Long (12 year) story (more a rant after this last weeks bullshit) short. My company has continued to remove benefits since 2019 and is escalating. No I will not post the name or give more personal data as I have bills to pay and an ex-wife, her boyfriend and kids to support. I'm only posting this so that others who are dealing with this know they're not the only ones. I don't need upvotes or if we still had awards those. I just want you folks to know you're not the only ones and corporate doesn't give AF if you're a boomer or a zoomer, they're going to eff you over in their search for higher profits to hand out to the 1%.
Before the “just find another job” starts, in my field agism is very very much a thing. Once you're over 45 it's hard, over 50 impossible to find work without a 33% pay cut or worst situation. Believe me, I've tried. My field wants 20-30 year olds who are desperate for resume builders who'll work for 50% of the industry average.
The Signs:
Overtime for mandatory extra hours? Gone (Salaried position with some BS based on where the company is incorporated)
Guaranteed vacation, sick, personal time? Gone
$30 a week stipend for being on call and expected to answer 24/7/365? Gone
Health care reimbursement? Gone
Gym/Fitness membership reimbursement? Gone
Employee Stock Participation Plan? Gone/restricted such that only those who make $170K a year or more can play the game. Average salary is probably $40K a year across the enterprise if you exclude Sr Directors, VP's and only include America. Other countries are of course totally effed when it comes to participation.
Bonuses based on profit? Gone (but we're still profitable of course)
Golden handcuff RSU's to get employee retention? Gone
Work from home? Gone for most but not all of course. And they've reduced the Facilities footprint such that I'm in a literal storage closet with 2 other people.
Hiring 90% contractor workers for the last year+? Gained.
Is the company still profitable? Of course it is. It's out of that roughly $80,000,000 in profit we generate that we've been getting our 0% to 3% raises every year (0% is not a typo). At least to date.
It doesn't take reading all the recent articles about how Corporate is trying to get people to quit so they don't have to pay severance or announce lay offs (stock price and reputation hit) to realize what's going on. And it's easy to figure out which business units they feel are overloaded in spite of skeleton crews who are mostly keeping the lights on are the ones they want gone based on which ones are taking the RTO pay cuts both monetary and loss of irrecoverable time. Every hour spent on the road is an hour of your life you will never, ever get back.
I don't know what America's corporate roadmap is but unlike Dr. Strange, out of all the future possibilities I don't see one where we win.
I just want to wish any of you who are in this boat or see the boat is pulling up to the dock for boarding the very best of luck for you, your life and your future. It didn't have to be these way and it doesn't have to be this way but the greed of the C levels at this time is worse than a dragon collecting a horde he has no need or use of just to compare his golden dick to other dragons.
May you somehow find a clear path forward.