The Gun Counter

Was talking with one of my coworkers, and he introduced me to a new term. One of the people in my group is leaving so we're going to have an opening. We supposedly have a policy of promoting from within, but it's been breaking down recently.... we've had a number of open recs stay open because none of the qualified internal candidates want those jobs. Because they'd be a:

no-motion

Check Urban Dictionary.

Since I started my current job, I've had 2 salary adjustments- both down. One I agreed to when I went from contractor to employee (I know, but I had my reasons) and the other was involuntary during 08. My reviews are always positive, I have a reputation at my site as the "guy to go to who gets things done", still no raise no how. Everyone I know who has taken an internal promotion since I started here has stayed at the exact same compensation level, no matter how much more demanding the new job (or how much of the old job they still have to do, so now are effectively doing 2 jobs for 1 paycheck).

The person who introduced me to the term is in a less technical group, but is the best of that group and should have no trouble working his way up and carrying his share of the load in my group. But he won't take it, because it'd be a no-motion. Can't say I blame him.

It's kind of funny, I work in the services division of a company you've heard of. A while back, the economy and our business declined, and everyone had to take a pay cut (it was that or layoffs, and I in this case I think they did the right thing, cutting salaries by n% instead of cutting headcount by the same amount). The past year or so, every bit of news we hear about how the company is doing is about how we're fucking profit monsters now, we're higher margin than god. Not only do we not get raises, we haven't even gotten back the involuntary pay cut. On a smaller scale, I work on a contract doing outsourced work for a certain customer (that's what 'services' means). The contract is stable, has good long-term prospects, looks like our business will be increasing and even right now is (I am told) enormously profitable. We're also grossly understaffed, our org chart looks like fucking Swiss cheese, which makes our contract even more profitable. No raises.

We have one group of 5 people, who have been working on a certain project for 5 years now and still have no deliverable (I recently participated in work to help with a purchase evaluation of a piece of software that would do what that project is supposed to do). I have a coworker who has relevant experience, and has offered to finish that project, by himself, in 3 months. I, and our management, all have a fair degree of confidence that he could do the job, but mgmt turned down his proposal because he wasn't willing to do both jobs at his current salary (i.e. they expected him to give away development work to complete a project that has already eaten 25 man YEARS, and do it in 3 months, in addition to performing his regular duties.)

I'd call it, getting screwed.

Not totally related but I work with people who do the EXACT same job as I do but they get good benefits and 15-20k more than I. WHEEEEEE!

moose42 wrote:I'd call it, getting screwed.

Not totally related but I work with people who do the EXACT same job as I do but they get good benefits and 15-20k more than I. WHEEEEEE!

Heh. I once was part of a group that was created by merging 2 different groups from 2 different parts of the org chart- we were redundant, merging the 2 groups together was a good move. But my half of the combined group made only about 70% of what the people from the other half made, despite the fact we did the same job. It was no coincidence that 'my half' was all men, the 'other half' was all women, the womens' original boss was a letch and the highest paid woman had a truly spectacular ass.

Yeah when I left that company I took a job that paid 20K more for less responsibility and *much* less work. Hint, hint.

Simple. Look around.

A: If jobs are available elsewhere at better compensation, go get one.

or

B: If A: isn't there,retain the present job until A: becomes viable or until retirement, whichever occurs first.

I got a 10% raise on Monday.

How? Left my job and took another one. Unfortunately that has always been the case in aerospace, the only real way to get to a decent salary level is to switch companies several times.

My company has a problem with this as well. In addition to the worthless supervisors we have, we have had difficulty in the past filling some supervisor slots as everyone deemed the extra pay, if there was any, to be not worth it.

NVGdude wrote:I got a 10% raise on Monday.

How? Left my job and took another one. Unfortunately that has always been the case in aerospace, the only real way to get to a decent salary level is to switch companies several times.

Heh. My wife used to work in aerospace. Staying at one company too long was called the "retention penalty". Stay at one company long enough, and fresh outs will make more than you.

I actually split the difference. I switched to a different business division of the same company. Trade-off : I only got a 10% raise instead of 15% or more, but I keep my seniority and PTO accrual rate.

Oh, and the old job was scheduled to more to Dayton OH next year, so I was somewhat motivated to find something.

My employer took two years to get me the raise to go with moving up to the NOC. (Our ex-director never got around to hashing things out w/ HR) Since then, my field tech minion got moved elsewhere, and not replaced, so I'm again doing both jobs for the pay of one. At least this time it's for the gelt of the higher paying one... Oh, and they still haven't gotten us the list of who stays or goes this year if a storm forces an evacuation.

NVGdude wrote:Oh, and the old job was scheduled to more to Dayton OH next year,

A job moving to Dayton? That's so rare that I think I make a pretty good guess what industry you're in and the general field it supports.

There's worse places to end up in, but I fully understand wanting to stay out west.

If company business ever brings out this way drop me a line. We can tip some beers and tell some lies.