Another glorious tidbit of corporate crime: a local company called Bekaert specializes in the production of steel wire. Its CEO saw his wage rise with 33% in 2011, thanks to his 'achievements' in 2010. He makes a measly 1.78 million € now. Just two months ago, the company announced it will sack 609 employees because of the 'collapsed market for steel wire'.

How long are people gonna swallow this shit?

I took the liberty to draw a pyramid model for the company of the future. Actually, it will look more like a flat-coned reverse pyramid, with lots of overpaid managers and very little ground personnel.

Lol... you realize that an open market pretty much takes care of stuff like this. Your bottom, poor employees are what makes you money (as a company). The leaders help direct the company to make more money, but there's definitely a point of diminishing returns. If you keep giving your leadership raises and cutting your employees, you're reducing your corporate incoming, reducing your stock prices and slowly killing your company. The more monolithic the company, the more money gets bled into useless stuff like upper and middle management, and the less the company can grow.

Which is why a little company can get so big, so fast... they don't have all that encumbrance.

However, this lovely model falls flat when the government steps in to bail out the big companies that screwed themselves into self-destruction. Or they pass laws that make it harder for smaller companies to compete. If anything, I think government should make it harder for monolithic companies to exist. A lot of small companies is far better than a handful of large ones.

Well obviously the pyramid was exaggerated for effect.

I don't believe in a completely unregulated market (invisible hand). It's true that irrelevant companies will collapse unto themselves after a while, but who will suffer from that? Not the CEO's and board members. They are filthy rich and get all sorts of failsafes for even bad performance (golden parachutes). They aren't really affected by a business going under...their careers, maybe, but that's pretty relative compared to most normal employees finding themselves on the curb with loans and mortgages to pay.

The problem is that (big) companies aren't worried about making good products and being sustainable anymore. They are worried about making more profits ("growing" as far as the shareholders are concerned) by any means possible, since that's the only way to convince the shareholders to invest more money into the company. As such, the people in charge are forced to think in short-term profits, with all the consequences of that (a get-rich-quick culture).

I agree that small companies should be given more space and incentives. And that it's way better to have a lot of small companies compared to a few big ones. Small to middle-sized companies are often private or family businesses, that are of course interested in making profits but not in the way massive public corporations are. Their primary concern is to be sustainable, and as such they will think long-term and be less prone to the pitfalls of large corporations. Better work conditions for employees, no outrageous wages for board members, better products...

As for the government bailing out stuff: I don't mind them bailing out some companies (banks) to avoid a huge problem, since there is very little else to do. On the condition that the tax payer has total transparancy what is happening with the government's majority shares and the possible profits flow back into the state. Naturally I'd rather not see tax payer money spent on it, but if it's either that or seeing millions of people's savings go *poof* (not to mention chain reactions it could have on other banks if a bank goes underà then I'd rather see it saved. I persnally think the bigger issue here is 'how is it even possible that it came this far'. For a bank with a decent business it's almost impossible to go under - especially with a massive amount of customers, a bank is akin to a casino in that the house should always make profit. It's when banks start to speculate with the money they're holding that shit starts hitting the fan.

Eh, anyway, I think we have different macro-economic or even cultural visions on stuff like this. That's not news. I just find it outrageous that a CEO gets a 33% wage hike on a already huge wage in a year where they lay off 600+ employees cause the 'economy is bad'. Or that some of those banks that were saved have the audacity to start churning out million-dollar bonuses for board members only a year after those same people almost led us all to the slaughter. Makes my blood boil.

Meh, I think we're mainly on the same wavelength on this stuff. I disagree though that big banks should be bailed out. I mean, if the economy is on the line, fine, but force the bank to break up into smaller pieces, like what was forced on the US's telecom monopoly. Break it into regional banks and keep it small and capable of failing without taking the economy with it. I'm less pissed about the bailouts then I am about the fact that nothing's been done to keep it from happening again. Our government is just corrupt.

Not an expert, but banks that fail (ie, lend too much then cannot reclaim) should be left to fail or be taken over by the state so that from then on, the state has it's own money maker.

There is not a great deal of sense in bailing out banks since loans have a certain degree of risk attached to them, I should think they have to play the game sensibly so that they provide loans to the right people in the right time etc. If they know that the government will parachute in to help them, then they can play as they wish, provide loans to all without a real care for losing their business.

lol @ Ox's pyramid.

I agree with Derf on this one. Bailing out banks is bad practice. If government wants, they can bail out the depositors as in pay out deposits to certain extent but the bank still has to go under. Loosing one's deposit is a risk like any other and it's up to the depositor to minimize that risk.

My boss has been pressuring me for months to finish a project that got dumped on me. He asked for a deadline, I worked one out for him and sent him the day-to-day plan.

He sends me an email the day before he goes for a weeks holiday in Dubai:

From: Derf's Boss
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 15:48
To: Derf
Cc: Derf's Team-mate
Subject: RE: Prioritisation
Importance: High

Hi both

Ok, so I’ve agreed to this date and I will brief the client as such.

I am now on annual leave until the 9th and I have to warn you that under no circumstances can we miss this deadline.

If we did, then during the year of our contract renegotiation (this year…), [the company our company works for] will file an official complaint. They have made this abundantly clear. With this in mind I have fully briefed [John Smith], our Development Director, on the situation and asked him to follow up with you to ensure this gets done.

I want you to work together to ensure this deadline is met. If not, I will need to look at action plans and development plans which potentially could stay on your files.

So in short. Get it done above all else, otherwise there will be serious consequences for all of us.

I apologise for the serious note of this email, but as you know, I have promised this often and we don’t seem to be making any progress. This is fully in the spotlight and required by Intel urgently.

Regards,

Derf's Boss.


I reply:

Hi Boss,

Although the timeline is based on a detailed plan of action, it is susceptible to changes if things do not go smoothly. For example, yesterday I was told to provide TS training sessions to APAC from Monday (a day which is usually filled with reporting tasks). Yesterday we also encountered an issue with reporting, which is effecting the turnout of the TOPS report. These unforeseen events greatly affect the plan, but this has always been the case given the nature of the role, hence the extended delays for the dashboard. Now I will have to look again at the plan and provide you with a new date, so with the current prioritisation, the timeline will most certainly have to move forward.

Since I started working on the dashboard, I have enocuntered countless issues with the reporting tools and reports I was left with. Yet regardless from day 1, I was expected to produce the dashboard ASAP. I understand this work is important for [the company we do work for] but I was never involved in this process from the start so I find it unfair to be dumped a mere mockup and told to complete it ASAP when there are so many other issues and burdens. Simply applying pressure does not get the job done, or well at all in this case. It is a project, yet it has never been treated like one. We are trying to take data from about 6 reporting tools, for 3 contact centres, using countless queries and reports and we need to summarise to very high and low levels. There is no project document or specification. I am doing this on my own and the project was started (and original timelines set) when the reporting team consisted of 3 people, not 2. Since then (8 months ago) we’ve had perhaps two 1:1’s to express concerns about work and performance.

I understand this is important for [the company] but hoping it will get done by applying pressure, simply saying “get it done” mentioning personal and company-wide implications with the above points in mind I believe is not fair.

Thanks,

Derf.

Hehe. Yeah that sounds familiar. If there's one thing I'm not looking forward to when I find another job, it's that. Still, gotta love superiors who tell people "zomg this is super important you gotta finish this NOA!!" and then go on holiday for 10 days themselves.

The whole time I was reading that, I was wondering if you happened to work for our UK branch. Getting all ZOMG and then going on holiday is totally something those dipwads would do. If it's that important... better put that vacation on hold, buster.

No no you only do that when someone above you is riding your ass, cause then you'd have to make sure you look competent. No one cares if their own subordinates think they're competent or not in a big firm. Jeez Satis, you'd suck as a manager.

I have a friend who worked from call centre team lead to head of strategic HR in a major firm over the past 5 years. He's a great guy, very intelligent, so I wish him all his success, but the way he got there is pretty illustrative. He basically sacrificed most of his life to network, network and network some more. He would try to get into lunch and dinner with people higher up than him all the time and use his superior psychological skills to basically suck up. He also worked hard, of course, but the networking was the key. He'd hate to have to go to another party or business meeting, truly loathed having to be nice to most of them (since most of them were clueless assholes), but he did it anyway and is now on getting to the big boys.

I makes me wonder though, is it worth it? He didn't really seem happy with his work at all. He liked the challenge of playing the social game, but he also hated the actual game. Will the money outweigh the personal sacrifices in the end? Who knows. I know I couldn't do it, though. I'd end up murdering someone in my plastic-coated-wall-basement before too long.

Handed in my resignation.

Found a new job (Systems Analyst) with a more serious company, offering more money.

w00p w00p

*does a dance*

Grats Derf. I find every job comes with some level of bullshit - just a matter of how much money versus how much bullshit. Hope your new job is low of the bullshit and high on the pay.