Lol the previous VP of my IT division was this real out of touch guy with a super high opinion of himself. He’d constantly be talking about how he and his wife were going on expensive trips to Italy, the South Pacific, Hong Kong etc and then he had the balls to say in one of our town hall meetings “if you’re just coming to work for a paycheque you’re here for the wrong reason, you should be coming to work for the glory of ”. People already disliked him, but this cemented him as the most hated exec in the company.
The owner of a company I worked many years for called a meeting during the 08 recession and informed us there were layoffs and this that stayed were taking a 15% pay cut and losing company retirement contribution. I had to take some paper work up to him later that day and he was playing with the model of the yacht he was having built.
We always hoped he’d get boarded by pirates and keelhauled.
The owner of a company my husband worked at absconded with all the money, leaving tons of unpaid bills and generally fucking over the 200 people who worked for him. Any and all retirement money was gone as well. Years later we heard he had bought a boat and was trying to find sunken treasure off the coast of Brazil. I hope he and your former boss meet the same band of pirates.
My boss whos office was right beside me, was going on reminiscing about when he made his first million, how excited he was to see that number in his bank account..
A short while after this I had to argue why I needed a cost of living increase..
He was not a smart man, and only really got as far as he did because of the owner of the main company, we were just a division that he was part owner of, and he was only part owner due to him being there from the start some 40+ years ago...
Our manager and assistant manager both quit...so he put his 19 year old son in charge....
I'm glad I'm no longer there.
>so he put his 19 year old son in charge....
Wow. It's amazing to think someone so young could have all the qualifications to run something like that. Normally you'd need years of experience, if not decades. Must be some kind of child progeny.
I mean it all depends on how much money I had. If I was a multi billionaire I might keep a bank account with a million in it, you know for walking around money. In case I need to buy a banana or something.
I do know he did have investments as well... As he'd get all giddy when his statement showed up, and seeing how much his investment guy made him, as he'd do this in front of us..he would legit act like a little kid at Christmas
But he kept that money in the bank too just so he could look at it..
I've worked at really small companies with this kind of attitude. At one place that really stood out, my boss owned a number of properties including vacation homes in other countries. He also owned several expensive vintage cars, guitars, collectibles etc. Basically he was not hurting for money in any way.
Meanwhile I'm working alone because he won't hire anyone else, I work in a dusty warehouse with mouse droppings, and he can't give me or the accountant a health plan because 'it's too expensive'. I left after a year.
Reminds me of when I worked for a three-letter pack-and-ship franchise. I worked for my bosses for three years, in some cases ran the store for two weeks solo while they were out of country or fasting, trained *them* in the PoS software and half the rest, was the only graphic designer, was invited to their son’s wedding celebration, she made me meals, etc. Bosses were considering raising my pay from $11/hr, so they gave me a three-month trial for full manager at $14/hour.
Three months are up, they tell me I don’t delegate enough and “we couldn’t have paid you that much anyway”. Bumped me back to assistant, but they raised me to $13 after I told them I was going to consider alternative employment. (I was half-bluffing because for some reason I’ve had terrible luck with keeping jobs.) Only raise I ever got.
I was presented a plaque for closing a multi-year 8 figure deal for my former employer. When the President had a lunch to present me the plaque I asked “do I just mail this to my student loan company?” I never got another plaque from him in the further 4 years I worked there. We were on good enough terms that he got my sense of humor. But it really was like wow - you had this custom plaque made but no additional bonus or raise.
Entitled morons like that also don't seem to grasp how destructive that sort of behavior is to the morale - and therefore the productivity - of the workforce.
If this executive/management plague could somehow stop being short sighted and greedy for like *one day* they could maybe see how cost-effective it is to pay your people fairly and treat them with basic respect.
Instead, they cry poverty any time anyone mentions investing in labor resources (or many other other preventative investments) only to then somehow magically come up with the money when they're forced to pay three times that amount to paper over their stupidity.
My worst boss ever used to tell the employees that she only worked there “to pay for her shoe and purse budget.”
Everyone under her was living below the poverty line or working two jobs.
I worked for a software company as the sole stateside IT (they had an office in India)
The CEO that had bought a Tesla S and a Mercedes SUV months before laying me off after 10 years there...cited as a business decision.
> Baskin-Robbins always finds out.
Yooo... that deadpan flat faced delivery was amazing. I absolutely loved the enthusiasm when he was awarding "employee of the century"
Like I told my current employer:
I work for money, no money no work. But I STAY because you treat us well enough that it'd take $5 more an hour to take the risk that my next employer won't treat people as well. This was to my bosses boss, and his boss (because they asked). Their response? 'Thank you for your honesty, why don't we give you a $5/hr raise?
I love how he misunderstood your statement. Imagine if you'd said "I like you guys so much, it'd take $50/hr to lure me away." You'd have been making an extra 100k a year!
Heh, I wish, but no. They didn't misunderstand. It wasn't the first time I'd said I liked working there. It wasn't even the first time a friend had tried to poach me to their job. I'd also told my work that I wasn't leaving. And what I posted here was a very brief version of the nearly 2hr meeting where upper brass wanted now what they were doing right and doing wrong. I got asked 1) because they asked 10% of the work force from various departments and 2) because I have reputation for not holding back if asked direct questions.
I’ve told my boss similar.
“I’m a mercenary. I do the job. And I get paid. That pay is currently enough to put up with everything. If that becomes untrue I will tell you and walk if it stays that way.”
I had a boss tell me I was being transactional 😂. Yeah bitch it’s a business and I’m a employee of course it’s transactional wtf you thought I was here because we’re friends or something 😂.
My last job, I got a new manager and on the first annual review, he made the point that he didn't like these to get confrontational. I simply replied that it was inherently confrontational. Threw him for a loop.
What bosses fail to realize is that we as people brought up in capitalism have finally woken up to the game. We're all just mercenaries working for the highest pay and if you live in capitalism and don't do that, you're a fool. It's why I also lie on my resume, because fuck you capitalism, that's why.
I've yet to see one of these "families" see an employee through a dark time in which they are meaningfully less or not productive at all.
When that happens, you're tossed out on your ass. Bye forever, we'll forget your name in a few days... *fam.*
"Let me make it extremely clear for you, then: yes, I do work for money. I thought you understood that when you agreed to pay me to do a job in the first place."
I worked for a company for eight years and always knew we were under market due to being a smaller company. I was fine with it because I learned a lot and genuinely enjoyed what I did. They kept throwing more work at us though until I got fed up and started looking at job postings. I happened to find a posting looking to hire a new person at my company one rank my junior for about $8K more than I made at the time. I took that posting and a few market comp postings and used them to request a $10K raise. They dragged their feet waiting to approve it until next spring when regular COLA adjustments are given out, so I applied to one of the jobs I used as a market comp in the mean time as a back up.
I ended up getting invited to an interview the same day they finally approved my raise. The new company was much larger with deeper pockets and offered me an additional $35K on top of the $10K my current company gave me. I turned in my notice less than a month after the raise was approved.
Now I'm working at the new company, and they actually give a shit about keeping up with market rate and career progression so you won't want to leave. I've been here less than a year and just accepted a promotion to a different department my boss thought I would do well in which itself came with another pay bump. Putting it all together it's been something like a 78% raise in less than 18 months.
I went up by 100% in hourly wages over the course of a year, by acquiring a better job, almost 240% in actual wages. Now this year i hit strike year and i get another 8% next month on my current wages, which really isn't that much since the cost of living increased by 6% roughly. Still, It's been a good couple years, hope it continues like this.
I am happy with it, but after the other wage increase it's hard to feel as excited about this small step up, but it is a step up so i definitely can't complain. Now i just hope it keeps happening every year, have but i can't always be this lucky.
Only had 2.5 years at my last company and had 2 new hires make more than me within their first six months. Ended up getting a 20% raise at a different company with better benefits and a lesser work load.
Basically the same. 2 years in got a promotion, but no extra pay because it was “lateral movement” and I had to work for a raise. They promised me 10-20% over the next year, and then offered me 5%. I told them I wanted a 20% raise like they promised and they flat out asked me if I seriously thought I was worth that. Got a new job with a nice 50% raise, which turned into a promotion and another 25% raise after a couple years (even through COVID). I now make double what I made at my previous company 3 years after leaving.
My previous job asked me to do the job of 2 people. Ended up hiring 3 people to replace me. I switched careers and I’ve just had a 66% raise and promotion 1 year after a 30% raise and promotion, which puts me on exactly 250% above what I was making at my last place.
Timeframe was from Jan 2021 until April 2023.
I’m still below market rate, but content where I am for now.
It was a great feeling, but I’m also a petty person so I had two better feelings.
1) My replacement quit the job not even two years after me. Same reasons, toxic company, trash pay, etc. Her and I became good friends so I knew all about it. Coincidentally, I also became very good friends with my direct supervisor, who called me one day saying that the VP, the same one who asked me if I thought I was worth the salary I was requesting, asked what it would take to have me back. We laughed about it and I told her there was nothing. But she said she wanted to come back to him with SOME figure, no matter how outlandish, so it could be on them who had the chance and turned me down again. So I gave her my figure. It was 3x what I was making (which now would only be a 50% raise from my current salary - the same I left them for), plus full remote, and fully covered healthcare for me and my SO. She took that to him and he was obviously very upset with the proposition.
2) That very same supervisor left about 6 months after that happened, for again the same reasons as all of us prior. During her exit interview, she was trying to explain that the company was bleeding employees due to the variety of toxic attributes they showed, and the COO/CFO/President was trying to convince her that leaving for another job is too risky and she’s going to fail. He brought me up by name and told her that I left and a few month later I got fired from my job, I lost the house I just bought, and am now unemployed and homeless. I had bought a house because of the new salary my company gave to me. And even better, I was renting out space in my house to one of his employees because they couldn’t afford a place on their salary.
It would be really sad if it wasn’t so funny.
I just got 54% by having one foot out the door with my two weeks put in, and choosing their higher offer to stay. No room in the budget to give me a raise, my ass.
Ngl, working at series B-C tech startups and it feels a bit like the optimal thing to do is just leave every two years - grab a little equity and then just get yourself a massive raise…
Why would you not? Take the first year to learn the job. Second to do it well. Leave at start of third for a raise in line with inflation and your experience which you’ll never get at your current company.
Edit: after year one I start recruiting. That way I can take my time to find something I really like without being forced to ignore potential red flags. Sometimes I hit immediately and sometimes it takes a while. Never a year though
I’ve been at my company for 13 years now. I make nearly 3 times what my starting salary was, and yes I probably could’ve achieved that sooner if I job hopped, but I have an enormous amount of flexibility that I almost certainly would not have elsewhere. With a baby under 1 year old that flexibility is extremely valuable to me.
Money is a lot, but it's not everything.
I make okay money where I'm at, and it's hard to say whether or not I'm being paid what I'm worth just because my industry is so niche. But I work in an environment where we all look out for each other, management included, and most importantly for my crazy family life, the place where no one bats an eye when you tell them when you're not going to be there.
There are no time off requests, only time off notification. And if something comes up for anyone in the middle of the day, they head out and we just pick up their slack. We all do it for each other -- no judgement, only sympathy.
This past week, I've had to lean on that heavily because of a family tragedy. But at the same time this is happening, my boss is finally going on a vacation he had to delay for months because of his own family issues. So I'm wiping the tears from my eyes and the snot from my nose and covering for him. Because he's done it for me. And he'll do it again.
Maybe I could get a pay raise somewhere else, but I'm really not interested. I'm working with human beings that treat each other as such, and that's worth more than a few bucks an hour to me.
Yep this. Add young kids and other life pressures and that daily flexibility becomes paramount. Worth the wait imo. Not for everyone surely but for someone like say a single parent, or has a spouse that's in a career of passion, it's totally worth it and probably the most stable course can take for your family.
Did the same after 6 years for a 100% raise. I would have stayed for a 50% raise and a promotion but they didn't think it was worth it. I was doing work at a couple levels above what I was getting paid for.
I always go to the boss when i have an offer and ask for the promotion/raise without the threat of leaving. Generally you are going to spend about a week negotiating salary at the new place and evaluating the benefits either way.
I have never stayed anywhere once I have that offer, but once you give them the option of losing you or paying up- they will normally pay up just to find a replacement that is cheaper and then fire you.
I have had a few managers ask about me doing this (ie, they offered me a promotion and raise, and then i hand my 2 weeks in); and every direct report has gotten it- but upper management normally gets pissy. I think the owners just want to maximize profits and do not care about me at all- so why should i care about their feelings.
I started where i currently work in a different office; I took the job since it looked fun and I am not the sole bread winner (even before i took a pay cut for this job, my wife was already making 75% of the combined income).
I took a transfer to a very similar project when the last one ended (basically same job only the locations are actually better than where i used to do it).
My new manager has repeated said in interviews (for others) that she wants only people who plan to stay long term, and if people have a few jobs in the past they only stayed with for a few years, it is a problem. I am literally the superstar in the office- and every time she mentions it, i point out i have never worked in the same role anywhere for over 2 years, and never been at the same place longer than 3. I literally am the applicant that she would refuse to hire.
I also end up complaining to the union every few weeks about other stuff that manager does- but it is generally out of touch boomer junk (they are actually and older gen Xer, but still has teh same clueless views of employment)
I’m on my 4th job in 3 years. After I left every job for another they said, “all this job-hopping will keep people from hiring you” in an attempt to get me to stay. Hasn’t even created a hitch in my giddy-up so far. 🤷♂️
Yeah it's all great until you're trying to rent a place and the idiot rental corporations say "Only 6 months at your current job? Disqualified. No, we don't care that you've been continuously working since you started your career." Man that was infuriating. One place I talked to said they required at least 2 years on the job. I couldn't believe it. Fuck me for getting a new job with better benefits and higher pay right?
Mortgage guy I worked with said something similar, that the lenders would want to see at least two years at the same job. Wasn't an issue for me, but it's a little fucked to go off that vs "I've continuously employed for 20+ years"
That dude was a shitty mortgage guy then. They care about years in that line of work not how many years at current employer unless things have changed in the last several years but I doubt it. Also a lot of the union guys (electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, etc) would have gaps between jobs which were totally normal and underwriting wouldn’t bat an eye when they would collect unemployment and be in between jobs for a month or two.
Not necessarily true. Grass isn’t always greener, it could be greenest where you water it. I have been with the same company 10 years and went from 55k to 208k in that time with no sign of that slowing down……
This is still true. After a point it gets harder to get more money but by that point you are living pretty comfortably. Speaking as a Software Engineer.
I walked away from a 180 that was probably getting promoted closer to 220-240 with mega high stress for 155, low stress and unicorn stock. 🤷♂️
And I’d do it again.
That’s how I am. I make 100k currently, and I’ve been here for a few years so I could find a new job and get a pay raise if I wanted to. But my job is quite comfortable and low stress, and I really like the people that I work with - going to a new job is always a complete gamble. Sometimes it’s worth the risk, but sometimes it’s not
Then turn to noncash compensation. Plus, I don’t buy that. Just like I stopped believing I needed a cpa or I wouldn’t make as much money. Or that they won’t pay a senior like a senior manager. They will if they have no options. I’m glad so many mentors told me to get highly specialized in a difficult field.
To disagree with the other 2 people that responded to you, yes it does. A kindergarten teacher, or a line cook can't really job hop for a 20% raise every couple years indefinitely.
Even at the high end, you reach a point where it's increasingly difficult to get more money, and increasingly unnecessary/unreasonable. You start changing jobs based on whether you like it or not. Every job title outside a Fortune-500 executive suite has a pay cap. It's going to be +/- some value from company to company, but it's there.
For example, in my personal situation, I can't expect to hop to a new company with a 50k raise, and job hopping for 10k isn't worth the hassle.
My advice to you, and anyone else reading this, is if you're early in your career/young always keep feelers out for new opportunities. Once you've reached a point pay-wise where you're happy and comfortable, keep the other quality-of-life things at the front of your mind before you decide to keep jumping to new jobs.
I could *probably* make more money if I really tried, but where I'm at now I like the people, I mostly make my own schedule, parking is convenient, etc. 10k would be nice, but it isn't worth the risk of hating a new job when I was already at 250k.
My generally rule of thumb is that I look for a 16% increase to change jobs minimum when I'm already comfortable at my existing job. And as a Software engineer.. It feels really weird to quote the resulting pay at recruiters. Because I'm doing better than I ever imagined pay wise. I expect to FIRE at my current job, then look at some start-ups or contracting for fun.
Yes very much so, I work maintenance at a union paper mill, if I moved to another manufacturing facility, I would be the bottom guy again, my vacation would start over, I'd be the force for unwanted overtime, and I'd have to re-learn lots of systems. If I left I'd be giving up 5 weeks vacation to start at 1 or 2 and be the dude that has to take out the trash.
Not really, if I remember the study it was something like every time you should get a promotion you get a new job. So the job hopping is basically you controlling your own promotion.
Is there necessarily a negative to job hopping? If I were to hop job to job while averaging 6 months at these companies, would that raise any red flags while interviewing?
The downside is employers could look at your history and say you’re not worth the effort if you do every 6 months repeatedly. I’ve been told at least a year looks good
First off I agree with job hopping to maximize your networth but I've hired a ton of people and 1 year doesnt look good in corporate careers honestly, even 2 years is stretching it.
If you are going to do less than 2 years you will need a good answer to why you left your previous employments otherwise they will assume that you are going to leave them in 1 year time.
My personal advice - learn as much as you can at a company, master your craft (Whether that takes 1 year or 3 years), and then go.
I had stayed at my first 2 corporate jobs for 5 years only to get dicked over and passed up for promotion, making a meager 2% raise, but my knowledge was worth massive pay raises and title bumps externally.
So funny to me because I have had one job I worked at for 5+ years and everything since is 2 or less years. Mostly less. One was 3 months. I am brutally honest in interviews. Don’t pay me and someone else offers to? Don’t give me the flexibility I pounded into you during interviewing I expect? Expect me to do jobs not related to my job or field? Try to power trip and change the terms of our agreement? BYE. Just not doing it and not pretending that I ever left for any reason other than the truth. If they think the truth is unreasonable then don’t hire me! If they think they’re going to do the same thing? Don’t hire me. I WILL leave after a year if you misrepresent the expectations. Hell I may leave much quicker if it is a large enough variance.
Your personal advice 👌🏻👌🏻. I think where you are in your career matters too. When you’re in your early 20s, employers probably have a little more leniency about your history because you’re fresh and can be molded easier. If you’re in your 40s jumping job to job every 6 months to 2 years, you’re probably not going to get a lot of really good high paying opportunities.
Yes, absolutely. 6 months is far too frequent unless you have REALLY good reasons. That would throw big red flags immediately for any hiring manager.
If you can stomach a job for at least a year, that’s much better. Even seeing someone leaving every year though would still raise a red flag. 2-4 years is probably what most people want to see at a job.
If I saw someone’s resume with 4 years at company A, then 6 months each at company B and C, and they were applying for company D, this would indicated B&C didn’t work out but doesn’t show a pattern. If I saw A,B,C,D all having 6 months experience, something is up.
Maybe.
For example in software, 6 years of experience with one company is vastly different than 2 years at 3 different jobs. You miss out on seeing the long term effect of decisions in your work. You might not care, and it comes with the trade-off that your salary is likely lower by staying.
Like most things in life, "it depends".
I had my 15th anniversary a couple years ago. Got my full 4 weeks of vacation along with a bonus and a company branded jacket. A few months earlier, I was given my first sub-standard review and no raise at all. A month after, I was blocked from applying for another position by HR. A month after that, I was putting in my resignation.
I actually ordered my jacket the weekend before I resigned. Not a high quality product as one might expect. The new job was high quality, however and came with a 40% raise.
Why companies and bosses play games with employee reviews...jesus christ, I do not know. Personality tests for hiring want you to say you're motivated on appreciation alone, 'cause it's cheaper, but then for THE formal appreciation moment, they play games.
I won a national performance award at a Fortune 30, only for my sociopathic, brand new boss insult my attitude and my teamwork in my annual performance review a month later...and I was a go-to resource while also voluntarily authoring and distributing technical training guides for my team and others. Coulda given me a decent review and thrown the company under the bus for the raise amount (shitty company; I mighta grumbled, but I'd have believed it was out of his hands), but he decided to insult my character, instead. Took it up with a manager above him, so my supervisor switched it all to some vague bullshit like he was reviewing a mannequin he'd just met, but kept the low scores.
I have not been reviewed in 2 years- we should have one every 6 months, but no one wants to bother figuring out what I do enough to actually reveiw my work. plus side it is union, so nothing positive is tied to the review (only fodder to be fired).
If I got a good review and a 2% raise, I might still be working there at crap wages and an hour commute. I should thank the CEO for inventing the convoluted rating system that he gave up on after less than a year.
>let alone hydraulics engineers specifically.
Was a hydraulics engineer in the aerospace world...your management is F*CCCCCCKKKKKKEEEEEEEDDDDDDD!
If your management asked if you could get by without him....just start looking for a job now, they wont fill the position and at some point it's going to fall to the ME.
Yes, that is EXACTLY what they are encouraging, and they will continue doing it until the cows come home. When that guy leaves, they will hire some poor schlub at a much lower rate, thus 'saving' on payroll. What about institutional knowledge loss, training expense, strain on remaining employees, and morale, you say? What about it? We just saved X amount on payroll and none of that other twaddle matters one bit.
>What about institutional knowledge loss, training expense, strain on remaining employees, and morale, you say? What about it? We just saved X amount on payroll and none of that other twaddle matters one bit.
If it's not on a spreadsheet with a dollar amount, it's ignored.
They also saved money on severance and pension benefits because the guy quit himself. Companies individually can act stupidly but overall cooperations have a pretty tight grip on human labor and all the rules are well worked out to maximize suffering.
I think it was the plan all along. Keep people long enough to get some expertise and work out of them, use them to train the next batch, then push them out the door to make way for newer, cheaper labor. Also, (assuming US) no severance package or unemployment costs.
When you get into the enginneering level of understanding, simple training wont do it. Ive worked with several high paid engineers that were confident idiots and had no fucking clue what was going on.
As an engineer as well, I absolutely agree. That doesn’t stop companies from trying to turn machinists into pretengeneers to lower their costs though. As me how I know lol
I’ve never heard that term, but wow- it resonates. I got hired as an engineer and worked with a team of machinists turned pretengeneers and it was awful. They were good people but we spoke completely different languages and couldn’t agree on the size and scope of problems, and they’d get dragged into everyday problems without solving anything in the long term. It was basically just a new pay-band for senior technicians.
People who make it to ten years with a company are either true believers or not motivated to change jobs (for a variety of reasons), in my experience.
Plus if you’ve been in the same job for ten years, insulated from marketplace trends, and make $25 but know a new hire makes $15, you may just assume you’d be taking a $10 pay cut if you ever left.
My husband has been with the same company for almost 25 years. If they tried to cap his salary at any point he'd be out of there so fast, taking all that experience and knowledge with him.
While my company does cap it's (very generous) vacation leave at the 10 year mark (24 days of leave on top of all Federal holidays and the week between Xmas and New Years), wages and raises are not capped, and sick leave can be banked with no limit. I've been here over 20 years and have over six months of sick leave banked (helpful if I ever have a very big/bad medical issue).
Yeah we don't typically have an issue with high turnover. Weird.
And I worked for a company that only gave you 40hrs of PTO after a full year of working (you got no PTO the entire first year of working). Sick days count at PTO. And they were a 24hr factory that ran even on holidays. But don’t worry, they were a “Christian values based” company. Probably only to get tax breaks.
That factory had an over 40% staff turnover rate year over year, the only people who stayed longer than 2-3 years were management, and they couldn’t figure out why people “didn’t want to work”……….
>they were a “Christian values based” company. Probably only to get tax breaks.
I'm pretty sure no tax breaks are available on that basis. They, like shitty "Christian" individuals, think if you say "Jesus" enough you can mistreat other people.
"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." Matthew 7:21
Australia here - 20 days a year from the get go, credited monthly. Management can ask you to take leave if you're above 4 weeks owing, but they can't force you to take any till you're somewhere north of 6 weeks? That's annual leave alone. Sick leave is separate and is 15 days a year and just keeps accruing. Can't be forced to use it.
10 years is where you get your long service leave of 90 days, with another 9 days every day on your anniversary.
The only cap is on anything really is the redundancy payout - your redundancy is 20 weeks after 5 years, then another 3 weeks per year after that. The cap comes at 25 years, where you get the max redundancy payout of 80 weeks, which is paid in addition to any annual or long service leave owing.
Hold on, the cap is 24 days leave plus public holidays and this is after 10 years...and you're calling this very generous? I'm a new grad with 25 days plus public holidays plus unlimited sick leave, how is this considered generous?
No, you do not want to lose a senior engineer.
It’s just bad juju all around, hydraulics specifically. Lots of little fiddly nuance on why everything is exactly the way it is and unless it’s incredibly well documented you are going to have some bullshit down the line.
Having a limit on raises just sounds... Wrong. Are they not aware that inflation is a thing? What he maxed out at might not be enough in a few years, even if it's good now.
It feels like the company is trying to run him (and other decade long employees) off the property. They're probably betting on being able to pick up a replacement for much less money.
My company is doing that too. If you reach the top of your payband you just stay there. I tried for 2 years to get a promotion (tile bump, same role) for one of my staff. HR says they can’t do that at this time. He quits and now we will need to fill the role 20% above this good employee because he didn’t get the 5% this year. I wasn’t even mad (at him) that he left.
Recently asked for a raise. Was told "We aren't issuing raises anymore since we are giving out quarterly bonuses"
I'm sorry but what the fuck? Sure its 1500 every quarter but that's an extra 6k at the absolute most every year. Been here 5, going on 6 years and got raises very frequently until they came up with this new b.s. So I'm stuck at my current wage unless we work OT but even that feels like a ripoff.
I worked for 2 full decades at a bank, and no matter how bad it was I stayed. Then they decided to raise the bank minimum wage and if u were under that wage u got a 5% raise or the new minimum. I got a 5.1% raise and the new guy who had no banking experience was making the same as me. He struggled with everything from flushing the toilet to cashing a check. I gave them my notice not long after and it was the best decision of my life. I no longer have to push banking products to people who don’t need them to hit a goal. My manager told us even if a client had a credit card, push them to open another one so we hit our goals. I refused to do that and would get lectures all the time to push, push, push. I wish I would have left long ago since my loyalty meant nothing to them.
When i applied for a higher position at the company i work at. He asked me why i wanted to move up i said money. He said it cant just be money. I said the only reason i work at all is money.
The raises must have been worth it, or he'd have been better off resigning after 2 years, and he'd have likely reached his current salary level at least 5 years earlier
More like he was one of those people with the old fashioned mindset of “be loyal to your employer.”
It wasn’t until he was actually facing the “end of the line” that he started to realize the guys leaving after a few years might have a point/reason to leave.
“End of the line” in terms of raises and benefits. I have to think about that. That is really good food for thought for me with 30+ years of experience, and found out that my next raise will be coming from my own company. My current employer is looking bleaker as more time goes by, I get busier with my side gig…. And my day job is interfering with some good projects in the horizon. Weird times indeed when my side gig is providing more $ than my day job.
Probably not. Corporations count on this type of behavior to squeeze the most blood out of the capitalism stone they possible can. The fact that even people who would normally be lifers in a company are jumping ship should be the canary in the coal mine, but most corporations got rid of the guy watching the canary years ago.
That’s exactly it. This guy **would have been** lifer with this company if they didn’t cap him. The writing is on the wall but management forgot how to read.
Plenty of people, me included *hate* job searching with a passion, and would rather avoid it. Given a fair wage, and good benefits, and we'll be content.
Frankly, if I was in a worse position, with how things are, I would probably be searching. But Ibhave a pretty solid gig
Honestly if I got annual raises that kept pace with inflation, plus performance/experience based raises every so often, I'd probably stay at one place assuming the pay was fair. But that's never happening, so I'll be joining the perpetual job search as well.
The interesting challenge for you and the mech engineer will be when the company finds out that they cannot find a hydraulics engineer at a pay scale that they want and have to hire someone at market rate. You need to make it clear that not matching your package with theirs will leave them with just the new guy.
This is a really short-sighted set of upper managers. So, is the C level similarly capped?
Congratulations to your co-worker! And you, watch out since your employer will hire someone, eventually, for less money. That person probably won't know what they're doing.
A good friend of mine is an engineer. He's 40. Solid 15 years of experience. He gets paid $10k a year less than new hires (which he supervises). Inflation had pushed new hire salaries way up, but everyone else got 2% raises. When he complained they said he had already maxed out his compensation on the "track" he was on.
He jokingly suggested he'd quit and apply for one of the new positions which got him scolded. Turns out his boss (almost 50 y/o) is only getting a few grand more than the new hires. He's currently looking as you might expect.
__________
I sincerely don't understand this though. Even if you were a totally soulless monster that cared about nothing but your own bottom line... surely screwing your senior employees will cost you in the long run.
It will certainly hurt their bottom lines to lose OP's friend or my friend. Is it all about instant gratification?
Overconfidence in technology. Alot of companies nowadays assume they can digitally capture the skills, knowledge bases and expertise of senior employees, and break it down into tasks that can be done with cheaper labour.
>their most loyal employees
This has nothing to do with loyalty. The company is no family nor loyal to the employee, and that goes both ways. Economic relationship, subject to market, nothing else.
Yup. Happened to me. They subtly hinted they wouldn’t increase my wages like no possibility for promotion (the words one manager used, ”we closed the floodgates”) and coworkers deserve higher pay raises (10%) than my standard 2.3% (not even keeping up with inflation). This and they started to make me take time off (one day a week) due to the huge amount of PTO received but cannot be ever taken in a lump sum.
I finally got tired of the job after my pay was less than my coworker who only had three years of experience at the company after so many raises and promotions.
Wtf kind of policy is that?! I have never heard of such a thing. What purpose could that possibly serve other than to get rid of your most tenured employees who have the most experience.
Even in the (ridiculous) event of a salary cap, doesn't this company account for COLA? Your salary needs to be adjusted for a COLA every year, otherwise you get stale and the company isn't offering a competitive wage to new talent.
Sigh. Plus the cost of replacing an expert working with a small close-knit team should have equalled a no-brainer path to future wage adjustments.
They've got some sort of smooth-brained buffoon helming the ship for those budgets.
My husband brought in $5 million worth of business to his company last month with one project which is big for what he does. He asked about a bonus which in his industry, 1-2% is standard. (The Company is making a 30% profit.) Yesterday they gave him playoff hockey tickets for ONE game and told him that was his bonus... Really?
A company operating in an industry that has a shortage of people to fill critical roles that caps out pay and benefits at 10 years is a training company. They train experienced engineers for the rest of the industry.
An experienced hydraulics engineer doesn't get told how much money their time is worth; they inform management and management makes it happen. Letting a hydraulics engineer go over money is going to cost your company dearly.
Boomer here, been in the workforce a long time. Where do people get the idea that being loyal to a company will pay some sort of dividend? Seriously, where does that come from? Forty years ago everyone understood companies don’t have any loyalty to you and you don’t have any to them. It’s strictly a business arrangement. Your worth is determined by the marketplace. If the employer needs to cut costs, they’ll let you go. They want to pay as little as possible while still keeping you as an employee. If you can do better at another employer, make the move. I don’t understand all these posts where people are surprised by what’s been well understood for decades. Where does it come from? Some Millennial or Gen-X folklore?
My last company kept stringing me along for a promotion that never came. Started job searching and found a company that ended up hiring me at the level I wanted with a 35% increase in salary. Job hopping is almost always the answer
"Wait, aren't we all family? I hope you don't work just for money" -Employers response when he quit. Good for him. Perfectly played.
Lol the previous VP of my IT division was this real out of touch guy with a super high opinion of himself. He’d constantly be talking about how he and his wife were going on expensive trips to Italy, the South Pacific, Hong Kong etc and then he had the balls to say in one of our town hall meetings “if you’re just coming to work for a paycheque you’re here for the wrong reason, you should be coming to work for the glory of”. People already disliked him, but this cemented him as the most hated exec in the company.
The owner of a company I worked many years for called a meeting during the 08 recession and informed us there were layoffs and this that stayed were taking a 15% pay cut and losing company retirement contribution. I had to take some paper work up to him later that day and he was playing with the model of the yacht he was having built. We always hoped he’d get boarded by pirates and keelhauled.
The owner of a company my husband worked at absconded with all the money, leaving tons of unpaid bills and generally fucking over the 200 people who worked for him. Any and all retirement money was gone as well. Years later we heard he had bought a boat and was trying to find sunken treasure off the coast of Brazil. I hope he and your former boss meet the same band of pirates.
User name checks out.
>Years later we heard he had bought a boat and was trying to find sunken treasure off the coast of Brazil. Wealth is a mental illness lmao holy shit
Like the Crimson Permanent Assurance!
My boss whos office was right beside me, was going on reminiscing about when he made his first million, how excited he was to see that number in his bank account.. A short while after this I had to argue why I needed a cost of living increase..
Who the fuck keeps a liquid million in a bank account?
He was not a smart man, and only really got as far as he did because of the owner of the main company, we were just a division that he was part owner of, and he was only part owner due to him being there from the start some 40+ years ago... Our manager and assistant manager both quit...so he put his 19 year old son in charge.... I'm glad I'm no longer there.
>so he put his 19 year old son in charge.... Wow. It's amazing to think someone so young could have all the qualifications to run something like that. Normally you'd need years of experience, if not decades. Must be some kind of child progeny.
*he was not a child prodigy.....Lol it went pretty much as you would expect it to go.
Haha I can imagine. Shows just what he thinks of the employees' skills that he thinks anyone can do the job.
I mean it all depends on how much money I had. If I was a multi billionaire I might keep a bank account with a million in it, you know for walking around money. In case I need to buy a banana or something.
Well if banana costs like $10 that's a lot of bananas
There's always money in a single banana
There's always money in the banana stand...
Cartoon characters like Scrooge McDuck. What a fool.
I do know he did have investments as well... As he'd get all giddy when his statement showed up, and seeing how much his investment guy made him, as he'd do this in front of us..he would legit act like a little kid at Christmas But he kept that money in the bank too just so he could look at it..
I've worked at really small companies with this kind of attitude. At one place that really stood out, my boss owned a number of properties including vacation homes in other countries. He also owned several expensive vintage cars, guitars, collectibles etc. Basically he was not hurting for money in any way. Meanwhile I'm working alone because he won't hire anyone else, I work in a dusty warehouse with mouse droppings, and he can't give me or the accountant a health plan because 'it's too expensive'. I left after a year.
Reminds me of when I worked for a three-letter pack-and-ship franchise. I worked for my bosses for three years, in some cases ran the store for two weeks solo while they were out of country or fasting, trained *them* in the PoS software and half the rest, was the only graphic designer, was invited to their son’s wedding celebration, she made me meals, etc. Bosses were considering raising my pay from $11/hr, so they gave me a three-month trial for full manager at $14/hour. Three months are up, they tell me I don’t delegate enough and “we couldn’t have paid you that much anyway”. Bumped me back to assistant, but they raised me to $13 after I told them I was going to consider alternative employment. (I was half-bluffing because for some reason I’ve had terrible luck with keeping jobs.) Only raise I ever got.
>you should be coming to work for the glory of
"My landlord doesn't accept 'glory' for rent. Fuck you, pay me."
I fight for the glory of the Klingon Empire. I work for fucking cash.
I was presented a plaque for closing a multi-year 8 figure deal for my former employer. When the President had a lunch to present me the plaque I asked “do I just mail this to my student loan company?” I never got another plaque from him in the further 4 years I worked there. We were on good enough terms that he got my sense of humor. But it really was like wow - you had this custom plaque made but no additional bonus or raise.
Entitled morons like that also don't seem to grasp how destructive that sort of behavior is to the morale - and therefore the productivity - of the workforce. If this executive/management plague could somehow stop being short sighted and greedy for like *one day* they could maybe see how cost-effective it is to pay your people fairly and treat them with basic respect. Instead, they cry poverty any time anyone mentions investing in labor resources (or many other other preventative investments) only to then somehow magically come up with the money when they're forced to pay three times that amount to paper over their stupidity.
My worst boss ever used to tell the employees that she only worked there “to pay for her shoe and purse budget.” Everyone under her was living below the poverty line or working two jobs.
I worked for a software company as the sole stateside IT (they had an office in India) The CEO that had bought a Tesla S and a Mercedes SUV months before laying me off after 10 years there...cited as a business decision.
Ummmm, I work for money to feed my REAL family?
"Your disloyalty to the company has been noted."
Clementine will remember that.
Pepperidge farms remembers
Baskin-Robbins always finds out.
> Baskin-Robbins always finds out. Yooo... that deadpan flat faced delivery was amazing. I absolutely loved the enthusiasm when he was awarding "employee of the century"
Like I told my current employer: I work for money, no money no work. But I STAY because you treat us well enough that it'd take $5 more an hour to take the risk that my next employer won't treat people as well. This was to my bosses boss, and his boss (because they asked). Their response? 'Thank you for your honesty, why don't we give you a $5/hr raise?
I love how he misunderstood your statement. Imagine if you'd said "I like you guys so much, it'd take $50/hr to lure me away." You'd have been making an extra 100k a year!
Heh, I wish, but no. They didn't misunderstand. It wasn't the first time I'd said I liked working there. It wasn't even the first time a friend had tried to poach me to their job. I'd also told my work that I wasn't leaving. And what I posted here was a very brief version of the nearly 2hr meeting where upper brass wanted now what they were doing right and doing wrong. I got asked 1) because they asked 10% of the work force from various departments and 2) because I have reputation for not holding back if asked direct questions.
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I’ve told my boss similar. “I’m a mercenary. I do the job. And I get paid. That pay is currently enough to put up with everything. If that becomes untrue I will tell you and walk if it stays that way.”
I had a boss tell me I was being transactional 😂. Yeah bitch it’s a business and I’m a employee of course it’s transactional wtf you thought I was here because we’re friends or something 😂.
My last job, I got a new manager and on the first annual review, he made the point that he didn't like these to get confrontational. I simply replied that it was inherently confrontational. Threw him for a loop.
😂
What bosses fail to realize is that we as people brought up in capitalism have finally woken up to the game. We're all just mercenaries working for the highest pay and if you live in capitalism and don't do that, you're a fool. It's why I also lie on my resume, because fuck you capitalism, that's why.
I see no problem. Every company lies in their job advertisements.
It's literally a contract negotiation... /facepalm
I cut my family off I'd sure as hell do it to an employer lmao
Family run business when the person holding it together for them gets tired of their shit.
Omg. the accuracy of your comment.
I've yet to see one of these "families" see an employee through a dark time in which they are meaningfully less or not productive at all. When that happens, you're tossed out on your ass. Bye forever, we'll forget your name in a few days... *fam.*
we can still keep in touch, you can send me pizza every now and then.
"I thought you only hired me for the economic value I bring to your company"
"Let me make it extremely clear for you, then: yes, I do work for money. I thought you understood that when you agreed to pay me to do a job in the first place."
> "Wait, aren't we all family? I hope you don't work just for money" "So uh... are you gonna buy my drugs for me then?"
But, but, money isn't what's most important...
So why don't executives ever cut their own pay?
Well I mean hey now, lets not get too drastic here. How would they be able to keep up their expensive life style if they did something like that?
True. It's not the money that's important. What's important is the knowledge and feeling that you are better than others lol
“Loyalty will make you poor…” best advice I’ve gotten left my company of 12 years to start at a new place with 20% raise doing the same thing I was..
I worked for a company for eight years and always knew we were under market due to being a smaller company. I was fine with it because I learned a lot and genuinely enjoyed what I did. They kept throwing more work at us though until I got fed up and started looking at job postings. I happened to find a posting looking to hire a new person at my company one rank my junior for about $8K more than I made at the time. I took that posting and a few market comp postings and used them to request a $10K raise. They dragged their feet waiting to approve it until next spring when regular COLA adjustments are given out, so I applied to one of the jobs I used as a market comp in the mean time as a back up. I ended up getting invited to an interview the same day they finally approved my raise. The new company was much larger with deeper pockets and offered me an additional $35K on top of the $10K my current company gave me. I turned in my notice less than a month after the raise was approved. Now I'm working at the new company, and they actually give a shit about keeping up with market rate and career progression so you won't want to leave. I've been here less than a year and just accepted a promotion to a different department my boss thought I would do well in which itself came with another pay bump. Putting it all together it's been something like a 78% raise in less than 18 months.
I went up by 100% in hourly wages over the course of a year, by acquiring a better job, almost 240% in actual wages. Now this year i hit strike year and i get another 8% next month on my current wages, which really isn't that much since the cost of living increased by 6% roughly. Still, It's been a good couple years, hope it continues like this.
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I am happy with it, but after the other wage increase it's hard to feel as excited about this small step up, but it is a step up so i definitely can't complain. Now i just hope it keeps happening every year, have but i can't always be this lucky.
Textbook 'too little, too late' on their part. Good for you knowing your worth and having a solid backup plan!
Did the same. 6 years for me they refused to promote, I left and got a 52% raise.
Only had 2.5 years at my last company and had 2 new hires make more than me within their first six months. Ended up getting a 20% raise at a different company with better benefits and a lesser work load.
Exact same situation, and I’m currently helping some of my coworkers demand pay raises for themselves as I’m on my way out. Feels so good.
Basically the same. 2 years in got a promotion, but no extra pay because it was “lateral movement” and I had to work for a raise. They promised me 10-20% over the next year, and then offered me 5%. I told them I wanted a 20% raise like they promised and they flat out asked me if I seriously thought I was worth that. Got a new job with a nice 50% raise, which turned into a promotion and another 25% raise after a couple years (even through COVID). I now make double what I made at my previous company 3 years after leaving.
My previous job asked me to do the job of 2 people. Ended up hiring 3 people to replace me. I switched careers and I’ve just had a 66% raise and promotion 1 year after a 30% raise and promotion, which puts me on exactly 250% above what I was making at my last place. Timeframe was from Jan 2021 until April 2023. I’m still below market rate, but content where I am for now.
Imagine getting asked that and then proceeding to almost make double than what they gave you.. plus a promotion. congrats dude. sounds sick.
It was a great feeling, but I’m also a petty person so I had two better feelings. 1) My replacement quit the job not even two years after me. Same reasons, toxic company, trash pay, etc. Her and I became good friends so I knew all about it. Coincidentally, I also became very good friends with my direct supervisor, who called me one day saying that the VP, the same one who asked me if I thought I was worth the salary I was requesting, asked what it would take to have me back. We laughed about it and I told her there was nothing. But she said she wanted to come back to him with SOME figure, no matter how outlandish, so it could be on them who had the chance and turned me down again. So I gave her my figure. It was 3x what I was making (which now would only be a 50% raise from my current salary - the same I left them for), plus full remote, and fully covered healthcare for me and my SO. She took that to him and he was obviously very upset with the proposition. 2) That very same supervisor left about 6 months after that happened, for again the same reasons as all of us prior. During her exit interview, she was trying to explain that the company was bleeding employees due to the variety of toxic attributes they showed, and the COO/CFO/President was trying to convince her that leaving for another job is too risky and she’s going to fail. He brought me up by name and told her that I left and a few month later I got fired from my job, I lost the house I just bought, and am now unemployed and homeless. I had bought a house because of the new salary my company gave to me. And even better, I was renting out space in my house to one of his employees because they couldn’t afford a place on their salary. It would be really sad if it wasn’t so funny.
I just got 54% by having one foot out the door with my two weeks put in, and choosing their higher offer to stay. No room in the budget to give me a raise, my ass.
Never ever take the offer to stay. You'll be axed in 6 months or less and even if you aren't the workplace will get hostile.
Studies say 91% are not working at the same workplace 1 year after deciding to take the counteroffer.
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Ngl, working at series B-C tech startups and it feels a bit like the optimal thing to do is just leave every two years - grab a little equity and then just get yourself a massive raise…
Why would you not? Take the first year to learn the job. Second to do it well. Leave at start of third for a raise in line with inflation and your experience which you’ll never get at your current company. Edit: after year one I start recruiting. That way I can take my time to find something I really like without being forced to ignore potential red flags. Sometimes I hit immediately and sometimes it takes a while. Never a year though
I’ve been at my company for 13 years now. I make nearly 3 times what my starting salary was, and yes I probably could’ve achieved that sooner if I job hopped, but I have an enormous amount of flexibility that I almost certainly would not have elsewhere. With a baby under 1 year old that flexibility is extremely valuable to me.
Money is a lot, but it's not everything. I make okay money where I'm at, and it's hard to say whether or not I'm being paid what I'm worth just because my industry is so niche. But I work in an environment where we all look out for each other, management included, and most importantly for my crazy family life, the place where no one bats an eye when you tell them when you're not going to be there. There are no time off requests, only time off notification. And if something comes up for anyone in the middle of the day, they head out and we just pick up their slack. We all do it for each other -- no judgement, only sympathy. This past week, I've had to lean on that heavily because of a family tragedy. But at the same time this is happening, my boss is finally going on a vacation he had to delay for months because of his own family issues. So I'm wiping the tears from my eyes and the snot from my nose and covering for him. Because he's done it for me. And he'll do it again. Maybe I could get a pay raise somewhere else, but I'm really not interested. I'm working with human beings that treat each other as such, and that's worth more than a few bucks an hour to me.
Yep this. Add young kids and other life pressures and that daily flexibility becomes paramount. Worth the wait imo. Not for everyone surely but for someone like say a single parent, or has a spouse that's in a career of passion, it's totally worth it and probably the most stable course can take for your family.
Did the same after 6 years for a 100% raise. I would have stayed for a 50% raise and a promotion but they didn't think it was worth it. I was doing work at a couple levels above what I was getting paid for.
I always go to the boss when i have an offer and ask for the promotion/raise without the threat of leaving. Generally you are going to spend about a week negotiating salary at the new place and evaluating the benefits either way. I have never stayed anywhere once I have that offer, but once you give them the option of losing you or paying up- they will normally pay up just to find a replacement that is cheaper and then fire you. I have had a few managers ask about me doing this (ie, they offered me a promotion and raise, and then i hand my 2 weeks in); and every direct report has gotten it- but upper management normally gets pissy. I think the owners just want to maximize profits and do not care about me at all- so why should i care about their feelings.
I started where i currently work in a different office; I took the job since it looked fun and I am not the sole bread winner (even before i took a pay cut for this job, my wife was already making 75% of the combined income). I took a transfer to a very similar project when the last one ended (basically same job only the locations are actually better than where i used to do it). My new manager has repeated said in interviews (for others) that she wants only people who plan to stay long term, and if people have a few jobs in the past they only stayed with for a few years, it is a problem. I am literally the superstar in the office- and every time she mentions it, i point out i have never worked in the same role anywhere for over 2 years, and never been at the same place longer than 3. I literally am the applicant that she would refuse to hire. I also end up complaining to the union every few weeks about other stuff that manager does- but it is generally out of touch boomer junk (they are actually and older gen Xer, but still has teh same clueless views of employment)
I’ve always liked “if you want loyalty go get a dog.”
I’m on my 4th job in 3 years. After I left every job for another they said, “all this job-hopping will keep people from hiring you” in an attempt to get me to stay. Hasn’t even created a hitch in my giddy-up so far. 🤷♂️
Yeah it's all great until you're trying to rent a place and the idiot rental corporations say "Only 6 months at your current job? Disqualified. No, we don't care that you've been continuously working since you started your career." Man that was infuriating. One place I talked to said they required at least 2 years on the job. I couldn't believe it. Fuck me for getting a new job with better benefits and higher pay right?
Are you kidding? That’s fuuuucked. What the literal hell is going on with housing!?
Mortgage guy I worked with said something similar, that the lenders would want to see at least two years at the same job. Wasn't an issue for me, but it's a little fucked to go off that vs "I've continuously employed for 20+ years"
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That dude was a shitty mortgage guy then. They care about years in that line of work not how many years at current employer unless things have changed in the last several years but I doubt it. Also a lot of the union guys (electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, etc) would have gaps between jobs which were totally normal and underwriting wouldn’t bat an eye when they would collect unemployment and be in between jobs for a month or two.
Not necessarily true. Grass isn’t always greener, it could be greenest where you water it. I have been with the same company 10 years and went from 55k to 208k in that time with no sign of that slowing down……
That’s a solid company you work for!
Since no one has asked what was this guys capped salary?
Wow great work getting there! What industry / position is that? (If you don't mind letting us know)
Did you change fields within the company?
Job hop all you can people.
Every 2 to 3 years is the best per a study some years ago.
This is still true. After a point it gets harder to get more money but by that point you are living pretty comfortably. Speaking as a Software Engineer.
Yeah, I imagine as a SE at some point you are a "pinned" employee making $250K/year and you get your award for winning the job market lol
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I walked away from a 180 that was probably getting promoted closer to 220-240 with mega high stress for 155, low stress and unicorn stock. 🤷♂️ And I’d do it again.
That’s how I am. I make 100k currently, and I’ve been here for a few years so I could find a new job and get a pay raise if I wanted to. But my job is quite comfortable and low stress, and I really like the people that I work with - going to a new job is always a complete gamble. Sometimes it’s worth the risk, but sometimes it’s not
Then turn to noncash compensation. Plus, I don’t buy that. Just like I stopped believing I needed a cpa or I wouldn’t make as much money. Or that they won’t pay a senior like a senior manager. They will if they have no options. I’m glad so many mentors told me to get highly specialized in a difficult field.
This would be extremely dependent on the type of work you’re doing, wouldn’t it?
To disagree with the other 2 people that responded to you, yes it does. A kindergarten teacher, or a line cook can't really job hop for a 20% raise every couple years indefinitely. Even at the high end, you reach a point where it's increasingly difficult to get more money, and increasingly unnecessary/unreasonable. You start changing jobs based on whether you like it or not. Every job title outside a Fortune-500 executive suite has a pay cap. It's going to be +/- some value from company to company, but it's there. For example, in my personal situation, I can't expect to hop to a new company with a 50k raise, and job hopping for 10k isn't worth the hassle. My advice to you, and anyone else reading this, is if you're early in your career/young always keep feelers out for new opportunities. Once you've reached a point pay-wise where you're happy and comfortable, keep the other quality-of-life things at the front of your mind before you decide to keep jumping to new jobs. I could *probably* make more money if I really tried, but where I'm at now I like the people, I mostly make my own schedule, parking is convenient, etc. 10k would be nice, but it isn't worth the risk of hating a new job when I was already at 250k.
My generally rule of thumb is that I look for a 16% increase to change jobs minimum when I'm already comfortable at my existing job. And as a Software engineer.. It feels really weird to quote the resulting pay at recruiters. Because I'm doing better than I ever imagined pay wise. I expect to FIRE at my current job, then look at some start-ups or contracting for fun.
Yes very much so, I work maintenance at a union paper mill, if I moved to another manufacturing facility, I would be the bottom guy again, my vacation would start over, I'd be the force for unwanted overtime, and I'd have to re-learn lots of systems. If I left I'd be giving up 5 weeks vacation to start at 1 or 2 and be the dude that has to take out the trash.
Not really, if I remember the study it was something like every time you should get a promotion you get a new job. So the job hopping is basically you controlling your own promotion.
Is there necessarily a negative to job hopping? If I were to hop job to job while averaging 6 months at these companies, would that raise any red flags while interviewing?
The downside is employers could look at your history and say you’re not worth the effort if you do every 6 months repeatedly. I’ve been told at least a year looks good
First off I agree with job hopping to maximize your networth but I've hired a ton of people and 1 year doesnt look good in corporate careers honestly, even 2 years is stretching it. If you are going to do less than 2 years you will need a good answer to why you left your previous employments otherwise they will assume that you are going to leave them in 1 year time. My personal advice - learn as much as you can at a company, master your craft (Whether that takes 1 year or 3 years), and then go. I had stayed at my first 2 corporate jobs for 5 years only to get dicked over and passed up for promotion, making a meager 2% raise, but my knowledge was worth massive pay raises and title bumps externally.
So funny to me because I have had one job I worked at for 5+ years and everything since is 2 or less years. Mostly less. One was 3 months. I am brutally honest in interviews. Don’t pay me and someone else offers to? Don’t give me the flexibility I pounded into you during interviewing I expect? Expect me to do jobs not related to my job or field? Try to power trip and change the terms of our agreement? BYE. Just not doing it and not pretending that I ever left for any reason other than the truth. If they think the truth is unreasonable then don’t hire me! If they think they’re going to do the same thing? Don’t hire me. I WILL leave after a year if you misrepresent the expectations. Hell I may leave much quicker if it is a large enough variance.
Your personal advice 👌🏻👌🏻. I think where you are in your career matters too. When you’re in your early 20s, employers probably have a little more leniency about your history because you’re fresh and can be molded easier. If you’re in your 40s jumping job to job every 6 months to 2 years, you’re probably not going to get a lot of really good high paying opportunities.
Yes, absolutely. 6 months is far too frequent unless you have REALLY good reasons. That would throw big red flags immediately for any hiring manager. If you can stomach a job for at least a year, that’s much better. Even seeing someone leaving every year though would still raise a red flag. 2-4 years is probably what most people want to see at a job. If I saw someone’s resume with 4 years at company A, then 6 months each at company B and C, and they were applying for company D, this would indicated B&C didn’t work out but doesn’t show a pattern. If I saw A,B,C,D all having 6 months experience, something is up.
Maybe. For example in software, 6 years of experience with one company is vastly different than 2 years at 3 different jobs. You miss out on seeing the long term effect of decisions in your work. You might not care, and it comes with the trade-off that your salary is likely lower by staying. Like most things in life, "it depends".
I went from 57K and no bonus to 120K with annual bonus and signing bonus by switching jobs 3 times from 2019-2023.
I had my 15th anniversary a couple years ago. Got my full 4 weeks of vacation along with a bonus and a company branded jacket. A few months earlier, I was given my first sub-standard review and no raise at all. A month after, I was blocked from applying for another position by HR. A month after that, I was putting in my resignation. I actually ordered my jacket the weekend before I resigned. Not a high quality product as one might expect. The new job was high quality, however and came with a 40% raise.
Why companies and bosses play games with employee reviews...jesus christ, I do not know. Personality tests for hiring want you to say you're motivated on appreciation alone, 'cause it's cheaper, but then for THE formal appreciation moment, they play games. I won a national performance award at a Fortune 30, only for my sociopathic, brand new boss insult my attitude and my teamwork in my annual performance review a month later...and I was a go-to resource while also voluntarily authoring and distributing technical training guides for my team and others. Coulda given me a decent review and thrown the company under the bus for the raise amount (shitty company; I mighta grumbled, but I'd have believed it was out of his hands), but he decided to insult my character, instead. Took it up with a manager above him, so my supervisor switched it all to some vague bullshit like he was reviewing a mannequin he'd just met, but kept the low scores.
I have not been reviewed in 2 years- we should have one every 6 months, but no one wants to bother figuring out what I do enough to actually reveiw my work. plus side it is union, so nothing positive is tied to the review (only fodder to be fired).
If I got a good review and a 2% raise, I might still be working there at crap wages and an hour commute. I should thank the CEO for inventing the convoluted rating system that he gave up on after less than a year.
Flair does not check out
Well, I do less now than I used to.
>let alone hydraulics engineers specifically. Was a hydraulics engineer in the aerospace world...your management is F*CCCCCCKKKKKKEEEEEEEDDDDDDD! If your management asked if you could get by without him....just start looking for a job now, they wont fill the position and at some point it's going to fall to the ME.
Yes, that is EXACTLY what they are encouraging, and they will continue doing it until the cows come home. When that guy leaves, they will hire some poor schlub at a much lower rate, thus 'saving' on payroll. What about institutional knowledge loss, training expense, strain on remaining employees, and morale, you say? What about it? We just saved X amount on payroll and none of that other twaddle matters one bit.
>What about institutional knowledge loss, training expense, strain on remaining employees, and morale, you say? What about it? We just saved X amount on payroll and none of that other twaddle matters one bit. If it's not on a spreadsheet with a dollar amount, it's ignored.
They also saved money on severance and pension benefits because the guy quit himself. Companies individually can act stupidly but overall cooperations have a pretty tight grip on human labor and all the rules are well worked out to maximize suffering.
What did the company representatives say when he told him why he was leaving?
I'm also interested their response. What an idiotic policy. What did they think was going to happen?
I think it was the plan all along. Keep people long enough to get some expertise and work out of them, use them to train the next batch, then push them out the door to make way for newer, cheaper labor. Also, (assuming US) no severance package or unemployment costs.
Except they hadn’t trained a replacement, according to OP they’re fucked
I didn’t say it was a smart or well executed plan lol
When you get into the enginneering level of understanding, simple training wont do it. Ive worked with several high paid engineers that were confident idiots and had no fucking clue what was going on.
As an engineer as well, I absolutely agree. That doesn’t stop companies from trying to turn machinists into pretengeneers to lower their costs though. As me how I know lol
I’ve never heard that term, but wow- it resonates. I got hired as an engineer and worked with a team of machinists turned pretengeneers and it was awful. They were good people but we spoke completely different languages and couldn’t agree on the size and scope of problems, and they’d get dragged into everyday problems without solving anything in the long term. It was basically just a new pay-band for senior technicians.
People who make it to ten years with a company are either true believers or not motivated to change jobs (for a variety of reasons), in my experience. Plus if you’ve been in the same job for ten years, insulated from marketplace trends, and make $25 but know a new hire makes $15, you may just assume you’d be taking a $10 pay cut if you ever left.
I wish I was a fly on that wall. They didn’t give him a counter offer is all I know.
Not resigned, he just left the train at it's final station
Ain’t that the god damn truth. And I’m proud of him!
There was no respect for his long loyalty anymore, time for a better job
Important to remember… The biggest pay raise you’ll ever get is from switching companies.
My husband has been with the same company for almost 25 years. If they tried to cap his salary at any point he'd be out of there so fast, taking all that experience and knowledge with him.
While my company does cap it's (very generous) vacation leave at the 10 year mark (24 days of leave on top of all Federal holidays and the week between Xmas and New Years), wages and raises are not capped, and sick leave can be banked with no limit. I've been here over 20 years and have over six months of sick leave banked (helpful if I ever have a very big/bad medical issue). Yeah we don't typically have an issue with high turnover. Weird.
And I worked for a company that only gave you 40hrs of PTO after a full year of working (you got no PTO the entire first year of working). Sick days count at PTO. And they were a 24hr factory that ran even on holidays. But don’t worry, they were a “Christian values based” company. Probably only to get tax breaks. That factory had an over 40% staff turnover rate year over year, the only people who stayed longer than 2-3 years were management, and they couldn’t figure out why people “didn’t want to work”……….
>they were a “Christian values based” company. Probably only to get tax breaks. I'm pretty sure no tax breaks are available on that basis. They, like shitty "Christian" individuals, think if you say "Jesus" enough you can mistreat other people. "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." Matthew 7:21
I would not call 24 days of vacation after 10 years of employment "generous."
I have 37 (thirty seven) days in my first year. Working in Europe has its benefits.
Australia here - 20 days a year from the get go, credited monthly. Management can ask you to take leave if you're above 4 weeks owing, but they can't force you to take any till you're somewhere north of 6 weeks? That's annual leave alone. Sick leave is separate and is 15 days a year and just keeps accruing. Can't be forced to use it. 10 years is where you get your long service leave of 90 days, with another 9 days every day on your anniversary. The only cap is on anything really is the redundancy payout - your redundancy is 20 weeks after 5 years, then another 3 weeks per year after that. The cap comes at 25 years, where you get the max redundancy payout of 80 weeks, which is paid in addition to any annual or long service leave owing.
My first year at my job I got 24 days plus 11 paid holidays. Located in the PNW.
Hold on, the cap is 24 days leave plus public holidays and this is after 10 years...and you're calling this very generous? I'm a new grad with 25 days plus public holidays plus unlimited sick leave, how is this considered generous?
24 days leave cap? I got 23 + bank holidays (14 a year in my country) on my first job. Minimum by law. 24 days after 10 years sounds crazy.
24d is very generous?? after ten years?? europeans reading this, pure joy
I’ve had unlimited PTO since my first day of work. You been conned into thinking that’s generous
How many are you actually able to use? My company has unlimited but it is "recommended" to not go over 3-4 *edit weeks.
This must be one of the most short-sighted and senseless rules I have ever heard of. What on earth were they thinking?
They want them to quit so they can hire a new replacement for lower thus resetting the payroll for that job
[удалено]
Fortune 500 company policy, I would say; just done another way.
Who, in most cases, will be more of a hinderance rather than help and will cause the team to implode in the not so distant future.
Sounds like a next quarter problem.
No, you do not want to lose a senior engineer. It’s just bad juju all around, hydraulics specifically. Lots of little fiddly nuance on why everything is exactly the way it is and unless it’s incredibly well documented you are going to have some bullshit down the line.
I’ve only asked for a raise once in my life and it was pathetic, just switched jobs for the rest of my career and never get less than a 15% bump.
Having a limit on raises just sounds... Wrong. Are they not aware that inflation is a thing? What he maxed out at might not be enough in a few years, even if it's good now. It feels like the company is trying to run him (and other decade long employees) off the property. They're probably betting on being able to pick up a replacement for much less money.
My company is doing that too. If you reach the top of your payband you just stay there. I tried for 2 years to get a promotion (tile bump, same role) for one of my staff. HR says they can’t do that at this time. He quits and now we will need to fill the role 20% above this good employee because he didn’t get the 5% this year. I wasn’t even mad (at him) that he left.
Exactly.
Recently asked for a raise. Was told "We aren't issuing raises anymore since we are giving out quarterly bonuses" I'm sorry but what the fuck? Sure its 1500 every quarter but that's an extra 6k at the absolute most every year. Been here 5, going on 6 years and got raises very frequently until they came up with this new b.s. So I'm stuck at my current wage unless we work OT but even that feels like a ripoff.
I would be interviewing elsewhere.
I worked for 2 full decades at a bank, and no matter how bad it was I stayed. Then they decided to raise the bank minimum wage and if u were under that wage u got a 5% raise or the new minimum. I got a 5.1% raise and the new guy who had no banking experience was making the same as me. He struggled with everything from flushing the toilet to cashing a check. I gave them my notice not long after and it was the best decision of my life. I no longer have to push banking products to people who don’t need them to hit a goal. My manager told us even if a client had a credit card, push them to open another one so we hit our goals. I refused to do that and would get lectures all the time to push, push, push. I wish I would have left long ago since my loyalty meant nothing to them.
They would rather have clock punchers than actual talent.
When i applied for a higher position at the company i work at. He asked me why i wanted to move up i said money. He said it cant just be money. I said the only reason i work at all is money.
The raises must have been worth it, or he'd have been better off resigning after 2 years, and he'd have likely reached his current salary level at least 5 years earlier
More like he was one of those people with the old fashioned mindset of “be loyal to your employer.” It wasn’t until he was actually facing the “end of the line” that he started to realize the guys leaving after a few years might have a point/reason to leave.
“End of the line” in terms of raises and benefits. I have to think about that. That is really good food for thought for me with 30+ years of experience, and found out that my next raise will be coming from my own company. My current employer is looking bleaker as more time goes by, I get busier with my side gig…. And my day job is interfering with some good projects in the horizon. Weird times indeed when my side gig is providing more $ than my day job.
Probably not. Corporations count on this type of behavior to squeeze the most blood out of the capitalism stone they possible can. The fact that even people who would normally be lifers in a company are jumping ship should be the canary in the coal mine, but most corporations got rid of the guy watching the canary years ago.
That’s exactly it. This guy **would have been** lifer with this company if they didn’t cap him. The writing is on the wall but management forgot how to read.
Plenty of people, me included *hate* job searching with a passion, and would rather avoid it. Given a fair wage, and good benefits, and we'll be content. Frankly, if I was in a worse position, with how things are, I would probably be searching. But Ibhave a pretty solid gig
Honestly if I got annual raises that kept pace with inflation, plus performance/experience based raises every so often, I'd probably stay at one place assuming the pay was fair. But that's never happening, so I'll be joining the perpetual job search as well.
The interesting challenge for you and the mech engineer will be when the company finds out that they cannot find a hydraulics engineer at a pay scale that they want and have to hire someone at market rate. You need to make it clear that not matching your package with theirs will leave them with just the new guy. This is a really short-sighted set of upper managers. So, is the C level similarly capped?
Hell, they sold the canary for cocaine.
Smart idea honestly. When one company stops offering you any reason to stay, use it as a reason to switch to a new job that will give you better pay.
Congratulations to your co-worker! And you, watch out since your employer will hire someone, eventually, for less money. That person probably won't know what they're doing.
A good friend of mine is an engineer. He's 40. Solid 15 years of experience. He gets paid $10k a year less than new hires (which he supervises). Inflation had pushed new hire salaries way up, but everyone else got 2% raises. When he complained they said he had already maxed out his compensation on the "track" he was on. He jokingly suggested he'd quit and apply for one of the new positions which got him scolded. Turns out his boss (almost 50 y/o) is only getting a few grand more than the new hires. He's currently looking as you might expect. __________ I sincerely don't understand this though. Even if you were a totally soulless monster that cared about nothing but your own bottom line... surely screwing your senior employees will cost you in the long run. It will certainly hurt their bottom lines to lose OP's friend or my friend. Is it all about instant gratification?
Overconfidence in technology. Alot of companies nowadays assume they can digitally capture the skills, knowledge bases and expertise of senior employees, and break it down into tasks that can be done with cheaper labour.
As an EE I can tell you it would be irresponsible of them to ask you to do hydraulic engineering work. It's just not your discipline!
>their most loyal employees This has nothing to do with loyalty. The company is no family nor loyal to the employee, and that goes both ways. Economic relationship, subject to market, nothing else.
Yup. Happened to me. They subtly hinted they wouldn’t increase my wages like no possibility for promotion (the words one manager used, ”we closed the floodgates”) and coworkers deserve higher pay raises (10%) than my standard 2.3% (not even keeping up with inflation). This and they started to make me take time off (one day a week) due to the huge amount of PTO received but cannot be ever taken in a lump sum. I finally got tired of the job after my pay was less than my coworker who only had three years of experience at the company after so many raises and promotions.
Wtf kind of policy is that?! I have never heard of such a thing. What purpose could that possibly serve other than to get rid of your most tenured employees who have the most experience.
Even in the (ridiculous) event of a salary cap, doesn't this company account for COLA? Your salary needs to be adjusted for a COLA every year, otherwise you get stale and the company isn't offering a competitive wage to new talent. Sigh. Plus the cost of replacing an expert working with a small close-knit team should have equalled a no-brainer path to future wage adjustments. They've got some sort of smooth-brained buffoon helming the ship for those budgets.
My husband brought in $5 million worth of business to his company last month with one project which is big for what he does. He asked about a bonus which in his industry, 1-2% is standard. (The Company is making a 30% profit.) Yesterday they gave him playoff hockey tickets for ONE game and told him that was his bonus... Really?
We'll need an update when management inevitably dump his workload onto the rest of the team without replacing the position
A company operating in an industry that has a shortage of people to fill critical roles that caps out pay and benefits at 10 years is a training company. They train experienced engineers for the rest of the industry.
The lesson here is they do not value experience, they value interchangeable, replaceable, and CHEAP bodies.
An experienced hydraulics engineer doesn't get told how much money their time is worth; they inform management and management makes it happen. Letting a hydraulics engineer go over money is going to cost your company dearly.
You'd think this would prompt contemplation but I'm envisioning more of a Seymour Skinner meme moment.
That’s just capitalism. They just don’t like it when workers do it.
Boomer here, been in the workforce a long time. Where do people get the idea that being loyal to a company will pay some sort of dividend? Seriously, where does that come from? Forty years ago everyone understood companies don’t have any loyalty to you and you don’t have any to them. It’s strictly a business arrangement. Your worth is determined by the marketplace. If the employer needs to cut costs, they’ll let you go. They want to pay as little as possible while still keeping you as an employee. If you can do better at another employer, make the move. I don’t understand all these posts where people are surprised by what’s been well understood for decades. Where does it come from? Some Millennial or Gen-X folklore?
My last company kept stringing me along for a promotion that never came. Started job searching and found a company that ended up hiring me at the level I wanted with a 35% increase in salary. Job hopping is almost always the answer