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Fully agree

Posted by RGA (R) on December 9, 2020 at 21:57:26

In Reply to: RE: Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 posted by rivervalley817 on December 9, 2020 at 18:34:43:

You ARE fungible. No matter how nice your boss is and how long you have worked hard for the company, and what a good employee you are - you are merely a cog. And if they can get a cog for less money they'll take the cheaper cog.

That's why my dad always told me that you as an employee should not be loyal to a place you work. If you are working at Job A and you think you want a career change - do not advertise that fact to anyone. Apply and go on interviews and when you have Job B - you leave Job A. Don't telegraph intentions. Care about number 1 because the company only cares about the company.

When I was let go at the Steel Foundry it was a shock.

In high school, I took a work experience course and they sent each student to a business to work for 3 weeks. The Steel foundry liked me because I was up on Lotus 123 and could do data entry and set up the spreadsheets and their 55-60-year-olds were out of the technological loop. So they hired me for the summer at $8 an hour. (I was making $4.10 an hour at McDonald's so wow what a raise.)

After the summer they bumped my salary to $12.00 an hour - not bad for 1992 and an uneducated high schooler. That was September of 1992. January 1993 my salary was boosted to around $16 an hour and I was in charge of the accounts payable department for the foundry in BC and Port Hope Ontario - well over 1000 vendors.

And they were paying for all of my university courses at night as well as the textbooks. I felt it was a great company and many people were there for 40 years!

So you sort of feel you have a chance to be a lifer and that you're set. Then you go in on Thursday - the boss rings your desk. One after another gets the chop. And all the things run through your head. How will I make the rent and car payment and find another job etc. Fortunately they gave me 6 months severance, also hired a company to help us find another job, make a resume, etc. Head-hunting firm. In retrospect, even their firing process was quite "kind and generous."

I agree with the previous boss issue. After the steel foundry, I worked as a temp for several outfits - that is ultimately why I left accounting. The Steel Foundry (ESCO Corporation) was great. The management, the people, we had our own softball league.

So I had a bit of a rosy view of the workforce. I then worked for Seagate Software (because I knew Oracle), a calking company, a company that the day I started was bought by Microsoft, and the BC Government.

And boy are you right. At the calking company, the accounting manager was "off." The sales guy was being investigated for faking his receipts. The accounting manager was staying late and working weekends and giving himself overtime and free dinners because the books were missing $10. This is a company with revenues in the hundreds of thousands and $10 could not be found.

This is peanuts - so I mentioned that there should be a miscellaneous expense or some such thing that we used at Esco because it is nuts to spend thousands of dollars looking for $10. Revenue Canada would not care.

I quit that job because it was all kind of shady and I don't want my name to be associated with whatever was going on there. The temp agency was grilling me about the boss. But you're right - you don't say anything bad because if you do you will be called a Whiner and they may not give you another job. So I made up excuses about travel time and air quality that the calking made me feel queasy etc.

Apparently, they went through a LOT of people before me.

The biggest problem in many work environments is that you as an employee tend not to have any power. We come out of university in debt or generally broke so we NEED our job. The boss is a mini-dictator. They have control over your life in a pretty big way.

When I went to South Korea - I was screwed with my pants on. They lied and lied. I was supposed to have my own apartment and the rent was supposed to be free. I get there and they put me with another teacher. And charged me $100 a month for the "building maintenance" fee. The teachers they hire are young and more easily pushed.

With my finances now - if they tried that crap I would have been on the next plane out with a big middle finger. Because I have the financial clout behind me - my attitude is that you need me more than I need you.

In the end - everyone is replaceable. These days I often try to spend time creating various back-ups. Hong Kong hires westerners as part of the Native English Teacher "Scheme" but that can disappear in the blink of an eye if the government decides to save money or just out of spite against the west.

Government is "generally" safer. Governments tend not to go out of business. I would not want to work for Twinkies and rely on them to pay my retirement fund 20 years down the line. Pretty sure the Canadian government will still be open in 20 years and if it's not I probably have way bigger problems to worry about.

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