I’m a 29M. I got my masters degree in engineering. I’ve been in corporate America for 6 years. I’ve worked my ass off at various engineering jobs. I make 120k a year.
Every VP I’ve ever had has been a complete idiot with no idea how anything works. Just spewing corporate jargon that has absolutely no real meaning whatsoever.
My current VP is the worst of all. Dude probably makes 400k base salary and another 200k in bonuses, and he does nothing but manage our org chart. We recently had our first half of 2024 recap meeting. First time he met with his team all year. The guy came to the meeting with slides that a 6 year old could have made. He spoke words with absolutely zero substance for a full hour. When he finally got to slides that warranted discussion (lack of pay equity, DE&I issues, etc.) he simply said “yeah we have work to do” without proposing any solutions. He said that “everyone wants more money, right? Haha”. I recorded his worst parts on my phone, to show my family how ridiculous it is.
Myself and many people on this team are burnt out, downtrodden, and pretty much ready to quit due to the ridiculous workload, and this guy is laughing at our pay inequity issues. We keep acquiring more and more companies, but don’t add any headcount, and expect people to bend over and take it, all for a 3% annual raise.
Fuck corporate America. Within the next 5 years, I’m getting out of here. It’s a promise I’ve made to myself.
Edit: I might be giving too much info away, but I don’t give a fuck anymore. To add onto this, I work on a team with all “manager level” people. I’m the sole person on a rung beneath them. Yet I do exactly the same job as them, and have for 3 years. I actually have done more projects at a higher complexity than just about all of them over the past 3 years. I make 20-30k less than them per year. Per my manager, I was supposed to be promoted this year to their level, and this same idiotic VP “forgot” to sign the final approval. I’ve been looking for new jobs for months, but experience tells me it’ll just be the same at the next corporate stop. I’m done climbing the ladder; I hope it breaks.
Edit #2: My manager recently discussed some corporate town hall we were all supposed to have been a part of. I wasn’t, and let the team know. The presenter is an exec, and I was told it was an “all managers” meeting. My manager couldn’t put 2 and 2 together, so I blatantly said I wasn’t invited to the meeting because of my lesser title that everyone else. She seemed confused somehow, and nobody else batted an eye. I got the message.