Author Topic: Epic FU money stories  (Read 2794868 times)

Dogastrophe

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2850 on: October 14, 2019, 03:22:02 PM »
I'm so excited to have one of my first FU money experiences today! It's little, but mighty.

I am a designer and this weekend (Ugh - weekend. Strike one.) I had a client contact me about a job. The last line of her e-mail, verbatim, was "if you're interested, I can explain exactly what we need on a very tight timeline and even tighter budget." Gawd, what a horrible proposition!

Of course there are a few reasons to consider a job like that... if it's an important client or could lead to other, better jobs, etc. But that didn't apply here. In past years, I would have had to take the job because I needed the money, period. Now I'm able to discriminate, and I kind of feel like throwing myself a party because it's so awesome. Three cheers for being able to take a pass on the crappy assignments of life!!

Well done!  Often times you will come out ahead by not taking a crappy job.

Flip side, at least they have a budget and they didn't offer to pay you in "exposure" on their 100 follower instagram.  :)

mm1970

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2851 on: October 15, 2019, 11:11:51 AM »
I'm so excited to have one of my first FU money experiences today! It's little, but mighty.

I am a designer and this weekend (Ugh - weekend. Strike one.) I had a client contact me about a job. The last line of her e-mail, verbatim, was "if you're interested, I can explain exactly what we need on a very tight timeline and even tighter budget." Gawd, what a horrible proposition!

Of course there are a few reasons to consider a job like that... if it's an important client or could lead to other, better jobs, etc. But that didn't apply here. In past years, I would have had to take the job because I needed the money, period. Now I'm able to discriminate, and I kind of feel like throwing myself a party because it's so awesome. Three cheers for being able to take a pass on the crappy assignments of life!!
I prob would have asked how tight the budget was (maybe you did?) One person's tight budget is another person's flush one.

EscapedApe

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2852 on: October 15, 2019, 12:44:35 PM »
I work at an amazing organization now and in a management role where I've been able to right size salaries and bring people up to where they should be in the industry. I am loving what I do every day and my emergency fund means I can FU if anything ever changes. It's a great place to be!

Good for you man, that's an awesome outcome.

The lesson here is: people will get away with whatever you let them get away with, so know your worth, and re-educate yourself from time to time so you're always in the know.

GreenToTheCore

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2853 on: October 16, 2019, 10:37:37 PM »
I'm so excited to have one of my first FU money experiences today! It's little, but mighty.

I am a designer and this weekend (Ugh - weekend. Strike one.) I had a client contact me about a job. The last line of her e-mail, verbatim, was "if you're interested, I can explain exactly what we need on a very tight timeline and even tighter budget." Gawd, what a horrible proposition!

Of course there are a few reasons to consider a job like that... if it's an important client or could lead to other, better jobs, etc. But that didn't apply here. In past years, I would have had to take the job because I needed the money, period. Now I'm able to discriminate, and I kind of feel like throwing myself a party because it's so awesome. Three cheers for being able to take a pass on the crappy assignments of life!!
Hip hip hurray!
Hip hip hurray!
Hip hip hurray!


frekwentflier

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2854 on: October 19, 2019, 05:27:15 PM »
I can honestly say that this thread has changed my entire life for the better over the past year. It's amazing to me how much life improvement one can get just by being able to say NO to unreasonable work demands.  I'm not FIREd yet, but I'm close enough that I've already started acting like it when it comes to work assignments. Here are some of the things I've done in the past year. Some might not consider them epic, but they are epic to me.

A background, I have been in some form of IT Consulting for over 25 years. For at least half that time, I've traveled 75-100% to work on projects at customer sites. When I was young and single, all of the traveling was great!  Now that I'm older and married, it became a tedious chore.

Over the past 5 years, I have worked and trained very hard to become a certified expert in a particular technology that is very much in-demand right now. My previous job was traveling 100% doing various projects in this technology for various customers. Some of those customers came from the actual technology company, others came thru the medium-sized consulting firm that I worked for.

As some may know, in IT Consulting, the bill rates can be quite high.  $250-$350/hour is not uncommon.  However, I was only making a fraction of that.  Knowing just what my little slice of the pie was infuriated me constantly.  *I* was the one leaving my family on Sunday afternoon and returning Friday night every week, yet everybody else actually made more money.

Every month the company would give 1 consultant a special bonus for going "above and beyond". There was one other consultant and I who traveled full time, everybody else got to go home to their families every night or worked from home.  Neither of us never got the bonus.  Why?  Because we didn't put in enough extra effort.  They didn't care that we were stuck on planes or at airports 10-20 hours/week.

And on top of that, my manager was constantly trying to get me to do extra work on the side that my company was actually billing for, but I was paid a salary, so no extra money for me.  "You're stuck in a hotel room all week, so you have plenty of time to do this extra work" was his constant excuse. So even though I did a lot of this extra work, I still didn't get nominated for the monthly bonus.

After reading MMM and this thread, assessing how financially stable we actually were, and realizing that with my status as an expert in this high-demand technology, I could easily find another job, I decided to just stop taking all of their sh*t. 

The first step was that I stopped doing all extra work.  At first I just ignored any requests.  When my manager asked for the status of them, I politely but sternly informed him that I was already billing 40 hours/week for the customer, and if he wanted me to do anything else, he needed to figure out a way to pay me extra for it. He gave me a hard time, but I simply told him that if he didn't like it, he could fire me and lose all of the billing revenue that I was bringing in.

I then informed him that my 100% traveling days were over.  Either find me something local to me, or preferably, work-at-home, or another company would.  My company had paid a lot of money to get me trained on this technology, so I gave them 6 months to reduce my travel schedule.  Believe me, they've made 100x as much money from my billings as they ever paid to train me, probably more.

And third, rather than having the internal travel agency book my flights and hotels, I started making my own reservations. They were constantly nickel and diming me on flights/hotels. Making me take cheaper flights at crazy times and putting me up at cheaper hotels very far away from the customer sites.  No more.  When confronted about this, I simply said either I make my own travel reservations, or I don't travel 1 foot outside of my house.

They backed down on everything. My life did improve somewhat, but sure enough, after 6 months, there was absolutely no movement on reducing my travel, so I started looking for a new work-at-home job.  I found it in less than a month and am now writing this post from my desk at my own house.  My commute is 20 feet from Bedroom 1 to Bedroom 3.  :)  My wife is so happy to have me home more, and I got a 20% raise to boot! 

It's amazing how much better your life can get when you just do what's best for you and your family.

I hope others will read this and get some inspiration from it.  FU money is great, but even if you're not quite there yet, having partial FU-money as well as a FU-skillset can go a long way to improving your life. 

Thank you MMM Community for inspiring me to make these much-needed changes!!
« Last Edit: October 21, 2019, 05:29:30 AM by frekwentflier »

Cherry Lane

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2855 on: October 19, 2019, 05:31:05 PM »
Great story, @frekwentflier !  You may be due for a new username, though.

ditheca

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2856 on: October 19, 2019, 05:48:14 PM »
... I started looking for a new work-at-home job.  I found it in less than a month and am now writing this post from my desk at my own house.  My commute is 20 feet from Bedroom 1 to Bedroom 3.  :)  My wife is so happy to have me home more, and I got a 20% raise to boot! 

How did you find the work-at-home job?  I haven't had much luck finding reliable opportunities.

AO1FireTo

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2857 on: October 19, 2019, 06:47:52 PM »
That's pretty epic.  I think we forget sometimes that it costs a lot of money to replace a highly skilled worker...$$$$$$

We have more power than we realize.

RyanAtTanagra

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2858 on: October 19, 2019, 08:10:42 PM »
I can honestly say that this thread has changed my entire life for the better over the past year. It's amazing to me how much life improvement one can get just by being able to say NO to unreasonable work demands.

Great story!  And I agree, learning the concept of FU money has changed my life for the better.  Before, I never knew that it was possible to just say 'no', and to ask for/demand things that others were afraid to.  Doing so doesn't mean you're not still an exceptional employee, it's just establishing boundaries, which ends up being healthy for both sides.

BicycleB

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2859 on: October 19, 2019, 08:58:40 PM »
Way to go, @frekwentflier!

Let us know if you change your name to formerfrekwentflier...

frekwentflier

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2860 on: October 19, 2019, 09:27:51 PM »
I still fly a lot, but now it's for vacations only.  :) 

frekwentflier

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2861 on: October 19, 2019, 09:33:42 PM »
... I started looking for a new work-at-home job.  I found it in less than a month and am now writing this post from my desk at my own house.  My commute is 20 feet from Bedroom 1 to Bedroom 3.  :)  My wife is so happy to have me home more, and I got a 20% raise to boot! 

How did you find the work-at-home job?  I haven't had much luck finding reliable opportunities.

Being able to find a work-at-home job very much depends on your choice of career. The technology that I specialize in just happens to be very easy to do remotely. Forward-thinking companies realize that they can save a lot of money on office space, etc. by enabling remote workers. As long as the job gets done, who cares where it's done?

If remote work is important to you, but no such jobs exist in your field, you may want to consider a career change. If you do, I hope it works out for you.

shelivesthedream

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2862 on: October 20, 2019, 03:57:37 AM »
Amazing story! Thank you!

ditheca

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2863 on: October 21, 2019, 09:13:33 AM »
Being able to find a work-at-home job very much depends on your choice of career. The technology that I specialize in just happens to be very easy to do remotely. Forward-thinking companies realize that they can save a lot of money on office space, etc. by enabling remote workers. As long as the job gets done, who cares where it's done?

If remote work is important to you, but no such jobs exist in your field, you may want to consider a career change. If you do, I hope it works out for you.

I'm am IT manager by experience and a full stack developer by skill.  I currently work 100% from home (hundreds of miles from the nearest office!).  I landed the position 10 years ago as a regular employee at our headquarters; work from home was negotiated later.  My job isn't bad, but I feel trapped because I don't know how to find a similar position.

former player

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2864 on: October 21, 2019, 10:31:07 AM »
Being able to find a work-at-home job very much depends on your choice of career. The technology that I specialize in just happens to be very easy to do remotely. Forward-thinking companies realize that they can save a lot of money on office space, etc. by enabling remote workers. As long as the job gets done, who cares where it's done?

If remote work is important to you, but no such jobs exist in your field, you may want to consider a career change. If you do, I hope it works out for you.

I'm am IT manager by experience and a full stack developer by skill.  I currently work 100% from home (hundreds of miles from the nearest office!).  I landed the position 10 years ago as a regular employee at our headquarters; work from home was negotiated later.  My job isn't bad, but I feel trapped because I don't know how to find a similar position.
I might as well say that after finding a house that is in a great location for me I feel trapped because I can't find one that's in an even better location.

Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Threshkin

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2865 on: October 21, 2019, 05:15:27 PM »
Instead he told me, "You started at this company underpaid and you will always be underpaid as long as you work here."

Holy crap, I can't believe he told you that straight up. That's practically telling your employee to leave for greener pastures.

That is literally telling you to file a wage discrimination suit.

SwordGuy

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2866 on: October 21, 2019, 07:05:39 PM »
Instead he told me, "You started at this company underpaid and you will always be underpaid as long as you work here."

Holy crap, I can't believe he told you that straight up. That's practically telling your employee to leave for greener pastures.

That is literally telling you to file a wage discrimination suit.
Not in the US, unless the context was some form of racial, religious, gender or similar basis for the discrimination.

Just being hired at a lower wage and getting the same % raise as others isn't discrimination under US law.

alcon835

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2867 on: October 21, 2019, 07:45:39 PM »
Instead he told me, "You started at this company underpaid and you will always be underpaid as long as you work here."

Holy crap, I can't believe he told you that straight up. That's practically telling your employee to leave for greener pastures.

Maybe they were tired of him making them look bad.

They were pretty shocked and upset that I left and started bad mouthing me - specifically that I asked for a raise. One of my coworkers (still a friend) pointed out that my request was reasonable since I was making significantly more than I'd asked for. They never really had an answer to him on that but started bad mouthing me more.

That guy works for me now :)

alcon835

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2868 on: October 21, 2019, 07:46:53 PM »
I work at an amazing organization now and in a management role where I've been able to right size salaries and bring people up to where they should be in the industry. I am loving what I do every day and my emergency fund means I can FU if anything ever changes. It's a great place to be!

Good for you man, that's an awesome outcome.

The lesson here is: people will get away with whatever you let them get away with, so know your worth, and re-educate yourself from time to time so you're always in the know.

I completely agree!

talltexan

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2869 on: November 04, 2019, 08:44:42 AM »
Six years ago I was able to escape a drama-filled situation working for a small consulting entity within a university to take a new job doing economic forecasting for a public utility.

Today, the data series I spent those years building (it's survey data) has suddenly become the highest priority for our director of accounting. So I'm having to crawl back to people at that old job to see if they'll share the data with me (otherwise we'd have to pay $2,000 in subscription fees). So all you badass people, congrats! As for me, I'm trading some pride to save my manager $2,000.

BicycleB

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2870 on: November 04, 2019, 08:48:52 AM »
Good luck, fellow Texan!

talltexan

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2871 on: November 11, 2019, 07:01:17 AM »
Update-
director of accounting really loves the chart I made from these data. So I guess it's all okay.

AdrianC

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2872 on: November 12, 2019, 06:12:26 AM »
And on top of that, my manager was constantly trying to get me to do extra work on the side that my company was actually billing for, but I was paid a salary, so no extra money for me.  "You're stuck in a hotel room all week, so you have plenty of time to do this extra work" was his constant excuse.

I used to get this line, too. I did get bonuses, but when I worked out my hourly rate on these extra hours it was still less than minimum wage.

As soon as I could I became an independent contractor. Cut out that middle-man. Never looked back.

rockeTree

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2873 on: February 07, 2020, 08:44:49 AM »
It's not all that Epic but it was nice to be asked to apply for a sure thing promotion to a job I didn't want and reject it immediately. It's a pretty big raise, they said. I save half my income and mostly like my job, I said. Nothing at all would change in my daily life except that I would mostly dislike my job and be saving a somewhat higher percent of my income. Find another sucker.

jps

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2874 on: February 07, 2020, 09:20:41 AM »
It's not all that Epic but it was nice to be asked to apply for a sure thing promotion to a job I didn't want and reject it immediately. It's a pretty big raise, they said. I save half my income and mostly like my job, I said. Nothing at all would change in my daily life except that I would mostly dislike my job and be saving a somewhat higher percent of my income. Find another sucker.

That's an awesome example of FU money, rockeTree! Way to stick it to the man.

Alternatepriorities

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2875 on: February 07, 2020, 10:18:14 AM »
It's not all that Epic but it was nice to be asked to apply for a sure thing promotion to a job I didn't want and reject it immediately. It's a pretty big raise, they said. I save half my income and mostly like my job, I said. Nothing at all would change in my daily life except that I would mostly dislike my job and be saving a somewhat higher percent of my income. Find another sucker.

Isn’t avoiding BS spendy pants consumption so you can also avoid wasting your life on BS work you don’t enjoy the reason this blog and forum exist? I’d rate that as epic.

Dicey

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2876 on: February 07, 2020, 11:35:58 AM »
It's not all that Epic but it was nice to be asked to apply for a sure thing promotion to a job I didn't want and reject it immediately. It's a pretty big raise, they said. I save half my income and mostly like my job, I said. Nothing at all would change in my daily life except that I would mostly dislike my job and be saving a somewhat higher percent of my income. Find another sucker.

Isn’t avoiding BS spendy pants consumption so you can also avoid wasting your life on BS work you don’t enjoy the reason this blog and forum exist? I’d rate that as epic.
Totally agree, though I'd rate it as "Epic", with a capital "E".

Alternatepriorities

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2877 on: February 07, 2020, 02:19:37 PM »
Good point Dicey. More capital is always a good thing.

BTDretire

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2878 on: February 08, 2020, 08:55:53 AM »

It was nice to be missed but much better to be well paid. :)

What a great line!
 That line should be sent to all previous employers when people left for being under paid.

Chris Pascale

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2879 on: February 08, 2020, 04:43:22 PM »
It's not all that Epic but it was nice to be asked to apply for a sure thing promotion to a job I didn't want and reject it immediately. It's a pretty big raise, they said. I save half my income and mostly like my job, I said. Nothing at all would change in my daily life except that I would mostly dislike my job and be saving a somewhat higher percent of my income. Find another sucker.

Isn’t avoiding BS spendy pants consumption so you can also avoid wasting your life on BS work you don’t enjoy the reason this blog and forum exist? I’d rate that as epic.
Totally agree, though I'd rate it as "Epic", with a capital "E".

Because no fireworks are going off, it's easy to think this isn't an Epic story, but you have to think of how you claimed ownership of your life and joy, and realize that that's a big deal.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2880 on: February 08, 2020, 08:49:55 PM »
It's not all that Epic but it was nice to be asked to apply for a sure thing promotion to a job I didn't want and reject it immediately. It's a pretty big raise, they said. I save half my income and mostly like my job, I said. Nothing at all would change in my daily life except that I would mostly dislike my job and be saving a somewhat higher percent of my income. Find another sucker.

I have to agree with the other posters. This deserves Epic with an an E.

rockeTree

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2881 on: February 09, 2020, 03:55:42 PM »
Aw, thanks all!

This was reinforced by talking with a buddy who was shocked that I would turn it down, told me that he had never even considered rejecting a promotion, that that was the only way he could imagine saving money, and that he would be much happier in his previous role at his company, but "that's just not now it works." (He could save by eating food made at home more than a couple nights a month but that's a different conversation and of course his business).

I feel like being very conscious that I don't have to make default consumption choices not only makes it easy to save, but supports not making default earning choices. I don't need another $25k/year before taxes if it won't make a huge difference to my retirement date (which is mostly driven by varying assumptions about market returns at this point) and will make a huge negative difference in my quality of life.

I also talked to work bosses more and both said what promotions I would consider and laid out what conditions I would need to even contemplate the position they want me in, which they seemed to take on board as real possibilities. We shall see, but either way I'm fine and coming at it from a position of strength!
« Last Edit: February 09, 2020, 04:01:26 PM by rockeTree »

BicycleB

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2882 on: February 10, 2020, 12:11:16 AM »
Epic, @rockeTree!

For fun, here's 2 hours of epic music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaXXVzGy7Y8

BlueHouse

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2883 on: February 10, 2020, 07:26:41 AM »
Aw, thanks all!

This was reinforced by talking with a buddy who was shocked that I would turn it down, told me that he had never even considered rejecting a promotion, that that was the only way he could imagine saving money, and that he would be much happier in his previous role at his company, but "that's just not now it works." (He could save by eating food made at home more than a couple nights a month but that's a different conversation and of course his business).

I feel like being very conscious that I don't have to make default consumption choices not only makes it easy to save, but supports not making default earning choices. I don't need another $25k/year before taxes if it won't make a huge difference to my retirement date (which is mostly driven by varying assumptions about market returns at this point) and will make a huge negative difference in my quality of life.

I also talked to work bosses more and both said what promotions I would consider and laid out what conditions I would need to even contemplate the position they want me in, which they seemed to take on board as real possibilities. We shall see, but either way I'm fine and coming at it from a position of strength!
I agree it was completely EPIC! 
One thing to remember about how lucky we are that we have arranged our lives such that we can make choices like this:  I have worked with multiple companies that have paths to advancement and if you have more than 2 years without hitting the expectation of the "next rung", then your pay actually starts to decrease.  They don't want people to sit in comfy jobs and not move up.  I can see from the company's perspective why they do it, but from a mustachian lifestyle, so glad it's not a more prevalent practice. 

ctuser1

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2884 on: February 10, 2020, 07:58:48 AM »
I started doing research: talking with folks I knew in the industry, reading online forums, and looking at job posting to put together a number right in the middle of what the industry was paying for my promoted role. I took that information to my boss at my next one-on-one and proceeded to walk him through what I was looking for in salary when they finally promoted me and why I thought those numbers were fair.

He was clearly stunned by the conversation and didn't even take a second to process what I'd said. Instead he told me, "You started at this company underpaid and you will always be underpaid as long as you work here. The promotion is not going to be negotiable and it's more like a 5% increase." I pointed out that the role should be paid at what the role is worth and not be based on my current salary. He shrugged his shoulders and basically said, "That's the way that it is and I'm not going to fight to get you any more."

That was the moment I knew it was time to leave. It was suddenly clear that they knew they were taking advantage of me. They knew I was ignorant of what the industry was paying and used that leverage to severely underpay me while hiring other folks at 40-60% more than me. And even when I proved to be one of the strongest assets on their team, the only response was a shrug of the shoulders and a "that's the way that it is."

How megacorps work has some complicated and convoluted reasoning behind it that will only make sense if you start thinking at scale.

As an employee, however, you operate within that given environment, with little opportunity to change that. As an individual, I believe the most rational stance is to recognize that:
1. Megacorp has no loyalty to you, and you shouldn't have any to it either.
2. You, however, need to have a strong loyalty to the individuals you work with, i.e. your team. They are your future network. You want to be remembered as a good team member by your teammates.

#2 and #1 often conflict. When it does, I choose to let #2 take precedence.

So, in your story, the fact that you were "surprised" that you were underpaid indicates you did not keep updated how much you are worth in the market. That indicates a violation of rule #1 that I follow.

Then, when you found out about that from the grapevine, your assume your manager, or his manager, has the ability to remedy that situation. 99% of the time that is not the case. The only time your manager(s) can do anything is if/when you show up with a 2-week-notice with another offer in hand. Even that gambit is risky. If your manager decides to fight for better salary - he has to burn a significant amount of political capital.

The most rational choice in this case is to take another offer, give your two week notice and and politely mention that you got a better opportunity while giving the notice, and make preparations to leave. If they do want to keep you, they might try to give a counter - but I am usually *very* uncomfortable taking those (I've been there, and declined it) for many reasons. THEN, some time later, a year or two, if your older job wants to bring you back with appropriate raises and stuff - you can move back. DW had this almost happen last year when her old employer gave her  an offer without any interview when they heard she was looking. This worked massively to her advantage since she could negotiate hardball (with extreme politeness) with the new job where she actually landed. She got a 50%+ raise this way from a single job hop.

I write this not with an intention to criticize you, but with the hope that more people can start acting rationally in these situations. Very few do. It is hard - as I can see when I try to advise DW to act opposite to what her instinctive reactions are in a given situation.

 
 

Just Joe

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2885 on: February 10, 2020, 12:23:06 PM »
Teen#1 gave their Epic FU announcement to their employer - and left. And days later the reality of quitting without a job has set in. Oh well, lesson learned. Don't repeat it. That child's super power is not learning their lessons until testing them IRL.

We talked about that a couple of months ago b/c we knew the teen was unhappy with the person they had been paired up with. That person had alot of rough edges.

Better to learn this lesson now with no responsibilities or bills and while living at home... Time to go find another job kid...

BicycleB

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2886 on: February 10, 2020, 01:09:23 PM »
^LOL

@ctuser1, great post - very thought provoking!

RyanAtTanagra

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2887 on: February 10, 2020, 01:11:13 PM »
Teen#1 gave their Epic FU announcement to their employer - and left. And days later the reality of quitting without a job has set in. Oh well, lesson learned. Don't repeat it. That child's super power is not learning their lessons until testing them IRL.

We talked about that a couple of months ago b/c we knew the teen was unhappy with the person they had been paired up with. That person had alot of rough edges.

Better to learn this lesson now with no responsibilities or bills and while living at home... Time to go find another job kid...

So more of Epic FM (Fucked Myself) story?  I bet that would make for a good thread too.  "Times I thought I was using FU money but it ended up backfiring".

DaMa

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2888 on: February 10, 2020, 03:30:31 PM »
I have a F*Ed Myself story which is pretty timely, considering recent discussion.

I had a nice offer for a new job, gave notice, and and received a counter-offer that included a pay increase and another week of paid vacation.  So I stayed.  3 months later my boss was fired and I ended up reporting to a total ass.  I ended up reaching out to the person who'd offered me the new job, who happily offered to hire me.  He wouldn't budge on the original offer, though, so it was actually a pay cut.  Which I took gladly.

Not quite epic, but I never again even considered a counter-offer.

Reynold

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2889 on: February 10, 2020, 03:58:22 PM »
He was clearly stunned by the conversation and didn't even take a second to process what I'd said. Instead he told me, "You started at this company underpaid and you will always be underpaid as long as you work here. The promotion is not going to be negotiable and it's more like a 5% increase." 

I have a friend who, when starting a new job, was told something like "We pay slightly below market wages, but we want better than average performers!"  He and I were both puzzled by that contradiction, but he took the job anyway (his division/location at previous employer was shutting down).  I think he has generally been happy at his new job over the last decade, and has been promoted, but he is also very easy going so wasn't likely to make any big waves about things like pay. 

In my own case, at a previous employer, I started somewhat underpaid but so were the other people at the company because it was a startup, not a software one but the old fashioned kind that made physical things and so took many years to grow.  Some years in, out of the blue one year I got a 15% raise because they finally were big enough and had the resources to do a market analysis and increase the pay of the people there who were underpaid.  I realize that is contradictory to the experiences most people in this thread have talked about, but there was a reason I stayed there for almost 2 decades, they were a good place to work for most of that. 

Reynold

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2890 on: February 10, 2020, 04:19:21 PM »
How megacorps work has some complicated and convoluted reasoning behind it that will only make sense if you start thinking at scale.

As an employee, however, you operate within that given environment, with little opportunity to change that. As an individual, I believe the most rational stance is to recognize that:
1. Megacorp has no loyalty to you, and you shouldn't have any to it either.
2. You, however, need to have a strong loyalty to the individuals you work with, i.e. your team. They are your future network. You want to be remembered as a good team member by your teammates.

#2 and #1 often conflict. When it does, I choose to let #2 take precedence.

I have a story about that, when I got laid off from Company A just before Christmas in 2008 as the U.S. economy was dropping, I made sure I left on good terms with everyone.  I've since hired my previous boss as an occasional consultant where I work now, he was laid off shortly after me, most of my group at Company A went away.  Meanwhile his main job is with Company B, started by his, and my, even earlier boss at Company A.  Company B has now hired half a dozen other people from Company A who got laid off or left in the last few years.  My two former bosses also use me as a consultant on some other things they have going.  Networks with former colleagues can be invaluable, the people who are competent, who you want to work with again, also tend to be able to recognize that YOU were competent.  :)

I have a friend who has gotten a couple of jobs that way, he is terrible with people skills but a genius at keeping ISP systems and networks running.  More than one person who left a place he worked and got a job elsewhere poached him from his former employer with a raise, he is in a relatively small city so the IT people know each other.  One employer, a tiny ISP, went out of business after he got hired away, because he was the only one they had left who actually knew how to work the system.  Some new owners bought it and didn't understand who did what, they were under the impression ctuser1 describes so aptly that all workers are interchangeable cogs and so laid off his former manager as too expensive. 

All too poorly understood by megacorps is that if you make the workplace unpleasant, by overloading employees, putting them in jobs they don't want, and so on, the first ones who leave are the ones who are skilled enough to get jobs elsewhere, so the first 10% to go was probably doing 50% of your work. 

Zaga

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2891 on: February 10, 2020, 04:58:09 PM »
I don't get it, don't they do the math and realize that it costs a whole lot of money to replace someone?!  It's worth investing a little bit in your good employees so that you don't have to train and retrain.

My current job is losing people in droves.  The turnover there has always been absurdly high, but this is worse than that.  Something like half of HR left in the past few weeks.  It's like rats leaving a sinking ship.

scottish

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2892 on: February 10, 2020, 05:57:52 PM »
I don't get it, don't they do the math and realize that it costs a whole lot of money to replace someone?!  It's worth investing a little bit in your good employees so that you don't have to train and retrain.

My current job is losing people in droves.  The turnover there has always been absurdly high, but this is worse than that.  Something like half of HR left in the past few weeks.  It's like rats leaving a sinking ship.

Companies do not understand Price's law:   

Quote
The square root of the number of people in a domain do 50% of the work. This means that in a company of 10 employees, 3 of them do 1/2 the work. The remaining 50% of the work is done by the other 7 people.

Not to say I really understand Price's law.   If you have a factory with 10000 people, are 100 of them doing 50% of the work?   

ctuser1

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2893 on: February 10, 2020, 06:45:00 PM »
I don't get it, don't they do the math and realize that it costs a whole lot of money to replace someone?!  It's worth investing a little bit in your good employees so that you don't have to train and retrain.

My current job is losing people in droves.  The turnover there has always been absurdly high, but this is worse than that.  Something like half of HR left in the past few weeks.  It's like rats leaving a sinking ship.

If you ask 100 people working in your company, how many will respond they are underpaid?
If you rephrase - "are you underpaid given all the bull**** you have to go through here"? How many will answer yes?

Out of all the "yes" answers, how many are genuinely underpaid?
Do you have an objective criteria to identify people who are genuinely underpaid, AND will every accept the verdict of this "objective criteria"? If it was enacted, that will cause some dissatisfaction and disruption - what justifies that cost?

Out of all the "no" answers, how many are simply complacent? Do you just want to give them raises, with the risk others will notice that this employee is suddenly so ecstatic, put 2 and 2 together, and demand their fix-it?

If you keep a lid on all these, then the max cost is x number of "key person risk" materialize and you have to have some sort of "shit has hit the fan" management routine in place. Much easier!!

markbike528CBX

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2894 on: February 11, 2020, 12:29:17 AM »
I don't get it, don't they do the math and realize that it costs a whole lot of money to replace someone?!  It's worth investing a little bit in your good employees so that you don't have to train and retrain.

My current job is losing people in droves.  The turnover there has always been absurdly high, but this is worse than that.  Something like half of HR left in the past few weeks.  It's like rats leaving a sinking ship.

HR is leaving!? 
Make sure you've backed up (to home) any personal information/items you have at work. Put on your life jacket, which should be stuffed full of resumes. Don't stand under C-suit balconys.

Zaga

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2895 on: February 11, 2020, 04:56:12 AM »
I don't get it, don't they do the math and realize that it costs a whole lot of money to replace someone?!  It's worth investing a little bit in your good employees so that you don't have to train and retrain.

My current job is losing people in droves.  The turnover there has always been absurdly high, but this is worse than that.  Something like half of HR left in the past few weeks.  It's like rats leaving a sinking ship.

HR is leaving!? 
Make sure you've backed up (to home) any personal information/items you have at work. Put on your life jacket, which should be stuffed full of resumes. Don't stand under C-suit balconys.
I've been down this road before, more than once.  I'm prepared for the whole company to fold at a moment's notice, and I don't keep anything personal on my work computer ever!  And yes, I'm looking for a change myself :-)

ctuser1

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2896 on: February 11, 2020, 07:56:19 AM »
I've been down this road before, more than once.  I'm prepared for the whole company to fold at a moment's notice, and I don't keep anything personal on my work computer ever!  And yes, I'm looking for a change myself :-)

Your age shows as 39 (which isn't to far from mine). So you must have been through the 2008, just like all of us in our age group or older did. :-D...

I somehow survived 3 entire-LOB-closures and maybe 15-20 rounds of layoffs in the 2-3 years around that time. Battle scars...

It was scary. I hope to at least be lean-FI next time anything half as scary comes around!!

saguaro

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2897 on: February 11, 2020, 02:12:42 PM »
How megacorps work has some complicated and convoluted reasoning behind it that will only make sense if you start thinking at scale.

As an employee, however, you operate within that given environment, with little opportunity to change that. As an individual, I believe the most rational stance is to recognize that:
1. Megacorp has no loyalty to you, and you shouldn't have any to it either.
2. You, however, need to have a strong loyalty to the individuals you work with, i.e. your team. They are your future network. You want to be remembered as a good team member by your teammates.

#2 and #1 often conflict. When it does, I choose to let #2 take precedence.

When I worked at the Big Company, I realized several years in after they started their rounds of downsizing / rightsizing / spinoffs / reinventions of the wheel that for all their previous declarations of valuing their employees, that the people who actually believed and practiced this were gone (at the top at least) replaced by those who simply thought everyone was a cog that could fit every wheel which was crazy considering the various projects and business units they had.  That was when I switched my focus from No. 1 to No. 2.   But there were those employees, especially long-term ones, who could not believe that the previously "layoff-proof" Big Company had changed, that somehow it still deserved their fealty (#1)  And when some employees who remained got hired away by former coworkers/bosses who got canned and landed on their feet elsewhere, sometimes for a better job with better pay, they still were shocked that someone would leave (#1 conflicting with #2).

Even when I realized that the Big Company was going down like the Titantic with its days numbered, I knew that at the very least I had a good network for the future in place (#2).  That was my #2 "lifeboat" and it paved (or rather I rowed?) my way for the next job.
 

Plina

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2898 on: February 12, 2020, 10:56:52 AM »
How megacorps work has some complicated and convoluted reasoning behind it that will only make sense if you start thinking at scale.

As an employee, however, you operate within that given environment, with little opportunity to change that. As an individual, I believe the most rational stance is to recognize that:
1. Megacorp has no loyalty to you, and you shouldn't have any to it either.
2. You, however, need to have a strong loyalty to the individuals you work with, i.e. your team. They are your future network. You want to be remembered as a good team member by your teammates.

#2 and #1 often conflict. When it does, I choose to let #2 take precedence.

When I worked at the Big Company, I realized several years in after they started their rounds of downsizing / rightsizing / spinoffs / reinventions of the wheel that for all their previous declarations of valuing their employees, that the people who actually believed and practiced this were gone (at the top at least) replaced by those who simply thought everyone was a cog that could fit every wheel which was crazy considering the various projects and business units they had.  That was when I switched my focus from No. 1 to No. 2.   But there were those employees, especially long-term ones, who could not believe that the previously "layoff-proof" Big Company had changed, that somehow it still deserved their fealty (#1)  And when some employees who remained got hired away by former coworkers/bosses who got canned and landed on their feet elsewhere, sometimes for a better job with better pay, they still were shocked that someone would leave (#1 conflicting with #2).

Even when I realized that the Big Company was going down like the Titantic with its days numbered, I knew that at the very least I had a good network for the future in place (#2).  That was my #2 "lifeboat" and it paved (or rather I rowed?) my way for the next job.
 

Interestingly enough you also see no 1 among many young employees that have newly graduated. You often see them shouting out how fantastic it is working for company x because you have had a really interesting day for planning for world domination. After a couple of years you realise that you have the same bs every year without nothing changing or that you rather spend your weekend with your family instead of planning for world domination. It is not actually a reward to go on that trip rather it feels like a punishment or a must do.

 I worked previously for a megacorp and basically the only thing that matterad was how much money you pulled in. Oh, they talked about other values and how the employees were their most valuable asset bla bla. But their words did not match their actions.

I also give my loyalty to my coworkers and my boss if I think she/he deserves it. I have always had excellent backning from my coworkers when I have been looking for something new.

Alternatepriorities

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Re: Epic FU money stories
« Reply #2899 on: February 12, 2020, 11:46:02 AM »
Interestingly enough you also see no 1 among many young employees that have newly graduated. You often see them shouting out how fantastic it is working for company x because you have had a really interesting day for planning for world domination. After a couple of years you realise that you have the same bs every year without nothing changing or that you rather spend your weekend with your family instead of planning for world domination. It is not actually a reward to go on that trip rather it feels like a punishment or a must do.

 I worked previously for a megacorp and basically the only thing that matterad was how much money you pulled in. Oh, they talked about other values and how the employees were their most valuable asset bla bla. But their words did not match their actions.

I also give my loyalty to my coworkers and my boss if I think she/he deserves it. I have always had excellent backning from my coworkers when I have been looking for something new.

That happens at small companies too in my experience. Though to be fair the guy running that company did come from a mega corp. It all fell apart when the money stopped flowing in, but at least it gave me an story to post here forty some pages ago...

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