Wednesday, September 2, 2009

NSman: How about irregular pay?

NSman: How about irregular pay?

I REFER to last Friday's report, 'In-camp NSmen can stay connected to workplace'.

I am concerned over my make-up pay claim for my time spent on in-camp training. My company pays me solely in commission on sales I bring in. For the past few years, as I progressed in my career, I assumed a managerial role and spent a lot of my time grooming a team of salesmen. In return for this contribution, I am paid in overrides over my team's sales. This compensates me for the reduction in income as I have to spend less time on my own sales.

For my time spent in camp, the logical assumption is that I would be paid for lost time I could have devoted to both sales and managerial work, but that is not the case. To get my make-up pay, I need to give proof of my income and a detailed breakdown of pay for my own sales and pay in overrides. I am paid only for my own sales and not overrides. The reason given was that I still get overrides from my team when I am in camp, and it is therefore not 'loss income'.

This implies that my time spent in camp affects only my own sales and not those of my team. In other words, my presence as manager and team leader is worth nothing and immaterial. How can that be true? Worse still, the more one progresses in one's career, the less one gets in make-up pay.

A project manager is paid in full, and a business owner based on his profit-and-loss statement. They are paid for their management and leadership value. Why am I paid for only part of my taxable income?

CPT (NS) Lee Tian Shek

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