You are 100% spot on. Shrink was a huge factor for bonus payout(huge pay lever for mgmt in stores) as if you lived in a area that had high theft you never hit your bonus(shrink is the delta of actual vs. recorded inventory). That and the bonus also factored in sales volume, but shrink was a giant component of it. I remember when a few employees from a rural store came to help out they mentioned they had never not gotten a bonus, whereas my store - a urban store never received a bonus due to excessive shrink. But what I was getting at is there are positions that pay well if you hit your numbers, as a sales associate/dept. manager your pay was capped to really low numbers no matter what happened.