Some very interesting comments coming though this post. As for myself I'm glad to be in work after being tossed on to the scrap heap for being an expensive resource the company decided it could do without. It's taken me 4 years to get back in to the same financial shape before being shown the door. I am now better off personally as I'm no longer at my old companies beck and call 24 x 7 so I get to enjoy something of my family now.
I think, like many on here, I can only describe the feeling I have at the moment as 'angry' ..... and as that Lyddon bloke once quoted from the Bhuddists, Anger is an energy! How it gets channeled, is another matter!
I earn less then I did 22 years ago Then this year I got a long service award payment ... Hooray I thought it was £10 a month ... Oh well I thought better the a kick in the teeth. I then had to ring all the relevant people .tax credits .. Next think I know I have lost another £200 a month due to this increase . How they work it all out I don't know. So for an increase of about £130 a year I am now at least £200 a month worse off.. I wish they had never awarded it to me did more harm then good
If you havent had a pay increase there is only one person to blame - Yourself. It doesnt really bother me, it goes up and down depending uopn the hours I work and a few other factors. There is no point whining , if I wanted more I would change jobs and get more. You all have that choice, no matter what your situation.
Tad on the harsh side I feel, jobs are not 10 a penny these days, and alot of FDs are using the current situation to force down wages, so just changing jobs does not garantee a wage increase. Commercial pressures will dictate how much money is available for wages
Had no choice .... Had to give up my career I now work with children with disabilities . The pay is terrible .. The rewards are priceless. It fits in with everything.. Please remember there are many of us who have low paid jobs due to we believe in what we do. I could still be in design , good money yes , but work work work oh it's your life! I'm not going to knock anyone or patenting style. My neihbour hates me as I don't have a pure white house and don't fit in the area. She decided it would be great at 40 to just have a baby .. shes well to do. Everyday that little girl is shoved in childcare . She comes home at 5 the little girl is in bed at 6 . The child screams and screams. On her day off once again off child goes to childcare . Mother is gormless .. has money has various property. Has career. Friday she comes home and woman's mother arrives. Her mum then takes charge of the little girl cleans this woman's house for her cooks for her. This little girl screams at night and her Mum screams back at her mimicking . This woman has threatened me hurled abuse at me .... told neihbours lies about me and because she's perfect mrs White... I looked after my family.. I gave up my career i now work with disadvantaged children and disabled and autistic chidren. I earn low wage but I care about my work and people. I could have been her ..... id hate to be her .. That poor little mite .. Listening to a toddler cry each night infact every time it gets home! Then hearing her mock her baby instead of sorting her out unless her Mum does!!! I could have had my career.. but I had to be responcible . There are 1000's of people juggling work and family roles who can't be high flying as they have a duty of care . Yes ok their choice but not always!! There are many jobs needing low paid staff .. home care for example.. Be careful what you say at the end of the day one of these low paid staff may be wiping your bum when your old!!!
I can name 2 well known companies that did that plus 3rd one I worked at. About 5y ago went through my 1st redundancy, it was within 2 months of uk gov admitting we are in recession. A week after that 1st redundancies started. When we were made redundant company had loads of work and had loads in pipeline for future due to Olympics. However they still got rid of us, dumped remaining work on other people. People that called me asking for me to spend my free time to help them for free. 6 months down the line they have hired more people then they let go all for minimum 5k less per year. Big corporations are incredibly short sighted on that. Many times you have regular employees and contracted employees doing same job for one company. Contractor finishes the job and goes home. Regular employee stays wasting his time/life till 1700 as there is no job left. Then when overtime is needed to finish the odd project that had issues same employers are surprised when people say no. Even worse MD from said companies do go home if there is no job left yet get pissed off if you do.
Oh last year we had 6 months of redundancy roulette .. We had meetings after meeting and had to go in and say what we did and almost prove why we should keep our jobs Pay freeze and cuts people took it as needed and loved jobs! It was horrible basically we where lucky to have jobs if we kept them. The staff just had to absorb the roles that where empty due to redundancy Same across the board in our work.
lol, so you dont like it that some people get off their arse, don't complain and actually do something? You are a great inspiration to every one who WANTS to make adifference to their pay packets I guess. So please explaing your terse and idiotic comment.......................... Is it anyone elses fault if you have not increased your own salary this year?
I think it is great that some people get of their arse, don't complain and actually do something. The mistake you make is to assume that just because you have transferable skills and can move quickly into another job that everyone can, particularly at a time when the economy is shrinking. The modern myth that you can have whatever you want if you want it hard enough is just that, a myth. Incidentally my own salary did increase this year, at below the rate of inflation, but I still earn comfortably in the top 10%, which means I earn more than £45k, no big deal really. You make far too many conclusions based upon scant information.
I have an excellent skillset for the job I do and this is acknowledged within my organisation. Due to long years of seniority plus other factors too tedious to go into, I am well within the upper quartile salary of jobs of a similar nature. But to improve beyond that, I would need to go into management, which has nothing to do with the skills I possess. I cannot go elsewhere as employers want graduates at just over half my salary. I literally cannot improve my situation unless a "Dream Job" pops up unexpectedly and I am lucky enough to grab it out of the hands of others similarly qualified. My "transferable skills" mean if I move, I earn less. Someone, tell me now to get off my ass and become a manager. LOL, I hope I end up managing "you" and we'll see how well that works out for everyone :biggrin:
That'a somewhat the problem with seniority. There you are, happily doing what are qualified to do and what you like doing, and then, when you're a little way up the pole, you have to stop doing it and spend your days telling other people how to do it and making sure they have done it. Not really the same skill set. If they ever find out that you're not so good at the management part of things, do they get you back to doing what you were happy doing? No. They fire you. Go figure. As for everyone being able to become a multi-millionaire: well, no, not really. You are still going to need people to be hotel receptionists, waste-disposal operative (OK, bin men), supermarket shelf stackers, etc. etc. In fact, only a tiny % of people can be bankers, lawyers or successful entrepreneurs. It may be true that any one person can be hugely rich and "successful", but the majority cannot. Therefore, if the rules of society favour the couple that can and piss down on all those that don't, you end up with an unhappy society. Seems to me that the Americans cling to this myth of "anyone can make it, so if you haven't, more fool you". Of course, it's a myth that very much suits those who have made it. Somewhere there has to be a balance between "i do my best, but I don't have what it takes" and "I just can't be arsed to try - the world owes me a living".
Loz, There are a myriad of ways to transfer yourskill and aquire more knowledge to make the jump into managerial positions.................If you want to. Thats the point, if you want to do it you can. Johnv thanks for your financial information. I think you will find that the official figures are bunkem. Top 10% 45k...........lol. Jimmy Carr was classed as below 45k because he was tax efficient, as are many thousands of more......................
I work in IT and have made my way through from 1st level support through to designing infrastructure to now being a project manager. The leap from being technical to project manager was a hard thought out one because I left behind a lot of my skills; though as I mainly work in infrastructure projects some of those skills are useful. During the recession in the UK my contract rates nearly halved and I've now gotten to a point where I needed to add skills to either keep moving up or go and do my own thing properly. As the economic outlook in the UK was still looking bleak last year and I was finding it hard to keep in a contract, lots of project managers looking for work, I decided to come home to Aus where the economy was stronger and where I could get financial assistance to add some skills. I don't have a family at home with me so I have more time available to be able to do this and so I find myself at Uni (I'm on here procrastinating :biggrin: ) but I appreciate that not everyone is in a position to do that. Please don't take that as me complaining, I'm not. The reality is I earned enough to ensure that I could ride out the bad times and I still have a good earning capacity. Even if it is the 'golden handcuffs' because I'd really like to go and do something that interests me more and where I'm not working so many hours. When you earn good money they have higher expectations of you and kinda own you.. When I get to the point of doing electives for the MBA I'm doing I can see myself leaning towards entrepreneurial studies...
£45k in the UK puts you firmly in the middle-class poverty trap: ie, you can pay all your bills, just about, but have nothing left over. You are a small, scurrying commuter, sardine-packed in a train in the morning and again in the evening, time poor, living off ready meals and cheering yourself up with cheap wine from Tescos.
....or, you may have paid your mortgage off, work 80% of your time from home, be teetotal and have an amount of disposable income each month....Just sayin'
Or, when they find out you're better at managing than them (bids success increased, profit margins up, staff poll results), they see you as a threat and 'manage you out' (sacking would be illegal!) ......... as the Business Unit Manager brought in over my head said "I don't know why the staff respect you more than me, but I'm not having it. I'll get rid of you before I let this continue" .... The fact that company is now bust is no consolation for those who lost their jobs.....
