The thing you, you still have a much higher ceiling than those people do. You've got plenty of room to make more money over the course of your career, they don't. They'll still be making that 70k when you're off making 100k or more. People say it's a selfish stance because you're just looking at the surface and making it selfish, you're not considering you've got nowhere to go but up and they'll be staying where they are.
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NYT: $70K minimum salary company copes with backlash
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The thing you, you still have a much higher ceiling than those people do. You've got plenty of room to make more money over the course of your career, they don't. They'll still be making that 70k when you're off making 100k or more. People say it's a selfish stance because you're just looking at the surface and making it selfish, you're not considering you've got nowhere to go but up and they'll be staying where they are.
The difference between a 50+ hour work week including things I have to do at home vs cleaning toilets for like an hour a day for 40 hours
Hell, at a company that makes 70k minimum, the people that work there should be pretty good at not messing up a bathroom
And so would I but that's not what was being discussed. The person said they would quit their current job to become the janitor like a janitor rests their feet all day.
Ideally school would be free and those with an education would earn more, though not disproportionally like what we have now where people don't even make enough to live out of poverty.
Exactly this.
Also, wages would have balanced themselves to skill naturally anyway, given the tiniest bit of time to do so. Skilled employees with some tenure wouldn't just have kept on making similar wages to the mail boys, forevermore. Significant raises for those that deserve it was most assuredly the next step of this plan, once the foundation was set.
Those that quit will be extremely lucky to even find work at a new company where they make as much as they did at a company they had several years with, right off the bat. And if they do? Then you got the other employees there with daggers in their eyes for the new guy making about as much as them. So now they're being paid short of what they would have made at the old place with a little patience, if not short of what they made period, and they've become the very same "overpaid new guy" they quit over. Nice little vicious cycle, that.
Gotdatmoney
Member
This is true. It still doesn't change that the only reason the ceiling is higher is because I dumped about $80k more into getting an education and into a field that even allows that to be a thing. Its not just a feeling of superiority due to skills and stuff, when you throw $80k+ money at an education it is under the implied idea you'll be higher up on the pay scale. School is not cheap. The fact you have no where to go but up is not implicit of the fact you still have to do well and do shit and take on way more responsibility and sacrafice more things while you wait to advance.
Its not a solution to fucking absurd cost of living when you need to pay a telemarketer the same as an experienced engineer.
It's not, but it takes everyone a while to get up there. Almost no one makes $70k right out of school, it's basically engineers and programmers. You aren't going to school for the initial pay bump, most professions start out paying next to shit, you're going to the pay bumps you're going to see over the course of your career. You're going to school to get a job with a higher pay ceiling, nothing about paying lower wage workers more money is changing the long terms calculus of choosing a career. So yea, it is a selfish stance. I'm not gonna lie, you're not looking at the big picture. It is literally about that feeling of superiority and that's OK, you can admit it. It's something we'll all have to get past at some point if we really want to fix things.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
That's just looking at it from the the case that we need private business to pick up the wage to meet current and future living standards because modern society believes all human life has value and should be treated as such to have a basic livable life.
What you should be championing is a government guaranteed minimum income for every to allow people no matter their status to have a livable life.
Trying to do this via wage increases just causes to many problems, and over the long term doesn't actually solve the issue at hand especially as less and less human jobs are even available.
If the CEO is already adjusting the pay for tons of people and still doesn't adjust yours, what reason do you have to believe you're getting it anytime soon? His attention was already on pay raises and he skipped over you.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
I guess if you want to spend your time as a janitor (Admittedly I don't know your current position if you were in his company) Note Janitor's don't just clean toliet's I worked as one for some extra cash before ;they are also responsible for the heavy lifting.
n64coder
Member
A few people mentioned earlier that most of the salaries are a function of supply/demand. There was a period of time in the late 90s when tech salaries skyrocketed because of the dotcom boom. As a manager, I hired someone a couple of years out of grad school. He made pretty close to my salary (at the time, I was making $90K, he got $80K) but had 8 years less experience. I remember interviewing lots of people but couldn't find any good candidates. There were people who took a 6 month or 1 year course who were a non-techie in their prior career applying for the job trying to take advantage of the high salaries but they had nowhere near the qualifications necessary. If I were to hire them, I would have to spend a lot of time training, overseeing them and not get any work done.
A couple of years later, there was the dotcom bust. Many companies suffered a loss of revenues. We had several layoffs to reduce costs. The guy I hired was one of the first to be let go because he was overpaid for what he brought to the table.
I'm ok with trying to raise the bottom floor up but I have a feeling that what will happen is that you'll get inflation. Prices will rise for everyone and what was a generous bottom floor is now poverty level again.
A couple of years later, there was the dotcom bust. Many companies suffered a loss of revenues. We had several layoffs to reduce costs. The guy I hired was one of the first to be let go because he was overpaid for what he brought to the table.
I'm ok with trying to raise the bottom floor up but I have a feeling that what will happen is that you'll get inflation. Prices will rise for everyone and what was a generous bottom floor is now poverty level again.
bodyboarder
Member
Not surprised how this played out.
I'd go to the place w/ better overall compensation for me (read: insurance that doesn't suck, vacation policies, etc) and appears to have a better office environment. I guarantee you that with both those options you're going to have friction because there will invariably be people that grade themselves above or below someone from pay, consider things unfair, etc etc. Opacity in employee pay is a great tool to prevent employees from comparing amongst their peers and asking for equivalent pay, but it also does prevent a lot of bad blood.
With many companies what you bargain for when you get hired is the baseline of your pay from that point, and that means there's plenty of people that do similar work that are at wildly different pay levels.
Gotdatmoney
Member
Like I said in my edit. Its not a solution to absurd cost of living or wealth inequality to simply pay people with no education or skills the same money as people who have taken upon tons of debt and education to make more money. Is this going to be the solution everytime cost of living goes up? (For record out of school I do not make $70k) Its got nothing to do with being selfish, why would I have dumped all this money into an education and gotten a fuck ton of debt if I could work on a phone and make the same money? Or work another career I might enjoy more than engineering or a variety of other thing? You have simplified this into it being like "well I went to school and now I'm ballin" as opposed to "I worked a beyond minimum wage job since I was 12 to make some money to help pay for one of the most difficult and intensive undergraduate programs where people dropout all the time because its hard and stressful and it wasnt easy but I managed to do it etc etc". Its not a matter of being selfish, its a matter of people not recognizing that all that shit is hard work and required sacrafice so if I expect compenasation above someone who did not do that I'm not the spawn of satan.
We're in an idealogical environment where a significant percentage of people are throwing shit-fits at the suggestion that full-time workers should be earning livable wages, and you think we should skip that battle and move right onto arguing livable wages for the part-time and unemployed?
That's a dire, dire case of putting the cart before the horse. That battle has absolutely zero chance of even getting to the table if this one isn't won first.
Oh, I definitely think he went a bit too hard in the paint with the low end employees, I can see the perceived slap that more skilled employees didn't get similar raise considerations from the word "go." But so long as what you're making is still competitive with what other people in similar jobs elsewhere are making, that's what it amounts to, an illusionary slap. You make $80K and the tide of wages has been raised at your job, you stand to go up significantly from that baseline as pay shakes out which employees are worth more, and it will shake out. You make $80K at a job where most of the workforce earns half that... "You want a big raise? Hell, you're already making twice what most people in the building are, get outta here."
Punchy4486
Banned
There are plenty of construction workers that took no schooling and make 6 figures. Knowing that poor lazy construction workers that you're better than might make more than you drives you nuts, huh?
Marty Chinn
Member
I came to post this. A lot of people seem to agree that you need to raise not just the minimum wage but the wages above them too. All this is doing is sitting everyone's wages higher which in turn is just increasing inflation faster. When you raise the wage of one level up, the level above them is going to feel their work is devalued. How do you raise the minimum wage and have the effects you want instead of just causing inflation? I'm not sure ours possible and this micro example is insight of what may happen on a macro level.
Fnord
Member
Vital, but significantly more easily replaced.
DOWN
Banned
I work at one of these companies that has been in the press for raising the company minimum wage to $10 an hour, but Ive considered quitting because the way they set it up, even though I've been here two years I will get the same pay as new hires because they count the new minimum wage as a raise. I get what new people get, no raise over minimum wage.
Gotdatmoney
Member
No, it's a different field that pays different money with different skill sets and demands and environment. The fact that I think that in a corporate structure I am not okay with people who were being paid according to their market worth or entirely new hires seeing $30-40k increases in their salary while my salary were to not increase relatively to my experience, skills and worth to the company does not imply I am jealous of people who make more money than me. Nor does it imply I want people to not have enough to get by. If you wanna make snarky comments as though it adds anything to the legitimate discussion we were having though, feel free. I do not mind if people disagree but this holier than thou shit is rather petty man. I don't ever remember insulting anyone or their profession.
But what about construction workers or garbagemen? Both of those careers require next to no training and can result in $100K salaries. How do you feel about that?
Your argument is totally about ego and that's cool.
Gotdatmoney
Member
Original discussion and post I was replying to as well as the first post is based on a corporate structure. Scales of pay, supply and demand also do matter. There is a reason I said I would have a problem with my "assistant" being paid the same as me through artificial wage inflation. You can't compare engineering to sanitation or construction. The skills they require and the reason the market values them highly are entirely different.
Did you go into engineering mostly for the pay or did you enter because it's something that interested you? I mean, all things considered for what you're expected to do and the responsibilities involved, engineering isn't exactly the most lucrative field. I could be making much more, you could be making much more, if you had gone into software and were working at a startup in Silicon Valley. I knew I didn't want to develop software for a living (well... I sorta do now, but nevertheless), and followed the EE path. I don't get paid as much as those kids at SV, I definitely don't get paid as much as my brother who went from Chem E to sales / executive, but I do enjoy what I do.
Battersea Power Station
Member
... but that's what you're saying about an engineer vs. assistant: that they require different skills and should be valued differently. Or am I misunderstanding?
People get paid more for hazardous/annoying work. Being on an oil rig for months pays a shit-ton because you're paying the people for the inconvenience of living out there 24/7 on top of paying them to work on the rig. Same with things like Police/Military- they get elevated salaries due to it being dangerous.
You can make money without many skills- but it's not going to be work every can or will want to pick up.
Gotdatmoney
Member
I mean we are going down a different path now. This was about the fact I would feel some type of way about the big boss inflating salaries of people with no reason to be making that much $30-40k and not bumping my salary up at all. I feel that is different from whether I love engineering which I do. I plan to do a lot of engineering and learn tons then go back to school, get a masters in business and move into management since I find business also interesting. It really is not just the pay as to why I chose this field but I would be lying to imply I didn't look at the money when you have to dump that much into schooling to get the degree. Is that a sufficient answer?
Battersea Power Station
Member
That's fine. I'm sure some people prefer being on a garbage truck than sitting behind a phone 5 days a week. The qualities your describing are subjectively judged, right? That's kind of the point we're making: salaries across different positions are not based on how much education or skills you have, but on that position's contextual value.
Gotdatmoney
Member
My assistant (well student anyway) does what I tell them to do because I don't have time to do it myself. They work under me because I can't finish the more time consuming less complicated stuff and do the heavy analysis stuff all by this projects deadline without help. Are people implying assistant means secretary? Cause I do not have one of those nor do most recent grad engineers get those.
Gotdatmoney
Member
There is no contextual value of everyone making $70k minimum. It's just something the big boss wanted to do. And really like I said before. This is corporate structure the opening is talking about. This isn't cross business cross industry comparisons. This is people in lower departments who were making half as much as you yesterday making the same as you today.
Positions that require educations or skills pay a premium because the person isn't easily replaceable. You can't just replace a doctor with a kid out of high school. The labor market has supply/demand just like any other - and investing in things that make you useful/specialized is how you make yourself more valuable to employers. Yes, skills are contextual- knowing how to program a commodore gets you jack squat nowadays. But the entire monetary system is subjective and illusory- complaining about wages being subjective misses the forest for the trees. It's a way of trying to contextualize and display how much things are worth to us relative to other things.
If an employer pays you only 5% more than the new hire out of HS, though, post-pay floor raise, it's implicitly telling you that they don't think you're that valuable to you and that you should start fielding other offers.
On the other hand, he could just as easily go "You want a big raise? I'm sorry, but we're a little tight this quarter." You just never know. But I'm honestly willing to bet that the employees who left got much better job offers that the owner was unable to match more so than over any kind of ideological stand.
Mostly asked because from your series of posts I got the impression that you were really, really, really salty about this hypothetical situation. Not saying that's unjustified -- I would be somewhat irked if they announced that the assistants and all are going to get a fat raise w/ no benefit on my part as well. If the pay level's going up to the point where you should be able to hire some top talent, then we better be seeing some stellar work from them.
Remember the last thread about this company? Some of us could smell some of these things happening a million miles away.
Now this company may cease to exist, these folks might have to find new jobs that aren't going to pay 70k a year. Perhaps when charting such a drastic change of course, you should do a little bit more planning and risk analysis.
Now this company may cease to exist, these folks might have to find new jobs that aren't going to pay 70k a year. Perhaps when charting such a drastic change of course, you should do a little bit more planning and risk analysis.
Gotdatmoney
Member
People are only getting that I'm salty cause I'm not backing down from the concept that I get why people in that company were upset. Companies require you to sacrifice things to get to where you are. If you do all these things to get to where you are the the ceo just hands it to everyone, I understand why some people would be upset. That doesn't say anything about how I feel about my coworkers or wealth inequality etc. it means I know why it irks people cause yeah, it would irk me too.
Battersea Power Station
Member
I agree with all of this, except the implication that education and experience have inherent value. They don't. A doctor's education and experience are valued as a demonstration of her competence. And because in that particular position the ability to avoid mistakes is paramount, the compensation for that education and experience goes up. To use a hyperbole, if tomorrow a pill comes out that gets rid of free radicals in your skin, a dermatologist's 20 years of school+experience might drop in value by half. We don't go to school to raise our (inherent) value. We go to school to be able to fill a position that requires it, and that position itself has the value. It might have as much value as another position that requires no schooling. The two are unrelated. I've now said the word value so much it lost all meaning.
That's a lot of gloating for a short term result. I hope you realize that this is only one year in, and the analysis for this drastic change was probably done for a 10+ year period. You're quick to condemn and say how wrong the boss is, but if next year they raise their profit forecasts, I doubt you'll make a similar post about your own view.
Yeah, no. The employees that left have every right to be mad. People got fucking paid, but they did not.
Like I said in the other thread, your employer doesn't value your work as much as the people 2 or 3 roles below you. I'm glad they are making more money but hell to the fuck no, time for me to find another job.
As far as the customers go? Their concerns are legit too. Anytime any business decides to drastically increase their costs, there's always a danger that their fees are going to go up as well. My guess is a "promise" to not raise fees wasn't good enough for their clients or their legal departments.
I'm not really happy this is happening, but I do want to get off an "I told you so" to some of the posters in that thread.
And im pretty sure they aren't going to magically be better off next year, or even the year after that.
They've increased their costs by a MASSIVE amount. The only way they recoup that is if they start charging more fees to offset it. Volume alone isn't going to do it, unless they discover or take on another line of business that has far higher margins with much lower cost. If everything stays as is, this company is doomed. Ok, maybe not doomed. But things certainly won't be improving.
You realize he also took a big paycut at the same time as all these pay increases right? He didn't just raise everyone's salaries, he drastically lowered his own to offset the increase.
How would a doctor feel about a RN making almost the same money in some cases?
Yeah, and his salary was 1 million before, so 930k of it went to these pay increases. That's PEANUTS.
The real damage is that along WITH his generous sacrifice, he was also going to have to use 75 to 80% of the company's PROFITS to pay for the increase.
Battersea Power Station
Member
That's what profits are for -- reinvesting in the company. That's the definition of capital.
And, by the way, just implementing the salary changes is going to take 3 years (at least according to some quick Googling), so I'm pretty sure he's prepared for the company to eat those costs for even longer than that. He's probably looking 10 to 15 years out.
Yeah, and he might not even get to year 2 because of the dip in clientele and not anticipating the reaction of other stakeholders in the company (like his brother). Not to mention the gap that a talent and experience exodus might leave. Good plan.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Yes I do because it solves both issues for me. I think everyone regardless of status or stature should have s right to basic living conditions, and I think that should come from the government.
I don't think it's the private sectors job to solve this issue though wage gains nor do I subscribe to the idea that people should be earning close to the same with different jobs like the discussed engineer or janitor.
Beyond the minimum wage (which isn't the pay we are talking about in the OP) which hasn't kept up with price inflation and the tip top CEO pay, I think certain professions should be earning more.
Again everyone would be getting guaranteed living money from the government regardless which helps eliminate the idea that companies need to raise the floor to 70k like in OP just for the standard of living.
It's a basic societal issue which never should be handled by the private sector anyways much like say health care.
I don't want to own stock in the company that used its profits to pay its current employees hefty raises rather than expand. Do you?
Well...it's a private company. No public company would dare pull a stunt like this.
Go ahead and be mad, but you should publicly acknowledge it.
Gotdatmoney
Member
by "mad" did you mean "right"?
Battersea Power Station
Member
I have no idea -- I'm not much of a trader. However I'm assuming the company is privately held, and this is a good reason why -- to try things your competitors are not.
But they have more clients than they can handle, not a dip. And the "exodus" is a handful of employees whose personal ethics don't jive with the CEO's vision. He's not going to have problems hiring really talented people in Seattle who passionately share his plan.
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