The company I work for, aside from all the obvious abuse grievances (pay, lack of substantial training, nepotism, absurd hierarchical structure, etc) has been hinting at a general pay raise for a long time.
We are commissioned employees and get paid on a percentage basis of our daily take. Typical pimp/prostitute scenario.
If I make $1000 in a day and my rate is, let’s say 40%, I would take home $400 before taxes. It’s not that much, I’m just using $1000 because it’s a nice round number.
Now 40% is already technically LOW since I am the person doing 95% of the work. The company would take $600 PER DAY for the pleasure of utilizing their office staff and their equipment. It is a fairly large organization and their annual profits are over $10 million.
Not revenue — profit.
So I start to feel grateful to the company for offering this pay raise until I realize what’s actually taken place. They’ve simply increased the direct amount they charge to the customer. Now, instead of $1000, they charge YOU $1100 and my percentage rate stays the same.
I still take home more money but it comes out of your goddamn pocket.
The only thing they had to do was have their IT guy go type a few numbers into the system and the cost to the customer increases and they appear to have done something benevolent for their employees.
Am I happy to have the raise? Of course. But I also understand we are further contributing to the economic decline of America. We and companies like us are why inflation exists. We are why your buck gets less and less bang. And that….paradigm also passes onto me because in a few months or a year or two, my extra $40/day won’t mean shit because all the other things are now more expensive too.
Trickle Down Economics was always a lie because they didn’t account for the greed. The only thing that trickles down is the bullshit.
Stay angry out there.