Boss tells mechanic he's making too much money, moves him to a pay-per-job commission—regrets it immediately when the mechanic stops managing his business for him: 'The office is filling up with customers, and the phone is ringing constantly'

Ok, so there’s this thing called the “egocentric bias” where each of us tends to overestimate the amount we’re contributing to a joint or group effort. I’ve written a lot about this in the past, so I’ll keep it brief. But basically, if you take a group of 4 people who each contributed 25% to a group project, each of them will say that they contributed more than the 25% they actually did. They’ll further say that the others completed less than 25%.

So if you took what everyone reported they contributed, you’d end up with well more than 100%.

Essentially, we’re all so wrapped up in our own minds and thinking about ourselves all the time, and experiencing every second of our own thoughts. And this (egocentric) perspective warps our perception of our own contribution. Meanwhile, we only see others working when we see them working.

You’ve probably had this same argument over fair and equal contribution and effort with various different family members throughout your life. Also with roommates and friends. And here’s the thing: it happens with your boss too. Except your boss is paying you for your time and effort. So in his (or her) head, you’re never doing as much as you are. And when you ask for that raise, he (or she) is thinking... don’t I compensate you enough already?

Because they don’t see all of those extra things, all of that extra effort that contributes to the ongoing success of the business. And they’re not going to take your word on it either. Anyway, that’s exactly what was going on here. This mechanic, an employee at his boss’s shop, was contributing to all these other things that his boss didn’t see or appreciate. Things that had real value, even though they weren’t stamped on the job ticket at the end of it. 

This employee, a mechanic at an auto repair shop, shared how his boss decided one day that he made too much money. He had worked there for 10 years. 10 years of helping out with everything around the shop. From managing orders to managing customers—even driving them home sometimes. But all of that just boiled down to being paid “too much." So, the boss moved his pay from an hourly rate to a commission-based structure based on the labor that was charged out on jobs to customers.

This wasn't going to go the way the boss thought it was going to. It was time for a little malicious compliance.

Years ago, I was working in a small auto repair shop, only two full time employees, plus the boss and a part time office worker. Boss always complained that I made too much money. So he decided I was going to get a raise, but he was going to put me on commission. I would only be paid based on the labor charged to customers for the jobs that I did.

Story/TowerLineTrail

As soon as this new structure started the following week, the mechanic started working on outstanding jobs from the week before. Since he was only going to be paid for jobs, and specifically the time he spent working on them, that's exactly what he was going to do. 

But when customers started filing in, and the phone started ringing, guess who had been helping out in the office before?

So Monday, the first day of my commision time comes along, and I immediately get busy working on jobs left over from the week before. Paying jobs. In the mean time, the office is filling up with customers, and the phone is ringing constantly. Boss calls me up front, says he needs some help. 

The mechanic politely declined to help out with these tasks, since he wasn't being paid to do so. He also wasn't going to help with ordering parts or any of the other many things he had done before to keep the business operating smoothly.

The boss was even bold enough to declare that “That's not how it works.” Even though he had been the one who had made it so.

I told him sorry, I don't get paid to answer the phone, or to write up customers, or to call in the stock order, put the stock order away, pick up or deliver parts, drive customers home, clean up the shop other than my own work area, and pretty much everything else that I could think of that I usually did previously, when I was paid hourly, but was no longer part of the "payable" package.

He said, "that's not how it works."

I said it sure is.

The mechanic had been working there for 10 years, handling almost all of the management of the business. He had remained there because he liked the lifestyle that came along with the work. 

I had been there for almost 10 years and pretty much did everything except payroll. It wasn't a great job, but I enjoyed the work. But he was no longer very interested in the work part of owning a business. He would come in late every day, promise a bunch of work, then go to the bar down the street for lunch from around 11 until 2 or 3, some times even later, then come back and then complain that all the work wasn't done.

The mechanic acknowledged that it was the boss's company, but being treated so pessimistically after all this time just felt awful. And you do come to find, after spending many years in a job, that you grow attached to the work, even if you don't directly own it. 

This new pay structure lasted for only a week, but the well had been poisoned. 

Sure, it was his place, he could do what he wanted. But if I was doing the work, I expected to get paid for it.

Being on commision only lasted a week or so, I went back to hourly, and got to keep the raise. Things got a little sour after that, and I eventually moved on to another shop.

It's a shame to see things like this happen after so long in a working relationship. To work somewhere for 10 years, only to have them tell you one day that you make “too much money." Especially when that feeling is exactly that, and you're basically the one keeping their business running.