I developed major anxiety while working as an account executive at RS. I literally went to the doctor because I thought I was developing a heart condition. Turns out I developed anxiety from the amount of stress that was placed on the sales people. I was having heart palpatations, trouble sleeping, and near on panic attacks.
Their sales tactics are to run employees into the ground. I was in the top 3 for my team nearly every month and never felt like I was successful or doing enough. Be prepared to be treated like a child. They will count your calls and emails expecting an insanely high number a day. Meaning that the days where I had many prospect meetings (which leads to sales) meant that I would have to stay late just to leave a bunch of voicemails. It is micromanaging to it's finest.
I was also regularly pitted against my co-workers. Yes, competition is great in sales but they turn it into a major negative and prevents team collaboration. One time I sent a recorded call that I had to my manager because it went poorly and I was looking for feedback. Instead of meeting with me to work on what I can improve on he played it for the whole team without asking my permission or letting me know beforehand. Everyone then went around and said what I did wrong. It was deeply upsetting and embarrassing, I was looking for guidance and was met with shame.
It is very true that people are fearful to speak up. Every co-worker that I got close to was severely burnt out and struggling to maintain their mental health and any sort of work life balance. Plus, they make you take an hour lunch break every day (which no one ever took the hour) leading to pretty much a 9 hour work day. Not to mention nearly everyone on my team had to come in early and stay late every day to try and reach goals in order to get paid to feed our families. One month where my team beat all records we were met with them telling us that we should double our calls in order to double the money. If you've ever worked in sales you know it doesn't work that way. Pretty much I was in a call center.
It's unfortunate that they have treated their employees in such a negative and disheartening way for being a Christian company. I was respected and treated far better in the secular companies that I have worked for. The absolute shock to me still was the girl that was fired for becoming pregnant outside of wed-lock. Ummm HELLO the Christian thing to do would be to love her, help her, and guide her through this challenging time. NOT to fire her leaving her without a job as a new to be single mother. This story was absolutely heart breaking to me and I realized I could not be apart of an organization that would think that was ok just because she had sex outside of wed-lock. We don't have to agree with her actions, but as a Christian we are called to love her and care for her.
The things that Dave Ramsey said throughout my career at RS were often shocking and upsetting. It's ok to have differences of opinion, it's ok to question leadership on decisions, it's ok to love others despite their sins.
