Macy*s DO NOT WORK FOR MACYS WARNING This Will Make U Vomit MADE ME PHYSICALY SICK Brandon Florida

I worked at Macy's as a seasonal employee in the shoe department. I have never worked a commission position before, ever! So when I was hired and the commission process was explained to me by the dept. manager, it was NOT explained correctly. I was never told about a deficit and I was never told that I would have to owe the money back if I don't sell a certain amount of shoes.

When I took home the new employee manual and started reading what a draw commission really was, I was shocked and thought to myself this really can't be how draw commission works. The manager did not explain it to me correctly at all. I feel that the managers should correctly explain what a draw commission is to a new hire and not sugar coat it and make it seem like it's something that it is not. 

Also, I didn't understand how she expected me to make a commission when everyone that worked in the shoe department (it wasn't a big department) was working on the busiest days and during the weekdays there was still too many employees on the floor, which doesn't give you any kind of chance to make a commission. 

It totally defeated the purposes of me getting a seasonal position.

I'm an ex-employee; I sold shoes at Macy's for a few years, and made easily 30k+ a year and there was opportunity to make more if I worked harder, developed clientele more, and such. But I was only willing to put in so much effort at the time, as I was focused on college. It just paid the bills.

I'm not sure what this report represents, ignorance or incompetence -- the commission system is really not all that complicated, and is fully documented in the employee manual. It takes some getting used to, but it's not a scam. Either you didn't read anything you signed when you got the job (as the draw/commission agreements DO have to be signed), or -- I don't know.

If you work commission at Macy's, you do not make an hourly rate. That's the first thing you must understand.

You do receive a certain amount of money per hour-- but this is a loan. It's called the "draw", it represents an advance on your future commission earnings.

This is GOOD for you. The draw is what keeps you from starving during those off-weeks when business slumps, it lets you have a consistent amount of cash every week that you can rely upon. But you're a commissioned employee, NOT an hourly, and NOT a salaried employee. You only earn what you sell.

So, of course, if you have a week where you sell enough so that you're only really earning $250, and your draw is $500... the company has now paid you $250 that you did not earn.

You're now in deficit to them; so future commissions over your draw will have to reduce that deficit. There may be times in certain markets and during certain seasons where you might run a deficit for a weeks to even maybe a month or two, and it might take a bit to get out of it-- but if you're actually good at your job, that's really rarely the case.

Commissioned employees make a commission and not an hourly rate as an incentive, because a hardworking and industrious salesman can get customers into the store and /make/ sales that would never have happened otherwise. Did you have your client list who you knew individually and of their interests and likes, and did you call them on occasion? Clients can get the commissioned employee through the hard-times with much more ease.

As to the complaint on returns... of course returns count against your sales. It sucks, sure. Coming into the store one day and pulling up a report and seeing you've had $1000 in returns in the last day about knocks the air out of you.

But really, returns sort of average out. You start to predict it, and you can deal with. It sucks but its the only fair way to handle it: why should you make money when Macy's didn't? Commission makes you a sort of partner: your fate is tied to the sales. They get a percentage of every sell, you get a percentage of every sell. If someone returns something, they lose money, you lose money.

Yeah, at first you see only the profits because there's few returns. After a few months it starts biting into your cash a bit more, but you won't be in deficit unless you fail at your job. The draws are NOT that high at ALL.

My draw was about $7.50 an hour if memory served (at one point I requested they increase it, which increased my burden but made the slow months more manageable)... at that amount, I had to sell about $90 an hour to make my draw. In the slowest of times, on weekdays, that'd be a problem. During weekends I'd easily make double that, on sale events and big times of the year... I'd make WAY way way way over that.

The precise numbers vary, of course, depending on the products and price-points, commission percentage, and precise amount of your draw-- but still. The draw is rarely significantly over the minimum wage.

I agree with this post. They work you to death with no rewards. Horrible working conditions and staff. I left retail after this job!

I worked at Brandon Macy's and another Macy's. I never became ill or sick. I dig get depressed and sad because the store was much slower than the one that I left.

The commission system is not a scam. I worked there for 10 years and was making a lot of money. There were only a few times when I did not make as much money as I could. The first was right after 9\11. The second time was right after I transferred to that horribly slow location. The third time would be right after vacations.

There was some type of comprehension on your part. You received summary statements every week detailing all of your sales, returns, and unidentified returns (987008) so you should have seen the amount of your deficit constantly rising.

Another thing that i want to mention is that the hour you are in before the store opens and the 30 minutes you are there afterwards cleaning and closing your register is time that you have to make enough sales for. Lets' say that on Sunday, you are scheduled for 8 and 1/2 hours. You might think that because you are there for 1 1/2 hours while the store is not opened that you only have to make your sales goal for 7 hours. That is wrong. You have to sell enough for 8 1/2.

You say that you sold over $200,000 in 6 months. That is nice but everyone gets returns. The customer that comes in every weekend and spends a few hundred dollars with you could be returning the clothing. That is while I stayed away from the people that I knew would wear the clothes and return them.

Then you have to think about all of the people that did not have a proof of purchase when they returned. Someone has to take the hit in the wallet. Macy's is not going to do it. So what do they do. Those that sold something from that department, gets to subtract more returns from their commission.

When you go on vacation, call out sick, guess what? You are not selling but customers are still returning. If you have the day off, you will get returns. It is life. It is commission. The commission system is pretty fair and I can't argue with it.

On another note, I did not know the store was as filthy as it was. I was on first floor and never saw rats or roaches. Rats eating the chocolates and Godiva? That is disgusting.

What I find to be even more disgusting is why as an employee, you did not remove the contaminated candy from the shelves. As employees we could easily make damage tickets, attach it to the items, and send it off the floor.

But instead, you let it stay. >.>

I worked for Macys (The Bon Marche) for almost 5 years, and it has not always been commission. First of all you always earn your base pay no matter what. If you do not understand how commission works, then you probably should not be working in retail. Almost everyone knows there are busy times of the year when the commission is great ie;Christmas, back to school, Thanksgiving etc... it is true managers are not very clear on explaining how commission works to new employees because they don't want to explain it is not an all year thing. They make it sound easy to obtain, when it really isn't. My average sales in a year (I worked in the Children's Dept) was $350,000 and I only saw commission July-September and November-January.

It is a bunch of crap you carry a deficit for three months, but that also means in three months you start over with a zero balance. I think most people should not let their ignorance shield the facts, Macy's is a huge employer now, they pay their employees on time and they allow for movement within the company. I on the other hand hated it there, I loved my customers, but hated the pay, the crappy insurance and really the morning meetings. I guess all in all Macy's is an OK place to work, to get you by.

I've worked for Macy's for over 4 years in the Women's Shoe Department. Before I even began working there, they explained everything about how a Draw vs. Commission payscale works.