product manager

process engineer

customer service representative

senior mechanical engineer

quality engineer

The Kirby Company

A typical work days starts at 9:00 am and is generally over between 9:00 pm and 11:00 pm. We start the day off with a meeting to go over the previous days sales and address any questions that us dealers may have. Then we load up our cases with supplies and head to the field. We generally work within an hour of our office. When we get to the town that we are going to work in we start by letting the canvasser out and then each dealer. Everyone works a different street. We knock doors to set up a free carpet shampooing for any room of their choice. Part of the free shampoo is to get them to see the Kirby System and how it works. We go thru and show them the machine from A to Z and answer any questions they may have. The last thing we show them is how to shampoo with the Kirby System. I have to say the machine works incredibly and usually makes the carpet look brand new. If they would like to get a Kirby we help them out to get one and generally give a price break or two to get there business.
    I have learned a great deal working with Kirby. Some great and some not so much. I have had some personal growth as far as knocking on doors and learning to be friendly with people right up front. The company is focused on being positive so I find myself smiling all of the time, even when I don't want to. All in all Kirby has been a good experience however, its not for me. I need to get into a field with a company that has real room for advancement. There is opportunity there with Kirby, but I feel to be successful with the company that you need to sometimes use unethical sales tactics. Not saying that we ever do anything "bad." I just don't feel comfortable with pressuring people to make a paycheck. If the machine didn't cost an arm and a leg I think people would buy it all day.
    The management of the company knows what they are doing. However, this is probably the main reason I want to move on. I have been lied to a lot. Right from the beginning I was never told that I was working for Kirby. I was tricked into working for them. It put a bad taste in my mouth from the beginning. I am married with 4 kids so I didn't have a choice. I had already quit my previous job so I had to stay and give it a shot. Then I was told that I would get paid $520 a week no questions asked. Well you get paid $520 for showing the machine 15 times a week. I have yet to see anyone show the machine that many times, so it turns into strictly commission pay. I was also told that I would never have to knock a door, well if you work for Kirby you definitely knock doors. Now after knocking doors I do not really have a problem with it. I don't like it but its not near as bad as I thought it would be. All of these lies and many more came directly from managers mouths. They are good at what they do and they do make good money, but I don't want to be like them.
    The co-workers are great for the most part. I have met some good people while working with the company. I have also met some rather interesting folks. You never know who is going to be in your morning meeting on Monday.
    The hardest part of the job with Kirby is the time that you put in. The days are long, 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week. I have 4 kids. I cant do that many hours all the time. I need to be home a lot more and I need to work 5 days a week most of the time. 
    The most enjoyable part of my job is working with the customers. I have always enjoyed conversing and getting to know my customers. With Kirby you have a couple of hours with just about every customer you clean for. For the most part they are pretty nice and enjoy your company, of course there are some nuts out there but that is ok with me, they just break up the monotonous of the job.

A typical day at work: You start work at 8am, you go in for a morning meeting, and then you are off to random houses. While at these houses, you will work very hard. You will scrub, vacuum, and try your best at remembering how the vacuum works. You will receive no breaks, (even if you work for 16hrs like I did.) You are never promised a check at the end of the week/month. You must sell three vacuums in order to receive any type of compensation...The vacuums run past $1,000 in price....Selling three is much harder than it sounds. If you sell one or two, you will not be getting any compensation. You must sell three or more. If you work 80hrs a week, and you do not sell any vacuums....Or maybe one to two a week, you will be working for free...You will not receive any form of compensation. Honestly, if you have no other form of income, please do not do this job...You will most likely be working for free. It is a very tough job with no benefits, no promise of compensation, and you will barely have any free time. I strongly advise against this. 

What I learned: You can work all you want....With no pay. It's hard, you rarely sell, you rarely get a check (I never did), it is not worth it. 

Management: They were rude. You are making THEM money. You do not get anything until you have sold three....At (on the lower end) $1,000 per vacuum, selling three, they make $3,000. They pay you maybe $300. You could have worked 80hrs that week, and made $300. As I stated, selling is harder than it sounds....Much harder....Even in the rich neighborhoods. You could also sell two at $1,000 a piece and make nothing for working 80hrs. They just made $2,000 off of FREE work. 

My co-workers: They were nice people. Most of which were brain-washed by the promises of fancy Cadillac cars, lots of money, management positions, and free cruises....By the third day, we were all skeptical....I ended up "embarrassing" the manager by telling him that it was a scam, that no pay-checks are promised, and that we were working for free...He had no words...Many left...I ended up quitting. 

The hardest part of the job: Selling. It is almost impossible to sell a $1,000+ vacuum in this economy. Also, working hard, 80hrs+ a week, with no promise of compensation is a blow. 

The most enjoyable part of the job: Well, you do get to drive around a lot....See rich neighborhoods, and different places....

Disclaimer (The Kirby home care system is the best cleaning system on the face of the planet. It’s freaking amazing and definitely worth the price tag. There is nothing more efficient and versatile on this planet for cleaning then the kirby.)

This is from my prospective while being an independent contractor with them. All opinions are my own and not an accurate view of everything or everyone in the company.

The way they hype up the job as “you can make 1000+ a week easily!” Is very convincing at first until you realize your “customer service” position is realistically customer service/advertising/door to door sales/ and you clean houses for free but the catch is if you can sell it the commission is sometimes awesome. When you are learning the ropes of sales and are brand new to it your first 3 weeks can easily be without a pay check bc the labor of cleaning houses/talking/ and finding clients while going door to door is exhausting. It’s definitely a job that takes “getting used too”
Your whole job is basically twisting the truth to get into people’s homes, guilt tripping them into thinking u get paid for showing them the product (when your not ), attempting to sell it, and if you do hooray! Your last 7 hours were worth a good commission usually around 600. But if you only sell once a week 72 hours of work isn’t worth being laborer/Customer service/sales men/and cleaning tech all in one. 
They do have a lot of bonuses and it keeps things interesting but after awhile it’s not even worth a possible vacation somewhere or gift cards. 
If you are really good at sales this job is easy bc it takes a special type of charisma to keep going day in and out. The possibility of making 1000+ a week is true but not as clear cut as they make it out to be. Technically you are never guaranteed a pay check unless you work yourself beyond exhausted. But I have had weeks where I completed 17 demos and never sold but some people can sell 22 machines in one month. It is a job where the stars have to align in order to sell sometimes.
Definitely a side gig until u get skilled enough to sell every week more then once 
 

Forewarned is forearmed...I have only been a Kirby rep three days and warning bells are shrieking.  I had two half days of training on the Kirby and how to sell it.  Then I was expected to go out on the van.  I had watched carefully in training, but never even turned one on and didn't know how to shampoo.  My demos would have been appointments...so I already had a foot in the door.  The last thing I'd do as a manager would be to send someone as uneducated about Kirby as me into appointments!!  The machine sells itself, I'd buy one; but I can't sell what I know very little about.  The least they could have done was let me demo then in office ONCE.
Also, rule #3...drugs.  They practically encouraged them!...so long as you weren't flipping out while working.  My manager had a Breathalyzer in his van from a recent DWI.  He just started this business as a manager.  Our office is a cheap rental and he doesn't run air conditioning.  He was jazzed about me on day one and disappointed in me day two because I couldn't get 7 appointments set up after 4 hrs training.  His assistant manager...there only 3 weeks, thought I didn't hear him tell the boss he didn't think I was going to buy their hype.  The boss can make you feel special...or be downright rude.  Needing to go into the E.R. for a torn Achilles tendon was just an EXCUSE to him, even though my ankle was the size of a big grapefruit.  He's only interested in us making HIM money.  And no one is naturally as hyper and unable to stand still for a second.  I'd love to blood test him for drugs.
There is much more but most importantly is there is no work agreement.  No one took my W2 information.  I was lied to many times about the pay.  The job was advertised Customer Service...some minor assembly.  The truth is you sweat your butt off in executive clothing for over 12 hours a day.  Everything I've read from other posts here only justify my concerns.  Very few people can do this job and though I might be one of them, I think I will hit up MCDonald's tomorrow for a job rather than go back....

First and foremost, the job post is very misleading. Not only are you taught to trick people once you're on the field but you are a victim from day one. They advertised an hourly rate as a [Customer Sales Representative] on the phone - but nowhere in the posting did it EVER say the word "sales" , "door-to-door" , or "commission-based". Actually it only mentioned the distributor name and never made mention of the Kirby in it either. 

Once you get accepted [nearly anyone will] they will do an orientation promising you trips to luxurious places like New York, The Bahamas, etc then start talking about fancy cars and are basically selling lies to you to motivate you to stay with the company. The reality is, you have to pester them to even pay you a dime - even if you make some sales [not an easy task in most neighborhoods]. The hours were not 9am to 5pm as advertised either, it was 8:15 am to 9:00 pm and was completely commission-based.  They say if you get in the house and get a demo, they'll pay you some amount at least, but then they go "huh?" when you ask about the compensation. It's an all-around joke. Even if you enjoy sales, this is not the place to go - their tactics are dirty, manipulative, and not in good faith and will having you feel like a nasty person at the end of the day - and for what?? you don't even get paid the promise base-pay. 

All-in-all they try to convince you to do well at door-to-door so you can get your own distributing center so that you too can manipulative and deceive new-hires and make your own dirty marketing scheme money. Stay away from this place. 

They dont pay you for your work, if you go and show the kirby to a customer and they dont want it or dont give you a referral for another victim of a client you arent paid for your time at all, they dont pay you for your used gas or unsuccessful showings, they sell these for around 2,000$ and then they still dont even pay you, they dont provide you with customers to show this product to you have to search for people on your own and like i stated before if the customer doesnt give you a referral for another potential customer you are not paid for the showing, so you spend  your own money on gas driving there and back, take time out of your day to show this product and potentially (usually) never get any pay from it, this company is run by greedy criminals, this is unamerican, stay as far away from this company as possible, completely commission only if you can sell these overpriced vacuums and get the customer to refer one of their friends, if you sell them the vacuum but they dont give you a referal that means you DONT GET  PAID Lastly i will state that none of this information is given to you up front it is only brought to your attention a week or 2 in but at the beginning when they hire you (enslave you) all they tell you is you will be making 800$ a week and all this bull but once they have you they break the news to you that you will be working everyday most likely making no money, this company disgusts me and i hope they are run out of business or ruined by a major lawsuit how is this not against the law to lie and not pay workers for their time, i understand commission but there should be base pay, STAY FAR AWAY FROM THIS JOB PLEASE

First off these are sales jobs, you get paid for commishion based off sales that you make or appts. that you set that someone else sells. You get what you out into it. You need to be able to adapt the mentality of stay positive no matter the circumstances. It's a numbers game the more customers you find the more money you'll make. Where as being paid by the hour you are limited by the amount of time in a day thus limiting the amount of money you can make. Sales positions allow you the ability to determine how much money you bring home. These are not show up and get paid jobs. You also have the ability to work way through the ranks up until you reach the point you can open your own office and own your own business. Sales are not for everyone but the opportunity Kirby offers is the pound for pound best game on town. Negative people get negative results that's why are lot of them stay working are a low wage hourly job. This company has been in business for 115 years, they must be doing something right. Also within the company and its retirees you will find countless people that have used the Kirby careers to become multimillionaires. Unfortunately to find out if your cut out for sales you have to try...if your willing I'd say a sold 3 months then take it from there. Anyways I'm highly successful in my career Herr not only in financial terms but it has helped me grow as a person and learn some professional skills that can be applied elsewhere in life. The opportunity is real but the choice to become a success is yours.

Working at Kirby had it's ups and downs. But at the end of my short 3 month work period with them, The bad out weighed the good and i couldn't take it anymore. Me along with many other people that worked there were told a good story to get us going an promised pay on regular bases. Ever other Tuesdays, but many of them came and went with not a single check in my hand at the end of my two weeks of work. Everyday while working there i had to be up by 6 am just to get ready and i had to be there early since work started at 9, which gave our managers the time to flaunt they're money and allow them to treat us like personal slaves, since we never got paid, my manger always spent her time drinking on the job and getting dead drunk before acting like a complete fool. while the other mangers spent most of they're day flirting with the young girls they worked with.
As for the good, I made friends with alot of my co workers and got to hang out with them a little more and they were all very nice and cool with me, I learned how to not be so nervous about talking to random strangers and got great customer service skills in the end, before i quit the only money i got from that job was $30 my drunk mangers gave to me for our x-mas party.
I don't really regret working there since i did gain some knowledge from working there and well needed experiences.

During the interview, the interviewer refused to specify that we would be going door to door selling vacuums, she made it sound much more pleasant than it actually is and said it was a “power tool” that we would be trying to sell in-store. Everything she said was complete lies just as the job description was. The district manager was a complete joke. He would wrongly accuse his employees of breaking merchandise when they tried to quit. He would also steal sales from his employees and write it off as if they were his sales and take the cash from them but never fairly pay the employees. Often times we would be out until 1-2am and have to be back at work by 6am, WITHOUT ANY SORT OF LUNCH BREAK (or breaks period), because he would drive hours away into dumpy neighborhoods and try to sell $2000 vacuum cleaners to people who would straight up tell you at the door that they had no credit, no income, and wasn’t interested. They would bully people into getting into their homes even if they said no. The district manager personally left me on the side of the road for needing to use the restroom in a town 3 hours away from my home and no way to get back. He also attempted this with several other employees often taking his bad mood out on everyone else. 

Overall the shadiest and worst company I’ve ever worked for. I was so mentally traumatized from this job I couldn’t leave my house due to the severe anxiety for a year. 

The schedule remains standard (7-3:30), with some abrupt disturbances every so often which will force you to work overtime. They neglect to tell you about the point system, stating that after 90 days you will be hired onto the team, then once those 90 days are up, if you have missed any days or are tardy for any reason, they force you to work another month (without incidents) in order to gain that point back. If you have called in sick twice during those 3 months, they will require you to work 2 months, and so on. However, the community at Kirby is welcoming and the co-workers, as well as most of the management there have an understanding towards the interns that encourage them to strive for greater heights within the company. They offer benefits to the people hired on (A 50 cent raise and a bonus once in a blue moon that acts as an additional check at the end of the month). But again, they do omit many facts and seem to squeeze you for all that you're worth before ending your assignment at the company. If you do well for those 3 months, and make it your top priority, they will ensure that you love your stay, and wont ever look at another company.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Product manager 3 salaries reported	$85,833 per year
Process engineer 3 salaries reported	$85,000 per year
Customer service representative 2 salaries reported	$12.75 per hour
Senior mechanical engineer 2 salaries reported	$85,000 per year
Quality engineer 2 salaries reported	$74,162 per year

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