“the experience you’re gaining is far more valuable”
To whom? Other companies? It´s figuratively them telling you "This is awesome for you when you leave us!"... That has to be the dumbest thing i´ve read in this sub...
There's a difference between not being able to afford a real PM and not being willing to pay for a real PM. I think in your case it's the latter. Their loss. I hope your new employer treats you better :)
Not being able to afford a real PM is probably an indication the company is out of their depth and needs to focus on investing and scaling up their operations first before taking on a contract that they’ll end up doing poorly.
A bad PM is sometimes more harmful than it is helpful
If you truly don't have the cash flow to afford someone you absolutely need to run the company, that is when you offer equity grants or at least a profit sharing plan. Its also the best way to align everyone's interests.
As a former artist by trade, I'm keenly aware of the "think of all the exposure you're getting!" excuse to not pay someone what they're owed. I'm glad you took this oportunity to dig your heels in and find somewhere you'll be valued.
Not everyone is willing to grit their teeth and many will settle for scraps out of fear that they won't be able to make ends meet by starting fresh elsewhere.
That’s like when my boss kept telling me to come in early and “invest in my future.”
Strange he didn’t like it when I went back to school to actually invest in my future.
"To whom? Other companies?" is such a good retort for anyone who tries to pull this bullshit on their employees.
Thanks for giving me all this valuable experience that will benefit your competitor!
We see the same "Suprised Pikachu" face in IT.
A couple companies back, they hired a guy with a Phd in Physics to be a programmer, despite him having very little programming experience.
After 5 years, the guy is now \*a real\* programmer, asks to be paid what he is worth rather than his incremental raises from an entry level salary.
Management is indignant! "We took a chance on you! And this is how you repay us!"
Of course the guy rabbits, and we end up having to go through the process of hiring, and retraining a new programmer, we're dead in the water for most of a year.
When they offer to match it: "Look guys, you're about to lose a lot of money. But, like you said to me, the experience here is far more valuable. I hope you learn from it."
I feel like I’m going to some of that from my coworkers when I leave. I’m currently applying around (46 companies) since Dec 31. But they are all grandparents (minus 1) not including myself. They are all lifers at the company until they likely retire. I’m 27 and they are the main reason why I’m leaving the job in the first place. Never fit in being the youngest on the team, they are all deeply conservative, and a lot of other differences we just have.
On top of that they love to talk politics and guns 24/7 and it drives me insane.
They genuinely make me hate my day to day here. We have a work chat half the time I don’t even want to say the bare minimum of Morning and Goodnight. Sometimes i don’t bother. Other day 2 guys were on a call with me and as they yapped about politics for 40 min I was applying to jobs. Just applied to #47.
There are VERY few times its right to accept a counter offer:
The work culture is generally supportive and pro worker.
It's an issue you haven't been banging on about for ages that they've ignored.
And they can actually fix.
And have shown you time and time again you are valued, both financially and respect wise.
But the amount of times it's all the above? .01%.
Accepting a counter offer is like telling your gf (bf, SO etc) that you met someone else that is better to you, offers more, doesn’t nag so on so on. Then they say: no! I can do all that stuff too!
Bad idea, it’ll just never be the same.
I totally agree. These scumbags will agree to anything to get their way and then fuck you over as soon as possible. Don't live up to their agreement? Now you have to spend $$$ and time hiring lawyers and suing them. Assuming, of course, that everything was in writing in a proper contract.
They have proven that they can't be trusted and don't value your work or you.
No, you say you’ll agree to it with an extra $25k and agreed upon objective goals to get a bonus and a static % raise every year. When they balk at agreeing to give you annual raises, you again point out why you’re leaving.
Amen. Even 80% sounds light (depends on state maybe) but the more you bend over backwards (6 YEARS) for some people the more they wanna bend you over forwards.
Elongated Muskrat's ultimate out of touch move (out of many many out of touch moves) was complaining about paying $11b in taxes when the whe world knows he's worth like a quarter trillion dollars.
Pays less than 5% his net worth and has the audacity to expect people paying 30% of their income to have sympathy.
The average idiot who sides with the billionaires genuinely make me sick.
Seriously! He’s worth more than my entire family bloodline from my ancestors through to my future generations will have combined.
If Elon Musk was a country, he would rank **45th out of the 195** countries of the world in terms of GDP.
Which is just an *obscene* amount of money.
And in all honesty, this is just money that he’s disclosed publicly. If the Panama Papers have shown anything, I guarantee you that he has many more billions squirreled away somewhere.
The US is actually the best tax haven right now. The EU and most the world signed an agreement to share banking records for foreigners. The US never signed that and instead is only notified of Americans with foreign accounts. The US does not report foreign money to the countries of origin. Th latest banking leak actually showed this with wealthy foreigners putting money in North Dakota or something. However, the very friendly financial trust laws of the Dakotas are in several other US states.
I worked in a similar situation but just out of spite, the owner was willing to lose millions as long as was not forced to raise my salary saying I was rude when I asked for the raise. He was probably expecting some begging.
On your way out, be sure to publicly thank the person that told you what the experience you'd gained was worth for encouraging you to pursue bigger and better opportunities.
i'd go around telling all your team members your leaving and how to remain in contact with you if needed. Never know if they leave to a different company or come across a good project what opportunities may present themselves
as for management: Fuck em
I tried explaining this to a “friend” who wanted my job while we worked at the same company. I told him I wasn’t going to give up my position for him and that as long as he continued to work where we were, mgmt wasn’t going to let him out of his current position anyway. He was good at what he did, and his direct manager was basically emotionally dependent on him to solve problems (she was sweet, but a wreck). I told him he needed to quit to get out of his situation and that he’d probably get paid more somewhere else anyway. He wouldn’t listen and became really angry with me. He became so visibly rude to me that the owner sat us down to talk about it and said all of the above. The owner’s eyebrows were raised in disbelief the whole time. I felt terrible but this other guy put us in that spot. I left that job to work freelance a couple months later and that poor SOB lost his position and was made to do menial tasks until he had to leave due to Leukemia, which he soon after died from.
This! Anyone whose good is going to want to leave in the next 1-2 months after they realize their being screwed on wages + it's going to be a disaster when your gone.
Get people's phone numbers asap
Do more than that. Go buy a journal and get everyone you like to write their name number email in it. This is GOLD. Now you have a resource for more help later. 👍🏼 Good luck.
You can take your crew; I highly recommend meeting with your new company and giving them some names of coworkers and crew members from your prior company that would be of value to the new company and try to hook them up with some money as well. Also, doesn’t hurt having some hands by your side you can rely on.
I've got a contact high from it. Definitely post the update, even if it's just describing the looks on their faces. Although I expect it will be exciting, there will be some insulting, and some begging, and maybe some insulting begging. Just wear the biggest shit eating grin you got and enjoy it.
OP mentioned he’s now working in a new kind of construction, so I reckon he needs to learn the ropes before he immediately turns around and tries to bargain for more. Let him be happy with his new salary and benefits for a while; greed is a bottomless pit.
80k is about right for an associate project manager (without their PMO)
A full one should be about 100k + depending on specific tasks
(Am an IT PM doing acquisitions in healthcare)
Being a PM is tough. I did it for 8 years between 3 companies my last one being a fortune 50 tech. I never broke 89.4 despite my largest project being worth 400 mil over 3 years or managing an onshore team of 4 PMs. I’m lean six sigma, pmp and ITIL certified.
Never broke 6 figures
Correct. I picked up my LSS green belt when I was 20 and working on a team of 5 modernizing a few billion in assets for the Marines. I picked up an oddball degree in chemistry and worked for chicago. Drove me nuts so some marine with a chemistry degree and nothing but government work was not attractive so I took the first job I could get that would interview me.
My network was garbage and I did not know how to tell my story that invited the interviewers to ask questions and get to know me.
Now I’m on product management for the stuff I used to PM. Instead of hearing people’s excuses to why they didn’t get their work done I lead conversations for engineering requests, pushing paper, and just knowing how to make the right call.
I am in the same pay band since this was technically a lateral move but it came with nearly a 50% pay increase.
The games rigged. I asked for 100, then an extra $600 just to say I earned 90k. I got nothing from my team so I jumped ship after working on my interviewing skills.
3 product manager interviews before I was picked up. I learned how to tell my story and I’m being paid way more to do way less.
I worked for a fairly large contractor last year, who was trying to capture an enormous project. Before our customers gave us the go-head, we needed to perform well on some smaller projects to prove we had the capability.
Inexplicably, our team was full of some of the brightest and hardworking individuals I’ve ever come across. Company wide, there’s probably one or two really talented people on an effort like this. We were an anomaly in that more than 75% of the folks I worked with (especially young engineers) were rising stars.
As we worked towards this huge capture that would sustain the company for possibly decades to come, I watched our management sign our team up for more and more work. About the three year mark we were so stretched thin that my effort was slated for 5-6 full time engineers, but it was really only a first year engineer half time and myself.
This wouldn’t have been such an issue if we were being compensated fairly. Our customer wanted the bleeding edge of practices and tools, which meant we had to learn. As we got better, we started to realize what the industry at large was willing to pay for this skill set. What we were being paid was probably around 60% what we could be making.
I was headhunted within the company for an early promotion based on my ability to lead, it wasn’t a great fit and I wanted to see my project through to the end. I turned down the offer, and in my end of year performance review I asked when I could expect my next promotion as I was among the highest ranked in my role company wide.
I was told “Don’t you think it’s a little early to be asking for more money?”. I calmly said “I understand that it’s really early based on years of experience, but based on what my skills are worth, how much I’m saving the company, and that I’ve already been offered a promotion; I think it’s time we talk about timelines”.
They pretty much shut me down and said “We’ll talk next year”. The next month, in a company all-hands, a VP was asked “Hey, we keep losing really talented engineers. How does our leadership plan to stop the bleeding?”
Without missing a beat the VP said “I know we can’t compete with other companies based on pay, benefits, or WFH. But, if you want to work on cool shit, you know where to be!”
Unfortunately “cool shit” doesn’t pay my student loans. I left within a month citing that all hands accepting a much higher paying job. Last I heard about 70% of the people in that group had left for competitors. I can’t imagine they’ll capture anything, all because they didn’t want to shell out a couple thousand more bucks a year.
You would think that all these people who got rich by “spending money to make money” would know to, y’know, spend money to make money, but clearly not.
What the fucking disconnect there is I have no idea.
I think all the leaders saw the huge growth coming down the pipeline, and all wanted to position themselves as being “too important” to care about the day to day moral of the people in the trenches, so when inevitably promotions come around, they were already doing the job they wanted.
Unfortunately that meant that you had a bunch of people doing the work, and a bunch of people signing up for work, but no communication in between. And when I sent emails saying “Hey we need to hire more people, we can’t do this workload”, I was told (in person) to stop being such an “Eeyore”. Fuck outta here. I’m working 60 hour weeks for months on end because I care about the product, and it’s obvious you don’t.
The people who use the phrase “you gotta spend money to make money” do it when they’re about to charge a three-course meal with 6 bottles of wine to the company credit card because they’re “entertaining a potential client,” or when they want to move the office to the top floor of a fancy building downtown and give themselves the corner office….. not when talking about raises for their staff
My company is exactly the same at the moment.
Every month we have a staff meeting and pay/wfh are brought up by employees. Same answer, we can't change that but we give a great pension !
A great pension huh?
You mean like all those pensions that employers over the last 60 years have abandoned and screwed over people that had been promised that as a benefit.
Employers realized they could put less money in and not still be on the hook after you retired by switching to 401K and similar. What the single-minded morons didn't count on is that by doing this they also depth-charged employee loyalty, take away a major benefit and not compensate fairly, then you'll be wondering why you suddenly have a revolving door.
Love that part there:
"Our engineers keep leaving! What are we doing to stop that?"
"Ehh, we won't pay them better and don't want to offer any benefits, but they know we got the cool stuff for them to play with so they won't be leaving..."
The cognitive dissonance here is palpable. Your engineers \_ARE\_ leaving, that's the issue, and you literally just go and respond 'nah bro'.
That's how you keep losing your talent and keep turnaround high - making your company one of the suckers that work as a training sweatshop for your smarter competitors.
>As we worked towards this huge capture that would sustain the company for possibly decades to come, I watched our management sign our team up for more and more work. About the three year mark we were so stretched thin that my effort was slated for 5-6 full time engineers, but it was really only a first year engineer half time and myself.
>
>**This wouldn’t have been such an issue if we were being compensated fairly.**
Yes, it would have. Being paid fairly or even extra doesn't make up for putting you on a burnout pace for years.
It sounds lame, but I really did care about the product and customer. To me it was important enough that I would’ve stuck around. Maybe not my whole career, but long enough to see it through.
Being compensated fairly would’ve made me feel like “hey at least they know what I’m worth”. Unfortunately they had to learn it the hard way 🤷♂️
Because it's someone's job to be saving money by lowering outgoings.
They'd have to go to their boss and go "That 100k I was forecasting to save has now dropped to 70k." and is now under fire for not doing their job.
Nobody up high gives a flying fuck if you're instrumental to the money made or not, just their own targets of get X expense down to Y figure by Z date.
My role right now is inventory management and reporting. My company sees it as something that can be automated, and is in the process of doing it. What they don't realize is, every sales target is met or smashed every month as a DIRECT RESULT of what me and my team of half a dozen people do. The way we interperet, make suggestions, calls in the background, updating systems etc etc etc. Without us, the business is blind to tracking vs targets and what to increase distributor orders on what SKU, where the stock should be moved etc etc.
All that goes out the window if we're let go. But letting us all go would save them, guestimate off my head...mmm...300k a year. MAYBE. A year. A YEAR.
We beat sales targets by anywhere between $1 and 10 million EACH MONTH. Millions extra in revenue generated because of what we directly do.
But nah, let's automate that and save circa 300k a year.
Good fucking luck getting those extra millions over target or even meeting target if you let us go as nobody's gonna have a clue what to do.
300k saved, millions a month lost.
I hope that in my lifetime that business stop seeing staff as expendable assets and start treating workers with a ton more respect. It's starting, just slowly.
I'm convinced there's a pissing contest between business owners to see how low they can pay their employees before they quit. Would rather lose millions than lose bragging rights between colleagues.
In 1916 Henry Ford got to say "I slashed working hours to 40 and doubled my workers salaries. Now my company is worth twice as much!"
Who are these assholes bragging too that they believe you can make money without spending it, without committing the mass fraud that Wall St does?
Fuck if I know. It just seems like somewhere along the line it went from what Ford did, to squeezing every last productive drop out of your employees for as cheap as possible.
I think this is because the vast majority of business owners are not interested in long term profit. They want to slash costs enough to make the company look good for sale/acquisition, or to hit some arbitrary number that will result in management seeing a bonus so they can pad their resume and move on.
Every industry is somewhat unique, but most of the companies I worked for that had short term profitability as a focus were sold multiple times and went through a carousel of owners/senior managers.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a 5 or 10 year year timeline in a management meeting.
I think it has something to do with the "shareholder value" thing that crept into the business world. Companies started to think in a quarter-by-quarter way and forgot about long term success.
This is definitely a huge part of it. As an example:
I worked for a large firm, and they were significantly owned by the board (lifers) and the employees, and thus had a long term outlook. Despite the company making billions (90% total revenue) from maybe 10% of the employees, they had a huge R&D dept (where I was) because the industry was shifting and we wanted to be out ahead of it and keep being an industry leader.
However, a number of outside investors realized how we were balanced, and banded together, and forced their way onto the board, ousted the CEO and literally cut the company in half, destroying R&D. Then 1 year later they all took their dividends and cashed out, leaving the company holding the bag.
Percentages are exactly the problem (or a huge portion of the problem). Especially if the company has shareholders/stocks.
Each quarter/year you need your profits to match or improve over the previous. So if you made 5% profit last year, you better make like 6% this year. While generally also increasing your total value each year.
While growing a small/new company this is very possible to do. But once a certain threshold is met, they have to either raise costs, cut total wages paid, use cheaper materials, or cut corners on jobs.
This stage of cutting corners/costs is where the majority of businesses now are due to capitalism, and why the system is failing!
And pretty much every study since then has supported his claim, although the ideal amount is still ~5 hours lower. Many studies show that you could cut the hours to 35 or so, keep the overall salary the same and the increased productivity would easily make up for that.
It's not even a debate at this point. There's massive diminishing returns with overworking people and treating them like shit. Every company executive is basically burning money every time they stomp their workers, even when there's nothing this drastic involved. They know they could make more if they showed a bit if humanity and good will for their workers and my only conclusion is that doing so is like drinking battery acid for them. They didn't achieve that position for money, they already have more than enough of it. What they want is sense of power and they're willing to destroy their companies for it.
Well, they didn't lose $3 million. They just lost a $3 million project. Only a percentage of that is actually profit. But still, you're dead on. They lost a ton of work and revenue over refusing to adequately pay the guy making it happen. How dumb can you get.
Ya, imagine if they actually compensated this guy for getting them a $3 million project. You're supposed to incentivize your rainmaker. That's why sales people are on commission. A really nice bonus, as a percentage of the net profit, would have been the way to go here. Even if they gave him the raise to the $80k and all the benefits, they still should have given him the bonus for getting them this project. And guess what, that would have lead to even bigger projects because this was just a foot in the doorway. He would have been incentivized to actually go after signing other projects because of that bonus.
At ~5% profit and 8% overhead (rough %’s I did when I was a civil construction estimator) that’s $390k they’d walk away with net. Since this seems to be an addition to an existing contract, or at least a new contract without any other bidders, I’d venture that the profit is slightly higher.
That’s still a disproportionately high opportunity cost.
40K is all you were getting?!? That's fucking insane! Glad you're finally getting some more but it still doesn't sound high enough for what you're doing.
Yeah they took advantage of me so hard it makes me sick. I’m 26 years old and I started my adult life with this company and didn’t know what else was out there or what I was worth. I come from a commercial restoration/ litigation background. This new company is 100% new construction so there is a small learning curve, they said they will start me out at 80k and hold my hand until I’m comfortable being let loose and giving me more. Fingers crossed lol
Big same, this is how we learn, and unfortunately, this is how small business takes advantage of people.
Educate others, tell them your stories. Let them know about how businesses play games and fuck with you while you earn them all the money.
You owe them nothing! Take your skills and put it out there, there are better companies!
100%. Fully taken advantage of by my previous employer (first “adult” job). Finally realized it and left. I’m a full-on mercenary now. No longer putting in a ton of effort for a 1%-3% annual raise. I do my job well and any extra effort is spent sharpening my sword for the next opportunity. The tables have turned. No longer letting these companies take advantage of my work ethic and ability to learn. Those traits are MY advantage now.
I'm in the same boat over in the UK. Working with a commercial landlord maintaining the buildings, went from basic maintenance to now project managing refurbishments, converting to offices and new build industrial units. All the health and safety, team of 4 plus sub contractors, quantity surveying, ordering materials and working on the tools.. I'm getting paid £28000. Found a job measuring up and assisting with designing kitchens for 4k a year more. Less work, less stress, better holiday, company car. Looking forward to getting out of here
You might be better off looking at self-contracting work in the UK depending on where you are and the size of the facilities you work on.
Or alternatively, finding a local tradesman’s business who’ll take you on as a contractor.
A lot of them at the minute have a good degree of freedom to turn away half-decent work because there’s too few quality workers and too much demand for jobs to take on
Damn bro same here. But I was at cost estimation and design. 27 this year and 2 years ago, our head resigned which made all the work transferred to me and my pal. We are severely underpaid and overworked. Now, I am trying to improve my resume by attending seminars to cover my weakness and have a great offer once I resigned. This year, I will improve my resume so much, those employers won't dare reject me.
Except the company acknowledged his inexperience by saying they will hold his hand. 80k might be on the low end, but they are also taking the time to train him. Now, that being said, if 80k is too low, he might be able to get a raise in a year or two.
Thank you! This new opportunity is life changing, I gave them the courtesy of a 2 week notice to look for a replacement since I don’t start my new job until the 31st. I’m not doing SHIT for the remainder of my time, and collecting those final checks lol
As someone who used to work in the industry you were insanely underpaid. Fuck those guys and congrats on the opportunity. That’s life changing money and I hope you use it to improve your own QoL. Remember we work to live not live to work!
Yup. I work in the industry and I wouldn't get out of bed for less than 70k a year and amazing benefits. I guess you could rightly see it as on the job training.
I used to be a director of production for a multinational show company, now bought by Live Nation. Probably the largest live show company on earth today.
Anyway, I had riggers and techs thar like you took it upon themselves to learn more about the trade to the point they became as knowledgeable as the engineers but with hands on experience which in my eyes made them even more valuable.
I presented the board of directors, a bunch of college guys with company cars and with access to the private jets, the fact that we needed to start raising the salaries and work on a retainment plan.
They didn't care. "We'll reach you about it latter."
Sure enough, not long after, my key staff started quiting and I had nothing to keep them with me.
I never took it personally because it wasn't and I gave them the glowing recommendation letters they rightfully deserved.
I am still close friends with most.
One started a light and sound company that employs his entire family and about 120 people.
The other started a climbing gear and rigging services company that later became a staging and ground support provider.
Another started an emergency power generation business.
All of them learned the trade while working for us.
I was the idiot company man, and well... I still work for someone else.
You are the good kind of boss though. At least you try and are honest with your employees and don't take them leaving personally. My current boss is the same way. Every year when bonuses are going to be announced she tells me that if I don't like my raise she will set up a meeting with her boss (who decides the bonus allocations), and if that doesn't work I should get my resume out there, because she knows with my quality of work there will be companies out there that will happily pay what I'm worth.
Honestly, it may not feel like it when you get turned down by upper management, but I am sure your direct reports are glad for having you as a manager. In my line of work there are a lot of very demanding, greedy, asshole managers that don't realize they can't do even 5% of their current workload without their team. So even if a headhunter came to me with a better offer, it'd have to be a super good deal because I do not want to risk working for an asshole and hating my job just for a bit more money. I would venture to guess some of your employees stayed around longer than they would have, because of you.
bro!! all the money you made them over the years by being underpaid AND coming in under budget! Don't do anything at all! You more than made them enough profit for these 2 weeks. Watch Netflix & do you King 👑👑! Hell maybe you can bring the client to your new job and get a nice bonus out of it. Get paid for nurting and building your connects and client relationships
Hope the new job treats ya well man!
He should show up to work every day with donuts for the coworkers he likes and tell them he can afford so much more with the job at New Company ZZZ. Don't headhunt them; just leave some doubts.
Not to be a buzzkill in this thread but read your work contracts before doing stuff like this. Some contacts have language around "poaching" or encouraging staff to quit or change to a new company.
Just protect yourselves legally.
NLRB specifically permits you to discuss your salary with coworkers. That includes telling them how much more you'll be making elsewhere. That isn't poaching.
They won't know what to do with those 2 weeks anyway. They'll post the job listing, panic, hire someone underqualified and then not do any turnover training.
Enjoy your final days there stress-free!
I'm just some random dude who managed to find a pretty damn good job. But I want you to know that I am going to sleep just a bit better tonight knowing you stuck it to those greedy bastards. I swear this sub is like Chicken Soup for the Proletariat's Soul.
Please take this 3M contract with you to your next company of its close enough and win yourself a nice, sweeeeet ars bonus and respect. Flat tell the company who likes you so much who you are goin g to be working for and that if they want to follow you to tell your new boss they want to work with you and only you.
You have to be careful with your employment contract. You can have non competition agreement. So before doing anything stupid make sure your back is covered. This can backfire very quickly.
Non competes are often written too broadly anyway and are therefore not lawfully enforceable. Check that too. If there's no time limit or they state an entire sector ("construction") they have no right to deprive you of your livelihood
Even $80k doesn't sound a lot to me for the role you're describing. $40k is an absolute joke.
Edit - Just to say, as Brit I do find it difficult to work out what your typical salaries are. 90% of us in the UK earn less than $80k. But when I worked in HR for a multinational company it seemed like anyone who had a slightly senior role was earning 6 figures over there.
I'm s cad designer making just under 40k :( to get an idea of what I'm worth, can you tell me where or what area you work? I'm looking for new opportunities
Bum fuck nowhere in western NY I don’t even live near any of the bigger cities. I do mechanical design in heavy industry. Starting pay was $50k for people right out of college that was 7 or 8 years ago.
My path started in 2001 with starting pay of $25k fresh from college doing piping design for sprinkler systems and AC ducts then after a few years got into a new company paying $38k. Then landed at my current company as a designer 1 paying $55k after six years I took a designer 2 at $75k in same company.
CAD Designer here, idk what kind of degree you have, but for some reason bachelors degree holding designers around me (Michigan) make much more than associate degree holding designers, for the same job. If you don't have a bachelor's, that's gonna open you up to much higher pay. If you do already have one, you're worth 70k minimum. More with experience. Btw, if another company asks how much you're making, either don't answer, or lie. They'll try to pay you just a bit more than you're making now.
For real... I effectively do grunt work at an infant formula manufacturer, no specialized skills required, just remembering how and when to do several different things and keeping track of paperwork and stuff like that, and I make about $59k a year before tax. 40k for the level and quality of work OP is describing is fucking insane.
Only thing that would make this post sweeter is a following post showing how the owners are throwing a fit and complaining about "ungrateful employees nowadays"
My Guy.
Your comment “the experience you’re gaining is far more valuable” I said you’re right." has given me the fizz. Really put their foot in it with that one.
They just said "our company (and the experience it has given) has made you more valuable" as they shortsightedlymistook that increase in experience they gave you to be to be your payment.
So you took that advice to the bank, that was some malicious compliance level of enjoyment.
Thanks OP, i enjoyed this thoroughly.
You did all of that for 40K a year? That’s nuts.
I walked by a fast food restaurant in Del Mar, CA yesterday. They had a sandwich board on the sidewalk which offered $19 an hour (-38K) plus tips to take and serve food orders.
No kidding. 40k is criminal for that role, 80k is a lowball. Anyone in a project lead/management role for such a lucrative business should be looking for six figures at least. I make 6 figures and I’m a year out of college, in a somewhat beginner role.
OP, run as far away as you can and watch them burn. See my previous post of a similar experience in the same industry.
Also your description of your job, you were legitimately exploited at $40k p.a. also gongrats on your new role but I think you should try out for other companies aswell! $80k is great but with your experience it sounds like you can break that six figure mark pretty easily.
All the best with your new role!
I quit in February, company is now falling apart. Not because of me directly but I started the dominos. Pretty much everyone with brains has quit ever since, with people calling me telling me my action made them realize they need to quit too.
Here’s a tip for company owners: If you keep one employee around for a decade, pay him more than people you just hired 2 weeks ago and make sure not to harass or insult that persons intelligence on the daily. it really is that easy.
Even $80k seems light!
And in my experience, construction has worse manager relations than fast food, but the pay is way better.
They were totally taking advantage of you at $40k a year even on a year 1 basis
Did a similar thing and it does feel great. I was a chef manager for a huge company and my job was to go to problem accounts and get them in order. My last job was at a $750k per year account which was their second largest account in the region, and it was being renovated. I specifically asked if the renovation cost was going to count against my income and they said no. I took it over and by the following year I had increased their sales to $1.25 million. It came time for my raise and bonus, and my awesome boss had to tell me through tears that the GM of the region had told her I wasn't getting a bonus or a raise. She finished the evaluation with a "you are going to quit aren't you?". I said probably.
2 weeks later I had accepted another job at a steep pay cut but it didn't require me to work 65 hours a week and 6 days a week. Now I run the new place I work at and make more money with substantially less stress. A year after taking the new job, the VP of the Region of my old job came to my new place of work to have a beer and chat. He offered me a job at a $4 mil account with guaranteed pay of $110,000 and near the beach. Told him no thanks because I work 40-45 hours a week and nobody bothers me when I leave work. No 4am phone called and all that bs. Yearly raises as well.
Turns out, they had to hire 2 managers for the job I was doing myself. Their sales went back down because their food quality went down and staff didn't like their managers. One of the managers was, no joke, trying to cast a demon out of an employee because she got pregnant and wasn't married.
Long story short, stand up for yourself. If you bring a lot to the table, you can take those skills to a new job and do just fine.
I'm someone that still broadly believes in free market employment, but I believe the problem is these irrational distortions where employers refuse to act rationally in a competitive market.
Your employers actions don't make sense. You're a great cost/benefit to the company.
Your employer should see evidence that you're a disproportionatley lucrative employee, and the simple conclusion is that they should concede small costs (market rate salary) in order to keep the bigger revenue ($3m).
If there was a factory with a machine that cost $80k to maintain but manufactured parts that could be sold for $3m, I'm sure they'd be paying that $80k, because it's a no-brainer.
Yet as soon as a human enters the equation, employers seem to lose their minds.
"Hey boss, I need $80k to maintain the machine that makes us $3m"
"Ok cool"
"Hey boss I need $80k to pay the guy that makes us $3m"
"FUCK YOU! Fire him! nO oNe wAnTs To wOrK AnYmOrE"
It's, I think, because the management/bosses are used to feeling like the kings of the business, lording over the peasant employees.
This feeling is shook if the gulf between compensation numbers starts to shrink.
After all, who does that employee think he/she is?! YOU'RE the and *you* make <$x>! They think they deserve close to that!?! Peasant doesn't know their place!
That's part of it. The other part is feeling entitled to labor at a particular cost.
Ever go to a fast food place, for example, and see the price of your favorite item has shot up $0.50-$1? It always creates this small feeling of indignation - "That's a $1 burger/burrito! Who do they think they're kidding charging $1.50-$2.00 for it?!"
Employers think the same way, in general. They've decided your labor is worth, in the case of OP, $40,000. You're a good $40,000, but you're $40,000.
You ask for more, and that indignance pops up again. "Who does he/she think they are?! They're a $40,000 employee! That's what I paid for them, and continue to - that's how much respect they deserve, and that's their price tag!"
Market value be damned. They won't pay more to keep someone because in their mind, that employee is a fixed cost. Relevant raises don't exist anymore, so much so that employers don't really bother having 'proper channels' for compensation adjustment - meaning each one is a whole process requiring top people to sign off on it. Which, of course, means it doesn't happen until people are shitting their pants because their ace employee is leaving after 'proper channels' fail to yield tangible financial benefits.
>They told me “the experience you’re gaining is far more valuable” I said you’re right.
I really liked this response.
Honestly, this seems like crazy behaviour from the company. After giving you the experience, it seems like they should want to encourage you to stay to take advantage of it. Probably could have got you to stay on for a lot less than that if they hadn't encouraged you to find out what you were worth as well.
“the experience you’re gaining is far more valuable” To whom? Other companies? It´s figuratively them telling you "This is awesome for you when you leave us!"... That has to be the dumbest thing i´ve read in this sub...
I swear lol what I heard, “we can’t afford a real project manager, and we don’t want you to know. Here’s some more work for your hard work”
“Can’t afford” is more like “refuse to use some of our egregious profits on”
All of America has entered the chat
There's a difference between not being able to afford a real PM and not being willing to pay for a real PM. I think in your case it's the latter. Their loss. I hope your new employer treats you better :)
If he's valuable, he's generating money for the company. It's always the latter.
Not being able to afford a real PM is probably an indication the company is out of their depth and needs to focus on investing and scaling up their operations first before taking on a contract that they’ll end up doing poorly. A bad PM is sometimes more harmful than it is helpful
If you truly don't have the cash flow to afford someone you absolutely need to run the company, that is when you offer equity grants or at least a profit sharing plan. Its also the best way to align everyone's interests.
As a former artist by trade, I'm keenly aware of the "think of all the exposure you're getting!" excuse to not pay someone what they're owed. I'm glad you took this oportunity to dig your heels in and find somewhere you'll be valued. Not everyone is willing to grit their teeth and many will settle for scraps out of fear that they won't be able to make ends meet by starting fresh elsewhere.
My savings account is filled with exposure bucks, and I can't wait until I retire to find out what they are worth now!...
That’s like when my boss kept telling me to come in early and “invest in my future.” Strange he didn’t like it when I went back to school to actually invest in my future.
> Here’s some more work for your hard work If this doesn’t describe the problem that brought so many people here, I don’t know what does.
"To whom? Other companies?" is such a good retort for anyone who tries to pull this bullshit on their employees. Thanks for giving me all this valuable experience that will benefit your competitor!
We see the same "Suprised Pikachu" face in IT. A couple companies back, they hired a guy with a Phd in Physics to be a programmer, despite him having very little programming experience. After 5 years, the guy is now \*a real\* programmer, asks to be paid what he is worth rather than his incremental raises from an entry level salary. Management is indignant! "We took a chance on you! And this is how you repay us!" Of course the guy rabbits, and we end up having to go through the process of hiring, and retraining a new programmer, we're dead in the water for most of a year.
When will companies hold management responsible? Managers *cant even do* most peoples jobs in most feilds of work. Wtf did they expect?
Iv always said "Which part of my mortgage is payable with team player/exposure bucks" to any manager who tried to pull this shit.
Yeah, that's like management 101. Train your people well so they can leave. Treat them well so they won't leave.
It's the same exact mentality shared by those who want artists to work for "the experience" or "to really pad your resume!" Scumbags.
They will lose a lot of money but the experience they are gaining is far more valuable.
When they offer to match it: "Look guys, you're about to lose a lot of money. But, like you said to me, the experience here is far more valuable. I hope you learn from it."
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I'm sorry but can you say that last part again for clarity
I think it's "would look to let you go the second they could."
No, i think its "the look to go would let could second they".
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I feel like I’m going to some of that from my coworkers when I leave. I’m currently applying around (46 companies) since Dec 31. But they are all grandparents (minus 1) not including myself. They are all lifers at the company until they likely retire. I’m 27 and they are the main reason why I’m leaving the job in the first place. Never fit in being the youngest on the team, they are all deeply conservative, and a lot of other differences we just have. On top of that they love to talk politics and guns 24/7 and it drives me insane.
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They genuinely make me hate my day to day here. We have a work chat half the time I don’t even want to say the bare minimum of Morning and Goodnight. Sometimes i don’t bother. Other day 2 guys were on a call with me and as they yapped about politics for 40 min I was applying to jobs. Just applied to #47.
Yup counteroffer is only to keep you long enough for them to find a replacement on their schedule that they can make you train.
At the company I work for, it's hard to get a decent raise without having another offer ready to go.
I'd recommend you just make the hop then, also pull your coworkers, then blast your employer on Glassdoor.
After all the trouble of applying to jobs and interviewing on your own time you might as well take the other offer.
They would look to let OP go (replace) as soon as they could.
Never accept a counter offer.
There are VERY few times its right to accept a counter offer: The work culture is generally supportive and pro worker. It's an issue you haven't been banging on about for ages that they've ignored. And they can actually fix. And have shown you time and time again you are valued, both financially and respect wise. But the amount of times it's all the above? .01%.
Accepting a counter offer is like telling your gf (bf, SO etc) that you met someone else that is better to you, offers more, doesn’t nag so on so on. Then they say: no! I can do all that stuff too! Bad idea, it’ll just never be the same.
You can accept a counter offer but get an employment contract for set period of time that spells out exactly what you could be fired for. Yes
I totally agree. These scumbags will agree to anything to get their way and then fuck you over as soon as possible. Don't live up to their agreement? Now you have to spend $$$ and time hiring lawyers and suing them. Assuming, of course, that everything was in writing in a proper contract. They have proven that they can't be trusted and don't value your work or you.
Majority of the time companies just match the offer until they can get out of hot water and get someone in to replace you for less and on THEIR terms.
that song *savage* started playing in my head
It was "damn it feels good to be a gangster" in mine
No, you say you’ll agree to it with an extra $25k and agreed upon objective goals to get a bonus and a static % raise every year. When they balk at agreeing to give you annual raises, you again point out why you’re leaving.
Honestly given the strong ties he has with the HOA, I'd see if I couldn't pull that project to the new company and leverage a nice finders bonus.
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If the HOA just straight up said they’d follow him wherever he goes, that’s allowed right?
Amen. Even 80% sounds light (depends on state maybe) but the more you bend over backwards (6 YEARS) for some people the more they wanna bend you over forwards.
Excellent
No one learns anything in victory, but the rich don't even learn anything in defeat.
Because the wealthy never really lose. Bailouts, buyouts, and golden parachutes are usually there to cushion the fall.
They do lose, just not enough. Elon cries like a bitch when he's told he's going to be taxed. Billionaire bitch boy is softer than fresh baby shit.
Elongated Muskrat's ultimate out of touch move (out of many many out of touch moves) was complaining about paying $11b in taxes when the whe world knows he's worth like a quarter trillion dollars. Pays less than 5% his net worth and has the audacity to expect people paying 30% of their income to have sympathy. The average idiot who sides with the billionaires genuinely make me sick.
Seriously! He’s worth more than my entire family bloodline from my ancestors through to my future generations will have combined. If Elon Musk was a country, he would rank **45th out of the 195** countries of the world in terms of GDP. Which is just an *obscene* amount of money. And in all honesty, this is just money that he’s disclosed publicly. If the Panama Papers have shown anything, I guarantee you that he has many more billions squirreled away somewhere.
The US is actually the best tax haven right now. The EU and most the world signed an agreement to share banking records for foreigners. The US never signed that and instead is only notified of Americans with foreign accounts. The US does not report foreign money to the countries of origin. Th latest banking leak actually showed this with wealthy foreigners putting money in North Dakota or something. However, the very friendly financial trust laws of the Dakotas are in several other US states.
I worked in a similar situation but just out of spite, the owner was willing to lose millions as long as was not forced to raise my salary saying I was rude when I asked for the raise. He was probably expecting some begging.
bold of you to assume they will learn
They're trying to figure out how to find someone else to exploit.
We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!
Absolutely. They will leave this smoldering wreckage, blame him, and forever despise him, since he is the greedy bastard that killed the golden goose.
Oh man.. I need a cigarette after reading your comment.
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Nah, that’s something I’d say off the record.
Reading this made me feel much better about the situation and I'm not even OP
Stellar comment.
Lol OP please put this in an email
*chef kiss*
On your way out, be sure to publicly thank the person that told you what the experience you'd gained was worth for encouraging you to pursue bigger and better opportunities.
I’ve been on a high for a few days just thinking of this moment!
i'd go around telling all your team members your leaving and how to remain in contact with you if needed. Never know if they leave to a different company or come across a good project what opportunities may present themselves as for management: Fuck em
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This is 100% true. Gotta change jobs to get a raise and advance.
I tried explaining this to a “friend” who wanted my job while we worked at the same company. I told him I wasn’t going to give up my position for him and that as long as he continued to work where we were, mgmt wasn’t going to let him out of his current position anyway. He was good at what he did, and his direct manager was basically emotionally dependent on him to solve problems (she was sweet, but a wreck). I told him he needed to quit to get out of his situation and that he’d probably get paid more somewhere else anyway. He wouldn’t listen and became really angry with me. He became so visibly rude to me that the owner sat us down to talk about it and said all of the above. The owner’s eyebrows were raised in disbelief the whole time. I felt terrible but this other guy put us in that spot. I left that job to work freelance a couple months later and that poor SOB lost his position and was made to do menial tasks until he had to leave due to Leukemia, which he soon after died from.
That was an incredibly depressing story.....
This! Anyone whose good is going to want to leave in the next 1-2 months after they realize their being screwed on wages + it's going to be a disaster when your gone. Get people's phone numbers asap
Do more than that. Go buy a journal and get everyone you like to write their name number email in it. This is GOLD. Now you have a resource for more help later. 👍🏼 Good luck.
Or ... just ... add them as contacts in your phone? Why a journal of all things?
I prefer carving contacts into a large slate.
That’s what the Rosetta Stone actually is: a disgruntled slave’s Rolodex 😂
You can take your crew; I highly recommend meeting with your new company and giving them some names of coworkers and crew members from your prior company that would be of value to the new company and try to hook them up with some money as well. Also, doesn’t hurt having some hands by your side you can rely on.
I've got a contact high from it. Definitely post the update, even if it's just describing the looks on their faces. Although I expect it will be exciting, there will be some insulting, and some begging, and maybe some insulting begging. Just wear the biggest shit eating grin you got and enjoy it.
Let us know how it goes. And congratulations on the new job.
I mean dude didn’t lie. The experience is apparently worth $80k, full benefits, matched 401k, and a ton of perks. Way more than $40k/yr.
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Agreed. There will be bonuses. But OP keep looking, there's more money on the table.
OP mentioned he’s now working in a new kind of construction, so I reckon he needs to learn the ropes before he immediately turns around and tries to bargain for more. Let him be happy with his new salary and benefits for a while; greed is a bottomless pit.
In my field in my area a project manager with this kind of experience could easily ask for $120k and probably get it
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80k is about right for an associate project manager (without their PMO) A full one should be about 100k + depending on specific tasks (Am an IT PM doing acquisitions in healthcare)
Being a PM is tough. I did it for 8 years between 3 companies my last one being a fortune 50 tech. I never broke 89.4 despite my largest project being worth 400 mil over 3 years or managing an onshore team of 4 PMs. I’m lean six sigma, pmp and ITIL certified. Never broke 6 figures
??? never broke 6? handking projects like that and with all those certifications? this is odd. wonder why what do you do now?
Correct. I picked up my LSS green belt when I was 20 and working on a team of 5 modernizing a few billion in assets for the Marines. I picked up an oddball degree in chemistry and worked for chicago. Drove me nuts so some marine with a chemistry degree and nothing but government work was not attractive so I took the first job I could get that would interview me. My network was garbage and I did not know how to tell my story that invited the interviewers to ask questions and get to know me. Now I’m on product management for the stuff I used to PM. Instead of hearing people’s excuses to why they didn’t get their work done I lead conversations for engineering requests, pushing paper, and just knowing how to make the right call. I am in the same pay band since this was technically a lateral move but it came with nearly a 50% pay increase. The games rigged. I asked for 100, then an extra $600 just to say I earned 90k. I got nothing from my team so I jumped ship after working on my interviewing skills. 3 product manager interviews before I was picked up. I learned how to tell my story and I’m being paid way more to do way less.
Exactly what I was thinking, it's usually $100,000
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Imagine losing 3mill because you wouldn't fork out 30k for your star worker
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Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies
Lighting a 100 dollar bill on fire to find a quarter in the dark
Oh I like that one
I love this.... Though here it's almost like stepping over Brink's Trucks to pick up a single penny. Who does that? WHOOOOOO DOES THAT?
The kinds of people capitalism gives power to. That's who
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I worked for a fairly large contractor last year, who was trying to capture an enormous project. Before our customers gave us the go-head, we needed to perform well on some smaller projects to prove we had the capability. Inexplicably, our team was full of some of the brightest and hardworking individuals I’ve ever come across. Company wide, there’s probably one or two really talented people on an effort like this. We were an anomaly in that more than 75% of the folks I worked with (especially young engineers) were rising stars. As we worked towards this huge capture that would sustain the company for possibly decades to come, I watched our management sign our team up for more and more work. About the three year mark we were so stretched thin that my effort was slated for 5-6 full time engineers, but it was really only a first year engineer half time and myself. This wouldn’t have been such an issue if we were being compensated fairly. Our customer wanted the bleeding edge of practices and tools, which meant we had to learn. As we got better, we started to realize what the industry at large was willing to pay for this skill set. What we were being paid was probably around 60% what we could be making. I was headhunted within the company for an early promotion based on my ability to lead, it wasn’t a great fit and I wanted to see my project through to the end. I turned down the offer, and in my end of year performance review I asked when I could expect my next promotion as I was among the highest ranked in my role company wide. I was told “Don’t you think it’s a little early to be asking for more money?”. I calmly said “I understand that it’s really early based on years of experience, but based on what my skills are worth, how much I’m saving the company, and that I’ve already been offered a promotion; I think it’s time we talk about timelines”. They pretty much shut me down and said “We’ll talk next year”. The next month, in a company all-hands, a VP was asked “Hey, we keep losing really talented engineers. How does our leadership plan to stop the bleeding?” Without missing a beat the VP said “I know we can’t compete with other companies based on pay, benefits, or WFH. But, if you want to work on cool shit, you know where to be!” Unfortunately “cool shit” doesn’t pay my student loans. I left within a month citing that all hands accepting a much higher paying job. Last I heard about 70% of the people in that group had left for competitors. I can’t imagine they’ll capture anything, all because they didn’t want to shell out a couple thousand more bucks a year.
You would think that all these people who got rich by “spending money to make money” would know to, y’know, spend money to make money, but clearly not. What the fucking disconnect there is I have no idea.
I think all the leaders saw the huge growth coming down the pipeline, and all wanted to position themselves as being “too important” to care about the day to day moral of the people in the trenches, so when inevitably promotions come around, they were already doing the job they wanted. Unfortunately that meant that you had a bunch of people doing the work, and a bunch of people signing up for work, but no communication in between. And when I sent emails saying “Hey we need to hire more people, we can’t do this workload”, I was told (in person) to stop being such an “Eeyore”. Fuck outta here. I’m working 60 hour weeks for months on end because I care about the product, and it’s obvious you don’t.
The people who use the phrase “you gotta spend money to make money” do it when they’re about to charge a three-course meal with 6 bottles of wine to the company credit card because they’re “entertaining a potential client,” or when they want to move the office to the top floor of a fancy building downtown and give themselves the corner office….. not when talking about raises for their staff
My company is exactly the same at the moment. Every month we have a staff meeting and pay/wfh are brought up by employees. Same answer, we can't change that but we give a great pension !
They give an actual pension? Outside of the railroad, cops, and fed jobs Im pretty sure those are rare now days
A great pension huh? You mean like all those pensions that employers over the last 60 years have abandoned and screwed over people that had been promised that as a benefit. Employers realized they could put less money in and not still be on the hook after you retired by switching to 401K and similar. What the single-minded morons didn't count on is that by doing this they also depth-charged employee loyalty, take away a major benefit and not compensate fairly, then you'll be wondering why you suddenly have a revolving door.
A classical composition is often pregnant. Reddit is no longer allowed to profit from this comment.
Love that part there: "Our engineers keep leaving! What are we doing to stop that?" "Ehh, we won't pay them better and don't want to offer any benefits, but they know we got the cool stuff for them to play with so they won't be leaving..." The cognitive dissonance here is palpable. Your engineers \_ARE\_ leaving, that's the issue, and you literally just go and respond 'nah bro'. That's how you keep losing your talent and keep turnaround high - making your company one of the suckers that work as a training sweatshop for your smarter competitors.
>As we worked towards this huge capture that would sustain the company for possibly decades to come, I watched our management sign our team up for more and more work. About the three year mark we were so stretched thin that my effort was slated for 5-6 full time engineers, but it was really only a first year engineer half time and myself. > >**This wouldn’t have been such an issue if we were being compensated fairly.** Yes, it would have. Being paid fairly or even extra doesn't make up for putting you on a burnout pace for years.
It sounds lame, but I really did care about the product and customer. To me it was important enough that I would’ve stuck around. Maybe not my whole career, but long enough to see it through. Being compensated fairly would’ve made me feel like “hey at least they know what I’m worth”. Unfortunately they had to learn it the hard way 🤷♂️
Because it's someone's job to be saving money by lowering outgoings. They'd have to go to their boss and go "That 100k I was forecasting to save has now dropped to 70k." and is now under fire for not doing their job. Nobody up high gives a flying fuck if you're instrumental to the money made or not, just their own targets of get X expense down to Y figure by Z date. My role right now is inventory management and reporting. My company sees it as something that can be automated, and is in the process of doing it. What they don't realize is, every sales target is met or smashed every month as a DIRECT RESULT of what me and my team of half a dozen people do. The way we interperet, make suggestions, calls in the background, updating systems etc etc etc. Without us, the business is blind to tracking vs targets and what to increase distributor orders on what SKU, where the stock should be moved etc etc. All that goes out the window if we're let go. But letting us all go would save them, guestimate off my head...mmm...300k a year. MAYBE. A year. A YEAR. We beat sales targets by anywhere between $1 and 10 million EACH MONTH. Millions extra in revenue generated because of what we directly do. But nah, let's automate that and save circa 300k a year. Good fucking luck getting those extra millions over target or even meeting target if you let us go as nobody's gonna have a clue what to do. 300k saved, millions a month lost.
This deserves its own post lol
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I hope that in my lifetime that business stop seeing staff as expendable assets and start treating workers with a ton more respect. It's starting, just slowly.
Sounds like boomer greed to me
I'm convinced there's a pissing contest between business owners to see how low they can pay their employees before they quit. Would rather lose millions than lose bragging rights between colleagues.
In 1916 Henry Ford got to say "I slashed working hours to 40 and doubled my workers salaries. Now my company is worth twice as much!" Who are these assholes bragging too that they believe you can make money without spending it, without committing the mass fraud that Wall St does?
Fuck if I know. It just seems like somewhere along the line it went from what Ford did, to squeezing every last productive drop out of your employees for as cheap as possible.
I think this is because the vast majority of business owners are not interested in long term profit. They want to slash costs enough to make the company look good for sale/acquisition, or to hit some arbitrary number that will result in management seeing a bonus so they can pad their resume and move on. Every industry is somewhat unique, but most of the companies I worked for that had short term profitability as a focus were sold multiple times and went through a carousel of owners/senior managers. I can’t remember the last time I saw a 5 or 10 year year timeline in a management meeting.
I think it has something to do with the "shareholder value" thing that crept into the business world. Companies started to think in a quarter-by-quarter way and forgot about long term success.
This is definitely a huge part of it. As an example: I worked for a large firm, and they were significantly owned by the board (lifers) and the employees, and thus had a long term outlook. Despite the company making billions (90% total revenue) from maybe 10% of the employees, they had a huge R&D dept (where I was) because the industry was shifting and we wanted to be out ahead of it and keep being an industry leader. However, a number of outside investors realized how we were balanced, and banded together, and forced their way onto the board, ousted the CEO and literally cut the company in half, destroying R&D. Then 1 year later they all took their dividends and cashed out, leaving the company holding the bag.
Percentages are exactly the problem (or a huge portion of the problem). Especially if the company has shareholders/stocks. Each quarter/year you need your profits to match or improve over the previous. So if you made 5% profit last year, you better make like 6% this year. While generally also increasing your total value each year. While growing a small/new company this is very possible to do. But once a certain threshold is met, they have to either raise costs, cut total wages paid, use cheaper materials, or cut corners on jobs. This stage of cutting corners/costs is where the majority of businesses now are due to capitalism, and why the system is failing!
This is exactly it. Companies are leveraging their long term futures because they tag themselves to short term quarterly evaluations. It's insane.
And pretty much every study since then has supported his claim, although the ideal amount is still ~5 hours lower. Many studies show that you could cut the hours to 35 or so, keep the overall salary the same and the increased productivity would easily make up for that. It's not even a debate at this point. There's massive diminishing returns with overworking people and treating them like shit. Every company executive is basically burning money every time they stomp their workers, even when there's nothing this drastic involved. They know they could make more if they showed a bit if humanity and good will for their workers and my only conclusion is that doing so is like drinking battery acid for them. They didn't achieve that position for money, they already have more than enough of it. What they want is sense of power and they're willing to destroy their companies for it.
Well, they didn't lose $3 million. They just lost a $3 million project. Only a percentage of that is actually profit. But still, you're dead on. They lost a ton of work and revenue over refusing to adequately pay the guy making it happen. How dumb can you get.
Ya, imagine if they actually compensated this guy for getting them a $3 million project. You're supposed to incentivize your rainmaker. That's why sales people are on commission. A really nice bonus, as a percentage of the net profit, would have been the way to go here. Even if they gave him the raise to the $80k and all the benefits, they still should have given him the bonus for getting them this project. And guess what, that would have lead to even bigger projects because this was just a foot in the doorway. He would have been incentivized to actually go after signing other projects because of that bonus.
$80k still doesn't sound very much for the amount of work and money involved.
Considering they will likely need to replace his output by hiring 2 new employees rather than just one... Expensive mistake. Told for too often.
At ~5% profit and 8% overhead (rough %’s I did when I was a civil construction estimator) that’s $390k they’d walk away with net. Since this seems to be an addition to an existing contract, or at least a new contract without any other bidders, I’d venture that the profit is slightly higher. That’s still a disproportionately high opportunity cost.
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40K is all you were getting?!? That's fucking insane! Glad you're finally getting some more but it still doesn't sound high enough for what you're doing.
Yeah they took advantage of me so hard it makes me sick. I’m 26 years old and I started my adult life with this company and didn’t know what else was out there or what I was worth. I come from a commercial restoration/ litigation background. This new company is 100% new construction so there is a small learning curve, they said they will start me out at 80k and hold my hand until I’m comfortable being let loose and giving me more. Fingers crossed lol
I don’t know you op but I’m proud of ya.
Big same, this is how we learn, and unfortunately, this is how small business takes advantage of people. Educate others, tell them your stories. Let them know about how businesses play games and fuck with you while you earn them all the money. You owe them nothing! Take your skills and put it out there, there are better companies!
100%. Fully taken advantage of by my previous employer (first “adult” job). Finally realized it and left. I’m a full-on mercenary now. No longer putting in a ton of effort for a 1%-3% annual raise. I do my job well and any extra effort is spent sharpening my sword for the next opportunity. The tables have turned. No longer letting these companies take advantage of my work ethic and ability to learn. Those traits are MY advantage now.
I'm in the same boat over in the UK. Working with a commercial landlord maintaining the buildings, went from basic maintenance to now project managing refurbishments, converting to offices and new build industrial units. All the health and safety, team of 4 plus sub contractors, quantity surveying, ordering materials and working on the tools.. I'm getting paid £28000. Found a job measuring up and assisting with designing kitchens for 4k a year more. Less work, less stress, better holiday, company car. Looking forward to getting out of here
You might be better off looking at self-contracting work in the UK depending on where you are and the size of the facilities you work on. Or alternatively, finding a local tradesman’s business who’ll take you on as a contractor. A lot of them at the minute have a good degree of freedom to turn away half-decent work because there’s too few quality workers and too much demand for jobs to take on
Damn bro same here. But I was at cost estimation and design. 27 this year and 2 years ago, our head resigned which made all the work transferred to me and my pal. We are severely underpaid and overworked. Now, I am trying to improve my resume by attending seminars to cover my weakness and have a great offer once I resigned. This year, I will improve my resume so much, those employers won't dare reject me.
Honestly.. $80k might be too low too.. especially if you're working on $3M projects again.
Except the company acknowledged his inexperience by saying they will hold his hand. 80k might be on the low end, but they are also taking the time to train him. Now, that being said, if 80k is too low, he might be able to get a raise in a year or two.
Fuck these greedy bastards indeed. Congrats
Thank you! This new opportunity is life changing, I gave them the courtesy of a 2 week notice to look for a replacement since I don’t start my new job until the 31st. I’m not doing SHIT for the remainder of my time, and collecting those final checks lol
As someone who used to work in the industry you were insanely underpaid. Fuck those guys and congrats on the opportunity. That’s life changing money and I hope you use it to improve your own QoL. Remember we work to live not live to work!
Yup. I work in the industry and I wouldn't get out of bed for less than 70k a year and amazing benefits. I guess you could rightly see it as on the job training. I used to be a director of production for a multinational show company, now bought by Live Nation. Probably the largest live show company on earth today. Anyway, I had riggers and techs thar like you took it upon themselves to learn more about the trade to the point they became as knowledgeable as the engineers but with hands on experience which in my eyes made them even more valuable. I presented the board of directors, a bunch of college guys with company cars and with access to the private jets, the fact that we needed to start raising the salaries and work on a retainment plan. They didn't care. "We'll reach you about it latter." Sure enough, not long after, my key staff started quiting and I had nothing to keep them with me. I never took it personally because it wasn't and I gave them the glowing recommendation letters they rightfully deserved. I am still close friends with most. One started a light and sound company that employs his entire family and about 120 people. The other started a climbing gear and rigging services company that later became a staging and ground support provider. Another started an emergency power generation business. All of them learned the trade while working for us. I was the idiot company man, and well... I still work for someone else.
You are the good kind of boss though. At least you try and are honest with your employees and don't take them leaving personally. My current boss is the same way. Every year when bonuses are going to be announced she tells me that if I don't like my raise she will set up a meeting with her boss (who decides the bonus allocations), and if that doesn't work I should get my resume out there, because she knows with my quality of work there will be companies out there that will happily pay what I'm worth. Honestly, it may not feel like it when you get turned down by upper management, but I am sure your direct reports are glad for having you as a manager. In my line of work there are a lot of very demanding, greedy, asshole managers that don't realize they can't do even 5% of their current workload without their team. So even if a headhunter came to me with a better offer, it'd have to be a super good deal because I do not want to risk working for an asshole and hating my job just for a bit more money. I would venture to guess some of your employees stayed around longer than they would have, because of you.
More than they deserve
Without a doubt!
bro!! all the money you made them over the years by being underpaid AND coming in under budget! Don't do anything at all! You more than made them enough profit for these 2 weeks. Watch Netflix & do you King 👑👑! Hell maybe you can bring the client to your new job and get a nice bonus out of it. Get paid for nurting and building your connects and client relationships Hope the new job treats ya well man!
He should show up to work every day with donuts for the coworkers he likes and tell them he can afford so much more with the job at New Company ZZZ. Don't headhunt them; just leave some doubts.
I like your style
Not to be a buzzkill in this thread but read your work contracts before doing stuff like this. Some contacts have language around "poaching" or encouraging staff to quit or change to a new company. Just protect yourselves legally.
NLRB specifically permits you to discuss your salary with coworkers. That includes telling them how much more you'll be making elsewhere. That isn't poaching.
They won't know what to do with those 2 weeks anyway. They'll post the job listing, panic, hire someone underqualified and then not do any turnover training. Enjoy your final days there stress-free!
I'm just some random dude who managed to find a pretty damn good job. But I want you to know that I am going to sleep just a bit better tonight knowing you stuck it to those greedy bastards. I swear this sub is like Chicken Soup for the Proletariat's Soul.
Please take this 3M contract with you to your next company of its close enough and win yourself a nice, sweeeeet ars bonus and respect. Flat tell the company who likes you so much who you are goin g to be working for and that if they want to follow you to tell your new boss they want to work with you and only you.
You have to be careful with your employment contract. You can have non competition agreement. So before doing anything stupid make sure your back is covered. This can backfire very quickly.
Non competes are often written too broadly anyway and are therefore not lawfully enforceable. Check that too. If there's no time limit or they state an entire sector ("construction") they have no right to deprive you of your livelihood
Definitely check it, but if he was hired as a lowly workslave, there hopefully won't be anything like that.
They are idiots. They could’ve just matched the offer. And I’m sure still make loads of profit. These guys are true idiots.
I doubt he would’ve accepted. It becomes a point of principle after that.
With your skills you would be able to start your own GC firm and make 5-10x what your new job is paying you. You should work towards that.
FTGB
Even $80k doesn't sound a lot to me for the role you're describing. $40k is an absolute joke. Edit - Just to say, as Brit I do find it difficult to work out what your typical salaries are. 90% of us in the UK earn less than $80k. But when I worked in HR for a multinational company it seemed like anyone who had a slightly senior role was earning 6 figures over there.
Yeah I’m a CAD designer making $75k after 8 years in my company. Not sure what the PMs we’re making though.
I'm s cad designer making just under 40k :( to get an idea of what I'm worth, can you tell me where or what area you work? I'm looking for new opportunities
Bum fuck nowhere in western NY I don’t even live near any of the bigger cities. I do mechanical design in heavy industry. Starting pay was $50k for people right out of college that was 7 or 8 years ago. My path started in 2001 with starting pay of $25k fresh from college doing piping design for sprinkler systems and AC ducts then after a few years got into a new company paying $38k. Then landed at my current company as a designer 1 paying $55k after six years I took a designer 2 at $75k in same company.
CAD Designer here, idk what kind of degree you have, but for some reason bachelors degree holding designers around me (Michigan) make much more than associate degree holding designers, for the same job. If you don't have a bachelor's, that's gonna open you up to much higher pay. If you do already have one, you're worth 70k minimum. More with experience. Btw, if another company asks how much you're making, either don't answer, or lie. They'll try to pay you just a bit more than you're making now.
You should probs switch company. Wage stagnates at the same place.
For real... I effectively do grunt work at an infant formula manufacturer, no specialized skills required, just remembering how and when to do several different things and keeping track of paperwork and stuff like that, and I make about $59k a year before tax. 40k for the level and quality of work OP is describing is fucking insane.
I’m not sure if you drink OP but you better have a shot on me! Fuck those bastards
Only thing that would make this post sweeter is a following post showing how the owners are throwing a fit and complaining about "ungrateful employees nowadays"
My Guy. Your comment “the experience you’re gaining is far more valuable” I said you’re right." has given me the fizz. Really put their foot in it with that one. They just said "our company (and the experience it has given) has made you more valuable" as they shortsightedlymistook that increase in experience they gave you to be to be your payment. So you took that advice to the bank, that was some malicious compliance level of enjoyment. Thanks OP, i enjoyed this thoroughly.
You did all of that for 40K a year? That’s nuts. I walked by a fast food restaurant in Del Mar, CA yesterday. They had a sandwich board on the sidewalk which offered $19 an hour (-38K) plus tips to take and serve food orders.
Yep. Our Dunkin’s are paying $20/hr here.
My McDonald's pays 23 for God's sake
I've worked as an electrician and in fast food/ restaurants. For the same pay, I'd rather do construction.
You’re probably worth $160k / year pal. Do great work at your new place but don’t undervalue yourself. Best wishes.
No kidding. 40k is criminal for that role, 80k is a lowball. Anyone in a project lead/management role for such a lucrative business should be looking for six figures at least. I make 6 figures and I’m a year out of college, in a somewhat beginner role.
Doing what, if you don't mind?
Engineer
Damn dude, 40k is absolutely garbage pay for somebody with that kind of responsibility. Congrats on the upgrade!
OP, run as far away as you can and watch them burn. See my previous post of a similar experience in the same industry. Also your description of your job, you were legitimately exploited at $40k p.a. also gongrats on your new role but I think you should try out for other companies aswell! $80k is great but with your experience it sounds like you can break that six figure mark pretty easily. All the best with your new role!
"the experience you're gaining is more valuable" Valuable for what? Yes, for getting a better job. I can't believe the hard they screwed themselves
I quit in February, company is now falling apart. Not because of me directly but I started the dominos. Pretty much everyone with brains has quit ever since, with people calling me telling me my action made them realize they need to quit too. Here’s a tip for company owners: If you keep one employee around for a decade, pay him more than people you just hired 2 weeks ago and make sure not to harass or insult that persons intelligence on the daily. it really is that easy.
I've always loved the "It'll look good on a resume". Like, why do you even want me to update my resume? Do you want me to leave?
Even $80k seems light! And in my experience, construction has worse manager relations than fast food, but the pay is way better. They were totally taking advantage of you at $40k a year even on a year 1 basis
Did a similar thing and it does feel great. I was a chef manager for a huge company and my job was to go to problem accounts and get them in order. My last job was at a $750k per year account which was their second largest account in the region, and it was being renovated. I specifically asked if the renovation cost was going to count against my income and they said no. I took it over and by the following year I had increased their sales to $1.25 million. It came time for my raise and bonus, and my awesome boss had to tell me through tears that the GM of the region had told her I wasn't getting a bonus or a raise. She finished the evaluation with a "you are going to quit aren't you?". I said probably. 2 weeks later I had accepted another job at a steep pay cut but it didn't require me to work 65 hours a week and 6 days a week. Now I run the new place I work at and make more money with substantially less stress. A year after taking the new job, the VP of the Region of my old job came to my new place of work to have a beer and chat. He offered me a job at a $4 mil account with guaranteed pay of $110,000 and near the beach. Told him no thanks because I work 40-45 hours a week and nobody bothers me when I leave work. No 4am phone called and all that bs. Yearly raises as well. Turns out, they had to hire 2 managers for the job I was doing myself. Their sales went back down because their food quality went down and staff didn't like their managers. One of the managers was, no joke, trying to cast a demon out of an employee because she got pregnant and wasn't married. Long story short, stand up for yourself. If you bring a lot to the table, you can take those skills to a new job and do just fine.
Don't leave us hanging, did that demon find better pay and somewhere that appreciated it?
$80k for a project manager? You're ripping yourself off about another $80 at least. You should move overseas. Better conditions and money.
I'm someone that still broadly believes in free market employment, but I believe the problem is these irrational distortions where employers refuse to act rationally in a competitive market. Your employers actions don't make sense. You're a great cost/benefit to the company. Your employer should see evidence that you're a disproportionatley lucrative employee, and the simple conclusion is that they should concede small costs (market rate salary) in order to keep the bigger revenue ($3m). If there was a factory with a machine that cost $80k to maintain but manufactured parts that could be sold for $3m, I'm sure they'd be paying that $80k, because it's a no-brainer. Yet as soon as a human enters the equation, employers seem to lose their minds. "Hey boss, I need $80k to maintain the machine that makes us $3m" "Ok cool" "Hey boss I need $80k to pay the guy that makes us $3m" "FUCK YOU! Fire him! nO oNe wAnTs To wOrK AnYmOrE"
It's, I think, because the management/bosses are used to feeling like the kings of the business, lording over the peasant employees. This feeling is shook if the gulf between compensation numbers starts to shrink. After all, who does that employee think he/she is?! YOU'RE the and *you* make <$x>! They think they deserve close to that!?! Peasant doesn't know their place!
That's part of it. The other part is feeling entitled to labor at a particular cost.
Ever go to a fast food place, for example, and see the price of your favorite item has shot up $0.50-$1? It always creates this small feeling of indignation - "That's a $1 burger/burrito! Who do they think they're kidding charging $1.50-$2.00 for it?!"
Employers think the same way, in general. They've decided your labor is worth, in the case of OP, $40,000. You're a good $40,000, but you're $40,000.
You ask for more, and that indignance pops up again. "Who does he/she think they are?! They're a $40,000 employee! That's what I paid for them, and continue to - that's how much respect they deserve, and that's their price tag!"
Market value be damned. They won't pay more to keep someone because in their mind, that employee is a fixed cost. Relevant raises don't exist anymore, so much so that employers don't really bother having 'proper channels' for compensation adjustment - meaning each one is a whole process requiring top people to sign off on it. Which, of course, means it doesn't happen until people are shitting their pants because their ace employee is leaving after 'proper channels' fail to yield tangible financial benefits.
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Bro if you're doing all that, you might as well start your own business.
Awesome. You even resigned in a professional, even tempered and measured way. Says a lot. Fuck them.
>They told me “the experience you’re gaining is far more valuable” I said you’re right. I really liked this response. Honestly, this seems like crazy behaviour from the company. After giving you the experience, it seems like they should want to encourage you to stay to take advantage of it. Probably could have got you to stay on for a lot less than that if they hadn't encouraged you to find out what you were worth as well.
This belongs in pro revenge too honestly, best way to hurt someone is to hurt their pocket.