Anybody Buying Yet? Where’s the Bottom?

[SAJ-99]

But, you're still living under the fallacy that everyone is in competition with everyone else they work with.

Again, different perspective of union and at-will employee. In the corporate work, if you are upset with the arrangement you have with your employer you can leave, but you are competing everyone else that has a similar skill set. Life is a competition. Not improving yourself is not an option. Those that don't hope to learn through the osmosis of time, eventually falling victim to the Peter principle and reaching their level of incompetence.

I had no problem continuing the learning process while making important family events. I'm not sure that is necessarily a required trade off, but if it is I support the choice of the Family. But that isn't what we are even talking about. Hence my comment about watching Netflix.

 

[406dn]

And more money (if he knows how to negotiate for himself).

So, are you saying the default position of a company is to underpay an employee to the extent they can? We both know the answer.

 

[Treeshark]

So, are you saying the default position of a company is to underpay an employee to the extent they can? We both know the answer.

Underpay is subjective. Paying them the lowest amount possible while still retaining their services long term (if desired) would be a better description.

In other words, companies typically pay employees just enough so they don’t leave.

 

[Exhausted]

Company tries to maximize profit? Evil corporation.

Person tries to maximize profit? Saint, and good father/mother to boot.

Sounds like a bunch a commies in this thread.

Anyway, the stock market??

 

[Irrelevant]

It's why the only sustainable way to operate a business is to make the employees part owners.

 

[BuzzH]

Again, different perspective of union and at-will employee. In the corporate work, if you are upset with the arrangement you have with your employer you can leave, but you are competing everyone else that has a similar skill set. Life is a competition. Not improving yourself is not an option. Those that don't hope to learn through the osmosis of time, eventually falling victim to the Peter principle and reaching their level of incompetence.

I had no problem continuing the learning process while making important family events. I'm not sure that is necessarily a required trade off, but if it is I support the choice of the Family. But that isn't what we are even talking about. Hence my comment about watching Netflix.

Right, you leave then get criticized for not having loyalty to the company and "job hopping".

Again, you're also wrong, not everybody is in competition for a higher position or more money. I get that's a hard concept for some to get. Some reach a point where they find the balance they need, enough actually is enough.

I have turned down higher paid positions because I flat don't want an office job. I hate being chained to a desk every day, I want to work in the field. I also turned down a job a few years back to allow a younger employee to have the PFT position while I took the PSE 18-8 position. They have a career in front of them with wayyyy more challenges than I had in their place when I started. I'm about at the end of my career, why not give someone else a break? Competition for the sake of competition is pretty lame without giving it some thought.

Not everything is a competition and if that's how you live your life, that's pretty sad really.

 

[Irrelevant]

Not everything is a competition and if that's how you live your life, that's pretty sad really.

Except with capitalism all business is competitive. And when it's not, we regulate against it...

 

[Exhausted]

Right, you leave then get criticized for not having loyalty to the company and "job hopping".

Again, you're also wrong, not everybody is in competition for a higher position or more money. I get that's a hard concept for some to get. Some reach a point where they find the balance they need, enough actually is enough.

I have turned down higher paid positions because I flat don't want an office job. I hate being chained to a desk every day, I want to work in the field. I also turned down a job a few years back to allow a younger employee to have the PFT position while I took the PSE 18-8 position. They have a career in front of them with wayyyy more challenges than I had in their place when I started. I'm about at the end of my career, why not give someone else a break? Competition for the sake of competition is pretty lame without giving it some thought.

Not everything is a competition and if that's how you live your life, that's pretty sad really.

One is in a competition with everyone else simply because the company is going to compare one to every other available alternative regardless of whether that alternative ultimately would want the job.

 

[BuzzH]

You are in a competition with everyone else simply because the company is going to compare you to every other available alternative regardless of whether that alternative ultimately would want the job.

No, actually, I'm not. I don't give a chit what everyone else does or doesn't do.

I do my job well, meet targets, care about the people I work with and that's all there is. I don't compete with them, don't care to.

 

[BuzzH]

Except with capitalism all business is competitive. And when it's not, we USED TO regulate against it...

FIFY.

 

[TOGIE]

i think one of the overall points is being missed. that being, the capitalistic machine will do what it does, the large scale workforce dynamics will do what they do in response because they're a bunch of $*)Q!#@$ mindless animals, but in the backdrop of all that $*)Q!#@$ bullshitty chaos is me and many other younger folks like me, and we're gonna just do what we're gonna do, which is be happy where we're at and take what comes.

 

[Exhausted]

No, actually, I'm not. I don't give a chit what everyone else does or doesn't do.

I do my job well, meet targets, care about the people I work with and that's all there is. I don't compete with them, don't care to.

I didn't realize my post could be confused as talking about you personally. I've updated to make it more clear that I wasn't talking about you personally, but the generic person/worker we're discussing.

The younger employee from your example lost the competition to you (this time you, personally) before you removed yourself in the eyes of the company. Every promotion/change you personally turned town is a competition someone else lost until you turned it down.

Whether you call it comparison or competition, we are all competing in various capacities via others whether we like it or not. You've been successful enough to ignore that fact, but many of us are not in that same situation.

 

[BuzzH]

I didn't realize my post could be confused as talking about you personally. I've updated to make it more clear that I wasn't talking about you personally, but the generic person/worker we're discussing.

The younger employee from your example lost the competition to you (this time you, personally) before you removed yourself in the eyes of the company. Every promotion/change you personally turned town is a competition someone else lost until you turned it down.

Whether you call it comparison or competition, we are all competing in various capacities via others whether we like it or not. You've been successful enough to ignore that fact, but many of us are not in that same situation.

News flash, you aren't the first person that has unsuccessfully tried to put me in a tidy box on my line of thought and why I make the choices I do.

It has frustrated the living chit out of a few of my bosses when I didn't take promotions and/or different positions.

 

[SAJ-99]

Right, you leave then get criticized for not having loyalty to the company and "job hopping".

Again, you're also wrong, not everybody is in competition for a higher position or more money. I get that's a hard concept for some to get. Some reach a point where they find the balance they need, enough actually is enough.

I have never had loyalty to a company and I know the companies had no loyalty to me. It was the arrangement we agreed upon: work for a certain pay.

I'm wrong a lot, but I never said everyone wanted a higher position or more money. I said they were in competition, and they were whether they knew it or not.

Maybe the missing word in this discussion is 'ambition'. Not everyone has the same amount. I don't look down upon those that have less, nor do I look up on those with more. I gave up a lot in my career for time and family and other things you can't put a value on. Someone may say that was stupid. It does seem that the average level of ambition in America is declining. you want evidence, look at the influx of immigrants into this country over the past decades for both jobs and education. No one can deny that takes ambition.

Everyone can want a better employer or higher pay or more time off, but if they don't have ambition to work to achieve it, they will never reach it. For an analogy that HT people may understand better- Everyone wants to shoot a 170+in MD or 300+in bull, but a lot just shoot the first forkie or rag horn they see near the road. Those with some ambition get out of the truck and go for a walk. Some go all the way up the mountain. Those with higher expectations may end up empty handed, but they were ok with that risk. Neither is better than the other, but the internet is a judgmental place.

 

[Exhausted]

News flash, you aren't the first person that has unsuccessfully tried to put me in a tidy box on my line of thought and why I make the choices I do.

It has frustrated the living chit out of a few of my bosses when I didn't take promotions and/or different positions.

Buzz, I don't think you're a moron. So I'm just assuming that you're intentionally misreading my posts for some reason.

I'm talking about people as a whole. I'm talking about the average person. I'm talking about living in in America today.

I couldn't care less what box you put yourself in. I couldn't care less how you live your life. But you aren't an island unto yourself.

At minimum, you are a statistic used as a reference point to which others are measured. You are valued by your employer, at least to the point that they continue to employ you. I assume that someone else out there wants your job, and that person keeps losing the competition to replace you. Either directly because the company has turned them down or indirectly because the company keeps you employed rather than opening the position and looking for your replacement.

 

[BuzzH]

I have never had loyalty to a company and I know the companies had no loyalty to me. It was the arrangement we agreed upon: work for a certain pay.

I'm wrong a lot, but I never said everyone wanted a higher position or more money. I said they were in competition, and they were whether they knew it or not.

Maybe the missing word in this discussion is 'ambition'. Not everyone has the same amount. I don't look down upon those that have less, nor do I look up on those with more. I gave up a lot in my career for time and family and other things you can't put a value on. Someone may say that was stupid. It does seem that the average level of ambition in America is declining. you want evidence, look at the influx of immigrants into this country over the past decades for both jobs and education. No one can deny that takes ambition.

Everyone can want a better employer or higher pay or more time off, but if they don't have ambition to work to achieve it, they will never reach it. For an analogy that HT people may understand better- Everyone wants to shoot a 170+in MD or 300+in bull, but a lot just shoot the first forkie or rag horn they see near the road. Those with some ambition get out of the truck and go for a walk. Some go all the way up the mountain. Those with higher expectations may end up empty handed, but they were ok with that risk. Neither is better than the other, but the internet is a judgmental place.

Again, I just fundamentally disagree. In YOUR mind you may think that everyone wants the same thing you do, but I hunt with and have hunted with several guys that have passed up 6 point bulls to shoot a cow. I saw it happen just last year.

Nice that you think those types lack ambition.

On the last morning of the last day of elk season I passed 12 bulls in a herd of maybe 100 cows...killed a cow. Is that a lack of ambition because I didn't kill one of the 12 bulls instead?

Your placing your competitive values on everyone else, many don't view it as a competition. Just because they don't place the same values on what YOU think they should want, doesn't make it true.

Same with a job.

 

[BuzzH]

Buzz, I don't think you're a moron. So I'm just assuming that you're intentionally misreading my posts for some reason.

I'm talking about people as a whole. I'm talking about the average person. I'm talking about living in in America today.

I couldn't care less what box you put yourself in. I couldn't care less how you live your life. But you aren't an island unto yourself.

At minimum, you are a statistic used as a reference point to which others are measured. You are valued by your employer, at least to the point that they continue to employ you. I assume that someone else out there wants your job, and that person keeps losing the competition to replace you. Either directly because the company has turned them down or indirectly because the company keeps you employed rather than opening the position and looking for your replacement.

Where I work, every single one of us is able to negotiate our performance standards, targets, etc. My supervisors and I agree to targets, mine are not the same as my coworkers for all kinds of valid reasons. We are all very good at what we do.

I'm not competing with my co-workers, I'm fulfilling MY performance standards and not being compared to theirs.

 

[Exhausted]

Where I work, every single one of us is able to negotiate our performance standards, targets, etc. My supervisors and I agree to targets, mine are not the same as my coworkers for all kinds of valid reasons. We are all very good at what we do.

I'm not competing with my co-workers, I'm fulfilling MY performance standards and not being compared to theirs.

 

[BuzzH]

Right, you don't understand what I do...like I said, you're not the first and won't be the last.

Been a good deal for me...better than I could have imagined.

 

[406dn]

I think we should start another thread so that people can continue to prove they don't know how to run a business, while telling people who do, how to run their business.

Everyone runs a business, it's called their household. They bring in revenue, and pay for their purchases.

Some run their business better than others. You are showing your hand when you make an assertion like that. There are blue collar workers who handle their money better than another person making much more.

Maybe the best life lesson I learned early on, is to live on less than you make. You should always pay yourself first, every pay day. Over the course of decades it pays off handsomely.

During a performance review, a supervisor told me that the amount of overtime I was working, was not as much as the company would like. I said, our nest is empty, the mortgage is paid off, my wife works full time, if we can't make it on that, we need a finance consultant. Then I said, that I will work some amount of overtime, but my days off were valuable to me.