This right here is why I’ll never return to the office. I’m never going to let someone pay me for time instead of production/responsibility ever again. If there’s a bunch of work to be done fine, but if there isn’t I’m going to be spending that time on myself.
Having to mask all day no matter what and then choose between slow walking work to look busy or doing 2-3 people worth of work for absolutely no additional money or recognition is just not an option when I could… not do any of that.
Because my office is located right in the middle of the Toronto financial district and is surrounded by amenities, I personally have found going to the office to be totally consistent with spending time on myself. If I didn’t have high priority work to do, I’d go do something else. I would go to the gym almost every day, usually in the middle of the work day. That ends up killing about 2 hours to allow for walking over there, working out, and walking back. As long as I have access to stuff like that I don’t mind going in to the office because I won’t end up wasting time just because I’m down there.
It also helps that my commute in the city is very short, it only takes about 20 minutes to get from the office to home, door to door. So if I was at work with nothing to do at 2pm, I’d just go home.
New thread idea: Have algorithms and automation fucked up absolutely everything on the planet or just most of the things?
just most right now, but give it a few more months
This kind of thing seems to arise from trying to eliminate HR and replace it with self service and automated services.
Hiring is just completely broken. Every job I’ve ever gotten was through a personal relationship. Ive fired off hundreds of resumes into the black hole of electronic submissions - it is a complete waste of time.
Corporate America is just one big stupid game, there is absolutely no justice at any stage and the only constant is sociopaths being rewarded.
“Yeah hi can I have a raise?”
“No you’re at the top of your pay band.”
“I don’t give a shit, put me in another pay band, I’m clearly way better than Johnny McJackoff over there and I know he makes more than me.”
“That’s a breach of our privacy policy.”
“Yeah whatever, here’s an offer you made me go get for 30% more.”
“Ok here is a counteroffer for a 10% raise.”
“Fuck you, bye”
(SURPRISED PIKACHU)
My last W2 that came from a company I didn’t personally own was MEGA dysfunctional. These people had a bloated back office that was monumentally inefficient… so their solution was to figure out how much each broker needed to generate to cover ‘their share’ of the back office expenses and fire everyone who wasn’t hitting that number.
Why that’s funny is that it demonstrated clearly that they truly didn’t understand the concept of fixed and variable costs… and that caused them to reduce their gross profit in an attempt to get away from a fixed cost problem.
The person making these choices had an MBA ldo. And people wonder why I have exactly zero respect for B school qualifications. Just tell me you got black out drunk every day in college and cheated your way through lol. I swear to god business school is where they teach you things that if you needed them explained to you you shouldn’t ever operate any kind of business.
I’m totally stealing this for future use.
Business school is all about the networking. That’s where the value comes from.
this, except I always advise people to skip the “get an offer to force them to give you a counteroffer” part and just take the better job. never, ever take a counteroffer, you will regret it in the long run.
I can’t stress how true this is. Never, ever, ever let them talk you into staying. They will 100% fuck you at the next possible opportunity.
In 2021 our society punishes people for showing any kind of loyalty whatsoever. It is 100% standard to treat people as well as we’re ever going to treat them at the beginning of the relationship and then degrade it from there until the thing falls apart. Bait and switch is 100% standard operating procedure.
The solution is to always be shopping every single person you deal with every chance you get… and to make sure that every offer you make is really a demand backed by you immediately terminating the relationship if your demand isn’t met in full. If you let someone degrade the terms of the relationship they’ll do it again as soon as possible.
I’m fairly certain I’m about to get an offer letter from an interview I did last week. There hasn’t been a talk of salary yet but I have a voicemail that leads me believe we are about to discuss it.
How do you guys handle this? Do you force them to say the first number and go from there? My usual response is always “it just depends on the full compensation package based on the opportunity.” If they strong arm I give them a number that’s 30% more than I make now.
figure out your target and don’t be afraid to get it out there first. “I’m looking for $X.” If you don’t know what a good target is, just start taking calls from every random recruiter who pings you on linked in, talk to them and throw out a number. If they don’t blink, increase it by 10% when you talk to the next one. When you start getting “hmm, might be outside the range” a couple of times, you will have a better idea of how far you can go with the jobs you are actually interested in.
I would just ask for a big number that would make you happy. If they balk, then you say that’s ok you understand, what can they offer you along with a lower salary.
Good negotiation involves finding out whats important to you and whats important to them, and then trading off from complementary lists. Would you take lower salary for more vacation time? They could probably do that if they can’t afford the salary. Stuff like that.
What about the differences in cost of living? Home prices are more than double where I am now. I’m also going to try to do it remote so it’s hard to figure out my number if it depends on where the positions ends up. I guess I’ll say it’s dependent on if remote work is on the table or not.
I think that’s a good example of “if you can’t give me this then give me that”, which tends to be a winning negotiation tactic.
One other thing I should have mentioned is the idea of proposing a range. There is something psychological where if you propose a range then people’s brains subconsciously think the middle of the range is reasonable. I started a job in February this year and when they asked me about salary I gave them a range where my real ask was the bottom of the range. They came back with an initial offer equal to the exact midpoint of the range. 
I assume a reasonable range would be between 20-30% of the overall salary request?
Don’t give a number first, they’ve already invested xx hours in interviewing you, they’ll cave. Add a % to what they give no matter what.
Typically you’ll want to get a range from them in the first contact otherwise you’re potentially wasting your and their time. I’ll give a number there as they’ll be less invested but I’ll add like 30% to my actual minimum I’d take to work there and go from there.
what about it? it’s never factored into my negotiations, you ask for your target based on the value you generate. Your cost of living isn’t their concern. Do you expect to get a raise because you decide to trade in your honda civic for a mercedes?
