Pros
Company car - 401K Same as the Competition.
Cons
If you like a high level of stress and want to develop depression, anxiety, and be on Prozac and Xanax, than this is the job for you. The old Reynolds use to be a great company. The company used to respect field trade and were always concerned about our safety and well being. Not anymore! The Brits took over and brought a toxic cultural environment. They don’t care about any one, with the exception of everyone in the Ivory kingdom. In short, here is the new field trade rules: Everything is your fault in retail, even though we have no control on what the retailer does. Delivery is late, it’s your fault -cycle counts are wrong, it’s your fault - manufacturers supply shortages, it’s your fault. Your relic of a company laptop crashes on you in every call and you have to reboot because it’s slowing you down, guess what? It’s your fault. Every day is a beat down . Home office thinks that field trade is just sitting around waiting for them to give us something to do on top of the dozen other things they want done. Work plan is not manageable. It changes constantly. Every visit you are changing POS, merchandising, and re-merchandising, and buy-down changes, new product introductions that we have to hide under the counter, behind a flip side or in the managers office. There is simply no room left on the fixture. We have no credibility with retailers. They are angry with the amount of product we continue to force out on them monthly, and we tell them - give them time while they collect dust. Retailers hide or pretend to be busy when we enter the store. This is how we are building a better tomorrow for the new Reynolds. Field trade morale is at an ALL TIME LOW. The new Qtrly bonus is a joke. No transparency and as soon as you are getting close, they will change and raise the numbers so you don’t reach them. You might be lucky to get a few pennies. Speaking of a few pennies, HO decided to give the new hires a $9,000 increase so they don’t quit, but the people with more than 10,20,30 years - that have sweated and toiled, solely got new title recognition and zero(0) increase in money. Great way to keep seasoned and tenured territory managers motivated. My teammate that has 25 years with the company is only making 10,000 more than a new hire. 25 years is worth 10k more than a new hire. Very motivating!! DM’S don’t make it easier. They are there to enforce the above mentioned and not coach you, but lecture you on why you suck and you don’t have a winning mindset. Real motivating. Let’s not forget that we have Covid and the DM has to to work with you monthly and having to go to small stores and not be able to be 6 feet apart. Also, heaven forbid and you don’t make your 10 calls a day and 13 calls per day if you take a week vacation. If you get Covid, you are expected to make phone calls and take credit for the call so your door footprint does not drop. Administrative time to plan and prepare - there is none, it's on your own time. You are treated like a work mule and the only time that you get Work-Life-balance is when the DM is on vacation. Can there be a William Wallace moment when someone from HO, area sales VP or senior region director can champion and speak for field trade? several have tried and they ended being forced out, quitting and retiring.
