I’ve sure felt this first hand. I still remember days when payday would roll around, I’d take 5 minutes to pay bills online, and sock $1500 or so into savings. Now I do an hour of graduate level math every second Thursday, figuring everything out to the cent in advance, so I can sit on the edge of my bed at 12:15am Friday when my cheque hits, so as not to miss Friday morning’s auto debits. All while my employer hasn’t even offered fake ass CPI inflation indexed raises in 5 years, let alone real cost of living increases and performance based increases/bonuses that were negotiated at the time of hire.
It’s funny how just about at bonus time each quarter, we mysteriously incur capital costs (new buildings or equipment) that wipe out the profit on paper that bonuses are based on. It really doesn’t make a guy want to push very hard or accept additional responsibility.
My boss is counting on everyone being an idiot that doesn’t understand inflation. I told him straight up in my last comp meeting, that if the cost of living including inflation goes up 40% in a given period without a corresponding wage increase, he’s effectively paying us less every year. But he is playing hardball. Not even a budge. He knows I love the industry and the type work. He knows my only option is to go somewhere for the same money or less, doing work I’m good at but I don’t enjoy, and often away from home.
I pushed so hard for the first two years at this company, till I realized my employer is full of shit and has no respect for the growth I’ve contributed to, or any intention of sharing the success I am helping create every day.
When I showed up, the operation was a shit show. We didn’t even have a project numbering system that enabled reliable invoicing for work. Many jobs went totally uninvoiced. Lost forever.
For someone who has always strived to overdeliver, and thrives on challenges, it pains me to be holding back and starting to work on “my stuff” during the day, rather than new company initiatives, during work hours. I’ve realized I’ll never be regarded as anything g other than “the help”.
This guy has no idea the thousands of dollars I often change our outcomes on jobs with simple decisions on invoicing that simply need a little push on my part to benefit us greatly. Like literally +- $20k every week with a couple keystrokes or a few well timed phone calls.
But yeah, I’m just “lucky to be working”. Pfft