Great co-workers/Terrible pay - Sales Associate Guitar Center Employee Review

The ever-changing commission structure has been periodically modified to the company's favor since The Bain buyout. Sales employees are paid on a "faded" commission structure meaning they have to sell a certain dollar amount per hour in order to keep their job. The employee earns roughly a 10% commission on any gross profit earned (once he has reached his monthly goal). This can be a good idea with lots of potential if there are enough customers and not too many employees. Unfortunately, for the salesman, this is no longer the case. Over the past couple years, Guitar Center has implemented new hiring practices to put more people on the floor. Ten years ago a Guitar Center store would have a small handful of knowledgeable salesmen with lifetimes of experience. you may have waited a minute to be helped but at least they guy knew what he was talking about. Now they purposely hire a bunch of sexy females and stick them at the front of the store in an ignorant attempt to not be so discriminate and fill the floor with average "nice people" so all the customers can be "properly assisted". This improves the shopping experience when in reality it's because it's less costly for the company to pay a bunch of employees hourly minimum wage than it is to pay out commission to a few people from their profit. Recently, Guitar Center management has begun to require that all employees undergo rigorous training in every department as well as the department in which they are assigned. We are also required to attend Saturday morning meetings for training on how to convince people to buy our "pro coverage" protection plan on everything we sell. Additionally, employees are now forced to step off the sales floor and teach/host free workshop classes for customers. There is no compensation to make up for potential wages lost by not selling during that period. All hourly wages earned during these extra mandatory activities work against our commission earnings because of the faded commission structure so we literally are paying the company out of our own pockets to fulfill these extra requirements! This is the beauty and sole purpose of "faded commission". As a pacifier, the company has given us a tool called "clientelling" with which we can use to track and stay in contact with recent customers and to ultimately bring the customer back into the store. This clientelling application is very useful and essential for a good salesman do do his job properly. However, this also gives the company someone to blame if traffic is not high enough. It also gives Guitar Center another defense against why employees don't earn enough hence justifying an increased workload. We are simply told that were not using the tools given to us and that its not the economy but WE are the reason there aren't enough customers. As an effect, we are required to send out 50-100 emails per day and make follow up phone calls to make up for losses all while still desperately trying to sell some kid a guitar. This, along with the ever increasing work load in a dying economy, has lead to a visible decline in work ethic and morale because Guitar Center is making it harder to earn a decent wage and is constantly bumping up the goals and minimum requirements of their employees. So, keep in mind, the next time you get flooded and devoured by the over-tenacious Guitar Center salesman, it is because he's starving since he now earns less than the guy at the McDonald's drive-thru.