the whole point of the membership is that its an effective loyalty tactic. REI found that members tend to spend more per visit and more often.

if you read the AMA, most of the comments are from current employees

the thing is, HQ has no way to track our individual sales. Our IT systems are from the mid-90’s no joke. So memberships are the only metric to track and reward/punish employees by influencing the hours assigned.

no one would actually be fired for not meeting weekly sales quotas. But our hours would definitely be cut down to single digits until we quit. This is a common practice, and not unusual in retail, but REI prides itself on being an ethical co-op and should act accordingly.

Also, the rule of unintended consequences led…