission, right? I just don't see where the extra 10 bucks come from.
Now consider that a good employee would sell anywhere between a $1000-$2000 of merchandise. That's about $500-$800 pure profit. So if you are really good you will make $10 to $16 bucks a day from commission. But there's another catch - you HAVE to maintain $80 /hour to even make ANY commission (Total sales divided by hours worked). And if your manager makes you stock merchandise all day I don't see how it will happen.
Enough about that. Let's talk about the real issue at hand. My first Saturday I had to work from 9:30 am to well... 3:30 hmm, not pm, but AM!!! If I can count correctly, that's 18 hours straight. So they were doing inventory and I thought "OK, just this once to win their respect". What happens next? Next week I work 65 hours.
After checking up on Labour laws in Canada, I see that after 44 hours/week you MUST be paid overtime (minimum 1.5 times regular salary). What I found out just today is that not only do you not get overtime salary, but get this: You are not getting paid AT ALL!!! That's right, apperantly, in the company contract the maximum allowed worktime is 44 hours a week.
Funny that the store manager would push me to work all this extra time. And apperantly, the company is not responsible for paying me the extra time. It's what do you call it... voluntary. Didn't sound like that coming from my manager.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, there's more. Way more...
This one again, is not the company's fault, but rather the manager's. Since The Source represents Rogers services, all employees must pass an online course, which takes 20-30 hours to complete. I was surprised to hear that I will have to do the studying on my own time (which is not a lot, considering work hours are from 9:30 to 9:30). So I did it... and again I found out too late from another source that actually you are supposed to do it during work hours.
I just can't believe that such a big company would allow such abusive people to be managers responsible for so many employees.
Finally, if any employees make it through this hell, they would hope for the "career advancement", which unfortunately does not seem to exist, since there are co-workers that have been in the company for two years and still at minimum salary.
Yavor
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
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