Let me start off by saying that I'm old. But I remember working as a bag-boy in a grocery store in the 1970's. And I remember working in tech support at a time before multi-tasking existed.
I am here in this subreddit to learn more about how I can make things better for my employees. I have several hundred people working for me. The actual position is not important, just assume I'm your boss's boss's boss.
I need people to get me answers so I can make decisions. Your job is to work and tell me what I need to know. In my role, I make 2-3 decisions a day. The rest of the time is not sitting back doing nothing, it's listening to the people who work for me while they carry out the decisions. If I need information at 9pm, then it's infuriating that your GenZ ass can't be bothered to tell me if the Jones account has a higher ROI than the Smith account. Your job is the numbers. My job is to know what the music is going to do, to quote “Margin Call”
If I get an OOO message from you at 17.13 with some bitchy response about how you value your work/life balance and that you'll next be available at 08.00 the following day, it's going to piss me off. I won't say anything about it, and I won't ever admit it publically, but when it comes around time for promotions and raises? No. Get fucked, you get nothing. You want to get raises and benefits for doing a job between certain hours, without realizing that in a mid-level professional, non-blue collar job, there are no “working hours”. Sure, there's something stated in a contract, and if you adhere strictly to that, you'll keep that position just fine. You'll survive. But…..in my eyes, at my level, I'm going to think less of you…..and you will be passed over for promotions.
The problem that I see is that many of you (especially those of you younger than gen-x) have been *FUCKED* *OVER* in low-paying jobs with shitty bosses in menial jobs so much that you overlook the fact that once you're out of the Subway Sandwich Artist job and into a job where you can make a fuckton of money, that you MUST change your mindset. Else you end up bitching and complaining that you're stuck in a dead-end job when other people just keep getting promoted, because yes, you DO have a good “work/life” balance, but you're also stuck making $50K a year when you're 45 years old.
I have people working for me who work (read as “are available”) 80-100 hours a week. Those people make an incredible amount of money. I have people working for me who work (again, “are available”) 40 hours a week. The honest truth of the situation is that I don't trust the 40-hour guy to have his finger on the pulse of what's happening to provide me with correct information.
Now, all of this said, if you're working in a job where you produce labor (versus thought), none of what I said applies. In that case, no, you are not paid to produce thought, you're paid to service the production of an item or a task. That's entirely different than what I'm talking about, and you should absolutely be paid for every minute of your work. So if you're paid hourly untwist your panties and don't respond, I'm not addressing you.
So, all that said, please tell me where I can be a better boss to the hundreds of people who work for me. Why is this mindset I have somehow “bad”? Should I pay everyone equally, without regard to the value they bring to me or the company?
Bring on the downvotes, but please, let's engage in a conversation so that I can learn why you think my mindset is bad.