Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm submitting a link to a post in another thread from a strong advocate of unionization (and one with whom, despite eighteen years in a union shop, I'm very seldom in agreement):
Like a lot of the Baby Boom generation, I was fortunate enough to spend the summers of my college years in a unionized factory/warehouse ambience -- and at a time when labor was scarce and overtime was plentiful. But this set the stage for a quickly-jaded attitude when I graduated, and had to start over in a small-office, service-oriented setting.
I entered the permanent workforce under the false impression that my degree (a BS in Business Administration) had some degree of market power, and that I would be able to keep, at least in part, the flexible schedule and limited regimen that made college (in which I'd done better academically than ever before) so much an improvement over the conformity and structure of high school. But of course, I quickly found out that my credentials weren't enough to escape a system geared to steer everyone downward into a bottomless pit of constant drudgery; that the only path upward involved embracing that prospect and forcing it upon new hires while attempting to climb higher into a diminishing pyramid.
And of course, the "Korporate" mantra revolves around extracting immediate (but not directly-compensated) effort in return for the promise of a better salary in the future ("promise" to all, deliver to some); but everything is contingent upon maintaining that attitude of supposed self-effacement; make the slightest attempt to set limits against either the demands of superiors, or the unrealistic expectations of customers seduced by the sweet lies of Madison Avenue, and you'll stagnate. And this scenario hasn't yet addressed the possibility that the enterprise will founder through some factor beyond the control of individual employees or departments.
And I entered at a time when the societal forces of civil rights and the emancipation of women, combined with the slow erosion of traditional "heavy" capital-intensive industry, provided "the system" with a huge new supply of "fresh meat", and at lower cost, while diminishing the values of some of the unwritten standards which had served until now.
In fairness, I'm mot sure where this will lead; the growth of the "new office", sometimes modeled on the impersonality of a call-center, can serve to mitigate some of the most demeaning aspects of personal-service employment; and the ability to understand and manage new technologies in fields like medicine and IT sometimes leads to a healthy paycheck.
But too many of us, often for no reason other than age alone, get sucked into the race to the bottom, and those who sow the seeds of envy and class-consciousness are ready, willing and eager to pander to a growing inventory of discontents.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 02-26-2018 at 09:30 AM..
Salaried workers usually earn more than hourly workers. With that said, depending on the number of hours you work and the stress you can be placed under, it may not be worth it.
My last three jobs have been salaried. The first functioned like an hourly job, and was probably wrongly classified. We had strict start/stop times. Handoffs between global shifts in a "follow the sun" support model. If we worked more than forty hours, we got comp time. It was basically hourly.
The second job was an IT administrator at a small bank with a small IT department. Crazy hours. It paid a little more than the first job, but had worse benefits and was a much worse job.
My current job is salary, but I don't think I've done more than 45 hours since I've been here. We do have an on-call rotation which creates a small amount of after hours work. I have enough downtime during the day where it usually doesn't bother me. If I was routinely working sixty hours a week for my current pay, I wouldn't be staying.
A lot of how tolerable salary is depends on how your individual job and manager.
Hard not to stay salaried if moving up the ranks. That said hours are more flexible not having to clock in clock out or do timesheets
Flexible hours means I can if I need to take a few hours off in the morning or afternoon and still be paid 7 hours
I would stay out of salaried middle Management that’s for sure. Higher up however, where the pay is better and hours are probably far more flexible it wouldn’t be so bad
Being in that crap sandwich called, middle Management you’re getting it from all sides. To your underlings was complaining and the higher ups who sit in their office and complain and dictate without ever lifting a pinkie to help, isn’t what I would call a “preferable position” to be in. You’re better off just being hourly. Higher ups today, make horrible decisions that can make your life a living hell
I'm submitting a link to a post in another thread from a strong advocate of unionization (and one with whom, despite eighteen years in a union shop, I'm usually not in agreement):
Like a lot of the Baby Boom generation, I was fortunate enough to spend the summers of my college years in a unionized factory/warehouse ambience -- and at a time when overtime was plentiful. But this set the stage for a quickly-jaded attitude when I graduated, and had to start over in a small-office, service-oriented setting.
I entered the permanent workforce under the false impression that my degree (a BS in Business Administration) had some degree of market power, and that I would be able to keep, at least in part, the flexible schedule and limited regimen that made college (in which I'd done better academically than ever before) so much an improvement over the conformity and structure of high school. But of course, I quickly found out that my credentials weren't enough to escape a system geared to steer everyone downward into a bottomless pit of constant drudgery; that the only path upward involved embracing that prospect and forcing it upon new hires while attempting to climb higher into a diminishing pyramid.
And of course, the "Korporate" mantra revolves around extracting immediate (but not directly-compensated) effort in return for the promise of a better salary in the future ("promise" to all, deliver to some); but everything is contingent upon maintaining that attitude of supposed self-effacement; make the slightest attempt to set limits against either the demands of superiors, or the unrealistic expectations of customers seduced by the sweet lies of Madison Avenue, and you'll stagnate. And this scenario hasn't yet addressed the possibility that the enterprise will founder through some factor beyond the control of individual employees or departments.
And I entered at a time when the societal forces of civil rights and the emancipation of women, combined with the slow erosion of traditional "heavy" capital-intensive industry, provided "the system" with a huge new supply of "fresh meat", and at lower cost, while diminishing the values of some of the unwritten standards which had served until now.
In fairness, I'm mot sure where this will lead; the growth of the "new office", sometimes modeled on the impersonality of a call-center, can serve to mitigate some of the most demeaning aspects of personal-service employment; and the ability to understand and manage new technologies in fields like medicine and IT sometimes leads to a healthy paycheck.
But too many of us, often for no reason other than age alone, get sucked into the race to the bottom, and those who sow the seeds of envy and class-consciousness are ready, willing and eager to pander to a growing inventory of discontents.
Good rant, I like it. The parts about extracting work for promised future salary, benefits or promotions is true, I think it’s called breach of psychological contact were employees feel they bend over backwards to suit employers with unsaid expectations that they will get some sort of payoff but in many cases it doesn’t come, therefore leads to lack of engagement and a bad attitude toward them, and performance reviews etc are used as a way stringing employees along that are never going get promoted with promises of being trained in something, or promised a promotion when things improve, or we will look at payrises when the market improve.
But is this what their clients do to them, make them bend over backwards with promises of future work etc? All the while trying get the job done for the cheapest price.
Hourly = your bosses are always watching the clock on you. Salary = you're a professional, paid a certain amount to do a job, and it's left to you to figure out how to get it done. Union = cater to lowest common denominator, no incentive to work or succeed, because you'll get the same pay as the slug who does the minimum necessary to avoid getting fired. Sure, some cheapskate employers try to tell people they're salaried in order to get 60 hours of work for 40 hours of pay, but that's ILLEGAL... anyone in that situation can call the Department of Labor, or quit.
I have never been in a union. What was "soul-sucking" was hourly drudgery, but I paid my dues, moved on, and now make more than any union slug (except the top bosses... funny how they always get salaries the rank-and-file will never see, and commonly "double-dip", too, while the useful idiots keep paying their union dues).
Posts like this bother me because they poison people entering the job market, and give them unrealistic ideas about starting at the top, "fairness" (which we all know doesn't exist outside of the kindergarten playground), etc. Sometimes people have to put their nose to the grindstone and do a crappy job, but it's on them to learn how to do something more useful and valuable so they can earn their way up, instead of waiting for seniority to issue advancement to them.
The way so many salaried workers just get abused in the private sector today and the cheapness of employers, I would just stay with hourly. They are lot exploitive employers out there now so you may as well get paid for hours worked. I’ve done the salaried route and was “expected” to stick around, many times covering other depts that had nothing to do with me and was expected to put 10-12 hour days in. . if you want to get screwed over by a lousy employer, go right ahead. Some of us have a little more pride and common sense where after you work out all the unpaid hours were making close to freaking minimum wage
You can keep your “titles” and unpaid hours (in many cases minimum wage equivalents) while they dangle the “career advancement” carrot in your face . I’ll stick with getting paid for hours worked. You want more from me, you’re gonna have to pay me
The sooner everyone learns their just a number to these contemporary sociopathic companies, the better. They want you to be mindless stooges, fluffing their egos and exploiting you with unpaid hours. While MAYBE you advance up the food chain
I just assume be unemployed than exploited by some sociopathic upper management
Last edited by DorianRo; 02-26-2018 at 12:26 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
