I once worked for a company that had a weird policy that your commissions couldn’t be more than 75% of your pay. At the end of the year, if your commissions were more than 75%, they would raise your base pay to reflect the proper ratio.

For most people, it didn’t matter, because commissions were so low. But I’m a commission whore, so I was constantly scheming to increase my commissions. First I went to every one of my region’s clients, and figured out who wasn’t buying products from my division, and got them to start.

Then I started going around to large regional companies who weren’t customers, and got them to start buying my products. Since I had gone to the trouble of becoming a vendor, they would start buying from our other divisions,too (unfortunately, I didn’t get commission on the other divisions’ sales). A couple of those new clients grew huge, and one of them became a national chain.

My commissions got so high, that my base rate was getting adjusted every year, until I was making double over the other sale managers in my division. That means I should have been in line for a major promotion, right?

Nope, some accountant noticed that I was making more than anyone else on my job, so I got laid off.