Well, what you're describing sounds like sales in general. I mean that line of work on a professional level (as in making enough money to live well in this area) is tough precisely for the moral ambiguity required to put the best interests of you and your company above those of the customers', and at the end of the day you gotta ask yourself "do you wanna make money or not?"

Cause really - how much you're paid is a function of supply and demand with your skills. That is why you can go to a state school and get a computer science degree and make only $40,000 a year, but you can be a really good software engineer and get into a Google or some successful software consultancy and start at six figures even though at the end of the day you would have learned the exact same curriculum getting your degree - suppply and demand, who's got the rarer skillsets. So when we talk about sales - what extensively "school trained" skill does that require? None. You can pick any random dude off the street and train him for a few weeks/months and have him sell. So exceptional salesmen really need some exceptional personal qualities not found in ordinary people.

This is why so many people come out of high school/college and such wanting to land a sales job because they hear about 24, 25 year old sales guys doing $200k a year and want to be like them. But then they realize that they don't have what it takes to succeed, namely they can't/aren't willing to be shady and then drop out after a couple years ranting to their friends with the excuse of "this sales job isn't all it's cracked up to be..."



I mean... if you're the type of person who likes sales and closing deals but doesn't want to deal with bullcrap - applications engineering or sales engineering are avenues that you can pursue here in the Silicon Valley with an engineering degree and get the satisfaction of customer interaction, with enough of a base pay that you can get a decent living without having to push too many buttons with that black magic dark art of "customer relations"

 

Wow, I wnder what is actually going on here and why joltdudeuc is all worked up now.

 

I think its cause a lot of sales based jobs are BS and rely on people "ripping" people off who don't know any better.

 

The HT Integrator business is FULL of people who don't know what they are talking about, sell only equipment that makes them huge profits (in addition to what they should be making their profits, LABOR.)

I'm all for capitalism, but seriously, you have no idea how much evil exists in the HT Integrator industry. if you aren't making huge sums of money it's not worth it to them. Most industries would kill to make 20-30% on product plus labor, but this industry thrives on high labor rates, and profit margins well above 30%.

Of course, the consumer should be more educated and know where the deals are on such gear and pay someone a resonable rate, but c'mon now... selling things like a $90 HDMI cable for $400 to the end user is stupid. Esp when you can buy something just as good for $5. Why not supply the $5 cable and sell that at $100. You still make insane money on that product AND you giving the customer some value.

But that just doesn't happen in the HT Integrator industry.

 

HT Integration is what I have such a big gripe against. Esp with this customer I had a month or so ago. Paid $200 for an install, and the guy from Magnolia (the real one down off stevens creek) came in and set it up completely wrong and couldn't ****ing program a logitech remote.

I went over there and re-wired his HT in 15mins and programmed his remote in 20mins, and wanted no money (he offered, but HT integration isn't what I do). I felt bad for him, because $200 was a fair price, but that guy didn't care to even set it up right and was complete tool as an integrator that he couldn't setup Harmony. Where was the service. There are SO MANY instances of this kinds of crap from HT Integrators.

So if this job has nothing to do with HT integration, I'm sorry to crash your thread. but if it does, well, i'm not sorry.

 

nope this has nothing to do with HT.

 

why not just say what it is?