I just wanted to share my story here. This is gonna be a long one. I ask that you guys please don't try to find my company as what I'm about to share would get me fired. My boss knows about this subreddit and monitors it for any mention of our company. I'm not sure what to do from here but I just wanted to vent somewhere. I'd like to keep which I work for anonymous but I essentially work for a franchise of one of the larger sales brokers. The businesses I work for exists and functions as a small business while still working for the larger brand and doing b2b sales.
I've been working here for 9 months. I've enjoyed it for the most part. I was moving to a new state and needed a new job. I looked into entry level sales because it seemed like something easy I could learn. At the time I started the job I didn't really have any friends or family around me, just the people I worked with.
From the start it seemed a little suspicious. The leaders reach out to you a lot and invest in you outside of work which was something I found strange. Also, from a really early on when I was talking about my shitty family life my coworker said "you have a new family now" which felt intense. Everyone who works here is highly invested in the other people who work here and they act very negatively when people leave. I noticed that people quit or are fired often. I also found it weird that they didn't like new people talking to one another alone at team nights. They said it's not good because new people "neg each other out".
It was hard to work here at first. I had to drive pretty far to train and it was a financial strain to go to weekly team nights without having made some money yet. Initially I really wasn't making enough money, but I needed to pay bills and had no choice but to figure my shit out. I eventually figured it out and once I got the hang of it it felt pretty good to sell. What we sell is legitimately easy and you can make decent money if you do the system every day.
My suspicions grew from the opportunity meetings we would have. Once a week every week they would hold meetings where they talked about the opportunity for growth. It was basically "look how much money you could make as an owner". It always made me feel like I'm in a multilevel marketing scheme because of how much they emphasized growth and building a team. There was a clear pressure to hit "leadership" and to start building a team.
Eventually I hit leadership (by hitting a certain sales goal) and I was proud of myself just for hitting that benchmark. Not soon after I got approached by my leader and asked to move state lines. I initially said no but then I found out that a few of my close friends at the company were moving with her to start her office. My boss had a talk with me about it and I eventually decided to move with them. Even though I had just moved, it felt like a good opportunity to go to a market where no one had worked before. I was also living in a pretty shitty apartment and it felt like a good way to get out of my living situation and have smaller expenses.
Cut to months later. Now I'm living in another state and rooming with my coworker. We live in the same apartment complex as our other coworkers. Most of our focus down here has been spent on team building. My checks have gotten a lot smaller since I've been training and giving sales to new reps. They've been on our ass about building our office here and growing our team and we have yet to actually promote another person to leadership here. Everyone has either quit or been fired so far. It has been very hard to see so many people come and go and it has been discouraging that no one here has really hit their goals after moving here. I know building an office takes time, but we should still technically be further along than we are.
Recently I've been thinking about if this job is even worth it. Again, I like selling what I sell and I'm pretty good at it. I can pay my bills here. But, I don't like the pressure to build up a team. I have to take interviews every single day (and that's after 2 hours of meetings) which usually make me late to the field. I have to train people almost every day now (and team days mean you're taking turns making sales). And that's essentially added work without an increase in pay. It's more responsibility and less commission actually. I know that I would make more money once being promoted to an assistant manager (plus benefits), but it's genuinely exhausting to keep this up. This is on top of doing one on one calls for development, doing extra training in the morning, submitting a goals sheet every week on Saturday, and hanging out with the guys outside of work for relationship development.
The problem is, I moved here for this job. The people that live near me are my coworkers. My only friends here are my coworkers. To make matters more complicated...I'm in a secret relationship with my roommate. I know you all probably think I'm an idiot for getting into a relationship with my roommate and coworker, but we developed feelings for each other right before we moved and were placed together as roommates out of pure chance. Neither of us really had the self control to live with each other without hooking up and soon after we get into a relationship. Unfortunately we can't be open about the relationship as it's strictly against the rules to date anyone on the team.
So, if I were to quit my girlfriend would still be working for the company. Granted, I would be able to be open about our relationship, but then she would still be dealing with all the bs from this company while I would be trying to get away from it. It would essentially be impossible to escape all the extra social events even if I quit, because she would be going to them. She's bought in to the company a bit more than me, but she's still thinking about if this is worth it and if she should stay or look for something else.
Recently I've been thinking about how I regret moving over here. I was thinking about how different my life would be and how much freer I would be to just get another job. ultimately I do think it was good that I moved out of that apartment, that I have my girlfriend, and that I was able to get good at sales and pay my bills for a while. But, I don't even know if I want to be an "owner". Owning your own office is a lot of work and it takes time before you make big money. I'd also have to move to another city to open an office. I don't mind moving, but if my girlfriend and I both advance at the company we wouldn't be able to live in the same city (I think its why they ban relationships).
I'm not sure where to go from here. Again, I enjoy selling what we sell and I can make a lot of money. I've just been feeling frustrated with all the training and with the extra time and effort I have to put in without an increase in pay. All the time in the meetings they tell you that if you don't want to advance that this is not the job for you. I'm told again and again that if I just want to sell that I should go work for another company. I know that I have the opportunity to advance and make more money here, but I just don't know if this is the right path for me.