Hi guys,

I am posting on this forum for the first time hoping to get some advice and some clarity for my situation.

I work in a commission based retail sales job in high traffic shopping mall store. A few years ago I transferred to this store hoping for a chance to work in a busy location where I have chance to utilise my sales skills developed over a long career with my existing company. This store has always had high achievers for the company and as I had already worked in a number of other stores in other locations and achieved high sales results I felt like I was ready to take on the challenge and was ready to achieve the results I know I was capable of.

However the problem was that there was another salesperson in this store who had being transferred there a few months before I had. This particular salesperson...who we will call David (not his real name), was apparently not well liked at this original store and was transferred to my new store because he was achieving excellent sales results. At that time I didn't think too much of it as I have always backed myself to do well in sales no matter the circumstance and worked with many personality types over my career, but there has always been a certain level of respect when it comes to sharing sales.


Now the thing about David is.. he only cares about one thing, that is, to acheive title of the number 1 ranked salesperson in the company for the fiscal calendar year, and he reveled in his role in our store (since it was one of the best stores for our company in the country). He would be absolutely ruthless in his attempt at this goal. He would stand near the front entrance and jump on customers as soon as they walked in, preventing other staff from getting to them, if he saw me walking to serve someone, he would run and block me off so he would get to them first. Failing this, he would yell out at the customer to get their attention first so they would be still served by him. He would constantly serve multiple customers at once, and take multiple phone calls at the same time and make customers wait for him so other staff had no chance of getting any sales. On many occasions he would pretend to know the customer and pretended he had spoken to htme before even if they were already being served by someone else. He acts all charming and personable to everyone but he is a clever manipulator who lies and makes up stories to get a sale.


The entire store adores him due to his charms, management loves him because he achieves phenomenal sales for the store. Because of this David avoids doing any non sales tasks such as cleaning and stock filling (as he will always be busy) and leaves those tasks for me and my other collegues to do. David evens makes customers and staff buy him snacks, drinks and lunch becuase he manipulates them into doing him favours, this is also so that he never has to leave the store and miss any potential sales.


After working for a considerable time in this store I reaslised that I will never acheive the results I was hoping to achieve when I started there. It's tough when 70 percent of the sales goes to one person and the other sales staff have to contend for "scraps", and he often ignores customers looking at smaller ticket items in the store and only serve customers that are looking at high price items. I have spoken to management several times over David's overly aggressive behaviour and they simply don't care as he is now the highest ranked salesperson in the company and I sound like a jealous sore loser crying in the corner.


Day by day I feel like it's affecting my mental state of mind, I feel more useless and undervalued than ever before and it's even affecting my sales as customers are starting to pick up my negativity. When I don't make the sale I become despondant quite quickly which makes me even more negative which then spirals in a vicious loop. Quite a few staff commented how I looked sad all the time and asked why but I don't want to tell them because it will make me sound like petty and jealous. David has been making comments lately that if my attitude continues to decline he believes management will transfer me to a quieter store because I cant handle the pressure (they have done this to other staff previously). I believe this is what he really wants as there will be less competition for him.


I'm really unsure on what to do at this point, I still enjoy working in a store like mine as I like to keep busy but I find it more and more difficult to go to work everyday and face the same thing. My sales have dipped significantly and management are starting to notice. I don't want to be transferred and face a quieter location because it would mean I would face even less sales and and a further drop in earnings.


Sorry for the long read, hope you guys on this forum can maybe help me reach some clarity.