There are times when Dan Price feels as if he stumbled into the middle of the street with a flag and found himself at the head of a parade.
Three months ago, Mr. Price, 31, announced he was setting a new minimum salary of $70,000 at his Seattle credit card processing firm, Gravity Payments, and slashing his own million-dollar pay package to do it. He wasn’t thinking about the current political clamor over low wages or the growing gap between rich and poor, he said. He was just thinking of the 120 people who worked for him and, let’s be honest, a bit of free publicity. The idea struck him when a friend shared her worries about paying both her rent and student loans on a $40,000 salary. He realized a lot of his own employees earned that or less.
Yet almost overnight, a decision by one small-business man in the northwestern corner of the country became a swashbuckling blow against income inequality.
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RELATED COVERAGE
Dan Price, C.E.O. of Gravity Payments, announcing the new base salary. “Is anyone else freaking out right now?” he said. “I’m kind of freaking out.”One Company’s New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a YearAPRIL 13, 2015
On April 13, Gravity Payments employees were told about a new pay policy.Praise and Skepticism as One Executive Sets Minimum Wage to $70,000 a YearAPRIL 19, 2015
Dan Price, C.E.O. of Gravity Payments, announcing the new base salary. “Is anyone else freaking out right now?” he said. “I’m kind of freaking out.” video New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a YearAPRIL 14, 2015
The move drew attention from around the world — including from some outspoken skeptics and conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, who smelled a socialist agenda — but most were enthusiastic. Talk show hosts lined up to interview Mr. Price. Job seekers by the thousands sent in résumés. He was called a “thought leader.” Harvard business professors flew out to conduct a case study. Third graders wrote him thank-you notes. Single women wanted to date him.
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About 70 percent of the businesses that occupy the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle use Gravity to process their credit card payments. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
What few outsiders realized, however, was how much turmoil all the hoopla was causing at the company itself. To begin with, Gravity was simply unprepared for the onslaught of emails, Facebook posts and phone calls. The attention was thrilling, but it was also exhausting and distracting. And with so many eyes focused on the firm, some hoping to witness failure, the pressure has been intense.
More troubling, a few customers, dismayed by what they viewed as a political statement, withdrew their business. Others, anticipating a fee increase — despite repeated assurances to the contrary — also left. While dozens of new clients, inspired by Mr. Price’s announcement, were signing up, those accounts will not start paying off for at least another year. To handle the flood, he has already had to hire a dozen additional employees — now at a significantly higher cost — and is struggling to figure out whether more are needed without knowing for certain how long the bonanza will last.
Two of Mr. Price’s most valued employees quit, spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises. Some friends and associates in Seattle’s close-knit entrepreneurial network were also piqued that Mr. Price’s action made them look stingy in front of their own employees.
Then potentially the worst blow of all: Less than two weeks after the announcement, Mr. Price’s older brother and Gravity co-founder, Lucas Price, citing longstanding differences, filed a lawsuit that potentially threatened the company’s very existence. With legal bills quickly mounting and most of his own paycheck and last year’s $2.2 million in profits plowed into the salary increases, Dan Price said, “We don’t have a margin of error to pay those legal fees.”
As Mr. Price spoke in the Gravity conference room, he could see a handful of employees setting up beach chairs in the parking lot for an impromptu meeting. The office is in Ballard, a fast-gentrifying neighborhood of Seattle that reflects the wealth gap that Mr. Price says he wants to address. Downstairs is a yoga studio, and across the street is a coffee bar where customers can sip velvet soy lattes on Adirondack-style chairs. But around the corner, beneath the elevated roadway, a homeless woman silently appeals to drivers stopped at the red light with a cardboard sign: “Plz Help.”
In his own way, Mr. Price is trying to respond to that request.
“Income inequality has been racing in the wrong direction,” he said. “I want to fight for the idea that if someone is intelligent, hard-working and does a good job, then they are entitled to live a middle-class lifestyle.”
The reaction to his salary pledge has led him to think that if his business continues to prosper, his actions could have far-reaching consequences. “The cause has expanded,” he said. “Whether I like it or not, the stakes are higher.”
On a recent weekday evening, Mr. Price confidently threaded his way through clumps of tourists and past the rows of flowers and fruits that line Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. About 70 percent of the businesses that occupy this nearly century-old marketplace use Gravity to process their credit card payments, Mr. Price said. He started courting customers there more than 11 years ago, while still attending Seattle Pacific University, a small Christian college. He would go from stall to stall, shaking hands, scribbling down phone numbers. Early on, he signed up Pure Food Fish. The shop was a backdrop in the film “Sleepless in Seattle,” but more important, it was run by the 86-year-old Solly Amon, who inherited the pocket store from his father and is lovingly known as the “cod father.” When other merchants heard Mr. Amon trusted Dan, they did too.
“They give us tremendous service,” Mr. Amon said. He remembered an incident years ago when Mr. Price had a new credit card machine up and running within three hours after his old one died.
In addition to providing the devices and software that merchants use when a customer whips out a credit card, Gravity makes sure the money shifts securely and quickly among buyer, bank and business. In an industry dominated by global banking giants and mammoth processors, the company last year processed $6.5 billion in sales for 12,000 clients, most of them small and medium-size businesses.
Was Mr. Amon bothered by Mr. Price’s new payroll policy? “He takes care of his business, and I’ll take care of my business,” he declared.
Brian Canlis, a co-owner of his family-named restaurant, is also a client. He said he was fond of Mr. Price, but was more discomfited by his actions. Mr. Canlis is already worried about how to deal with Seattle’s new minimum wage, which rose to $11 an hour in April and is scheduled to reach $15 an hour for small businesses within five years.
The pay raise at Gravity, Mr. Canlis told Mr. Price, “makes it harder for the rest of us.”
Mr. Price winced. “It pains me to hear Brian Canlis say that,” he said later. “The last thing I would ever want to do is make a client feel uncomfortable.”
But any plan that has the potential, as Mr. Price has put it, to “set the world on fire,” is bound to make some people squirm. Leah Brajcich, who oversees sales at Gravity, fielded complaints from several customers who accused her boss of communist or socialist sympathies that would drive up their own employees’ wages and others who felt it was a public relations stunt. A few were worried that fees would rise or service would fall off. “What’s their incentive to hustle if you pay them so much?” Ms. Brajcich said they asked. Putting in 80-hour weeks after the announcement, she called the mistrustful clients, stopping by their offices or stores, and invited them to visit Gravity to see for themselves the employees’ dedication. She said she eventually lured most back.
As for other business leaders in Mr. Price’s social circle, they were split on whether he was a brilliant strategist or simply nuts. As much as they respected him, they were also disturbed. “I worry how that’s going to impact other businesses,” said Steve Duffield, the chief executive of the DACO Corporation, who met Mr. Price through the Entrepreneurs’ Organization in Seattle. “We can’t afford to do that. For most businesses, employees are the biggest expense and they need to manage those costs in order to survive.”
Roger Reynolds, a co-owner of a wealth management company, said his discussion of the pay plan with Mr. Price got heated. “My wife and I got so frustrated with him at a cocktail party, we literally left,” said Mr. Reynolds, who complained that Mr. Price unfairly accused him of measuring his self-worth solely in terms of money and trying to hold somebody else down. Everyone may have equal rights, but not equal talent or motivation, Mr. Reynolds said. “I think he’s trying to bring in some political and aspirational beliefs into the compensation structure of the workplace.”
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Dan Price, the chief executive of Gravity Payments, estimated his current net worth at about $3 million. Credit Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York Times
If there was a 19th-century thinker Mr. Price drew inspiration from, it would be not Karl Marx, but Russell Conwell, the Baptist minister and Temple University founder, whose famed “Acres of Diamonds” speech fused Christianity and capitalism. “To make money honestly is to preach the Gospel,” Mr. Conwell exhorted his listeners. To get rich “is our Christian and godly duty.”
Growing up in rural southwestern Idaho, Mr. Price frequently listened to a recording of the speech on tape.
Every day he and his four brothers and one sister rose as early as 5 a.m. to recite a proverb, a psalm, a Gospel chapter and an excerpt from the Old and New Testaments. Home-schooled until he was 12 and taught to accept the Bible as the literal truth, Mr. Price also listened to the Rush Limbaugh show for three hours a day — never imagining he would one day be the subject of a rant by the host. Then it was time to help his mother with organic gardening, composting and recycling.
Like his siblings, Dan was fiercely competitive, said his father, Ron Price, and hard on himself if he didn’t come in first at Bible memorization contests, backyard football or board games like Life and Monopoly. “Dan has always been a deal maker,” said his father, who is now a management consultant.
The isolation did not prepare Mr. Price for the complex social interactions of junior high school. He was awkward, out of place. He remembered joining in when a group of children started laughing, only to later realize that he had been the target of their ridicule.
His experiences did reinforce an independent, contrarian streak even as he made a place for himself in the teenagers’ terrain. He formed a rock band and got a girlfriend. After their first hug at 17, her conservative Christian father demanded to know his intentions. The two were engaged, and they married four years later. (They divorced amicably in 2011.)
His parents instilled a sense of purpose. “We had a family mission” to glorify God, he said. The household was run as a “family business” with jobs and responsibilities carefully set out in charts and diagrams. “All my siblings hated it, but I thought it was cool,” Mr. Price said with a laugh.
Mr. Price is no longer so religious, but the values and faith he grew up on are “in my DNA,” he said. “It’s just something that’s part of me.”
He transferred that zeal to his credit card processing business, which he started out of his dorm room in 2004 with his brother Lucas, five years his senior.
He preached Main Street capitalism that promised to deliver good value, low prices and individual service. His success won him a shelf full of local business awards and even a chance to meet President Obama during National Small Business Week when he was just 25. Though he now has the shoulder-length hair and beard of a hipster, back then he looked like a baby-faced Donny Osmond and sounded like Alex P. Keaton, the eager beaver Republican played by Michael J. Fox on the 1980s sitcom “Family Ties.” He did not actively oppose Seattle’s minimum-wage increase, but a reason he urges other business owners to follow his lead on pay is to avoid more government regulation.
Mr. Price’s drive to succeed, fierce commitment to help small businesses and exacting standards attracted other business-minded idealists. Some even took pay cuts to work at Gravity. Keeping an existing client is more important than getting a new one, he decreed. Never make a caller hear more than two rings before picking up.
Nydelis Ortiz, 25, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Peru (not to mention the 2010 Miss Vermont), said she was drawn to his passion and community volunteer projects. Emery Wager, 30, a Stanford engineering graduate and a former Marine, decided to forgo applying to Harvard Business School so he could work closely with Mr. Price. (He felt vindicated when a Harvard friend who had ridiculed his decision told him Gravity’s pay scale was discussed in class.)
Maisey McMaster was also one of the believers. Now 26, she joined the company five years ago and worked her way up to financial manager, putting in long hours that left little time for her husband and extended family. “There’s a special culture,” where people “work hard and play hard,” she said. “I love everyone there.”
She helped calculate whether the firm could afford to gradually raise everyone’s salary to $70,000 over a three-year period, and was initially swept up in the excitement. But the more she thought about it, the more the details gnawed at her.
“He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump,” she said. To her, a fairer proposal would have been to give smaller increases with the opportunity to earn a future raise with more experience.
A couple of days after the announcement, she decided to talk to Mr. Price.
“He treated me as if I was being selfish and only thinking about myself,” she said. “That really hurt me. I was talking about not only me, but about everyone in my position.”
Already approaching burnout from the relentless pace, she decided to quit.
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Maisey McMaster, a former financial planner at Gravity Payments, quit after the salary announcement. Credit Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York Times
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RECENT COMMENTS
Celia 3 minutes ago
I think what Dan Price has done. Granted, the transition could have been better managed, but at the same time change tends to be .... "bumpy...
SunGold Blake 7 minutes ago
Well done, Dan Price! Henry Ford is said to have ensured his factory workers earned enough to buy his cars - how is this (essentially)...
John 8 minutes ago
Mr. Price just rocked the corporate culture of the last 30 years to its core. Not every company can afford to do this but while CEO pay...
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The new pay scale also helped push Grant Moran, 29, Gravity’s web developer, to leave. “I had a lot of mixed emotions,” he said. His own salary was bumped up to $50,000 from $41,000 (the first stage of the raise), but the policy was nevertheless disconcerting. “Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me,” he complained. “It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.”
Mr. Moran also fretted that the extra money could over time become too enticing to give up, keeping him from his primary goal of further developing his web skills and moving to a digital company.
And the attention was vexing. “I was kind of uncomfortable and didn’t like having my wage advertised so publicly and so blatantly,” he said, echoing a sentiment of several Gravity staff members. “It changed perspectives and expectations of you, whether it’s the amount you tip on a cup of coffee that day or family and friends now calling you for a loan.”
Several employees who stayed, while exhilarated by the raises, say they now feel a lot of pressure. “Am I doing my job well enough to deserve this?” said Stephanie Brooks, 23, who joined Gravity as an administrative assistant two months before the wage increase. “I didn’t earn it.”
When Mr. Price chose $70,000 as the eventual salary floor, he was influenced by research showing that this annual income could make an enormous difference in someone’s emotional well-being by easing nagging financial stress.
He might have also considered the parable of the workers in the vineyard from the Gospel of St. Matthew, where the laborers hired at sunup were upset that their pay was the same as those who showed up right before quitting time. Early adopters and latecomers may be equally welcomed in the Kingdom of Heaven, but not necessarily in the earthly realm, where rewards are generally bestowed in paycheck form.
As for the raw feelings of friends or staff members, Mr. Price readily admits that he can be contentious, even censorious. A disagreement often comes across as a personal attack. “It’s just as painful for me as anyone else,” he said.
Mr. Price, who extolled Ms. McMaster’s talents, said he didn’t think she, Mr. Moran or even Rush Limbaugh was wrong. “There’s no perfect way to do this and no way to handle complex workplace issues that doesn’t have any downsides or trade-offs,” he said. When other entrepreneurs suggested that stock options or profit-sharing would have been a better approach, he said that’s the way capitalism works: Everyone tries to invent the best mousetrap. “I came up with the best solution I could.”
And the publicity surrounding it has generated tangible benefits. Three months before the announcement, the firm had been adding 200 clients a month. In June, 350 signed up.
That new business won’t start paying off for 12 to 18 months, however, Mr. Price said, and in the meantime, he is contending with the lawsuit brought by his brother. Lucas Price owns about 30 percent of their company, although he has not actively been involved in day-to-day operations for several years. There had been tensions between the two long before the new pay plan, and Lucas is demanding that Dan buy him out for an unspecified amount, plus damages.
Lucas, who lives in Seattle, declined to be interviewed but wrote in an email: “Dan has taken millions of dollars out of the company for himself while denying me the benefits of the ownership of my shares, and otherwise favoring his own interests as the majority shareholder over my interests.” He said his complaints predated the pay raises.
Even so, they clearly are critical to the outcome. With profits, at least in the short term, shifted to salaries, there is little left over to buy out his brother, let alone pay the legal bills or make longer-term capital improvements in the company, Dan said.
Flabbergasted when the suit arrived, Dan said he was puzzled by the accusations, saying that Lucas agreed to his $1.1 million salary and bonus package, instituted for 2012.
Family fighting over a business can be ugly and is often about more than just money. Dan conceded he may have previously given short shrift to Lucas’s contributions. “Who knows if I would have had the opportunity to build the company without him helping me out in the first couple of years?” he said.
Lucas was the best man at his wedding, and the two, close friends, often hiked, surfed and attended ballgames together. By the end, “being in business together was the worst thing for our relationship,” Dan said. After the lawsuit was filed, he said he called the rest of his family and told them to offer “unconditional love and support” to both Lucas and him. (Their younger brother Alex, 23, also works at the company.)
While it is upsetting to see two of his sons at odds, Ron Price said, “their mother and me don’t lose sleep over it. I think they’ll get it sorted out.”
Dan Price, who estimated his current net worth, including his home, at about $3 million, said he had offered to “give up everything I have personally and everything I’ll have for years to come.” A court date has been set for May.
For now, at least, Mr. Price has undoubtedly made an immediate difference in the lives of many of his employees. José Garcia, 30, who supervises an equipment team, was able to afford to move into the city and replace the worn tires on his car. Ms. Ortiz, who was briefly homeless as a child, can now visit her family in Burlington, Vt. Cody Boorman, 22, who handles operations out of his eastern Washington home, said he and his wife finally felt financially secure enough to start a family.
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There have been other ripples. Mario Zahariev, who runs Pop’s Pizza & Pasta, switched to Gravity after seeing Mr. Price on the news. When he learned his monthly processing fees would drop to $900 from $1,700, Mr. Zahariev decided, “I was not going to keep the difference for myself.” He used the savings to raise the salaries of his eight employees.
Pop’s Pizza aside, Mr. Price’s plan is not easily replicated, said Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist and an early promoter of the city’s $15 minimum wage law. Still, he noted, “These individual acts can create a new kind of perception of what’s possible and what’s righteous.” After all, he said, two years ago, no one would ever have guessed higher minimum wage laws would be catching fire in cities around the country. “Who can tell what that last thing is that catalyzes big change?”
In that sense, Mr. Price’s foray into the public debate on wages is not unlike his newfound passion of wake surfing. Cruising atop the curl of a wave created by a motorboat isn’t easy. Lean too far ahead of the swell or drift behind it and you wipe out. For the moment, he is balancing on the crest, enjoying the ride and doing his best to keep from falling off.
Like i said when this happened, people will be people.
I mean really? you thought that suddenly raising your companies operating ceiling will help you?
Nice guy gets flak from jealous, petty donkey-caves and neoliberal fundamentalists for giving his employees a decent wage.
Also has a falling out with his brother and business partner which amy or may not be related to the above.
I got from the first part that I did read through, that people in the local area using his service are bailing amidst fears that their rates are going to go up (understandable, even given his constant "reassurances" that that would not happen)
From what I got, and from seeing the business from the "get go" I think he was smart for going with a "decent" wage at the cost of his own, I think he went wrong in implementing and announcing it.
Admitting to being a bit fractious in debates about wages and not managing to reconcile with his sibling before going to the courts mar things, but I thought it was touching when the pizza guy decided to pass on his savings to his employees.
Let's be honest here. The extra salary money was coming straight from CEO gravy. No way it affects the cost of business for clients. The company also increased it's business off of the publicity.
If this had been implemented and announced by someone with a better grip on their company we would be hearing about a nearly unqualified success story.
Which is awesome. I mean think about it. The golden parachute for CEO's is one of the most despised set ups we've got in America. Getting a new industry standard of reasonable wage differences in the field? Priceless.
Which is awesome. I mean think about it. The golden parachute for CEO's is one of the most despised set ups we've got in America. Getting a new industry standard of reasonable wage differences in the field? Priceless.
Yeah, CEO compensation and severance packages are often ridiculous, as it means most CEOs can run a company into the ground, and still live the high life for the rest of their lives.
Just look at the recent financial report from Games Workshop: pay freeze for the employees, while Tom Kirby cuts himself a nearly$700,000 dividend check.
" "I believe that anyone who has a job and works full time, they should be able to pay the things that sustain life: food, shelter and clothing. I can't even do that."
That rather depressing quote is from 61-year old Rebecca Cornick. She’s a grandmother and a 9-year Wendy’s veteran who spoke to CBS News. Rebecca makes $9 an hour and her plight is representative of fast food workers across the country who are campaigning for higher pay.
The fast food worker pay debate is part of a larger discussion as "states and cities across the country [wrestle] with the idea of raising the minimum wage," CBS notes, adding that "right now, 29 states have minimums above the federal $7.25 an hour [and] four cities, including Los Angeles, have doubled their minimum to $15."
Proponents of raising the pay floor argue that it’s simply not possible to live on minimum wage and indeed, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that they’re right. Opponents say forcing employers to pay more will simply mean that companies will fire people or stop hiring and indeed, as we highlighted on Friday, it looks as though WalMart’s move to implement an across-the-board pay raise for its low-paid workers may have contributed to a decision to layoff around 1,000 people at its home office in Bentonville.
"The reality is that most business are not going to pay $15 dollars an hour and keep their doors open," one Burger King franchisee told CBS. "It just won't happen. The economics don't work in this industry. There is a limit to what you're going to pay for a hamburger."
Yes, there’s only so much people will pay for a hamburger which is why Ronald McDonald has made an executive decision to hire more efficient employees at some locations:
With all of that in mind, consider the following from TechRepublic who tells the story of Changying Precision Technology Company, which has replaced almost all of its human employees with robots to great success:
In Dongguan City, located in the central Guangdong province of China, a technology company has set up a factory run almost exclusively by robots, and the results are fascinating.
The Changying Precision Technology Company factory in Dongguan has automated production lines that use robotic arms to produce parts for cell phones.
The factory also has automated machining equipment, autonomous transport trucks, and other automated equipment in the warehouse.
There are still people working at the factory, though. Three workers check and monitor each production line and there are other employees who monitor a computer control system. Previously, there were 650 employees at the factory. With the new robots, there's now only 60. Luo Weiqiang, general manager of the company, told the People's Daily that the number of employees could drop to 20 in the future.
The robots have produced almost three times as many pieces as were produced before. According to the People's Daily, production per person has increased from 8,000 pieces to 21,000 pieces. That's a 162.5% increase.
The increased production rate hasn't come at the cost of quality either. In fact, quality has improved. Before the robots, the product defect rate was 25%, now it is below 5%.
So to anyone planning on picketing the local McDonald’s in an attempt to secure a 70% wage hike, be careful, because this "guy" is ready to work, doesn’t need breaks, and never makes a mistake:"
Nice guy gets flak from jealous, petty donkey-caves and neoliberal fundamentalists for giving his employees a decent wage.
Also has a falling out with his brother and business partner which amy or may not be related to the above.
I got from the first part that I did read through, that people in the local area using his service are bailing amidst fears that their rates are going to go up (understandable, even given his constant "reassurances" that that would not happen)
From what I got, and from seeing the business from the "get go" I think he was smart for going with a "decent" wage at the cost of his own, I think he went wrong in implementing and announcing it.
He lost some customers, gained a lot more, and is having to consider hiring more people to cover the sudden influx of new business.
He lost some customers, gained a lot more, and is having to consider hiring more people to cover the sudden influx of new business.
At the same time though, the first article did outline that the new customers don't really bring in new money until after their first year under contract
djones520 wrote: Lost some employees as well, since they were angered over the fact that brand new people got massive pay raises, when long time employees didn't.
djones520 wrote: Lost some employees as well, since they were angered over the fact that brand new people got massive pay raises, when long time employees didn't.
Sounds like some pretty extreme butthurt.
not really, when you arbitrarily say that a non skilled worker who earned ~30k gets a 40k raise, while a very skilled/educated worker stays the same or only gets a minimal raise, it tends to rub people the wrong way.
its the same reason why we dont give everyone a gold medal just for competing in the olympics.
People will perform better if they know their performance output is related to reward inputs.
djones520 wrote: Lost some employees as well, since they were angered over the fact that brand new people got massive pay raises, when long time employees didn't.
Sounds like some pretty extreme butthurt.
not really, when you arbitrarily say that a non skilled worker who earned ~30k gets a 40k raise, while a very skilled/educated worker stays the same or only gets a minimal raise, it tends to rub people the wrong way.
its the same reason why we dont give everyone a gold medal just for competing in the olympics.
People will perform better if they know their performance output is related to reward inputs.
Psshh... that makes no sense. It's much easier to just say people get butthurt.
I'm pretty sure quitting your job because someone else, who you already make way more more money than (if we're talking about the skilled vs the non-skilled worker in this case), got a raise, is a pretty golden example of being butthurt. Especially when the positive effect on the quality of life for people in the company is obvious. If the skilled workers took a pay cut (like the CEO did), it would be more understandable. But as far as I can tell that's not the case.
Hordini wrote: I'm pretty sure quitting your job because someone else, who you already make way more more money than (if we're talking about the skilled vs the non-skilled worker in this case), got a raise, is a pretty golden example of being butthurt.
I prefer to call it 'entitlement'. That's the buzzword we use right? Meaning "lazy person who wants more money."
djones520 wrote: Lost some employees as well, since they were angered over the fact that brand new people got massive pay raises, when long time employees didn't.
Sounds like some pretty extreme butthurt.
not really, when you arbitrarily say that a non skilled worker who earned ~30k gets a 40k raise, while a very skilled/educated worker stays the same or only gets a minimal raise, it tends to rub people the wrong way.
its the same reason why we dont give everyone a gold medal just for competing in the olympics.
People will perform better if they know their performance output is related to reward inputs.
Actually there is plenty of evidence that financial reward has very little effect on output. People want to be paid fairly for what they think they do, but pay rises and pay differentials make very little difference to how someone performs. This also seems to be a few longer serving employees, which says nothing about their performance or skills. To use your example, you also don't give everyone gold medals just because they have been running longer, and anyway employment is not a competition. Ultimately no one lost out, but a few new employees gained more. These seem like the same people that quit when they get a younger manager. Simply having a strop because they were jealous even though they lost nothing.
Hordini wrote: I'm pretty sure quitting your job because someone else, who you already make way more more money than (if we're talking about the skilled vs the non-skilled worker in this case), got a raise, is a pretty golden example of being butthurt.
I prefer to call it 'entitlement'. That's the buzzword we use right? Meaning "lazy person who wants more money."
Its also means their salaries were underserved as they could find new positions. less butthurt and more underpaid.
Its also means their salaries were underserved as they could find new positions. less butthurt and more underpaid.
Or they willingly took a pay cut in order to leave the company. Considering sentiments such as this...
Mr. Moran also fretted that the extra money could over time become too enticing to give up, keeping him from his primary goal of further developing his web skills and moving to a digital company.
...it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Incidentally, if his primary goals are really further developing his web skills and moving to a digital company, earning more money shouldn't be an issue.
Its also means their salaries were underserved as they could find new positions. less butthurt and more underpaid.
Or they willingly took a pay cut in order to leave the company. Considering sentiments such as this...
Mr. Moran also fretted that the extra money could over time become too enticing to give up, keeping him from his primary goal of further developing his web skills and moving to a digital company.
...it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Incidentally, if his primary goals are really further developing his web skills and moving to a digital company, earning more money shouldn't be an issue.
This is true, but then he would have left anyway. However, I take your point.
Looking closer at the article after some posters mentioned it, the salary raise is also coming directly from profits, in addition to an unstated amount from the unstated budget of the CEO.
Less excited. Still have no idea why people quitting because those under them are getting a boon is 'evidence' that generous pay is bad.
Scrabb wrote: Looking closer at the article after some posters mentioned it, the salary raise is also coming directly from profits, in addition to an unstated amount from the unstated budget of the CEO.
Less excited. Still have no idea why people quitting because those under them are getting a boon is 'evidence' that generous pay is bad.
Because they probably went to school for years to get the degrees which got them their current salaries. Then some unskilled uneducated worker suddenly is making almost as much as they are without having done anything to earn it.
Scrabb wrote: Looking closer at the article after some posters mentioned it, the salary raise is also coming directly from profits, in addition to an unstated amount from the unstated budget of the CEO.
Less excited. Still have no idea why people quitting because those under them are getting a boon is 'evidence' that generous pay is bad.
Because they probably went to school for years to get the degrees which got them their current salaries. Then some unskilled uneducated worker suddenly is making almost as much as they are without having done anything to earn it.
everyone can just get ribbons for showing up, winning/performance does not matter., everyone would work for free, or happily work harder and obtain higher education even if they still made as much as people who had easier jobs with no prerequisites.
its like that yogurt guy said,
Do or do not, it does not matter, there is only try.
Because they probably went to school for years to get the degrees which got them their current salaries. Then some unskilled uneducated worker suddenly is making almost as much as they are without having done anything to earn it.
While not universally true, there were probably a fair number of "entry level" employees at Gravity, they made mention of one, who was "worried" about paying off student loans on only 40k per year (actually truth be told, in the Seattle area that may as well be below the poverty line, cost of living being what it is up there)
So, it's clear to me that Gravity wasn't chock full of "unskilled uneducated workers". Yes, it's only natural that someone who's been at the company for a longer period of time doesn't like the sudden increase in pay of the newbs. But to call them all uneducated and unskilled is quite a bit too far.
As for the last bit, I do agree... many of the newer employees hadn't done much to "earn" an increase in pay, but if those same people aren't producing for the company well enough, then they'd eventually be let go anyhow, so it all works out in the end.
I know I worked as hard in low paying jobs as I do now in my reasonably well paying job. I even went back to university while working full time to get (another) post graduate degree to advance my career (yay for bootstraps! ). There are and were plenty of people who will work hard or slack off regardless of the rewards on offer for their employment.
People will perform better if they know their performance output is related to reward inputs.
Out of curiosity, have you heard Daniel Pink speak on this topic?
It is fascinating.
sort of in a very "the secret" or other psycho-motivational type speakers kind of way.
That being said, people are indeed influenced by and persuaded by him or any # of personalities/celebrities/gods/ect to do all sorts of things all the time because people motivate people.
Remember, my claim is not that humans are solely motivated by money, its just that money is defiantly a motivator and is generally proportional to the skills/ect its buying from the laborers.
Grey Templar wrote: Then some unskilled uneducated worker suddenly is making almost as much as they are without having done anything to earn it.
In the meantime that unskilled worker is doing menial drone work while the person who spent years in education is doing something much more interesting. That's a fair exchange in my view.
SilverMK2 wrote: I know I worked as hard in low paying jobs as I do now in my reasonably well paying job.
I worked harder and 50% longer on minimum wage than I do today. Today I get nearly double the average salary and to be honest there has been long periods in my job where I may as well have been asleep for all I was expected to accomplish. I work in a profession that requires a high degree of technical skill and knowledge but I rarely work hard.
It's not just about hard work in your job right now. You worked hard to be able to do what you do though. You have skills that are in demand. Anyone can flip a burger. Anyone can answer a phone and take down a note. Anyone can do your standard minimum wage job. Not everyone can do high end IT work. Not anyone can forecast the weather. Not just anyone can do a myriad of other highly technical skills. Those who can, those who devoted themselves to learn it, those are the ones are are going to make the money.
Supply and Demand works in more then just the cost of goods.
Scrabb wrote: Looking closer at the article after some posters mentioned it, the salary raise is also coming directly from profits, in addition to an unstated amount from the unstated budget of the CEO.
Less excited. Still have no idea why people quitting because those under them are getting a boon is 'evidence' that generous pay is bad.
Because they probably went to school for years to get the degrees which got them their current salaries. Then some unskilled uneducated worker suddenly is making almost as much as they are without having done anything to earn it.
So what? It's not a fething competition.
Yes it is.
That is just getting straight down to Darwinism right there.
djones520 wrote: It's not just about hard work in your job right now.
Working 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week washing dishes is far harder than studying for a degree.
Um, No.
Is it physically tiring? Yes. Is it mentally demanding, requiring practice, patience, good work ethic to get a paper done the week before its due when everyone is partying? No. Yes, they work hard, but they dont do hard work.
Um, No.
Is it physically tiring? Yes. Is it mentally demanding, requiring practice, patience, good work ethic to get a paper done the week before its due when everyone is partying? No. Yes, they work hard, but they dont do hard work.
Eh, difficulty varies by person.
I could never do something like wash dishes for 12-14 hours, but back in undergrad I could bang out a 30 page research paper from the ground up in half that time; reliably earning A's.
Of course, people often create competition where none needs to exist. By, for example, getting butthurt because someone got a bigger raise than you did.
Hello, Minimum Wage worker here. I am in a position where my well being is threatened emotionally and physically every time I go in to work. At any time, I can be assaulted by a violent Client and I am often emotionally abused by them.
Please tell me how anyone can do my job, keep a cool temper, and then smile while attempting to teach these clients how to live in day to day society.
Like I said before, sounds like a problem of you not getting paid enough for your skills/job.
Flipping burgers isnt an aquired skill, drinking enough water while doing it is though.
Um, No.
Is it physically tiring? Yes. Is it mentally demanding, requiring practice, patience, good work ethic to get a paper done the week before its due when everyone is partying?
?? Getting a degree is not easy but then again it is also not especially difficult. Doing something repetitive and tedious for most of your waking life is extremely difficult. I have 2 degrees now and the first one I basically coasted through it, I didn't get a great mark but it was enough.
Doubtless people will argue that then "they should educate themselves" which is true to a degree but that costs a lot of money; money which many people simply don't have, especially someone working for what is less than a living wage.
Student loans aren't particularly difficult to get. Often much easier the poorer you are. Plus community colleges are pretty darn cheap for how much they can improve your employability. ''School is expensive'' really isn't much of an excuse.
Grey Templar wrote: Student loans aren't particularly difficult to get. Often much easier the poorer you are. Plus community colleges are pretty darn cheap for how much they can improve your employability. ''School is expensive'' really isn't much of an excuse.
Usually I find for people that aren't just coming out of high school it is more difficult, and usually money is only a part of it. Time tends to be the bigger problem for many I imagine. If you have kids it can be even more problematic. If you have a dog even more so, as it is assumed you like your dog.
Usually I find for people that aren't just coming out of high school it is more difficult, and usually money is only a part of it. Time tends to be the bigger problem for many I imagine. If you have kids it can be even more problematic. If you have a dog even more so, as it is assumed you like your dog.
This is more accurate than you'd realize, based on my own personal experience of CCs.
Grey Templar wrote: Student loans aren't particularly difficult to get. Often much easier the poorer you are. Plus community colleges are pretty darn cheap for how much they can improve your employability. ''School is expensive'' really isn't much of an excuse.
I could make barely enough to survive without government help or I could make barely enough to survive while paying off student loans for the next 20 years. Getting boned no matter how you look at it.
Grey Templar wrote: Student loans aren't particularly difficult to get. Often much easier the poorer you are. Plus community colleges are pretty darn cheap for how much they can improve your employability. ''School is expensive'' really isn't much of an excuse.
I could make barely enough to survive without government help or I could make barely enough to survive while paying off student loans for the next 20 years. Getting boned no matter how you look at it.
Assuming you aren't in a job that pays well that you got because of those student loans.
Grey Templar wrote: Student loans aren't particularly difficult to get. Often much easier the poorer you are. Plus community colleges are pretty darn cheap for how much they can improve your employability. ''School is expensive'' really isn't much of an excuse.
I could make barely enough to survive without government help or I could make barely enough to survive while paying off student loans for the next 20 years. Getting boned no matter how you look at it.
Assuming you aren't in a job that pays well that you got because of those student loans.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. There is that chance where you wont even be able to find a job in the field you just spent 4 years of your life learning about.
Assuming you aren't in a job that pays well that you got because of those student loans.
I studied political science, philosophy, and economics at one of the best schools in the country.
My first job out of college was working as a canvasser for Greenpeace, after that I worked as a personal trainer, and after that I took over several managerial positions at the same gym because I convinced the owner that they were redundant. I didn't get a job in a field I had actually been educated for until after I got my PhD, 5 years after undergrad.
This is not unusual. I know plenty of people who studied accounting, finance, engineering, or the like who don't even catch a glimpse of their field until several years after graduation. This is largely due to the curse of "entry level" positions that require up to 5 years of industry experience. Or, to be more accurate, "Talk to us after you've been an unpaid intern (read: bitch) for a while.".
Frazzled wrote: Now how do you feel about your loans if someone who didn't got paid just a hair less than you?
I don't really care considering I would be doing a much more interesting job. If they were doing the same job as me (and therefore have the same quals) then I would continue to be pissed off at the unfairness of a society where daddy's money allows people to take such huge shortcuts.
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dogma wrote: I know plenty of people who studied accounting, finance, engineering, or the like who don't even catch a glimpse of their field until several years after graduation. This is largely due to the curse of "entry level" positions that require up to 5 years of industry experience. Or, to be more accurate, "Talk to us after you've been an unpaid intern (read: bitch) for a while.".
The older your quals are the harder it is to find a job as well, which makes things even better.
It took me 5 years to start working in my chosen field after I graduated and I was extremely lucky to get a foot in the door. Most of those years were spent unemployed or working gak jobs.
hotsauceman1 wrote: So you don't feel that those who have more rarer skills, work even when off of work and those who work the hardest at a company deserve more?
Does some one that understand how to do something deserve more than some one that doesn't but does the exact same job to the same specifications?
Does a person that works for a company deserve more the longer they stay with them (besides the raises based off inflation)
hotsauceman1 wrote: So you don't feel that those who have more rarer skills, work even when off of work and those who work the hardest at a company deserve more?
One can set a reasonable rate of pay for all staff while still differentiating between experienced and skilled staff. The issue is not so much Gravity paying new/lower skill/etc staff too much, but the market paying those kinds of people too little.
hotsauceman1 wrote: So you don't feel that those who have more rarer skills, work even when off of work and those who work the hardest at a company deserve more?
They deserve to be compensated appropriate to their skill level and responsibility. What someone else makes shouldn't really factor into what you deserve.
If your argument is that "my education, experience, abilities, and past performance means that I should make X, then more power to you."
If your argument is "I should make X because other guy makes Y or else I quit" then don't let the door hit you on the way out.
d-usa wrote: That doesn't make it any less of a stupid argument though.
Do you get a raise just because your boss gets a raise? So why should you make more just because someone below you got a raise?
Because my skills and experience are better.
You're ignoring human nature completely. You'd be ok if the janitors in your org were making the same as you?
d-usa wrote: That doesn't make it any less of a stupid argument though.
Do you get a raise just because your boss gets a raise? So why should you make more just because someone below you got a raise?
Because my skills and experience are better.
So when you apply for a job, what did you carve into your stone tablet when you filled out your application?
I want $X or I want $X more than this other guy?
You're ignoring human nature completely. You'd be ok if the janitors in your org were making the same as you?
I work for the government and we have lots of veterans working here, so based on all their experience and other factors I am sure that there are janitors who are actually making more than me here .
When I was an engineer at ExxonMobil, most of the operators made more than I did. They will almost all retire at a younger age than I will, in fact. Probably with more in their 401K than I'll have.
I had a BS in Chemical Engineering that I went to school for 4 years to get, they did not. I was on call at all times, they were not. I never got to just "turn it off" at the end of the day. I was there to support a production line, 24/7.
However, they worked 4 days on, 4 days off, 4 nights on, 4 nights off. They only made more than me IF they worked 2 of those off days for their over time. If they hit 7 in a row, they got double time. I worked Monday through Friday. Day shifts. I would get called in from time to time, but my schedule was still Mon-Fri. They worked holidays, weekends, kids birthdays, and so on.
People will perform better if they know their performance output is related to reward inputs.
Out of curiosity, have you heard Daniel Pink speak on this topic?
It is fascinating.
sort of in a very "the secret" or other psycho-motivational type speakers kind of way.
That being said, people are indeed influenced by and persuaded by him or any # of personalities/celebrities/gods/ect to do all sorts of things all the time because people motivate people.
Remember, my claim is not that humans are solely motivated by money, its just that money is defiantly a motivator and is generally proportional to the skills/ect its buying from the laborers.
I would argue they aren't motivated by money per se, but what money provides. However, that is just semantics now.
However, there is a point where getting a bonus only persuades a smaller percentage of people and the rest are motivated by something else. Typically, people are motivated by:
1. Money/Status
2. Public Recognition (i.e. awards and such)
3. Time
4. Relationships
So, money is only one component of motivating people to go above and beyond.
You're ignoring human nature completely. You'd be ok if the janitors in your org were making the same as you?
If my organization employed janitors and there was one who made as much as me, I would have to tip my hat to him for his shrewdness while suspecting that The Garbageman found a way to truly break the 4th wall.
But in all seriousness, I wouldn't care. My ego isn't so fragile as to require the constant reassurance provided by earning more money than someone else.
You're ignoring human nature completely. You'd be ok if the janitors in your org were making the same as you?
If my organization employed janitors and there was one who made as much as me, I would have to tip my hat to him for his shrewdness while suspecting that The Garbageman found a way to truly break the 4th wall.
But in all seriousness, I wouldn't care. My ego isn't so fragile as to require the constant reassurance provided by earning more money than someone else.
Your pocket book would care. You children would care. You wife would care (unless she left you for the janitor... )
d-usa wrote: My salary doesn't suddenly buy less things just because a janitor makes as much as me.
And honestly, what options do the people who quit really have?
Find a job that pays more? That's awesome and making more money is always a good factor when deciding to change jobs.
Work somewhere else for $70,000? Great, now you have less seniority and still make the same amount of money. But at least someone makes less than you?
no one quit because someone made as much as they did, they quit because "their raise" was small or non existent compared to people who just got tens of thousands of dollars more each year. wouldn't really bother me personally, but I can at least see how some people would have also liked a pay increase.
if the lower paid employees deserved such a huge bump, their feelings are why dont they also deserve a large bump
I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
I agree entirely. The largest con ever pulled is the rich convincing the less rich to despise the poor rather than wonder why the rich are somehow magically worth the money they "earn" while someone slugging their guts out doing unskilled labour should have to work two jobs and go on welfare to put a roof over their head.
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
Seems hypocritical. Why should he give a feth what the CEO makes? Doesn't 'I should be happy with what I make and the great work I get to do' work both directions? Why care if someone makes the same as you for less work, the same work, more work? Why care if someone makes more than you? Aren't both petty ways of thinking?
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
Seems hypocritical. Why should he give a feth what the CEO makes? Doesn't 'I should be happy with what I make and the great work I get to do' work both directions? Why care if someone makes the same as you for less work, the same work, more work? Why care if someone makes more than you? Aren't both petty ways of thinking?
One would assume it's because in the first example, you have two people putting in a day's work and receiving equivalent pay. They can buy the same clothes, eat the same food, and so forth. In the second example, you have two people putting in a days work, only one of them gets to have a private jet and dine in five star restaurants. Yet his job is not intrinsically any more difficult than that of the other two people.
It goes against what most people perceive as being 'fair'. You can't help but feel that the only reason he gets a bigger slice of the financial pie is by taking it away from everyone else. Which is somewhat true, it would easily be possible for a company to cut his wage down to the same level as everyone else's, and raise everyone's wages equally.
But yes, evils of socialism, look at those money grubbing immigrants, something about Jesus and hard work, when I was a lad, land of the free, everyone has the same opportunity, gigantic risks of CEO's, trickledown effect, etcetc. Pick your reason.
d-usa wrote: So are they making more at their new jobs? Did they get a raise with quiting?
well sometimes it creates bad feelings and people just dont "feel" motivated to work at a place once the work environment has that kind of feelings in it. as others and myselft have posted, money is A motivator, its not the only motivator.
Ive known people to quit over less trivial things then this.
not what you or I would do, but not everyone is us.
hotsauceman1 wrote: So you don't feel that those who have more rarer skills, work even when off of work and those who work the hardest at a company deserve more?
Just how much more? 10%? 50%? 100%? 300%? This is where we have gone very, very wrong.
I would do my current job for less money but I wouldn't be washing dishes even if was paid my current salary.
d-usa wrote: So are they making more at their new jobs? Did they get a raise with quiting?
well sometimes it creates bad feelings and people just dont "feel" motivated to work at a place once the work environment has that kind of feelings in it. as others and myselft have posted, money is A motivator, its not the only motivator.
Ive known people to quit over less trivial things then this.
not what you or I would do, but not everyone is us.
So he really doesn't gain anything other than knowing "other folks make less than me"?
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
Seems hypocritical. Why should he give a feth what the CEO makes? Doesn't 'I should be happy with what I make and the great work I get to do' work both directions? Why care if someone makes the same as you for less work, the same work, more work? Why care if someone makes more than you? Aren't both petty ways of thinking?
One would assume it's because in the first example, you have two people putting in a day's work and receiving equivalent pay. They can buy the same clothes, eat the same food, and so forth. In the second example, you have two people putting in a days work, only one of them gets to have a private jet and dine in five star restaurants. Yet his job is not intrinsically any more difficult than that of the other two people.
It goes against what most people perceive as being 'fair'. You can't help but feel that the only reason he gets a bigger slice of the financial pie is by taking it away from everyone else. Which is somewhat true, it would easily be possible for a company to cut his wage down to the same level as everyone else's, and raise everyone's wages equally.
Sometimes (I would even say usually) 'not intrinsically more difficult' is nothing but an opinion. A dishwasher may have a harder job from a physical aspect than the manager/owner/CEO of a restaurant. Yet ensuring employee schedules are made correctly, food and other supplies are ordered/paid for and stocked correctly to limit waste/spoilage, ensuring the bills are paid and payroll goes out on time, ensuring the proper resources are put into adverts and so on may be 'easier', but the failure to do them correctly results in a business folding and all that entails. His/her time and effort just may be worth a bit more than the dishwashers' time/effort.
I suspect most folks who don't think a CEOs job is 'hard' have never really been responsible for the failure or success of an organization. Are some overpaid? Most likely. Good for them. I'm not sure how being jealous of what others have and channeling that towards desiring them to have less is a worthwhile endeavor.
Fair is where you go to get tasty fried food on a stick.
d-usa wrote: So are they making more at their new jobs? Did they get a raise with quiting?
well sometimes it creates bad feelings and people just dont "feel" motivated to work at a place once the work environment has that kind of feelings in it. as others and myselft have posted, money is A motivator, its not the only motivator.
Ive known people to quit over less trivial things then this.
not what you or I would do, but not everyone is us.
So he really doesn't gain anything other than knowing "other folks make less than me"?
I doubt they see it like that,
their POV is likely "I work just as hard, if not harder, and I did X Y Z to prove it, why does joe get such a huge raise when I do not?"
considering how many people rage over various people being over paid in fashionable to hate positions like CEO, its not really that unexpected.
regarding "hard work"
its harder to dig ditches by hand
its easier to dig them with shovels
its easier still to dig them with back hoes.
does the hand digger get paid more cause "its hard?" or does he get paid in proportion to how much the employer can afford to pay someone who only digs 1 ditch for every 5 the shoveler digs, or for every 30 the back hoe digs?
d-usa wrote: So are they making more at their new jobs? Did they get a raise with quiting?
well sometimes it creates bad feelings and people just dont "feel" motivated to work at a place once the work environment has that kind of feelings in it. as others and myselft have posted, money is A motivator, its not the only motivator.
Ive known people to quit over less trivial things then this.
not what you or I would do, but not everyone is us.
So he really doesn't gain anything other than knowing "other folks make less than me"?
I doubt they see it like that,
their POV is likely "I work just as hard, if not harder, and I did X Y Z to prove it, why does joe get such a huge raise when I do not?"
But then again, what do they gain by going somewhere else where they are still going to be paid the same amount of money that they are getting now?
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
Seems hypocritical. Why should he give a feth what the CEO makes? Doesn't 'I should be happy with what I make and the great work I get to do' work both directions? Why care if someone makes the same as you for less work, the same work, more work? Why care if someone makes more than you? Aren't both petty ways of thinking?
One would assume it's because in the first example, you have two people putting in a day's work and receiving equivalent pay. They can buy the same clothes, eat the same food, and so forth. In the second example, you have two people putting in a days work, only one of them gets to have a private jet and dine in five star restaurants. Yet his job is not intrinsically any more difficult than that of the other two people.
It goes against what most people perceive as being 'fair'. You can't help but feel that the only reason he gets a bigger slice of the financial pie is by taking it away from everyone else. Which is somewhat true, it would easily be possible for a company to cut his wage down to the same level as everyone else's, and raise everyone's wages equally.
Sometimes (I would even say usually) 'not intrinsically more difficult' is nothing but an opinion. A dishwasher may have a harder job from a physical aspect than the manager/owner/CEO of a restaurant. Yet ensuring employee schedules are made correctly, food and other supplies are ordered/paid for and stocked correctly to limit waste/spoilage, ensuring the bills are paid and payroll goes out on time, ensuring the proper resources are put into adverts and so on may be 'easier', but the failure to do them correctly results in a business folding and all that entails. His/her time and effort just may be worth a bit more than the dishwashers' time/effort.
I suspect most folks who don't think a CEOs job is 'hard' have never really been responsible for the failure or success of an organization. Are some overpaid? Most likely. Good for them. I'm not sure how being jealous of what others have and channeling that towards desiring them to have less is a worthwhile endeavor.
Fair is where you go to get tasty fried food on a stick.
You do not think a restaurant would fold without clean dishes?
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
Seems hypocritical. Why should he give a feth what the CEO makes? Doesn't 'I should be happy with what I make and the great work I get to do' work both directions? Why care if someone makes the same as you for less work, the same work, more work? Why care if someone makes more than you? Aren't both petty ways of thinking?
One would assume it's because in the first example, you have two people putting in a day's work and receiving equivalent pay. They can buy the same clothes, eat the same food, and so forth. In the second example, you have two people putting in a days work, only one of them gets to have a private jet and dine in five star restaurants. Yet his job is not intrinsically any more difficult than that of the other two people.
It goes against what most people perceive as being 'fair'. You can't help but feel that the only reason he gets a bigger slice of the financial pie is by taking it away from everyone else. Which is somewhat true, it would easily be possible for a company to cut his wage down to the same level as everyone else's, and raise everyone's wages equally.
Sometimes (I would even say usually) 'not intrinsically more difficult' is nothing but an opinion. A dishwasher may have a harder job from a physical aspect than the manager/owner/CEO of a restaurant. Yet ensuring employee schedules are made correctly, food and other supplies are ordered/paid for and stocked correctly to limit waste/spoilage, ensuring the bills are paid and payroll goes out on time, ensuring the proper resources are put into adverts and so on may be 'easier', but the failure to do them correctly results in a business folding and all that entails. His/her time and effort just may be worth a bit more than the dishwashers' time/effort.
I suspect most folks who don't think a CEOs job is 'hard' have never really been responsible for the failure or success of an organization. Are some overpaid? Most likely. Good for them. I'm not sure how being jealous of what others have and channeling that towards desiring them to have less is a worthwhile endeavor.
Fair is where you go to get tasty fried food on a stick.
You do not think a restaurant would fold without clean dishes?
I know I can replace the dishwasher a LOT easier than I can the guy doing the other stuff I listed.
Personally, I’m not so sure this is going to be viable for this company, long term. This is hardly the first company to attempt generous remuneration packages. Starbucks actually has a remarkably good scheme, considering how much the market normally pays a barista. There’s even been some literature that argues that paying above market wages is actually an optimal approach for a company (you attract higher quality staff and face lower turnover), but that literature has been pretty optimistic to be honest. Almost every case study has been of a company that’s already in an exceptional circumstance (owning a key asset, or having a very powerful brand like Google). It leads me to suspect that the real relationship is a strong company then producing a generous remuneration scheme, and not a generous remuneration scheme producing a strong company.
So in this case, with a company with a completely generic product like CC processing, it seems like if there’s abnormal profits that the CEO can pass down to employees, well those abnormal profits are going to attract competition very quickly. And I can’t see this scheme lasting in the face of that competitive pressure.
That’s kind of why minimum wage laws are really important. You can’t just hope companies decide to pay above the market rate, because it’s really hard for them to do it. You need a level playing field, where everyone pays a living wage.
Grey Templar wrote: Because they probably went to school for years to get the degrees which got them their current salaries. Then some unskilled uneducated worker suddenly is making almost as much as they are without having done anything to earn it.
You're making things up again. When you say 'making almost as much as they are'... you have no fething clue if that's true. If someone went to school for years and is working as an IT professional in a financial company, there's every chance their pay is considerably more than $100k, possibly considerably more. It would then make no sense to describe the two as earning ‘almost as much’.
Now, that might not be the case – IT professionals might now be earning the same as the receptionist. I don’t know, but the point is that you don’t either. So stop fething making gak it up to suit the point you want to make.
Frazzled wrote: And if they were getting with a bonus plan, their bonus plan just went in the toilet.
Yeah, I suspect that may be the issue here - some employees had profit based bonus schemes that just got flushed with the CEO's new employee remuneration scheme.
If that's true, well then that's life. Those people are well within their rights to find work elsewhere, and the CEO is well within his rights to carry on without them. If he can find decent replacements for an amount of pay that means the company is still viable, well then carry on.
Even if its not comparable salary, a pay increase for no reason is still wrong comparatively. If someone gets a raise for no reason then everyone should get the same pay raise.
I'm not making stuff up, I can't use exact numbers because we agent given exact numbers. But given how it appears to have shaken, some people got huge pay raises and others got minimal or none. That means that quite a few people are indeed getting the same or similar pay for vastly different jobs.
Let's say I don't actually get a raise at all. Let's say my job was 100k plus benefits. I got no raise with this new policy. But the janitor and secretary did because reasons. I'd be a little pissed I didn't get a similar raise too. Especially since my work actually contributes to the company's profitability while the janitor and secretary just keep the workplace functioning, profits which are what is paying for everyone's paychecks. The janitor and secretary might be important, by they don't determine how successful the company is, they only keep it functioning, they have no bearing on its success or failure.
Grey Templar wrote: But the janitor and secretary did because reasons. I'd be a little pissed I didn't get a similar raise too. Especially since my work actually contributes to the company's profitability while the janitor and secretary just keep the workplace functioning, profits which are what is paying for everyone's paychecks. The janitor and secretary might be important, by they don't determine how successful the company is, they only keep it functioning, they have no bearing on its success or failure.
You really think that a company likes this hires janitors in house?? I'd be willing to bet a bit of money that they outsource that, probably because it's rolled into a lease on the building they use
Pretty much everyday, I get employment emails from headhunters and the like, showcasing this exact kind of "outsourced" work for some temp agency or another.
Ohh, and the new office PC term is "personal assistant", "secretary" has sexist undertones
Again, its for the sake of the example. Plenty of companies have in-house janitorial services. It doesn't matter if this particular one doesn't. Its about the principal of what this company did.
Grey Templar wrote: Even if its not comparable salary, a pay increase for no reason is still wrong comparatively. If someone gets a raise for no reason then everyone should get the same pay raise.
Meh. You clearly believe that as a self-evident principle, and while I think there’s a bit of merit to the idea the real picture is a lot more complex.
But my point is that please for the love of God stop making things up to defend your claims. Just, next time, please only give facts that you actually know to be true.
I'm not making stuff up, I can't use exact numbers because we agent given exact numbers. But given how it appears to have shaken, some people got huge pay raises and others got minimal or none. That means that quite a few people are indeed getting the same or similar pay for vastly different jobs.
Holy gak I just gave you an example showing how you can’t claim that for certain.
I mean, to really walk you through this step by step, let's say I earn $110,000. You are my secretary and earn $40,000. The CEO announces a minimum pay of $70,000 in the organisation. My wage remains the same, your pay increases 75%.
I may be pissed about that. I may even leave. This may be an issue for the company. These are all things that might be true, and valid reasons to argue against this policy. But we can also see that my pay is still more than 50% greater than yours. And so claiming our pays are now similar would be completely wrong.
Now it could be that I don’t earn $110,000. I could be on $75,000, and so our incomes could now be stated as similar.
We don’t know. And so the point is, once again, you can’t say that pays are now similar, because you have no idea if that’s true. So stop just inventing things in your head and then accepting them as true.
Two of the employees were complaining that some people got huge raises while others got small or no raises. Those who only got small raises are obviously now making the same as the people who got huge raises.
Sure, those who got no raises are still making more, but that isn't the point. The point is they didn't get any raises, and these people were most likely fairly responsible for the company success.
Grey Templar wrote: Sure, those who got no raises are still making more, but that isn't the point. The point is they didn't get any raises, and these people were most likely fairly responsible for the company success.
Pretty impressive forging of a narrative. Just fill in the blanks with whatever you want, I guess.
Two of the employees were complaining that some people got huge raises while others got small or no raises. Those who only got small raises are obviously now making the same as the people who got huge raises.
Okay, I'm typing out my example for you for a third time. The company pays me $110,000. It pays you $40,000. You get a 75% pay raise, to the new company minimum of $70,000. I get no pay raise. Despite this I still earn 50% more than you, and so the claim that we now earn similar amounts is completely wrong.
Sure, those who got no raises are still making more, but that isn't the point. The point is they didn't get any raises, and these people were most likely fairly responsible for the company success.
The idea that you can pick apart company success or profitability and designate a bit to the IT guy, and a bit to the team leader of accounts, and a bit to the salesperson, is absurd.
You may have gun salesman who brings in massive business, but without an accounts guy making sure invoices are generated and paid, nothing that gun salesman does produces any revenue to the company. Every role supports every other role.
Grey Templar wrote: Sure, but I can hire anyone to wash dishes. I can't hire just anyone to manage the business.
That makes the dishwasher much less valuable, and thus less deserving of higher pay.
Why not? A lot of people out there with management experience looking for jobs.
Because we have an open border and I have hard working illegal immigrants who will take less for the "job an American wouldn't do." Not so much for restaurant managers.
Grey Templar wrote: Those who only got small raises are obviously now making the same as the people who got huge raises.
Not if they were already making well over the minimum wage now paid at the company... and it is unlikely that they would be making more at a similar company either, as their jobs are likely to still be paying more or less the "market rate" for their job... otherwise I am sure they would have been paid as little as possible like everyone else who apparently "deserves it" and so would have been given a raise
You children would care. You wife would care (unless she left you for the janitor... )
Why, because I wouldn't be spending as much time with them? Why do you assume that working in a skilled position necessarily involves working longer hours?
Why, because I wouldn't be spending as much time with them? Why do you assume that working in a skilled position necessarily involves working longer hours?
They would care if you're getting less money than you could be.
Two of the employees were complaining that some people got huge raises while others got small or no raises. Those who only got small raises are obviously now making the same as the people who got huge raises.
Okay, I'm typing out my example for you for a third time. The company pays me $110,000. It pays you $40,000. You get a 75% pay raise, to the new company minimum of $70,000. I get no pay raise. Despite this I still earn 50% more than you, and so the claim that we now earn similar amounts is completely wrong.
Sure, those who got no raises are still making more, but that isn't the point. The point is they didn't get any raises, and these people were most likely fairly responsible for the company success.
The idea that you can pick apart company success or profitability and designate a bit to the IT guy, and a bit to the team leader of accounts, and a bit to the salesperson, is absurd.
You may have gun salesman who brings in massive business, but without an accounts guy making sure invoices are generated and paid, nothing that gun salesman does produces any revenue to the company. Every role supports every other role.
OK, let's add the following to your example.
I make 40k, you make 110k. There is also another guy who makes 65k.
The guy who makes 65 has been at the company for 5 years and he originally started in the same position I am in. We both basically do the same work, but he has gotten pay raises through his prior performance based raises and being with the company for the time he has.
Suddenly, both our salaries get bumped to 70k.
He gets a 7.7% raise and I get a 75% raise. So even though he has been here far longer than I have and is most certainly more experienced he is making the same amount I am. I basically got all the benefits he had to work for for free.
This type of raise is unfair to this type of person. And we know this happened at the company because some people got small raises and others got huge raises. Because we know the floor salary for the company is 70k we know the people who got small and huge raises are now getting paid the same.
Likewise, what if this guy had been making 75k instead? He would get no raise despite being with the company far longer. And as I ahvent been with the company as long I can't have contributed to their success much while that person has.
And actually, you can pick apart company profitability and figure out roughly what each individual person has contributed to company success. There are formulas and techniques for this.
They would care if you're getting less money than you could be.
Even if I enjoy my job*, and the amount of money I'm making has them living an extremely comfortable lifestyle? Either way, the fact that someone else is making as much money as I am doing unskilled work does not indicate I could make more money than I presently am doing skilled work.
*I know, its weird, but sometimes people do care about the happiness of their loved ones.
I've never understood the concept of 'somebody got something I had to work hard to get more easily than me, therefore it is unfair' angle on thing. It's like saying that a National Health Service should never be brought in because children might enjoy free medicine where their parents previously had to pay, or scholarships should never be given out because other people self-fund. Just because it took you a lot of effort to acquire a livable/decent wage doesn't everyone should have to put in a considerable amount of effort to achieve the same. There are some things that for the greater societal good, are generally recognised as transcending market forces. I don't understand why some people regard a solid wage as not being one of them, both from a moral or economic perspective.
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
I think this line of reasoning is nonsense.
To claim that CEOs don't have "harder jobs" is, IMO, a bit ridiculous. The increased level of responsibility is enough unto itself. They may not work as many hours, but that hardly means it isn't "harder."
Further, CEOs don't just become CEOs because someone liked them. Nearly all bust their asses to become them.
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
I think this line of reasoning is nonsense.
To claim that CEOs don't have "harder jobs" is, IMO, a bit ridiculous. The increased level of responsibility is enough unto itself. They may not work as many hours, but that hardly means it isn't "harder."
Further, CEOs don't just become CEOs because someone liked them. Nearly all bust their asses to become them.
That's an idealised picture of a CEO. A CEO works no harder than the people immediately below him, or indeed, the people immediately below them. There's also the fact that despite the increased 'responsibility', CEO's of big firms regularly skip from one high profile appointment to another regardless of how badly the firm itself fares underneath them. The worst that ever happens is their gigantic bonus is only ludicrously high instead of preposterously so. I'm sure most of us could accept the 'risk' inherent in that.
Ketara wrote: I read an article the other day from a chap in a virtually identical position. His response was something along the lines of 'Rather than get mad at the fact that someone working a different job is getting paid as much as me, I'd rather get mad at the fact that the CEO of my company makes 400 times what I do for a job that isn't any harder'.
Seems hypocritical. Why should he give a feth what the CEO makes? Doesn't 'I should be happy with what I make and the great work I get to do' work both directions? Why care if someone makes the same as you for less work, the same work, more work? Why care if someone makes more than you? Aren't both petty ways of thinking?
One would assume it's because in the first example, you have two people putting in a day's work and receiving equivalent pay. They can buy the same clothes, eat the same food, and so forth. In the second example, you have two people putting in a days work, only one of them gets to have a private jet and dine in five star restaurants. Yet his job is not intrinsically any more difficult than that of the other two people.
It goes against what most people perceive as being 'fair'. You can't help but feel that the only reason he gets a bigger slice of the financial pie is by taking it away from everyone else. Which is somewhat true, it would easily be possible for a company to cut his wage down to the same level as everyone else's, and raise everyone's wages equally.
Sometimes (I would even say usually) 'not intrinsically more difficult' is nothing but an opinion. A dishwasher may have a harder job from a physical aspect than the manager/owner/CEO of a restaurant. Yet ensuring employee schedules are made correctly, food and other supplies are ordered/paid for and stocked correctly to limit waste/spoilage, ensuring the bills are paid and payroll goes out on time, ensuring the proper resources are put into adverts and so on may be 'easier', but the failure to do them correctly results in a business folding and all that entails. His/her time and effort just may be worth a bit more than the dishwashers' time/effort.
I suspect most folks who don't think a CEOs job is 'hard' have never really been responsible for the failure or success of an organization. Are some overpaid? Most likely. Good for them. I'm not sure how being jealous of what others have and channeling that towards desiring them to have less is a worthwhile endeavor.
Fair is where you go to get tasty fried food on a stick.
You do not think a restaurant would fold without clean dishes?
I know I can replace the dishwasher a LOT easier than I can the guy doing the other stuff I listed.
Really? How? What special skill does it take to make a schedule/know how much food to order monthly? My boss has to order house supplies monthly and food weekly for the place I work. While also maintaining clients and billing the state. Her bachelors degree is in theater.
Why do you think general education exists? Simply having a degree of any kind gives a skill set even if its not in a job that is directly applicable. And I'm sure she has job experience that also qualifies her.
Grey Templar wrote: Why do you think general education exists? Simply having a degree of any kind gives a skill set even if its not in a job that is directly applicable. And I'm sure she has job experience that also qualifies her.
So based on what you are saying, any college graduate will do?
Seems like we have a ton of them looking for jobs right now. Probably easy to find.
Grey Templar wrote: Why do you think general education exists? Simply having a degree of any kind gives a skill set even if its not in a job that is directly applicable. And I'm sure she has job experience that also qualifies her.
So based on what you are saying, any college graduate will do?
Seems like we have a ton of them looking for jobs right now. Probably easy to find.
If they have what is highlighted in orange, you may be on to something.
Grey Templar wrote: Why do you think general education exists? Simply having a degree of any kind gives a skill set even if its not in a job that is directly applicable. And I'm sure she has job experience that also qualifies her.
So based on what you are saying, any college graduate will do?
Seems like we have a ton of them looking for jobs right now. Probably easy to find.
If they have what is highlighted in orange, you may be on to something.
Ahh, the job experience of understanding how to make a schedule and know when food spoils. Its not like people do that every day when living their lives.
There is a difference between checking if that milk is spoiled and juggling it in bulk. Plus you have health standards to consider. Milk that is legally spoiled for restaurant use might be the same milk I keep at home for a few more days.
There is no comparison with your home fridge and a commercial kitchen.
Ketara wrote: I've never understood the concept of 'somebody got something I had to work hard to get more easily than me, therefore it is unfair' angle on thing. It's like saying that a National Health Service should never be brought in because children might enjoy free medicine where their parents previously had to pay, or scholarships should never be given out because other people self-fund. Just because it took you a lot of effort to acquire a livable/decent wage doesn't everyone should have to put in a considerable amount of effort to achieve the same. There are some things that for the greater societal good, are generally recognised as transcending market forces. I don't understand why some people regard a solid wage as not being one of them, both from a moral or economic perspective.
+1
There are some people who are not satisfied with what they have. They want to make sure others are beneath them to feel superior about themselves.
In sports it's like a player who doesn't care as much about winning, they just want to make sure the other guy loses. Like a rivalry where it's alright if your team goes 1-15, just make sure you only beat that one other team and the season is a success.
Grey Templar wrote: There is a difference between checking if that milk is spoiled and juggling it in bulk. Plus you have health standards to consider. Milk that is legally spoiled for restaurant use might be the same milk I keep at home for a few more days.
There is no comparison with your home fridge and a commercial kitchen.
There is actually. Both are set by guidelines. One by you and one by whoever the heck it is that makes people throw away spoiled food. Either way, you are following some sort of preset guidelines in order to determine when the food is no longer safe to be consumed. I fail to see the difference.
Did you know that most places are not following guidelines at all when they throw out food? In fact, did you know most "sell by" and "use by" dates are completely inaccurate?
You probably fail to see the difference because you have no idea what you are talking about. And sell by dates and such are not at all what I am referring to.
There is no law that can't keep my milk till it turns green in my home fridge. But doing that in a restaurant would get you shut down.
Grey Templar wrote: There is a difference between checking if that milk is spoiled and juggling it in bulk. Plus you have health standards to consider. Milk that is legally spoiled for restaurant use might be the same milk I keep at home for a few more days.
There is no comparison with your home fridge and a commercial kitchen.
There is also ordering to not have excess and to not run out, being able to calculate when various items need to be re ordered. Anticipating sales based on upcoming promotions or local events and so on.
Ketara wrote: I've never understood the concept of 'somebody got something I had to work hard to get more easily than me, therefore it is unfair' angle on thing. It's like saying that a National Health Service should never be brought in because children might enjoy free medicine where their parents previously had to pay, or scholarships should never be given out because other people self-fund. Just because it took you a lot of effort to acquire a livable/decent wage doesn't everyone should have to put in a considerable amount of effort to achieve the same. There are some things that for the greater societal good, are generally recognised as transcending market forces. I don't understand why some people regard a solid wage as not being one of them, both from a moral or economic perspective.
+1
There are some people who are not satisfied with what they have. They want to make sure others are beneath them to feel superior about themselves.
In sports it's like a player who doesn't care as much about winning, they just want to make sure the other guy loses. Like a rivalry where it's alright if your team goes 1-15, just make sure you only beat that one other team and the season is a success.
And yet... folks with this viewpoint then bitch about others having more than they do and claim It Isn't Fair. Being jealous the other guy won and instead of wanting to be a winner too, thinking every one should just get participation ribbons and quit keeping score.
Grey Templar wrote: You probably fail to see the difference because you have no idea what you are talking about. And sell by dates and such are not at all what I am referring to.
There is no law that can't keep my milk till it turns green in my home fridge. But doing that in a restaurant would get you shut down.
Of course it would. Who would keep milk until it turns green? That is a ridiculous argument. The argument was that a lot of times these things are very obscure.
Grey Templar wrote: There is a difference between checking if that milk is spoiled and juggling it in bulk. Plus you have health standards to consider. Milk that is legally spoiled for restaurant use might be the same milk I keep at home for a few more days.
There is no comparison with your home fridge and a commercial kitchen.
There is also ordering to not have excess and to not run out, being able to calculate when various items need to be re ordered. Anticipating sales based on upcoming promotions or local events and so on.
How is this exceedingly difficult? I mean, they could just go back and look at their order log for the time. How much food are we going to need for Thanksgiving? Lets check last years log and run it against how we are doing this year! "For thanksgiving last year we needed this much. Going by that data, I am going to assume we will need this much again."
In reality this is not a difficult job and it does not require a college education to accomplish. You are just attempting to make it sound difficult.
Oh its not as simple as must looking at last years numbers. Youalso have to factor in other things, like how have we been doing over the last fwe months, is business growing or declining, how is the economy doing, what are the latest trends, etc...
Just doing what you did last year is a good way to fail.
And yet... folks with this viewpoint then bitch about others having more than they do and claim It Isn't Fair. Being jealous the other guy won and instead of wanting to be a winner too, thinking every one should just get participation ribbons and quit keeping score.
I think you're missing the point here. Nobody begrudges someone for earning more than them generally, if we're all living comfortably, and getting an honest days wage for an honest days work. But there comes a point whereby someone is making so much money for so little comparable work, that it's clearly far more money than they'd ever possibly need. In which case, you take it and distribute it to those who desperately need it. That's the basis of the social welfare estate.
You also overlook the issue of exploitation. Robert Mugabe isn't a 'winner' because he has soldiers threatening to shoot people who don't work in his blood diamond mines. He's an oppressor and an exploiter. Likewise, a rich businessman who owns every business in town and the town itself telling someone to do as they're told and work their 16 hour shift six days a week or get fired isn't a 'winner' either, any more so than feudal barons were.
Most people with tremendous sums of money acquire it through one form of exploitation or another. Not all (certain inventors for example) make their money through licensing and suchlike, but if you're a high ranking businessman in the Western world, odds are your bloated salary comes at the cost of backbreaking labour in China/India, or evading as many taxes as possible or running a monopoly of a utility, and so forth.
And yet... folks with this viewpoint then bitch about others having more than they do and claim It Isn't Fair. Being jealous the other guy won and instead of wanting to be a winner too, thinking every one should just get participation ribbons and quit keeping score.
I think you're missing the point here. Nobody begrudges someone for earning more than them generally, if we're all living comfortably, and getting an honest days wage for an honest days work. But there comes a point whereby someone is making so much money for so little comparable work, that it's clearly far more money than they'd ever possibly need. In which case, you take it and distribute it to those who desperately need it. That's the basis of the social welfare estate.
You also overlook the issue of exploitation. Robert Mugabe isn't a 'winner' because he has soldiers threatening to shoot people who don't work in his blood diamond mines. He's an oppressor and an exploiter. Likewise, a rich businessman who owns every business in town and the town itself telling someone to do as they're told and work their 16 hour shift six days a week or get fired isn't a 'winner' either, any more so than feudal barons were.
Most people with tremendous sums of money acquire it through one form of exploitation or another. Not all (certain inventors for example) make their money through licensing and suchlike, but if you're a high ranking businessman in the Western world, odds are your bloated salary comes at the cost of backbreaking labour in China/India, or evading as many taxes as possible or running a monopoly of a utility, and so forth.
Oh for feth's sake. No restaurants in the US are holding guns to employees heads and exploiting them. The CEOs you and others seem to think are Evil Overlords are not chaining dishwashers to sinks. The 'rich businessman who owns every business in town and the town itself telling someone to do as they're told and work their 16 hour shift six days a week or get fired' is made of straw.
Grey Templar wrote: Better raise packages, benefits, work environment, etc... Lots of variables in a job besides the flat pay.
And yet we have zero information that says the other perks of the job besides the wage have decreased while the wage itself has increased for most.
There is still the principle. We doing know the specifics either way its true, but the fact people did leave means they most likely did find greener pastures.
Grey Templar wrote: Better raise packages, benefits, work environment, etc... Lots of variables in a job besides the flat pay.
And like I said previously, if you can switch jobs to get a better raise package, better benefits, better work environment, etc... then you do it. What someone else makes really doesn't have anything to do with any of that. And none of the information we have says that they quit to get another job, they quit because of the salary floor being raised.
Grey Templar wrote: Arguments of principle. If your hard work isn't being appropriately rewarded you might take a job somewhere else that will.
That is a very human reason indeed.
But we don't have any information that says that. All we have is someone quitting because someone got a raise and now makes $70,000 and they "only" make $70,000+ themselves.
Would they be willing to work at another job where they get the same pay and other people still get paid less? Would they turn down a new position at another job where they get the same pay and the minimum pay is already $70,000?
Oh for feth's sake. No restaurants in the US are holding guns to employees heads and exploiting them. The CEOs you and others seem to think are Evil Overlords are not chaining dishwashers to sinks. The 'rich businessman who owns every business in town and the town itself telling someone to do as they're told and work their 16 hour shift six days a week or get fired' is made of straw.
Grey Templar wrote: You probably fail to see the difference because you have no idea what you are talking about. And sell by dates and such are not at all what I am referring to.
There is no law that can't keep my milk till it turns green in my home fridge. But doing that in a restaurant would get you shut down.
Of course it would. Who would keep milk until it turns green? That is a ridiculous argument. The argument was that a lot of times these things are very obscure.
Grey Templar wrote: There is a difference between checking if that milk is spoiled and juggling it in bulk. Plus you have health standards to consider. Milk that is legally spoiled for restaurant use might be the same milk I keep at home for a few more days.
There is no comparison with your home fridge and a commercial kitchen.
There is also ordering to not have excess and to not run out, being able to calculate when various items need to be re ordered. Anticipating sales based on upcoming promotions or local events and so on.
How is this exceedingly difficult? I mean, they could just go back and look at their order log for the time. How much food are we going to need for Thanksgiving? Lets check last years log and run it against how we are doing this year! "For thanksgiving last year we needed this much. Going by that data, I am going to assume we will need this much again."
In reality this is not a difficult job and it does not require a college education to accomplish. You are just attempting to make it sound difficult.
It is a good thing I already said exactly what you just said to me Grey Templar. Bolded so you can see it.
Fair enough I missed that, but do you actually know how to do that? Saying ''do this'' and actually doing it are two very different things.
That's not something just anyone can do. Its not elementary. People go to school for years to learn how to do this sort of thing. Its not an everyday sort of skill anyone can do. You have to know what the data means and how to interpret it and then make a judgement call on how to use it.
Grey Templar wrote: Better raise packages, benefits, work environment, etc... Lots of variables in a job besides the flat pay.
And yet we have zero information that says the other perks of the job besides the wage have decreased while the wage itself has increased for most.
There is still the principle. We doing know the specifics either way its true, but the fact people did leave means they most likely did find greener pastures.
So other people getting paid $70,000 didn't have anything to do with it after all?
Grey Templar wrote: No, it did. I wouldn't want to work for a company that gave raises to the less important positions for no reason.
So if you were given two job offers with entirely equal pay and benefit packages, but one of the companies had a $70,000 salary floor and the other one didn't, you would pick the one where people are paid less?
But if I was a guy who had already been working there and had just gotten screwed on my raise relative to others I might not stay. Especially if I had seniority and was more deserving of a raise than others.
What other info do you need? Everything is equal except salary floor, so which job do you pick?
But if I was a guy who had already been working there and had just gotten screwed on my raise relative to others I might not stay. Especially if I had seniority and was more deserving of a raise than others.
But if your option is to go somewhere else and make the same market driven pay you are already making? And loose seniority and vacation days?
Again, just to clarify, if they got increased pay and/or benefits or other tangible improvements then changing jobs then that is a valid reason to quit IMO.
It really doesn't make a difference if I am coming in, but for people already working there its screwing a lot of them for the benefit of only a few.
It might not be enough to justify moving, but it would be enough to make me raise hell with the management who had this boneheaded idea. I might threaten to leave, and if they truly value my work they'll give me a raise that reflects that to prevent losing a valuable employee. One who is more valuable than the knucklehead they gave a huge raise to for no reason.
Grey Templar wrote: It really doesn't make a difference if I am coming in, but for people already working there its screwing a lot of them for the benefit of only a few.
If they make X there now, and they would make X anywhere else, then how exactly are they getting screwed?
Grey Templar wrote: It really doesn't make a difference if I am coming in, but for people already working there its screwing a lot of them for the benefit of only a few.
If they make X there now, and they would make X anywhere else, then how exactly are they getting screwed?
They have been working there longer, contributing to the success of the company. So why are the company profits getting used to give entry level positions the same salary as I who have been working here for years? Why are you not rewarding the employees who actually caused your success? Why are you instead rewarding employees who contributed less to the success more?
It would be one thing if everyone received a comparable salary increase and then the floor was implemented, but to just jam the floor in without also compensating the high and middle wage employees is just bad.
d-usa wrote: So if you don't get more money "just because", you would go somewhere else and get no more money instead?
Its not ''just because''. No more than these other guys getting huge raises because 'reasons'.
If I have worked with a company for several years I am inherently more valuable to them, and thus more deserving of raises than another guy who hasn't been there as long. Anyone with a brain should be able to see that me not getting a raise and someone else whom is lower on the ladder getting one is backwards.
The better solution if you want to ensure lower end workers are getting a decent wage(whatever that means) is if you were to give everyone comparable raises.
If this guy is getting a $30,000 raise from 40k to 70k I would hope the guy who makes 65k is also getting a similarly huge raise. Maybe up to 80k.
Of course the whole thing is absurd. Nobody deserves a huge raise like the above one. And you certainly shouldn't give the largest raises to the employees getting paid the least, they most likely didn't have as much to do with the profits to begin with.
d-usa wrote: So if you don't get more money "just because", you would go somewhere else and get no more money instead?
sounds a lot like min wage workers who want more money
"just because" after all, cannot they just go somewhere else for more $ if where they are isnt enough.
and a lot like people who hate on those who are "over paid"
after all, what does it matter to them if some CEO or whatever is
""over paid"
At least the CEO is actually in a position to dictate the company's success or failure. Thus they can expect and demand and deserve high pay. Not something someone in an entry level can use as an excuse.
If I am the dishwasher I would not be pretentious enough to say I deserve pay comparable with management or a crazy huge raise when management gets none.
That statement says more about you than any reply ever could.
And everybody else can see the irony of arguing that anybody that thinks they deserve to be paid more than they are qualified for just because other people in the company got a raise even though they think that they don't deserve it, only to turn around and argue that you would quit your job unless you get paid more than you are qualified for just because other people in the company got a raise and you don't think that they deserve it.
Grey Templar wrote: We get it. You hate merit based pay. Which itself is based on relative worth.
Says the guy who just made 5+ posts talking about how he is going to quit unless he gets paid more than his merit based pay which is based on his relative worth to the company.
Grey Templar wrote: We get it. You hate merit based pay. Which itself is based on relative worth.
Says the guy who just made 5+ posts talking about how he is going to quit unless he gets paid more than his merit based pay which is based on his relative worth to the company.
The reading fail is much strong in this one.
If the guy who is worth X less than my current salary gets a raise, absent other factors, that means my value has also gone up and thus I am worth a higher raise as well.
If one guy gets a 50% pay increase for no reason, everyone else should also get a 50% pay increase. That is all I am advocating.
Grey Templar wrote: We get it. You hate merit based pay. Which itself is based on relative worth.
Says the guy who just made 5+ posts talking about how he is going to quit unless he gets paid more than his merit based pay which is based on his relative worth to the company.
The reading fail is much strong in this one.
If the guy who is worth X less than my current salary gets a raise, absent other factors, that means my value has also gone up and thus I am worth a higher raise as well.
If one guy gets a 50% pay increase for no reason, everyone else should also get a 50% pay increase. That is all I am advocating.
It is clear to me by the CEO's actions that he does not believe that the guy "is worth x less" than anybody else. It seems he believes they are both of value to the company and is willing to pay them for it.
It is clear to me by the CEO's actions that he does not believe that the guy "is worth x less" than anybody else. It seems he believes they are both of value to the company and is willing to pay them for it.
I got the impression he wants to give his employees a wage based more on what they need than any perceived give and take. The article states he found that pay based on studies of what income provides a shield from want. He considers it his Christian duty to do what he can for his fellow man.
And I say more power to him. Let the free market decide if they like that better than the lower pay.
I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess that no-one here reads much in the way of economic research, especially not the people claiming CEO wages are determined by merit. Empirical work done by a whole lot of people is finding that demand and supply is far from the only factor in setting prices. Instead, non-quantitative factors like expectations and assumed value are way more important - this explains why individual sectors will often have serious labour shortage for months or even years without seeing spiking wages, while in another sector a glut in labour won't drive down wages like our pretty D&S models state.
And one area this is most clear is with CEO pay. First up, there's barely a market there at all, CEO skills aren't necessarily transferable from organisation to organisation, and pay negotiations are never at arm's length. But even then, its clear that what's driving CEO pay has little to do with the market. I mean, what changed in the market from 1970 until today, as CEO pay increased 150 times over? Did CEOs become 150 times smarter than they used to be? Are people capable of being a CEO 150 times more scarce than they were in the 1970s? Obviously D&S just doesn't explain what's happened.
There's a half joking explanation that travels around, that says in the 1970s you saw the explosion of Monday night football. Money poured in to football, and through genuine D&S mechanics you saw a massive increase in player's pay, all of which was heavily covered in the media. CEOs had considered their pays, an average of 20 times the average employee, to be fair remuneration, now saw athletes earning many times what they earned. So if they got paid that much, why not me as well. So the normative bounds of what seemed reasonable dropped away, and CEO pay skyrocketed.
It's slightly tongue in cheek explanation (though the timing works out really well). But the point is to understand that it really, really isn't market forces that decide remuneration. So stop just accepting pay rates as what they must be, because it just doesn't work like that.
I make 40k, you make 110k. There is also another guy who makes 65k.
Yes, that is a potential situation that might make this unfair. But, to repeat my point again, you have no fething clue as to what actually happened inside the company. So stop claiming it as a fact.
To claim that CEOs don't have "harder jobs" is, IMO, a bit ridiculous. The increased level of responsibility is enough unto itself. They may not work as many hours, but that hardly means it isn't "harder."
Further, CEOs don't just become CEOs because someone liked them. Nearly all bust their asses to become them.
Meh. I don't disagree that they work harder (I don't particularly agree either, any assessment of CEO work is a hopeless generalisation). But all of that is just total fething nonsense when compared to CEO pay levels. No amount of hard work can possibly explain a $30 million pay packet.
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Grey Templar wrote: Yup. I had an entire class around inventory management. Its a bitch.
Really? Man when you get to Throughput you're going to cry.
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Dreadwinter wrote: How is this exceedingly difficult? I mean, they could just go back and look at their order log for the time. How much food are we going to need for Thanksgiving? Lets check last years log and run it against how we are doing this year! "For thanksgiving last year we needed this much. Going by that data, I am going to assume we will need this much again."
In reality this is not a difficult job and it does not require a college education to accomplish. You are just attempting to make it sound difficult.
It depends on how much detail you're willing to put in to it. At the most basic level you just pick a certain level of stock, and when you reach that point you re-order.
But you can add a lot of science in to deciding exactly what level of stock is. The simplest question is how long does order & delivery take - to make sure the new stock arrives before the minimum stock runs out. But then customer orders vary, one night they might order 50 units, the next they might order 80. So you bell curve that stuff, and compare the cost of running out of stock against the cost of holding too much inventory, to find an ideal risk of running out, and therefore a best re-order point. And then you start adding in bundling, because you don't want a whole truck carrying new stock if all you need is one crate of ball point pens.
And so on. It isn't rocket science, but it's enough to get some undergraduates confused for a little while.
Meh. I don't disagree that they work harder (I don't particularly agree either, any assessment of CEO work is a hopeless generalisation). But all of that is just total fething nonsense when compared to CEO pay levels. No amount of hard work can possibly explain a $30 million pay packet.
.
I agree that you can't really quantify it. However, I simply can't swallow that entry level work = CEO work, on the level of responsibility and corporate stewardship alone.
In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.
cincydooley wrote: In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.
A cap works quite well in nations which have set them.
cincydooley wrote: In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.
A cap works quite well in nations which have set them.
Great. I can't say I care about those countries.
I think it's an anti-capitalist ideal. There should be no limit on one's earning potential.
I think it's an anti-capitalist ideal. There should be no limit on one's earning potential.
I partially agree.... when that unlimited earnings comes at the cost of worker salary, that's when you really begin to lose goodwill. Or rather, when your business pays less in taxes (personal and corporate) than what it costs the State to support your workers, that's when we should be taking a good hard look at what you're doing, because I, and many others, think that that's wrong.
Maybe, but what if that company is owned by the CEO in question? Surely he has a right to run his personal property how he sees fit and can pay himself whatever he wants.
A company has no obligation to ensure its employees aren't living below the poverty line. It is only obligated to pay them an agreed upon rate for their labor. If that rate is below what a particular employee needs to make ends meet that isn't the company's concern, morally or legally IMO. Especially since there is no objective way to pinpoint what exactly a 'living wage' is.
It is beneficial if a company's employees aren't struggling, but if it would actively hurt the company to help then they shouldn't be forced to do it. CEO salaries are really small beans comparedto salaries overall. You will never get any meaningful across the board salary increases by limiting CEO salaries.
Grey Templar wrote: Maybe, but what if that company is owned by the CEO in question? Surely he has a right to run his personal property how he sees fit and can pay himself whatever he wants.
A company has no obligation to ensure its employees aren't living below the poverty line. It is only obligated to pay them an agreed upon rate for their labor. If that rate is below what a particular employee needs to make ends meet that isn't the company's concern, morally or legally IMO. Especially since there is no objective way to pinpoint what exactly a 'living wage' is.
It is beneficial if a company's employees aren't struggling, but if it would actively hurt the company to help then they shouldn't be forced to do it. CEO salaries are really small beans comparedto salaries overall. You will never get any meaningful across the board salary increases by limiting CEO salaries.
How is that last line true at all? When a CEO makes 100x more than any other employee in the company, bringing their salary down to a reasonable level allows you to redistribute the wealth to other employees and give them raises, benefits, possibly hire more in areas that desperately need it.
Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.
There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.
Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.
That's an increase of $7B.
Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.
Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).
FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.
Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.
There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.
Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.
That's an increase of $7B.
Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.
Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).
FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.
Could you possibly use another company as an example? One such as Gravity where the raise was possible instead of an outrageously huge company. One that clearly has more than one person at the top making outrageous amounts of money.
Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.
There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.
Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.
That's an increase of $7B.
Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.
Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).
FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.
Could you possibly use another company as an example? One such as Gravity where the raise was possible instead of an outrageously huge company. One that clearly has more than one person at the top making outrageous amounts of money.
Why?
I think the argument can be made that smaller companies should be even less keen to do it.
The Gravity payments example is a perfect one to show why it can potentially be a bad idea.
Smaller companies will be paying their executives much less than a huge company, which are the ones getting flak for these huge executive paychecks. Yet once distributed over the company it is miniscule.
If Doug McMillon gave up his entire yearly salary to all Walmart employees it would be only another $11 bucks a year each. They could go see a movie, no popcorn.
Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.
There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.
Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.
That's an increase of $7B.
Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.
Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).
FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.
Could you possibly use another company as an example? One such as Gravity where the raise was possible instead of an outrageously huge company. One that clearly has more than one person at the top making outrageous amounts of money.
Why?
I think the argument can be made that smaller companies should be even less keen to do it.
The Gravity payments example is a perfect one to show why it can potentially be a bad idea.
Except that in the smaller company it brought up a very noticeable pay raise which is helping many employees. Just because a few people left because they are greedy does not make it a bad idea.
Not greedy, angry over not getting the raises that their contribution would have normally warrented. Instead noobs got obscene raises they didn't deserve or work for.
He basically alienated his staff for no good reason.
It is beneficial if a company's employees aren't struggling, but if it would actively hurt the company to help then they shouldn't be forced to do it. CEO salaries are really small beans comparedto salaries overall. You will never get any meaningful across the board salary increases by limiting CEO salaries.
There most definitely IS something wrong with a company that says to it's employees: "If you're not making enough here, get another job, or get welfare benefits. Ohh hey, look what I found: it's a copy of a welfare application, you want this one?"
Even then, with the numbers that others have posted for CEO Salary at one company (the $25MM per year), every single article that I've read on the subject has flat out said that when these people get into that kind of money territory, you're actually looking at someone who's just hording that money, and is making probably triple that (as in, 25% or less of their annual income is that "salary" provided by the company they head) in stock investing. Yeah, that CEO pay might be "small beans" to the company, but you really aren't hurting that "CEO" by cutting their pay
Many of the arguments that I'm seeing here, and usually see from right leaning folks, is that Rockefeller was right, and earned his money fair and square, so we should all be so happy that these rich folk are so kind and benevolent as to give us a scrap of "their" money, and because we should be happy, we need to shut up about how fethed the situation is.
No. Why else would they be upset about another person making more money?
Did you read any of the other posts addressing that in this thread?
Are you familiar at all with equity theory?
Or simple notions of meritocracy?
For you to make this blanket accusation that greed is the reason is inflammatory and unfounded.
I have read all the posts. If they do not like what they are getting paid, they can find a new job. Is that not the common response to people saying they are not getting paid enough?
It is beneficial if a company's employees aren't struggling, but if it would actively hurt the company to help then they shouldn't be forced to do it. CEO salaries are really small beans comparedto salaries overall. You will never get any meaningful across the board salary increases by limiting CEO salaries.
There most definitely IS something wrong with a company that says to it's employees: "If you're not making enough here, get another job, or get welfare benefits. Ohh hey, look what I found: it's a copy of a welfare application, you want this one?"
Even then, with the numbers that others have posted for CEO Salary at one company (the $25MM per year), every single article that I've read on the subject has flat out said that when these people get into that kind of money territory, you're actually looking at someone who's just hording that money, and is making probably triple that (as in, 25% or less of their annual income is that "salary" provided by the company they head) in stock investing. Yeah, that CEO pay might be "small beans" to the company, but you really aren't hurting that "CEO" by cutting their pay
Many of the arguments that I'm seeing here, and usually see from right leaning folks, is that Rockefeller was right, and earned his money fair and square, so we should all be so happy that these rich folk are so kind and benevolent as to give us a scrap of "their" money, and because we should be happy, we need to shut up about how fethed the situation is.
So if there is no good reason for cutting CEO salaries, why do people keep insisting that this get done? And proposing absurd ideas of legally capping income.
Let the fat cats have their money, going after them is political grandstanding and nothing more.
I have read all the posts. If they do not like what they are getting paid, they can find a new job. Is that not the common response to people saying they are not getting paid enough?
Read the articles; the senior people that have left the company have done so because they don't agree with the corporate notion that you should reward those that have not earned it; one even proposed a sliding introduction of the pay raise based on incentivization. She was rebuked and subsequently left.
If you still want to contend that it boils down to greed, I'd say that's a very simplistic interpretation of it and that you really should investigate the latter two items I posed to you: equity theory and meritocracy.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Many of the arguments that I'm seeing here, and usually see from right leaning folks, is that Rockefeller was right, and earned his money fair and square, so we should all be so happy that these rich folk are so kind and benevolent as to give us a scrap of "their" money, and because we should be happy, we need to shut up about how fethed the situation is.
Yes, and there is often a weird undertone of punishment, like, "and if you're not happy with poverty wages, minimum wage slaves, we'll just increase automation so you have no job at all! That's what you get for being uppity." A whole vindictive vibe, which of course fits with the being poor is a moral failing concept that often permeates these discussions.
It's weird and strange and gross. As one of the richest countries in the world, maybe we could make an effort to try and minimize the income disparity.
Yes, and there is often a weird undertone of punishment, like, "and if you're not happy with poverty wages, minimum wage slaves, we'll just increase automation so you have no job at all! That's what you get for being uppity." A whole vindictive vibe, which of course fits with the being poor is a moral failing concept that often permeates these discussions.
Is it punishment, or pragmatism? The people striking for higher wages are the ones that can be most easily replaced by machines and automation.
The purpose of these businesses is to make money and be efficient with their money. If the time comes that it costs less to automate than it does to employ humans, don't they owe it to their shareholders to do so?
At this point, I am pretty certain you are not understanding what I am saying.
They complained about how much other people were getting paid and it offended them so much they had to quit their well paying jobs. Just because they were not going to get more money. This is the same concept as telling people in minimum wage jobs that if they do not like the pay, they can find a new job. Same goes for the people involved in this. If they do not like the pay, they can find a new job.
This is greed. Other person gets something. Person thinks they should also get it. Demands to get it. When they are told no, they seek it elsewhere. I mean, it was a stupid decision by the employees that left, because this seems like a pretty nice company to work for. Especially since the CEO actually cares about his employees.....
Dreadwinter wrote: I mean, it was a stupid decision by the employees that left, because this seems like a pretty nice company to work for. Especially since the CEO actually cares about his employees.....
Agreed. As I think I've said many times in this thread, I think that his only real mistake in this whole situation, was in the announcement and timing of it. Announcing it to the world before it's done has lead to some customers losing faith, or comfort in doing business with Gravity (they feared that their paying for services cost would increase). By making the move in a single swift stroke, as opposed to increasing pay over the span of 3-5 years or whatever, he's obviously lost some employees over butt-hurt (whether they were good employees or not is highly debatable, if they are leaving over this thing)
cincydooley wrote: In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.
A cap works quite well in nations which have set them.
Great. I can't say I care about those countries.
I think it's an anti-capitalist ideal. There should be no limit on one's earning potential.
Sooo... you don't care about looking at evidence of how things have and are actually working in variations of the system under discussion because "this is 'MERICUH! damnit!"?
Excellent reasoning skills. 10/10.
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cincydooley wrote: Is it punishment, or pragmatism? The people striking for higher wages are the ones that can be most easily replaced by machines and automation.
To referenceba point raised earlier about skill being required for management of inventory therefore managers being needed and justifying their wages; modern logistics software easily replaces the need for 90% of their role, so it is not just the "unskiĺled rabble" that need to worry in the drive for ever increasing profitability through exploitation wages.
Hell, even well paid positions like stockbrokers are have been largely computerised. It is only tbe massive expansion of the market which keeps the numbers of such people steady...
Hell, even well paid positions like stockbrokers are have been largely computerised. It is only tbe massive expansion of the market which keeps the numbers of such people steady...
It isn't just that. There is still a general fear of leaving the fate of something important to you up to an automated process. Additionally, at least in certain industries, the variability provided by human judgment is often seen as a positive.
For example, I'm a political analyst. I could easily replace the coders working under me with a simple text recognition program, using various forms of correction to simulate bias; this would save my employer a great deal of money. However, if I were to do that, I would ultimately be more reliant on my own biases (as they would be written into the software), making my final results less reflective of the conditions under examination. Indeed, there is a good chance my employer would lose business as a result, due in part to my first point.
Sorry, my point was more that each broker can now look after more transactions as they have automated tools at their disposal to trend data and carry out trades. If technology had not kept pace with the size of the market, it would require many more brokers to do the same amount of... for lack of a better word... work.
As with yourself and your data team; some elements of technology enable you to work efficiently in ways that were not previously possible. To do the same job as you currently do, it would have taken many more people. And as you say, it is not beyond possibility to replace even more of the functions currently carried out by skilled people with technology, although perhaps not desirable from some angles where subjective judgement comes into play. Although removing 90% of the humans, adding 5% human to tend the machines and tinker the data soirces and outputs and then 5% to supply subjective judgements and feed back to the technical team and do you objectively lose out significantly on the end result? (I have no idea, not being a political analyst but my gut says such an extension of the current trend towards automation would not be as disasterous as a wholesale replacement would have been even 5-10 years ago; computer programming advances fast ).
Yes, and there is often a weird undertone of punishment, like, "and if you're not happy with poverty wages, minimum wage slaves, we'll just increase automation so you have no job at all! That's what you get for being uppity." A whole vindictive vibe, which of course fits with the being poor is a moral failing concept that often permeates these discussions.
Is it punishment, or pragmatism? The people striking for higher wages are the ones that can be most easily replaced by machines and automation.
The purpose of these businesses is to make money and be efficient with their money. If the time comes that it costs less to automate than it does to employ humans, don't they owe it to their shareholders to do so?
They do, by writ of law, but that doesn't make it correct.
Personally, were I given the power, I would change that. The most-important function of a business in America, regardless of its size, is to contribute to the stability of American society and its economy. To do otherwise is treason.
SilverMK2 wrote: Although removing 90% of the humans, adding 5% human to tend the machines and tinker the data soirces and outputs and then 5% to supply subjective judgements and feed back to the technical team and do you objectively lose out significantly on the end result?
Comparative studies have shown that the number of humans involved in the coding process positively correlates with predictive accuracy with respect to both polling and election results. It is widely suspected that this is because automated coding tends to increase the weight of the opinion of a single coder, the person who lays out the coding parameters followed by the program, as he necessarily has greater control over the process than he would in the presence of a greater human element.
SilverMK2 wrote: To what kind of margin are we talking for accuracy? (Not trying to be a pain; actually interested ).
In an election on the scale of the US Presidential the mean increase in the probability of an accurate result over a fully automated system is ~5% per human unit (HU)*, with an overall increase in the probability of an accurate prediction topping out around 60% before diminishing returns start to set in. And they set in hard, past a certain point you quickly start seeing marginal increases of .1% per HU or lower.
*Usually considered to be 10 coders holding at least an MA in a relevant field; usually political science, history, or sociology.
So, with 60% accuracy being about as accurate as you can get, what is your average for a "purely" automated prediction?
If I read your post correctly, I take it that your fully integrated team and working with some kind of data gathering and interpreting system with a 60% accuracy would only be getting ~55% accuracy if you removed one HU (aka 10 coder/interpreters) while still using the same software?
SilverMK2 wrote: So, with 60% accuracy being about as accurate as you can get, what is your average for a "purely" automated prediction?
Let me clarify. That's a 60% increase in the probability of an accurate prediction relative to a purely automated system prior to the onset of diminishing returns. So if say an automated system is correct 50% of the time, a system featuring a human element and operating at peak efficiency would be correct 80% of the time.
If I read your post correctly, I take it that your fully integrated team and working with some kind of data gathering and interpreting system with a 60% accuracy would only be getting ~55% accuracy if you removed one HU (aka 10 coder/interpreters) while still using the same software?
Not necessarily. Removing 1 HU could cause a significantly greater drop in accuracy as the distribution for the marginal probability increase caused by the addition of single HU is neither normal, nor symmetric about the mean.
SilverMK2 wrote: So, with 60% accuracy being about as accurate as you can get, what is your average for a "purely" automated prediction?
Let me clarify. That's a 60% increase in the probability of an accurate prediction relative to a purely automated system prior to the onset of diminishing returns. So if say an automated system is correct 50% of the time, a system featuring a human element and operating at peak efficiency would be correct 80% of the time.
If I read your post correctly, I take it that your fully integrated team and working with some kind of data gathering and interpreting system with a 60% accuracy would only be getting ~55% accuracy if you removed one HU (aka 10 coder/interpreters) while still using the same software?
Not necessarily. Removing 1 HU could cause a significantly greater drop in accuracy as the distribution for the marginal probability increase caused by the addition of single HU is neither normal, nor symmetric about the mean.
cincydooley wrote: I agree that you can't really quantify it. However, I simply can't swallow that entry level work = CEO work, on the level of responsibility and corporate stewardship alone.
Of course not. But the flip side of that is to argue that you can no longer find a CEO for
In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.
I'm not much in favour of a cap, or really for any direct government involvement. But when you talk about boards justifying CEO remuneration, you need to understand how broken that system is. CEO's often appoint their own remuneration panel. These panels will generally dress up pay considerations with apparently objective considerations, but these are generally transparently silly - an IT company might use a bunch of other IT companies for it's comparison, and use Google and Oracle as peers.
Meanwhile, we know from research there's no relation between company performance, present or future, and CEO remuneration. You can find a good CEO for $5m just as easily as $50m. There is, however, a strong relationship between high CEO pay and corporate failure. Of the last 20 years 40% of the individuals in the highest CEO pay lists ended up being fired, seeing their companies collapse, or testifying to illegal behaviour. It's almost as if the guy who'd demand every possible cent in pay isn not the ethical leader who'll serve their organisation best.
You should know by know I like well functioning markets. But this is a massive market failure, and we need better shareholder organisations to make sure that value rightfully goes to the people who deserve it - the shareholders.
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Grey Templar wrote: Maybe, but what if that company is owned by the CEO in question? Surely he has a right to run his personal property how he sees fit and can pay himself whatever he wants.
If he's the only owner of the company then his pay as CEO is a gibberish question. Whatever profits the company generates can be distributed to him as dividends or as CEO pay, it doesn't matter.
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A company has no obligation to ensure its employees aren't living below the poverty line. It is only obligated to pay them an agreed upon rate for their labor. If that rate is below what a particular employee needs to make ends meet that isn't the company's concern, morally or legally IMO.
One of the weird things about the fleshy meat sacks we call 'humans' is that they tend to assume some kind of moral obligation towards other people they deal with.
Especially since there is no objective way to pinpoint what exactly a 'living wage' is.
An exact definition is impossible, but a general idea isn't rocket science.
Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.
There are 2.2MM WalMart employees.
What a fascinating example you picked, with Walmart. Were you aware that Walmart had recently undertaken a plan to increase employee remuneration? And this program was intended not just as charity, but to increase profits as higher pay reduced turnover and improved employee productivity.
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Grey Templar wrote: So if there is no good reason for cutting CEO salaries, why do people keep insisting that this get done? And proposing absurd ideas of legally capping income.
Because it's absurd to pay someone $140m to do a job they would do for $10m, or that other equally skilled people would do for even less.
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