Complaint Review: Sleepy's

First of all..Sleepy's did fire all Sales Assistants. Those Sales Assistance who were not promoted to mattress professionals were terminated immediately. End of that story.

The reason they hired the Sales Assistants in the first place was to spy on the Mattress Professionals. Management did not beleive the sales numbers (people coming into the store versus those sold) as reported by the Mattress Professionals. For the $12 an hour, or $96 a day, the company had a spy, cleaner (Sleepy's does not pay for people to clean the bathrooms and vacuum), greeter, and part-time sales person. Sleepy's also had a potential mattress professional who would be glad to earn $25,000 to $30,000 a year instead of $50,000 to $60,000 a year. More of this later.

The $12 an hour became too much overhead when they realized that perhaps the Mattress Professionals were reporting the correct sales numbers all along. Also, the Mattress Professionals had plenty of time to clean, and if they didn't like cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming a replacement could be found. And best of all, the Sales Assistants who were hired as Mattress Professionals worked cheap. When you are making $480 a week.......$600 seems pretty good.....even though your hours increased from 40 a week to 55. Enough said about Sales Assistants..now let's get down to the real deal.

When you work for Sleepy's be prepared to serve an "Evil Empire" though you yourself may be of "good" heart. Fact....Sleepy's has been fined for Consumer fraud in both New Jersey and New York and had to make restitutions of $750,000 and $200,000 on seperate occassions. Fact......Sleepy's has an unsatisfacory rating with the Better Business Beureau. Fact.....approximately 50 percent of Mattress Professionals are either terminated or quit within a period of one year.

Sleepy's advertises on their web site that many sales people earn more than $100,000 a year. It all depends on ones interpetation of many. Upper management, Regional Managers, and a select few Mattress Professionals earn more than $100,000 a year. The Mattress Professionals who are fortunate to earn over $100,000 work in the premium stores in upscale neighborhoods. All New Mattress Professionals dream of working in these stores. In fact, during their training they are sent to these stores so they can see how easy it is to make money at Sleepy's. During their first few months, the New Mattress Professional may even get the opportunity to work the better stores. However, sooner or later reality hits, and the King or Queen of mattress sales becomes a drone, regulated to stores where they are lucky to make between $30,000 and $40,000 a year, working 10-12 hour days, five days per week.

At that point you realize that something is not quite right and you have been bamboozled. Yes, you are selling for a pyramid scheme with all the money going to the top...to upper management......and they couldn't care less about you. You find out that Sleepy's will double the sales floor in order to squeeze out another 15% of profit though the person selling the merchandise will lose out on 50% of the commissions. They will ask you to come to 7:30 morning meetings in order to tell you that the company is not in financial trouble and you need to stay pumped up. Sleepy's will have you work an extra hour in the morning and evening in order to get every customer even though the total bang for the buck is one sale for 25 stores for every extra hour they are open past the regular hours. You need to make your deposits on your days off, and the earlier you make the store deposits the better. (Sleepy's makes the Mattress Professional make all deposits.) Congradulations, you finally figure out that the title Mattress Professional stands for pawn.

If you want to organize to make things better...Sleepy's has an answer......they fire you.

Sleepy's loves to use the "bad" shoppers report to fire a Mattress Professional when they feel that their employee has turned from the dark side and starts questioning them. First they send a professional shopper...the problem is that the Matttress Professional is actually well trained and scores high. The company never bothers to tell the sales person they were shopped or give them a report as this might be used to the employees benefit. So after the initial shop does not work they send a Sleepy's Manager from another region to do the "evil" deed. This person has been sent for the purpose of generating a "bad" shop. Amazingly, the Mattress Professional gets fired for having a "bad" shop though he or she never sees the report.

As for Managers, they don't seem to fair much better than the Mattress Professionals. One day they are a Regional Manager, the next they are a District Mgr. or Store Mgr. (whatever that is). They go from a salary and bonus plan of over $100,000 to a commissioned sales person lucky to make $60,000 a year. It must be fun telling your spouse you will be making $50,000 less and still be working the same crazy hours. Or better yet, you are a District Mgr. and you are demoted to Mattress Professional. Your promising future can be traced above...basically you were bamboozeled. The worst part of this demotion deal is that the Former Managers turned Mattress Professionals get the better stores, thereby sending the Mattress Professionals who were in these stores to the slowest of stores.

I am sure Sleepy's Management has figured out the author of this essay. Perhaps they will think nobody will care. Then again, perhaps us pawns have had enough and by sticking together we can make things better. I would like to hear from other bamboozled Mattress Professionals.

Regardless if you believe what the managers are telling you or not...sleepy's is in trouble. That is why they have been terminating people in larger numbers in the past few months. They hire new people, then terminate others,probably so they don't have to pay benefits etc. You find out a lot about a company when times get hard and you are finding out about sleepy's. It easy when you are the only mattress company in town, way over charge people, and the economy is good and people are spending money. When times get tough, they start terminating people without notice and use any excuse they can think of. I've seen mangers fired and some quit because of what's going on. It's only going to get worse because the economy is not going to get better anytime soon. You sit in a showroom for 11 hrs and see 1 or 2 people and then they blame the sales people because they are not selling like they once were. If you work for sleepy's,you know what I'm saying is true whether you want to admit it on here or not.

I am also an ex employee of sleepy's and they are in obvious trouble. They are terminating people left and right. They are constantly changing their sales tactics all the time. One day they want you to use one approach... the next day another. They can't seem to find what works. They do terminate people without notice and use the excuse well...your numbers weren't as high as we expect them to be. I was only with them for a couple of months and finished at the top of my district in numbers and the middle of the pack in my region. I was told just one month before being terminated that my numbers for a new employee were fine..I had nothing to worry about. I knew several people who were terminated a few days before Christmas with no warning and one guy just before he went on vacation so they wouldn't have to pay him. They have created resentment among their sales force and extremely low morale as the employees see what direction they are headed and how they treat their sales force.
If you are a consumer and you want a good deal on a mattress all you have to do is shop around. Sleepy's plays the used car sales tactics. You have to haggle,leave the showroom, they will give you what is called a price quote or pq and they will call you back offering you a better deal. If you pay for delivery,mattress pad,pillows,etc. then you are paying too much. You can get all of those things included in the price of the mattress. You have to threaten to leave if you don't get it or leave and shop around. Trust me, you can get all of these things plus 500-1000 off of your mattress. That's right! 500 -1000 off the mattress sticker price PLUS delivery,matt pad,pillows. If you do not haggle with them and get all of this stuff included plus 500-1000 off then you are PAYING TOO MUCH. Shop around and you will get the best price....they are just like used car salesmen. The sales person will tell you they had an overstocked special,one day sale,or some other such nonsense and they have to call a manager to get approval, but they can give you that same low price. It's a con game just like the car dealerships use. They call a manager and act like it's a special deal that they are doing for you, when in reality,it's just a con game,all for show. Trust me....shop around.

i work for sleepy's and have seen all the layoffs and demotions. Unfortunately, this is the result of the overall economy and is happening everywhere. Companies much bigger than Sleepy's are getting rid of thousands of positions. The hourly sales assistants weren't really doing much in our area and the last three that we had all became salespeople. Sleepy's will weather this downturn, but i feel they are really being proactive in reducing expenses and positions which are needed at this time. We had way too much fat in the company and this will help us down the road.

I cannot verify the truthfulness of all of your statements because I do not know the reason you were terminated. However, I can repudiate several of them. Store assistants are not being terminated. From my immediate area I know of 4 that have been promoted, 1 that took another full time job and left, and 2 that were hired, all within the last 6 weeks. I'm sorry that you never were promoted. As far as the financial difficulties, apparently you, as a sales assistant, were privy to financial information normally reserved for regional vice presidents and the executive team. How you came across such information is quite astounding.

This is not true. Sleepy's is not having financial difficulty; it is actually doing very well and continues to grow. There have been zero layoffs and none are planned or expected.