(sorry for the long post) This happened 21 years ago… I graduated top of my class in Engineering and landed what I thought was a sweet trainee job at Rolls Royce. The pay wasn't the best I could get (17k at the time), but the idea of working on jet engines and having RR on my resume was amazing.
The way they set their program up back then was that trainees actually worked for HR but were seconded to different departments for 3 months at a time. The engineers I worked with were fantastic and I mostly enjoyed the work. But I actually worked for HR. Every 6mth performance appraisal was 25% boss 1, 25% boss 2, and 50% whatever bullshit review my HR contact (who I only saw for 30mins every week) gave me.
HR treated us like scum and made you wonder if they genuinely cared about humans at all. Some of their behavior was monumentally petty. Other behavior was outright illegal. On the petty end, when we went to the HR building for reviews and meetings (the nicest, plushest decorated building on site) we were forbidden to use the bean-to-cup coffee machine. Only water or the soda machine were ok for us. Ok, no biggie, but I guess we had to know our place. At the bigger end, they struck a deal with a local university to allow us to earn a Masters degree by doing 20hrs per week unpaid overtime. When I pointed out I already had a Masters, from a better university, the HR woman gleefully told me it wasn't worth the paper it was written on, and the program was compulsory. This seemed pretty illegal to me, and I consulted my engineering leaders, who informed the unions (not all managers are shitty) and got the compulsory nature overturned.
But now I had a target on my back. Still, being young and optimistic, I tried hard to make it work. After my first year we had our new class of grads coming in. I agreed to be a guide for them on a night out in town. They'd come from all over the country and had hotel rooms for this visit. I met the group at the hotel, about 30 grads, and as we're about to go drinking one comes up to me and says “I don't have a hotel room, what do I do?” Well, I suggest he books out of pocket and speaks to HR about reimbursement. It's already like 8pm, so noone in HR is going to do anything. Think nothing of it, show new grads a good time.
About a week later I was presenting a major project to 4 experienced engineers when the conference room door opened and a woman I'd never met before, from HR, walked in, sat down, and without even asking to interrupt proceeded to berate me about an HR violation. Apparently I'd “authorized” a hotel room for a visiting grad who lived in town, and had therefore been denied a hotel room because he could just get a cab home. I explained what happened (while the four engineers looked on in alarm), and how there was no way I could have known what hotel room arrangements were, and I was only there to be a tour guide anyway. After a solid 10 minutes of “discipline” she upped and left, without so much as acknowledging the professionals in the room. I apologized for her and for me and resumed my presentation.
I was a bit worried about this, knowing I had a target on my back. Luckily I had a new HR rep, actually a good guy who was an ex engineer trying a career change. I told him I was worried they were preparing some kind of discipline. He said “don't worry, it'll be fine, I'll keep my ear to the ground and let you know if anything is happening”. About 10 mins later, he called me back and said “ok, worry, they're preparing something”. I was really stressed about being fired from my first job for something so stupid, when my phone rings again. It's an old college friend asking me to come interview for a big consultancy in a London, and do I want a job? Well, fuck yes I want a new job. What an amazing coincidence. I interviewed over the next 3 weeks and got an offer for fully twice what I was earning at Rolls Royce.
Getting to the punchline…
Nothing happened with the “HR violation”, and Rolls Royce offered me a permanent position, but at the exact same shitty $17k salary they started me on. I asked a new grad what he was earning… $19k was the current entry level salary. I called my HR rep .. not the ex engineer, he'd quit after a couple of months, but a new woman, and asked for a confidential meeting to discuss my offer. She agreed.
I went to the plush HR building, found my rep, who said “oh so the conference rooms are booked. We need to discuss your offer here, in the open plan office, sitting next to the director of HR”. Even to my inexperienced eyes this was a pitiful and blatant attempt at intimidation, but fuck 'em. So I sat down next to the director of HR (her back was to me, but she was listening) and asked my rep to explain why 12 months of successfully completing a prestigious engineering training program was worth negative $2k. She said “that's one way to look at it” and I asked how else she could explain that a new grad with no experience was paid $2k more.
At this point the director of HR spun around and with a greasy smile asked if she could “help”, and proceeded to lecture me about market value for my skills. I listened politely, then pulled out my offer letter from the consultancy for twice the salary, and asked if this was what she'd call market value. She literally couldn't think of anything to say, like she said nothing, and spun back on her evil little chair and went back to work.
I left Rolls Royce, spent 20 amazing years at the consultancy and other places, and never went back to engineering. Happily running my own company now, and boy do i work to make sure my employees know their true market value.