I joined this sub a while back and have sung its praises to others and appreciate the solidarity and perspectives expressed herein – BUT – I’ve recently stumbled into a dream situation for myself so I haven’t had much to post or discuss about “our” collective struggles. The short version is I lived like so many of us for a long while – woefully underpaid and always under stress about money. Finally, as I entered my 40’s I got a pay bump big enough to allow me to at least live stress free. Not jet-skis and hookers, just auto-draft bill pay with no fear that the water won’t get paid.
So that was the situation for a bit, COVID came and we all went home where productivity actually increased for my division and all was well enough. They made clear there was no plan that the WFH would change, we’d closed the office in March ’20 when it all started and there were few cases in my state so when I asked about the future, they said Delta had just begun so nothing was likely to change any time soon. Accordingly, I moved from the house I’d bought close to my office… and of course, soon after, they demanded I come back in – which was now a one hour commute… just to use their internet instead of mine. I’ll spare everyone the long diatribe, but it was basically because the manager needed us to “be a team” again – essentially because his job as a manager was proven pointless when we effectively did our jobs without his involvement or oversight. I did so, but was pissed and started looking for a change (there was plenty of other drama but this was the primary catalyst).
I’d done a little poking around before but I’m in a somewhat specialized field and rarely found a good match. This time, however, lo and behold, one of our biggest competitors was looking for someone to do exactly what I do. But they wanted someone to run the department – and were offering over double what I was making at the time, six figures, jet skis and hookers money. I’d keep doing what I’d been doing but also flesh out the department so the people who’d been tasked with it lately could do their own work exclusively and not be bogged down with helping my department.
Not long after I’m set up and comfortable, as had always been the plan, we start looking for another person to join the team. We craft the job postings and review the candidates and set up some interviews. I’ll do the initial and if anyone is acceptable, we do a second round with the VP and Prez to see if we can come to terms. Again, due to the specialization, not many people are a great fit. One guy is so I have him come in. Our talk is a good one, he’s well qualified and seems like a great guy but he’s looking for $50K. The job is posted with some weird salary range from corporate like $41,360 – $60,845 (no idea how they come up with this). They’d already told me they need to keep new hires toward the lower end of the spectrum due to the department budget, blah, blah, blah. Sounds like you’re advertising a range you aren’t willing to pay.
Then my ‘antiwork sub’ brain realizes I can probably help this guy AND deprive the shareholders of $.01 per year and make someone’s life better. So I confirm we have the perfect match, the only one out of many, but I pass along the application paperwork he did under my guidance which included that he needed to be at the top of the pay range. Not the $50K he told me he was excited for, but the $62K he was now demanding (he’d been making like $39K). Before the second interview they pointed out that he wanted more than they were hoping to pay and I told them “Hey, we need the help and he’s capable, doesn’t need training, I think he’s worth it”. We do the interview with the senior folks and when it comes to compensation they tried to beat him down but he mostly stood firm and settled on $60,500 – WITH a slightly accelerated PTO accrual schedule. We’ve been texting back and forth the last two days and he’s a much happier man thanks to this sub – and is enjoying that same relief I felt when you go from scraping by to finally not constantly being stressed. We both thank you all!
TLDR: I helped out someone thanks to this sub; it was a wordy five paragraphs you lazy ass. If you can’t read that I’m not sure how valuable your input will be. Also, only assholes utilize jet skis and hookers.