Careerchat IV

[Isis]

12% is a 'modest' pay increase? 

[kiko]

10 minutes ago, Isis said:

12% is a 'modest' pay increase? 

I would say if I could convince my employee to work 8 instead of 4 hours, 12% is a steal.

Of course, I don't know Kaniggit's contract. It may state that the average work time is 8 hours per day and not finish the allotted task no matter how long it takes.

[A True Kaniggit]

9 hours ago, Isis said:

12% is a 'modest' pay increase? 

Yes.

I was hired to do a specific job. The person before me took 8 hours to do that job. I get in done in 4. As @kiko said, I’m giving them a nice deal. Only 12% more for about twice the work everyday. 
 

(The person I replaced apparently “hunted and pecked”. The ability to type at a decent speed is where most of this free time comes from)

[A True Kaniggit]

Hmmm. I think some real numbers may help here. I make $14.40 an hour. I asked for $1.75 more, for a total of $16.15.

Is that not modest?

A mere $140 every 2 weeks? $14 more a day?

[Chataya de Fleury]

27 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Hmmm. I think some real numbers may help here. I make $14.40 an hour. I asked for $1.75 more, for a total of $16.15.

Is that not modest?

A mere $140 every 2 weeks? $14 more a day?

That’s pretty modest. There are people who are automatically assuming that since they make mid six figures, that’s what they are basing “10%” upon to get a number. 

[Isis]

19 hours ago, kiko said:

I would say if I could convince my employee to work 8 instead of 4 hours, 12% is a steal.

Of course, I don't know Kaniggit's contract. It may state that the average work time is 8 hours per day and not finish the allotted task no matter how long it takes.

That's not what's happening though is it? Unless the person who works twice as fast is doing literally twice the workload week in, week out. Seemed like the implication was no pay rise = work to rule. So not double output then? 

It's all relative.

I work in the public sector in healthcare. We have national pay spines for some (public sector) regulated professions in the UK, rather than someone just asking to be paid X amount based on what they think they are worth as an individual.

The only way (in my profession) to get anything close to a 12% pay rise would be getting a big promotion, i.e. jumping up two pay bands. Because if you only get promotion to the band above you (and this is something you need to apply for, not automatic) then your salary would just be moved into the next band - and if you were at the top of your previous band then you'd go up a single point. Each point is only about £1000 apart. You probably wouldn't even notice the difference in monthly take home pay the first year after promotion!

[kiko]

Paybands are terrible. Used to have them too. They can completely put all responsibility for pay raises on the employee. Usually without giving them the agency.

[Chataya de Fleury]

48 minutes ago, kiko said:

Paybands are terrible. Used to have them too. They can completely put all responsibility for pay raises on the employee. Usually without giving them the agency.

I once literally had my own pay band. 

[kiko]

12 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I once literally had my own pay band. 

I believe those things are more commonly called wedding rings

[Chataya de Fleury]

1 hour ago, kiko said:

I believe those things are more commonly called wedding rings

No, seriously, I was at a very large company and my a$$hole boss refused to promote me but also just kept paying me more to keep me. 

I was making double what people with my job title typically made but they refused to give me a title that actually reflected my responsibilities. 

When I quit and became a contractor part time for them earning $125/hr was when they finally had to adjust my title because HR refused to pay $125/hr to a “senior accountant” (average pay was $50k/ year for that time period).

When I was an employee he could simply justify a special pay band to HR.

[HoodedCrow]

Isn’t it often because you are smarter than your boss?:)

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

Isn’t it often because you are smarter than your boss?:)

Never ever be smarter than your boss. That is a CLM. (Career limiting move). 

[Iskaral Pust]

Pay bands are a bureaucratic way of governing pay consistency.  Their primary benefit is to help employers control the rate of pay growth — especially since most middle managers want to and actively try to give their people above-average raises each year — but they have an ancillary benefit of enforcing consistency across employees, which tends to benefit women and minorities, who might otherwise not bargain as aggressively and/or have less unconscious support from their managers.  It also gives managers an easy way to push back on any grabby employees who are always demanding raises even if they are paid the same as all the others who do the same work.  There is a subset of people who just demand more (not just pay; think of people who always try to blag airplane upgrades) because they figure they might get something for asking and it costs them nothing to ask.

@A True Kaniggit and @Isis: asking for a 12% pay raise off-cycle, especially for someone new to the job, looks like a large ask on the surface.  The context is wages have grown approx 2% annually in most of the developed economies over the past decade.  Off-cycle raises are usually for promotions or to counter-offer to avoid losing a proven employee.  Employees on low hourly rates are rarely paid for their individual ability (that usually comes at higher paid roles where individual skill has a greater value impact; hint: there’s a reason they measure some workers’ value only by number of hours worked rather than output generated).    If it’s a cog role, then the system doesn’t want to spend time sorting out individual ability — it’s not worth the time or effort at that low level of value contributed.  It’s also not clear to me that pointing to an incompetent employee — e.g. who cannot type at a normal speed — is a basis for higher pay; it just means the incompetent employee should no longer be employed there at all because they weren’t worth even the low wage.  OTOH 12% of a very low wage isn’t very expensive and this is the moment when workers have more bargaining power and low end wages are rising (in the US at least) and there should be greater acknowledgment that high quality employees (responsible, accountable, ability and effort) are worth keeping rather than struggle to replace them.  But if the job is really worth so little that the employer still doesn’t show any flexibility, then the high quality employee should recognize that they’re in the wrong type of job and that it’s better to switch to one where higher quality actually produces enough value to matter.

TLDR: don’t expect a meaningless cog role to get paid for their individual ability.  If you think you’re above average, then make sure you’re in a job where your individual contribution is meaningful and therefore worth more. 

[HoodedCrow]

If you are an excellent computer programmer, you can wear a cow suit to work if you want to, well, maybe not anymore?

[A True Kaniggit]

2 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

If you are an excellent computer programmer, you can wear a cow suit to work if you want to, well, maybe not anymore?

I think you have to wear a tie with the cow suit.

I’ve been trying to make Tie Tuesday a thing, but the other 3 men I work with don’t seem interested.

I’m a one man Tie Tuesday.

[HoodedCrow]

No ties, TK! Unless you want people to know that about you:)

[A True Kaniggit]

6 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

No ties, TK! Unless you want people to know that about you:)

One of the few things I miss about the Air Force was Blues Mondays, when everyone dressed nice. That's why I want to get Tie Tuesday going.

Too many people at this place just where scrubs everyday, even though we are in an office setting.

[Datepalm]

So one of my managers at the Very Large Organization currently has me running 3 projects in parallell, one which is really large and complicated and involves managing a team of 15 people and like an actual budget and everything, where letting it slip will seriously be throwing people's time (and the money) down the drain in ways that can't be recovered, because its currently in the field and that's that. Manager is much more interested and engaged in Much Smaller Projects, that have a fraction the budget and much more flexibility and less logistical complexity, and I think thinks that Big Project is something that I like pushed a button on and is done, and why isn't the report for the other two done....Even if it wasn't for the Big Project, the Smaller Projects are just time consuming and require multiple stages, and they just sort of want it all done in parallel (which is impossible, as inputs for stage 2 are gathered at stage 1, those at stage 3 based on the product of stage 2 and so on.)

So I feel like I've over-promised, or not  made things very clear about how this actually works, but, well, I thought manager knew the deal. So that's on me...I need to stop saying yes to things assuming I'll just sort of pull it off. I also think the Very Large Organization thinks of me as  firm or something and like why haven't I put an intern on it yet and its...nope, just me. If I'm troubleshooting a thing on Big Project, then I am not writing up the yet-nonexistent findings of Small Project, because there are limited hours in a day. And I'm just talking about the most mechanical side of getting things processed and down on paper, nevermind any like highfalutin silliness about putting in necessary time to develop rigorous empirics or meaningful intellectual contribution or whatever.

Anyway that is a conversation I will be having, if anyone has any advice. *do not get defensive...do not get defensive...do not get defensive...*.

[A True Kaniggit]

Ugh. Unpleasant client contacts are so annoying.

This person has to be aware that typing in all caps means yelling.  

[Chataya de Fleury]

31 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Ugh. Unpleasant client contacts are so annoying.

This person has to be aware that typing in all caps means yelling.  

Just as bad as people who misuse “reply all”

 

aaaaaugh