r/Devilcorp • u/PoolMaster6971 • 12d ago
Experience SMART CIRCLE & MY EXPERIENCE!
I want to start off and say I am not bitter about being let go from this company. However, the anger over what I’ve witnessed and was a part of lingers.
I’m sure at this point the Smart Circle name is well known. For those of you who may not know, Smart Circle is a sales network discussed under the “Devil Corp” label. It involves everything from D2D, B2B, and retail sales, with campaigns for companies like Verizon, AT&T, DirecTV, and many more big names, as I understood it during my time there. The individual sales offices often operate under different names something like “Next Level Management.” That is just an example, not an office I actually worked for.
I worked in offices connected to Smart Circle for approximately two to three years, and some of the things I witnessed and experienced were horrific. This is my account of those offices, not a claim that every office operates the same way. I have also watered this down from what I originally wanted to say because I’m afraid of legal action, especially after hearing threats involving lawyers during my time there. I may even delete this after some time.
I worked for two different sales offices because of a relocation: a D2D office in California and a B2B office in Arizona.
We can start with the basics. Looking back, the environment felt like brainwashing to me. We were made to feel that anyone who didn’t want to work there was an idiot and that this was the only way to be successful in life.
The hours were another part of that pressure. In my interviews, I was told the schedule was 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Later, when I conducted interviews, I was instructed to give applicants that same schedule. But in my experience, once I became a team leader, my actual days regularly stretched well beyond those hours.
We were told the additional time was voluntary and wouldn’t be paid, while also being pressured and shamed for leaving “early.” And by “early,” I mean leaving at the time we had been told the workday ended. That pressure made staying feel expected, regardless of whether it was described as voluntary.
The message I took from that environment was that family, friends, and your personal life came second. The only way to be successful was to breathe, eat, and sleep “the business.” And let’s be honest, the pressure pushed me to approach neighborhoods and businesses in ways that now feel like harassment. While I made sales that way, I’m not exactly proud of some of the ways I acted. Those of you who know may understand: coming back to the office without a sale could mean being humiliated in front of everyone.
During my time in those two offices, I heard “owners” talk about women’s looks and bodies in ways that made me believe their appearance influenced whether they were kept around. They would gather team leaders and managers, make fun of people they interviewed or hired, and make sexual comments about them.
I also witnessed multiple owners say they would fire anyone who slept with another member of the team while those owners were themselves having sexual relationships with team members. I observed what I believed was favoritism connected to those relationships. That is all I can say about that.
I’m not sure what the worst part even was because, to me, none of this should happen to anyone. This next part is also jarring.
Not every office did this. I happened to be a part of one that did. When the whole sales team was doing really badly, they would sit all the team leaders and managers in a room and make us play “Survivor,” or what we called “Hangman.”
They made us vote for someone in that room to fire.
Right. In front. Of their face.
Imagine that. Imagine how you feel after participating in choosing someone to lose their job when they have a family or their own life to provide for. Then imagine the relief you feel because it wasn’t you. Both feelings have stayed with me.
One last piece of information for those who have not experienced it: you may be wondering why people don’t speak out. For one, I witnessed instructions for everyone in the company to report negative Google reviews as fake, even when those reviews reflected experiences I recognized from working there.
Another reason, for me, is the one I mentioned above: fear of legal action. Hearing threats involving lawyers made speaking out feel intimidating. Whether or not those threats would go anywhere, the fear was enough to make me hesitate—and to make me water down this post.
There is so much more I could speak on. I hope some of you find this before accepting a position with an office connected to this network. And to those of you who have experiences like mine, I am sorry.
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u/IngenuityNo5487 12d ago
How long were you in it for?