When is the salary not worth it?

[s0me0nesmind1]

The most insulting moment was when my last company had one of the yearly intern classes, as a final project, make a big binder titled "What it takes to hire and make millennials happy." Interesting how they never cared to make the veterans who actually knew stuff and ran the company happy.

My binder would consist of:
1. Have multiple small rooms and cubicles reserved as "safe spaces"
2. Ensure anything potentially offensive - such as assigning a project or work to be completed is prefaced with "trigger warning"
3. Ensure HR is around and monitoring the office in a police-like force 24/7.

 

[Kaido]

I was in charge of our global network in my job about 15 years ago. I was on call 24/7 and got calls from places like Japan and Italy in the middle of the night. Some roles are deemed critical and you have to have people available 24/7 or risk losing hundreds of thousands, if not more, during an outage while you wait for people to wake up. I didn't get called every night or even every month, but I did get calls where issues had to be immediately addressed.

One of my favorite managers of all time said something to me once: "If you have all your work done, I don't care if you surf the web all day. You're my insurance policy. All it takes is one or two outages and I've already recouped your salary in the money we save getting things back online." Of course, that was back when IT was actually a blast and before it took a nosedive and paper pushers got involved (MBAs, PMs, ITIL "practitioners," etc).

IT has definitely change over the years. I'm trying to enjoy my freelance IT admin niche while I still can, because more & more cloud service provider companies are getting things figured out, to the point where you can pay for a cloud PC & just have a thin client, have cloud servers, cloud phone systems, and not really require on-site IT services because everything is so turn-key. It's like Google Stadia for video games or Netflix for movies, but for IT infrastructure. It's a fun niche & I get to do all kinds of unique projects, but especially with how good cloud virtualization has gotten & PCoIP has gotten & how 5G is starting to pop up everything, things are in for another major shift in the industry, imo.

I could foresee Amazon offering a small-biz package like this...a bundle with VOIP, electronic faxing, branded email services, thin client cloud computers, an easy interface for controlling file-server permissions, etc., so that you could just buy the basic hardware & pay for what you need on a month to month basis. Microsoft has already done it with their Office 365 online system, at least for the Word/Excel/etc. package. Plus I already do this for finances at a lot of small businesses, especially my food-industry customers...Square, Toast, Clover, etc. all make super-easy systems, you can track everything easily with QuickBooks Online (even from the beach!), so it'd just be the next turn-key, monthly-payment cloud offering to simplify things even further. Things have gotten waaaaaaay easier over the years!

 

[IndyColtsFan]

My binder would consist of:
1. Have multiple small rooms and cubicles reserved as "safe spaces"
2. Ensure anything potentially offensive - such as assigning a project or work to be completed is prefaced with "trigger warning"
3. Ensure HR is around and monitoring the office in a police-like force 24/7.

I read an article the other day and it made a point which confirms many of my observations, especially over the course of the last 5-10 years: GenX (my generation) is the most overlooked generation in corporate America. We're sandwiched between Baby Boomers who are clinging on and millenials - when those boomers retire, companies shove millenials into their places. It doesn't make much sense to me.

My last company reached ridiculous heights with the "optional" social activities and stuff like that, just to appease millenials and to try to be "hip." That's one awesome part about my current job - I don't have to worry about any of that garbage.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

IT has definitely change over the years. I'm trying to enjoy my freelance IT admin niche while I still can, because more & more cloud service provider companies are getting things figured out, to the point where you can pay for a cloud PC & just have a thin client, have cloud servers, cloud phone systems, and not really require on-site IT services because everything is so turn-key. It's like Google Stadia for video games or Netflix for movies, but for IT infrastructure. It's a fun niche & I get to do all kinds of unique projects, but especially with how good cloud virtualization has gotten & PCoIP has gotten & how 5G is starting to pop up everything, things are in for another major shift in the industry, imo.

I could foresee Amazon offering a small-biz package like this...a bundle with VOIP, electronic faxing, branded email services, thin client cloud computers, an easy interface for controlling file-server permissions, etc., so that you could just buy the basic hardware & pay for what you need on a month to month basis. Microsoft has already done it with their Office 365 online system, at least for the Word/Excel/etc. package. Plus I already do this for finances at a lot of small businesses, especially my food-industry customers...Square, Toast, Clover, etc. all make super-easy systems, you can track everything easily with QuickBooks Online (even from the beach!), so it'd just be the next turn-key, monthly-payment cloud offering to simplify things even further. Things have gotten waaaaaaay easier over the years!

At the price Microsoft is offering Office 365, it's almost criminal for a company not to sign up. Granted, the on-line versions of things like SharePoint aren't as good as on-prem (in my opinion), but they're "good enough."

 

[kn51]

I read an article the other day and it made a point which confirms many of my observations, especially over the course of the last 5-10 years: GenX (my generation) is the most overlooked generation in corporate America. We're sandwiched between Baby Boomers who are clinging on and millenials - when those boomers retire, companies shove millenials into their places. It doesn't make much sense to me.

My last company reached ridiculous heights with the "optional" social activities and stuff like that, just to appease millenials and to try to be "hip." That's one awesome part about my current job - I don't have to worry about any of that garbage.

Yep, I'm 45 and screwed. What a long story.

 

[Kaido]

At the price Microsoft is offering Office 365, it's almost criminal for a company not to sign up. Granted, the on-line versions of things like SharePoint aren't as good as on-prem (in my opinion), but they're "good enough."

And that's what it all boils down to, meeting a company's particular needs.

On a tangent, I just grabbed some lunch at a place where the waitress had a wristed-mounted version of Toast Go, which is a portable PoS system:

https://pos.toasttab.com/blog/why-we-built-toast-go

It was novel because I'd never seen anyone use the wrist-mount before. It not only handles payments (credit card swipe system built-in), but also handles orders...there's no forgetting or miscommunication, because you literally punch in the order & write any notes, which goes straight to the back of the house so that the chefs can focus on cooking. Really slick!

https://pos.toasttab.com/hardware/toast-go

I love seeing technology used to solve age-old problems, especially ones where there's a lot of legacy pride & "this is just how we do it"-itis involved!

 

[Luna1968]

I know that but hospitals, mines,

my company rented out a cage at a data center that was big enough to hold 20 racks. the cage next to us was huge, probably about 200 racks all of them FULL and always had people in it. I noticed a piece of paper on the door and one day no techs were in their cage so i read it. it was a mining company. I was shocked that a mining company would have the need for for so much computing power and storage. easy 20 million just in storage.

 

[GobBluth]

*UPDATE*
Well folks, I put in my resignation. I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and all signs point to this being a terrible idea. But the way I justified it was, I wake up miserable every day, and what is worth that? I'm the only one who feels what I feel when I'm at work in this organization. The anxiety, the anger, the constant fear mongering of my boss. I'm just done. So, for the first time in 16 years, I'm about to be unemployed.

I've got a lead on a couple federal positions that hopefully I can get in on so, not all is lost.

If that doesn't work I guess I'll do the stay-at-home-dad thing for a while, do some day trading, and see how I can contribute again.

Cheers,

JR

 

[Fanatical Meat]

If a job truly makes you miserable then yeah it's not worth it.

I've never walked out on a job, but when I was in college I got a summer job as a server tech and decided that's what I wanted to do full time. Fast forward to when I graduate I started at help desk and eventually made it to server. Realized after a short few years that it was not what it was cracked up to me. Way less technical, and way more politics and red tape. Does not help the IT manager (client) I worked for was an asshole.

I eventually saw a job opening for NOC which is more on the telecom side of the company and jumped ship and been happy since. Sometimes you realize that the field you thought you wanted to work in is not all that and end up in a slightly different field that you end up liking more.

Just don't quit before you have something lined up.

I came very close to walking out two weeks ago. I told my superior if I ever hear anything about “share holder value” I’m out. Heard those words at three different jobs and that is the sign it will soon suck.

Fast forward a bit smallish company I work with merged with another, dude from NY was talking about how they lined up some investors but we are on target to meet their expectations......

I was totally prepared to walk out of the room if that statement went in a different direction.

Edit: I’m confident I’ll hear those words soon and I am 100% prepared to leave first time I see them in an email or hear them. Not kidding either, I will resign effective immediately the instant shareholder/investor value comes up in a negative light to me.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah the minute a company starts only caring about shareholders and starts getting into all those buzzwords related to investors etc it sucks both for the employees and the customers and the company is about to turn to poison. Unfortunately that seems to be most companies now days. Worse is when you have a startup that is doing well and everyone is happy, then they decide to go public. It pretty much shits the bed for everyone at that very moment. Mass layoffs usually start to be the norm, and the typical corporate BS.

 

[shortylickens]

Ask Stormy Daniels.....

 

[Zeze]

What are you doing in your current job?

 

[Zeze]

*UPDATE*
Well folks, I put in my resignation. I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and all signs point to this being a terrible idea. But the way I justified it was, I wake up miserable every day, and what is worth that? I'm the only one who feels what I feel when I'm at work in this organization. The anxiety, the anger, the constant fear mongering of my boss. I'm just done. So, for the first time in 16 years, I'm about to be unemployed.

I've got a lead on a couple federal positions that hopefully I can get in on so, not all is lost.

If that doesn't work I guess I'll do the stay-at-home-dad thing for a while, do some day trading, and see how I can contribute again.

Cheers,

JR

Best of luck bud.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

*UPDATE*
Well folks, I put in my resignation. I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and all signs point to this being a terrible idea. But the way I justified it was, I wake up miserable every day, and what is worth that? I'm the only one who feels what I feel when I'm at work in this organization. The anxiety, the anger, the constant fear mongering of my boss. I'm just done. So, for the first time in 16 years, I'm about to be unemployed.

I've got a lead on a couple federal positions that hopefully I can get in on so, not all is lost.

If that doesn't work I guess I'll do the stay-at-home-dad thing for a while, do some day trading, and see how I can contribute again.

Cheers,

JR

I want to say "Congrats!" and generally pass on good vibes, but I would also caution with "Grass is greener" message as well.

Sometimes I hate work and certain times in life - and I just wonder if the problem isn't my work but rather myself. Plenty of others in life seem perfectly content getting up and working a lot harder than I do every day in life. Sometimes it just makes me wonder....

But regardless - I've been in similar boats. I've quit 3 jobs in life and #4 thus far has been a night and day difference in terms of how much I can stand it.

Albeit, everytime I started a new job they always started out that way... Overall hope the best for you man. Nothing increased my pay better than moving to different jobs. When I quit my last job (#3) I do so in January of this year with no clue of where I would go next. I hated it that much - so I've been in your shoes.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I came very close to walking out two weeks ago. I told my superior if I ever hear anything about “share holder value” I’m out. Heard those words at three different jobs and that is the sign it will soon suck.

"Shareholder value" is the one phrase that always pisses me off. I'm there to make a living, and it's really hard giving a crap about shareholder value when you see management spending money in absolutely ridiculous ways that add zero value. So when I hear "shareholder value," I just roll my eyes and ignore it pretty much. I don't give a crap about "shareholder value" - I'm there to make a living and for my own needs. If the shareholders benefit, great; however, I'm the CEO of Me, Inc. and my needs (my "shareholder value") come first. 🙂

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Yeah the minute a company starts only caring about shareholders and starts getting into all those buzzwords related to investors etc it sucks both for the employees and the customers and the company is about to turn to poison. Unfortunately that seems to be most companies now days. Worse is when you have a startup that is doing well and everyone is happy, then they decide to go public. It pretty much shits the bed for everyone at that very moment. Mass layoffs usually start to be the norm, and the typical corporate BS.

I started a new job in February, 2016. The people were nice, the company was family-oriented, and the building was a former Big 4 location, so it was fairly nice. Anyway, two months later, the hammer dropped - it was announced our parent company was selling 50% of the company to a private equity firm in order to "gain access to capital to accelerate our growth plans." As part of the agreement, the private equity firm got more seats on the board than the parent company. Anyway, I'm sure you can guess exactly what happened next - over the course of the next few months, executives gradually "decided to pursue new opportunities" and were replaced by a bunch of guys who weren't even local and would fly in once every couple of weeks to work. Then, benefits and raises started taking a hit. One of the executives who did manage to hang on was the CIO, as he was fairly new and was from Kohls. He worked absolute wonders for morale - and by "worked absolute wonders," I mean he tanked it. His "career growth plan" was to poach all his buddies from Kohls to fill management positions. I "interviewed" (I'll use that term very loosely) for a management position and the interview consisted of me going into a room with one of the Kohl's club and listen to him blather on about how he was trying to poach one of his Kohls buddies to take the job and if he convinced him, I wouldn't get it. Keep in mind I had FAR more experience and credentials. Anyway, I left that company a month or two later and never looked back. The Kohls club guy I "interviewed" with happened to be the VP I reported through and it gave me incredible satisfaction to say "There is nothing you can possibly do" when he asked if he could make me a counter offer. The funny thing is, I check up on them in LinkedIn periodically and - you guessed it - all the Kohls club have received promotions since I left. I am absolutely SHOCKED!

Anyway, I've given enough info in this post so that if someone working in that IT department reads this, they're going to know exactly which company I'm talking about. If they're reading this, all I can say is - you're a sucker for staying and fuck the Kohls club.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

"Shareholder value" is the one phrase that always pisses me off. I'm there to make a living, and it's really hard giving a crap about shareholder value when you see management spending money in absolutely ridiculous ways that add zero value. So when I hear "shareholder value," I just roll my eyes and ignore it pretty much. I don't give a crap about "shareholder value" - I'm there to make a living and for my own needs. If the shareholders benefit, great; however, I'm the CEO of Me, Inc. and my needs (my "shareholder value") come first. 🙂

Had another email today that wasn’t perilously close to shareholder value.

 

[GobBluth]

**UPDATE AGAIN**
Quit that POS job working for that POS guy. Got hired as Asst. Director for another place. I've only just started this new job but so far the results have been great. Thanks for the support ATOT!

Cheers,

GB

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

**UPDATE AGAIN**
Quit that POS job working for that POS guy. Got hired as Asst. Director for another place. I've only just started this new job but so far the results have been great. Thanks for the support ATOT!

Cheers,

GB

Nice, get a good pay bump as well?

Congrats.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

**UPDATE AGAIN**
Quit that POS job working for that POS guy. Got hired as Asst. Director for another place. I've only just started this new job but so far the results have been great. Thanks for the support ATOT!

Cheers,

GB

Congrats and what are you doing?

 

[ultimatebob]

"Shareholder value" is the one phrase that always pisses me off. I'm there to make a living, and it's really hard giving a crap about shareholder value when you see management spending money in absolutely ridiculous ways that add zero value. So when I hear "shareholder value," I just roll my eyes and ignore it pretty much. I don't give a crap about "shareholder value" - I'm there to make a living and for my own needs. If the shareholders benefit, great; however, I'm the CEO of Me, Inc. and my needs (my "shareholder value") come first. 🙂

You want me to care about "Shareholder Value"? Give me a few thousand shares of stock, and make me 1% shareholder. Then I'll care about stock price, because I'll own a good chunk of it 🙂

 

[squirrel dog]

Go ahead Gob , stay strong .

 

[jhansman]

My work environment is far from ideal, but if I step back, the view is not that bad. I am making good coin and have about three years left before I hang it up. Yes, our org is run by myopic morons who are likely convinced they are spot on, but morale around here is very low. I come in and sit at my desk, do what I am handed, go to the occasional meeting, and try not to let the idiocy get to me. Patience....

 

[snoopy7548]

My work environment is far from ideal, but if I step back, the view is not that bad. I am making good coin and have about three years left before I hang it up. Yes, our org is run by myopic morons who are likely convinced they are spot on, but morale around here is very low. I come in and sit at my desk, do what I am handed, go to the occasional meeting, and try not to let the idiocy get to me. Patience....

Same here. I get stressed out at times but looking at it from the outside, I have a really good job. I've been here since graduation (over 11 years) and I have no plans to leave; I hope to ride out my career here. It helps to think that not many people are that lucky, and you should appreciate what you have.

If the work is good/challenging enough, you can't let the small mundane BS stuff bother you; that's at every company.

 

[Avalon]

Glad to hear you moved on. Modern work culture can be pretty toxic and it can be difficult to objectively identify that. I was in a similar situation as you were, at a company for 8 years, kept getting promoted because I was doing well. Got promoted up into a position I wound up hating, and while I was capable, every day was a struggle to give a shit. The position also demanded 60-70 hour work weeks, and I was just burnt out after a while. We were constantly dealing with other people's fires and there was no end in sight, with every day being something different. I eventually realized the money wasn't worth being miserable, and I had the means to just up and leave, so I put in my two weeks last month.

I've been taking it very slow since I've been out, and only applying to positions at companies that truly interest me, not to things that I think I could just simply do. Got a couple great interviews coming up, but if none of those pan out I've got the patience to keep looking and wait for the right thing to land. Thankfully I was smart and set myself up with a solid savings, otherwise none of this would be possible.