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The boss who put everyone on 70K

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Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#71

Post by jpxw »

chrisseaton wrote: post #48
nbp160130 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find any mention of technical staff having their salary slashed. The only mention of pay cuts is the one the CEO took. Would you mind sharing a source where this is stated?

> Would you mind sharing a source where this is stated? It’s in the title. ‘Everyone on 70k’ is a pay cut if you were in more than 70k, as any professional would be. It’s clearly wrong as it doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the source they were referring to.

I mean technically it can be true that everyone is on 70k, and some people are on more.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#72

Post by fsloth »

wyager wrote: post #62
fsloth wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your reasoning is too atomic. Think about the call center worker who was stressed out. How well will he respond to out of script situations when he's stressed? When he's in top shape, fully emotionally invested in his work? What about his colleagues? In out of script situations he likely needs the selfless assistance of other employees. How well will this interaction go if the persons are co-operating in a fr…

“This is how investments are usually supposed to work” is absolutely cargo cult reasoning and doesn’t make any sense. Cool list of reasons to pay people more - I guarantee you that every HR department in the universe has thought of them, as well as a countervailing list of reasons not to. If you see that everyone with money on the line is doing something different from what you propose, your response should not be “w…

"If you see that everyone with money on the line is doing something different from what you propose,"

But that's precisely what I don't see. There are lots of examples of small high performing teams with way above 'market rate' salaries. I know several in my smallish home town (Helsinki area, 1.5M population). Some of these are in consulting, others in gaming. Sure, they are all in programming, but still their compensations are way higher than the local market would dictate for the "positions".

For non-programming examples, there are manufacturing companies who pay an excellent rate for their employees if you compare with the global market (... china ...) but their quality and output is so good it makes total financial sense due to smart automation.

You can't pay your employees more than you earn, and you need to get a certain interest on the invested capital. But other than that... I don't really understand why there would be any hard constraints on how much you can pay your employees if the numbers add up.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#73

Post by pritovido »

angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

That is a consequence of procrastination, which is the consequence of anxiety, which is the consequence of barely meeting ends.

Basically in order to be productive under those circumstances you have to ignore reality, which can be problematic for the people around you.

But at the same time everything is relative on your perception of reality. We spend today 50-100 times more energy per person that people 100 years ago, and most of those people were happy.

We upgraded our expectations, specially because of mass media and advertisements and feel always dissatisfied because they will compare us with people that have more than we have.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#74

Post by ahartmetz »

NohatCoder wrote: post #68
mikorym wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Africa has this problem in academia and to a order of magnitude worse. Not only do you worry about your own small income; but grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile and can be taken away from year to year. Most of the issues is due to 1) our government being corrupt and 2) promises the government made about free education. I am not against free…

I believe that the story is similar a lot of places in the world. At least in Denmark, stories of researchers spending more time seeking grant money than doing research are not uncommon.

As part of a lecture, I have had a lab tour with a semi-famous professor in Germany. He said that he sometimes gives ideas, but is most of the time just organizing and looking for money for his group. And he said that that is normal in his situation (successful academic career with a sizable group).

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#75

Post by conjectures »

angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

“Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. (...) Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own”

― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#76

Post by sokoloff »

vonseel wrote: post #46
eru wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dirt has become enormously more expensive. The more dignified term to use here is 'land prices have increased.' One could argue that the quality of the dirt has improved a lot; or at least the quality of its location. The US in 2020 is a much richer place than the US in 1950; so we'd expect land to cost more. (But in addition, there are those restrictions on housing supply that I already mentioned.) You are right abo…

Not sure where you’re going with the can’t buy crappy stuff anymore argument, from another perspective, most things built today are crappy Chinese junk compared to things built 70 years ago, if they existed 70 years ago. Mending and the art of repair has been forgotten by most - if your TV has an issue, you’re more likely to buy a new one than fix it, even if it’s possibly repairable for less than a couple hundred bu…

When you can buy a 50" LED 4K TV for under $300, why would you attempt a repair of any older tech TV that is "probably repairable" for a couple hundred bucks? Take it off the wall; find a repair place; make an appointment; schlep it over there; wait for the results; pick it up; put it back on the wall vs drive to BestBuy and buy a newer, better TV and put the old one on the curb and be done with certainty tomorrow.

Any commodity TV is immediately beyond-economic-repair, IMO.

1 - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-50-class-led-nu6900-ser... (literally the first search result I found)

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#77

Post by chrisseaton »

jpxw wrote: post #71
chrisseaton wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you mind sharing a source where this is stated? It’s in the title. ‘Everyone on 70k’ is a pay cut if you were in more than 70k, as any professional would be. It’s clearly wrong as it doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the source they were referring to.

I mean technically it can be true that everyone is on 70k, and some people are on more.

How's that? It can be true that everyone is on at least 70k, and some people are on more. It can't be true that everyone is on 70k, and some people are on more. If you're on 80k then you aren't on 70k are you?

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#78

Post by sokoloff »

clarry wrote: post #55
draugadrotten wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when building homes, you also need to build roads, sewers, power plants, hospitals, schools... it's not just about a few houses.

You always needed those. So why is it that you could build the first homes and roads and sewers and power plants and hospitals and schools, but not more of the same?

Do you imagine that the size of sewers, hospitals, schools, and power plants to serve 100K people are the same size as those to serve 500K people?

If you've got existing, working infrastructure built out for population X, you have a lot more building to do to support 5X. Often that requires tearing down existing, functional infrastructure and replacing with larger.

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#79

Post by einpoklum »

mikorym wrote: post #50
angarg12 wrote: post #47

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requir…

South Africa has this problem in academia and to a order of magnitude worse. Not only do you worry about your own small income; but grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile and can be taken away from year to year. Most of the issues is due to 1) our government being corrupt and 2) promises the government made about free education. I am not against free…

> grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile

Welcome to the sad reality of academia almost everywhere in the world. (sigh)

Re: The boss who put everyone on 70K

#80

Post by eru »

sokoloff wrote: post #78
clarry wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You always needed those. So why is it that you could build the first homes and roads and sewers and power plants and hospitals and schools, but not more of the same?

Do you imagine that the size of sewers, hospitals, schools, and power plants to serve 100K people are the same size as those to serve 500K people? If you've got existing, working infrastructure built out for population X, you have a lot more building to do to support 5X. Often that requires tearing down existing, functional infrastructure and replacing with larger.

Yes, but it's usually less than 5x more.

I don't really see your argument. The per capita expenditure should be the same or less.

If really necessary, just charge real estate developers for it.

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