Clown World Employment

[JackinMelbourne]

So due to several circumstances lining up this year, I decided to meet with a company for a short term "job" because of easy cashflow and convenience... let's call it a holiday job.

It's work I have done before and have plenty more experience now, giving tons more value and side roles that can be filled for the company.

The meeting went very well right up until the end when I asked what they were offering.

Exactly the same amount as I was paid for this sort of stuff over a decade ago with what was going to require more effort on my behalf.

Talk about wage stagnation! At first I was shocked, then kind of insulted since I figured they were gaming hard and low balling, so I gamed back, then I just realised this particular industry has been flooded over the years and shits basically fucked. There is no longer any leverage based on skill or demand because the supply of people who will work for peanuts is HUGE.

Is it like this in your industry too?

 

[Repo]

Fortunately not. I still always ask about pay though before even doing an interview. Thankfully this is no longer frowned upon. I just frame it as "look I'm well compensated where I am at, and I know your time is valuable, so can you give me a range for what this position pays to avoid wasting each others time?" Has never not worked.

Also, wage growth in the US is actually increasing thanks to the great economy we are in, so if this particular field isn't keeping up I would look to further diversify your skillset.

 

[Repo]

To add, one of the drivers behind this new wave of wage transparency is the push to ensure that women and men are paid the same. . . some studies have shown that women are not as good as negotiating pay so they end up with lesser salaries then men, so pressure (and I believe laws in some areas) are pushing companies to not ask about prior salaries and to disclose up front what the ranges are. The advantage for men here is obviously the time saving aspect. Either way by appropriately framing your ask for pay upfront, you are letting them know that you know your worth, and if they balk at this they are probably not a company you want to deal with anyway.

 

[the-dream]

What job/industry is that?

 

[NewMeta]

It's a global market now, in I.T some career paths peaked like a decade ago in the West, what used to go for 60-100k annually would now be half that at best with lots of cheap labor from India, South East Asia, Eastern Europe etc... This of course all with higher expectations, more languages, more vendor CLIs, more software to learn and more years of experience. Add to that the ability to work remote with the use of SSLVPNs and it's not to uncommon to get foreigners working in big US enterprise companies without even a branch office in said abroad country.

It's not easy, there are some careers that are more in demand than others but big companies are always looking for ways to pay the knuckledraggers and bottom feeders less even if they are specialist roles.

 

[BURNΞR]

Many industries are going this way. Pharmacy has had the same wages for 2 decades now despite the rampant inflation and decline in purchasing power. People understandably get fed up and leave.

Like OP said, I've noticed people doing jobs for peanuts which undercuts your skills or years of experience. This has been happening across many industries.


I was listening to an Irish economist on YouTube last night talking about the Australian economy and he was basically saying our boom was caused by China and the mining sector which trickled down to the service and housing sectors.



Stagnant wages are starting to force everyone to pick up a side hustle or create their own start ups. I opted for speculating in the crypto market. Australians used to do the house flip thing but with the housing market looking pretty bad at the moment I don't think this will be a thing for the next couple of years.

 

[WalterBlack]

Salaries in Corporate Finance in Los Angeles have been flat for 10 years, they've only recently starting going up in the few years, and not by much. I sometimes get emails from recruiters about roles which pay less now than I got 10 years ago.

 

[MrLemon]

This is worldwide and it's a war by the billionaire class, and the corporations, attempting to destroy the middle classes. The middle class in the US and much of Europe is already dying.

The net result will be depression for about 10 years, followed by World War 3 with 200+ million dead. Or a revolution in which billionaires are hunted down like dogs.

You'd think the human race would learn. Well, they haven't.

But, here's the bright side: there will be the Honk Pill.

 

[AntoniusofEfa]

This is worldwide and it's a war by the billionaire class, and the corporations, attempting to destroy the middle classes. The middle class in the US and much of Europe is already dying.

The net result will be depression for about 10 years, followed by World War 3 with 200+ million dead. Or a revolution in which billionaires are hunted down like dogs.

You'd think the human race would learn. Well, they haven't.

But, here's the bright side: there will be the Honk Pill.

99% of wage slaves have not the balls, nor the skills to start a ww3. I do see a depression coming.

 

[VNvet]

99% of wage slaves have not the balls, nor the skills to start a ww3. I do see a depression coming.

Wait until people haven't had food in a few days.

 

[Goldin Boy]

HR is a joke.

After working at the same place for 9 years, I'm looking for a new role.

1) I had a phone screen schedule on last Friday at 11:30 AM. 11:30AM comes, no call. I chalked it up the game and assumed she found someone qualified since the last time we booked out phone screen.

At 12:18 she calls and tries to conduct the call like nothing happened. I explain stoically that I used PTO from my current job to do this interview and to remove my name from candidacy since she didn't respect my time. She says that she forgot about our appointment unapologetically...how do you just forget your primary job function that was scheduled as a reminder in your google calendar, haha.

2) Found a remote gig doing tech support for telemedicine start-up: Do a phone screen, the recruiter(would-be supervisor) loved me. Send me a skills test. Get an email on Friday stating I passed the test and asking for my availability for a final in-person interview. I send her times on a Friday. No response that day..or Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. 2 weeks later get an obviously boilerplate email stating:

"We reviewed your resume and your qualifications weren't a fit for the role."

Did me a favor in the long-run since it probably would've been hell working for that girl.

And that's what HR is a gaggle of incompetent, barely professional women with 0 work ethic who wield absolute power over your earning potential. I can't get self-employed soon enough...

 

[GT777733]

HR is a joke.

After working at the same place for 9 years, I'm looking for a new role.

1) I had a phone screen schedule on last Friday at 11:30 AM. 11:30AM comes, no call. I chalked it up the game and assumed she found someone qualified since the last time we booked out phone screen.

At 12:18 she calls and tries to conduct the call like nothing happened. I explain stoically that I used PTO from my current job to do this interview and to remove my name from candidacy since she didn't respect my time. She says that she forgot about our appointment unapologetically...how do you just forget your primary job function that was scheduled as a reminder in your google calendar, haha.

2) Found a remote gig doing tech support for telemedicine start-up: Do a phone screen, the recruiter(would-be supervisor) loved me. Send me a skills test. Get an email on Friday stating I passed the test and asking for my availability for a final in-person interview. I send her times on a Friday. No response that day..or Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. 2 weeks later get an obviously boilerplate email stating:

"We reviewed your resume and your qualifications weren't a fit for the role."

Did me a favor in the long-run since it probably would've been hell working for that girl.

And that's what HR is a gaggle of incompetent, barely professional women with 0 work ethic who wield absolute power over your earning potential. I can't get self-employed soon enough...

If you look at almost every company - there's always only a small % of people who directly bring in money for the company, or are responsible for growing it. Of these people, some are smart enough to leverage their performance to get paid a decent amount of what they are worth. Some aren't. Some industries have such competition for job positions that companies treat star employees as disposable and won't ever budge on pay

Most people in most companies are made up of middle and upper management (some managers are worth their money, but, I've found most are looking to pass as much work off to their underlings as possible and coast by), admin staff, accounts, support and assistance staff, HR, diversity and inclusion officers, and whatever airy fairy consultants they bring in. These people are all overheads, not directly bringing in money, and are essentially a face to the public, or dead weight. I've worked for companies with only 1 or 2 support staff before, and the profit margins were higher and level of red tape way lower.

The companies who do the best or at least grow the most (apart from the biggest ones already with the most resources) are usually the ones who hire intelligent, driven, highly skilled employees who are way more talented than their managers or bosses - but, that employee either doesn't know their own value, or doesn't have the stomach, desire, belief or confidence to go out by themselves and become self employed and get their true value on the market (admittedly, sometimes their job position offers enough that they are happy to stay though).

Sound eerily like the Matrix?

 

[Dr. Howard]

HR is a joke.

After working at the same place for 9 years, I'm looking for a new role.

1) I had a phone screen schedule on last Friday at 11:30 AM. 11:30AM comes, no call. I chalked it up the game and assumed she found someone qualified since the last time we booked out phone screen.

At 12:18 she calls and tries to conduct the call like nothing happened. I explain stoically that I used PTO from my current job to do this interview and to remove my name from candidacy since she didn't respect my time. She says that she forgot about our appointment unapologetically...how do you just forget your primary job function that was scheduled as a reminder in your google calendar, haha.

2) Found a remote gig doing tech support for telemedicine start-up: Do a phone screen, the recruiter(would-be supervisor) loved me. Send me a skills test. Get an email on Friday stating I passed the test and asking for my availability for a final in-person interview. I send her times on a Friday. No response that day..or Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. 2 weeks later get an obviously boilerplate email stating:

"We reviewed your resume and your qualifications weren't a fit for the role."

Did me a favor in the long-run since it probably would've been hell working for that girl.

And that's what HR is a gaggle of incompetent, barely professional women with 0 work ethic who wield absolute power over your earning potential. I can't get self-employed soon enough...

Sounds about right. I did multiple interviews for a government agency. In each interview the managers loved me, but the HR staff could not handle that I didn't have the traditional background that was listed in the job application.

Eventually, after having the same senior manager for an interview twice, I spoke with him on the phone and he said "next time you see a job opening you want, call me" I did, and it turns out he had been promoted up, and another manager had been promoted to 'deputy advisor to the something or other' and they were both now senior to the HR department.

The directed the HR department to "hire this guy" and it was done, with noticeable grimaces from the HR staff every time I was in there during onboarding.

That is how HR is supposed to work, it is supposed to figure out how to 'get it done' while navigating all of the silly laws that exist. Instead, the department works the other way, that it just says no to every request and are like an inept internal police force.

It is a ridiculous barrier to entry. HR is up the butt of every manager and applicant that is within their purview. However, once you get above HR and into "political appointments" there is zero HR and accountability and you get people who have no idea how to run the agency they are in. The qualifications are "I donated to the campaign, or I am related to a lobbyist that donated to the campaign"

HR is the real glass ceiling.

 

[PixelFree]

Yes I work in IT in Australia and yes wages have been flat for about 10 years for the reasons that have mentioned. I have been at my career peak for 10 years and am paid the same as I was in 2009. Any further up the corporate ladder the pay only slightly increases yet the stress/responsibility/politics/brown nosing increases 3x.

Pay raises, probably driven by the Trump economy in the US, are only very slowly starting to trickle in.

Essentially the elite have flooded our country with 457 visa (equiv of US H1B) and these guys keep wages depressed. It took about 10 years but people are starting to reason they aren't getting the bargain they thought they had.

One Clown World thing I've noticed is the explosion of useless 'make work' workers - Huge teams of 'Change Managers' other 'feel good' roles that I simply can't work out what they do or how do they get funded. Some big corps are just so huge that they can afford to have all this virtue signalling SJW waste and still make millions.