IBM stands for I Block Money, says sales rep: Big Blue sued yet again by its own staff over 'missing' commissions A 17-year veteran of IBM is suing the American giant claiming it failed to pay him promised sales commissions – a charge made by other Big Blue salespeople in at least two dozen similar lawsuits over the past fifteen years. Mark Comin, of San Rafael, California, who worked for IBM from 2001 through 2018, filed his complaint in …
Plenty of companies have tanked after trying to screw over their sales staff. A rush for the exits generally follows any attempt to mess with commissions, territories etc. If you can sell stuff, you can sell anything anywhere.
Probably IBM has a cachet that the sales droids don't want to lose, which is why they're complaining rather than going to sell Glengarry Glen Ross Real Estate.
I've heard of
Institute of Black Magic (somewhere in OS/2 eZine)
Internal Bowel Movement (Schlock Mercenary)
Itty Bitty Machines (El Reg)
And the latest to this list is
I Block Money
India Business Machines
Can any other commentards care to elaborate and add more, for our pleasure?
The executives have their incentives, stock options, bonuses, gratuites, parachute clauses and pay outs, and every other benefit in a iron clad contract that a team of lawyers poured over and rejected due to a errant comma. The contract now cheiselled into the concrete foundations of IBM headquarters and signed in blood.
Yep no hypocrisy there
This is not new at IBM. Thirty years ago, I was part of a 3 or 4 person team that sold a huge deal to a university. My share of the commission would have been 10's of thousands. In today's dollars--probably $60 or $70K. I got nothing. The branch manager simply didn't like me. So he cut me out. They didn't give more to the other guys, they just didn't pay me. I didn't fight it because it was a time in my life when I didn't want to lose my job--part of the calculation I'm sure. The quota letters were the same then as now: "Not a promise or a guarantee. Not a contract." "At will employment." I heard many stories of guys earning million dollar commissions that just weren't paid. They just couldn't stomach paying a salesman a million dollars. An IBM Director once actually told me, "The product sells itself. We don't really need sales people." The IBM Company and it's shareholders have been paying for this attitude for decades now.
Nowhere does it say they didn't get paid the salary they agreed too, They just didn't get the perks they thought they were entitled too, with no contract then they don't automatically get any more for doing the job they are paid to do.
And it took him how many years to realise hes getting screwed over and how many times did it happen. No wonder IBM is going down the pan with idiots like that.
Anyone else would have walked after the first time.
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