No more minimum wage?

[Raziaar]

My company has five people in it. My boss is the owner of the company.



Hard to say, as always it's ups and downs. Assuming I do the same the second half of the year as I have in the first, then it should be about £75,000. Last year I earned sod all, however.

Well then my man, consider yourself a god among mortals, because you're making five times as much as the typical salesperson does in your country. You must be the most amazing salesperson in the world.

 

[repiV]

Well then my man, consider yourself a god among mortals, because you're making five times as much as the typical salesperson does in your country. You must be the most amazing salesperson in the world.

If you're looking at one of those silly online salary comparison things, they're total nonsense when it comes to sales jobs. Firstly, they classify sales as anything from working in retail to board-level corporate sales. Secondly, they only take into account basic salary. My basic salary is in fact very little. There are plenty of people in my field who earn vastly more than I do. I'm past adequacy but certainly nowhere near excellence just yet.

 

[Raziaar]

May ask what your company sells, that a five person business can generate enough revenue to pay a sales employee 70+ thousand dollars? Most small business owners only earn within that range, 70k-100,110k.


I assure you though, the "those who get paid more work harder" thing is total bullshit. I'll bet you I work just as hard in my job at a nonprofit than you do at your job. Same with all those millions of people who barely scrape by. Some of the hardest working individuals on earth right there in the lower class.

 

[repiV]

May ask what your company sells, that a five person business can generate enough revenue to pay a sales employee 70+ thousand dollars? Most small business owners only earn within that range, 70k-100,110k.

It's a middleman business. Hence why it works just as well as a one-man band as it does a multinational corporation. We recruit people for our clients' vacancies, and if we place someone with them then they pay us a fee of 30% of their starting salary. It's a sales business because we first sell our services to the client, manage the relationship as clients usually end up working against you rather than with you if you don't properly assert yourself and the way it's going to work, then find the right candidate and sell the opportunity to them, sell the candidate to the company, coach the candidate on how to sell themselves to the company, coach the company on how to sell the opportunity to each candidate, negotiate a suitable offer for them and overcome fear of change, the nagging wife, counter-offers and everything else that accompanies such a big decision as a job change which came out of the blue as they weren't usually looking for a job when we approached them.

It's the only business so far as I know where you start with nothing to sell and noone to sell it to and end up with a big fee at the end of it. I'm pretty much an autonomous business, I work in a particular industry sector which I've developed from zero, to a business plan which I put together, there's a bit of admin support and everything else but essentially all that's being charged for is my time. I charge out for the results of my work, the company gets paid, and then I get paid a proportion of it. It's self-financing and entirely scaleable as you can appreciate.

By the way, sales is the highest paid profession in the world (aside from your celebrities and so on of course). It's just that it's only highly paid if you're good at it and selling the right kind of things to the right market. The vast majority of Fortune 500 CEOs worked their way up from a corporate sales background. Software sales guys selling ERP systems to corporate clients get paid well over 100k on basic salary alone. It's a common misconception that it's a dogsbody job because the really good ones sell business to business and you're unlikely to ever come into contact with them. Selling to the general public is a different animal altogether.

I assure you though, the "those who get paid more work harder" thing is total bullshit. I'll bet you I work just as hard in my job at a nonprofit than you do at your job. Same with all those millions of people who barely scrape by. Some of the hardest working individuals on earth right there in the lower class.

It's a little bit of both to be fair. My friend owns a bar and restaurant, and I did a Saturday night washing the dishes for him last year. I don't think I've ever worked harder or for less money, I could barely stand by the end of the night. What a horrible job. BUT, it's not a difficult job. Anyone can do it.

What I meant when I said that most people aren't willing to do what it takes to achieve greatness, it's really a question of commitment, discipline and ongoing learning. Most people, in whatever field, learn just enough to get by and then either think they know it all, or don't believe they need to learn any more than they already know. These people will never surpass mediocrity.

Where you really have the opportunity to earn money is by applying yourself to learning a hard and specific set of skills that few people are able to do well. One of the reasons good salespeople earn so much money is that the vast majority of people who get into the field fail, either initially or they just drift out of it after a few years because they never quite get good enough.

 

[lord_raken]

RepiV, you are an inspiration.

I may add, that one must be willing to try and fail. Many of the great successful people in the world failed again and again before finally finding the right combination of talent, opportunity, and luck to make it big.

 

[repiV]

RepiV, you are an inspiration.

I wouldn't say that, although it's nice of you to say so!

I know a guy within my field who gets up at 5AM, studies sales, recruiting or anything else relevant to his work for an hour every morning, and gets into the office by 7:30. Makes 80-100 phone calls every single day, working with laser focus. Finishes up at 6, then goes to martial arts classes every single weeknight. Now that's dedication.

I may add, that one must be willing to try and fail. Many of the great successful people in the world failed again and again before finally finding the right combination of talent, opportunity, and luck to make it big.

Fear of failure or rejection is probably the number one killer of achievement that exists. Followed closely by lack of discipline and follow-through...

Keep trying and never, ever give up and you can't go too far wrong TBH.

 

[Krynn72]

It's a little bit of both to be fair. My friend owns a bar and restaurant, and I did a Saturday night washing the dishes for him last year. I don't think I've ever worked harder or for less money, I could barely stand by the end of the night. What a horrible job. BUT, it's not a difficult job.

could barely stand by the end

not a difficult job.

 

[Stigmata]

He means "low skill ceiling". Nevermind things like physical toil or psychological grind; your value as a working person should be determined by a piece of paper, your selection of friends, and whether or not you can take financial credit for others' collective efforts.

 

[Maestro]

He means "low skill ceiling". Nevermind things like physical toil or psychological grind; your value as a working person should be determined by a piece of paper, your selection of friends, and whether or not you can take financial credit for others' collective efforts.

Skilled labor generates more money, and therefore earns a greater premium. Seems pretty logical to me that a highly-skilled welder gets paid dramatically more than somebody whose only value is in picking up heavy metal things for the welder to weld on.

 

[Krynn72]

Skilled labor generates more money, and therefore earns a greater premium. Seems pretty logical to me that a highly-skilled welder gets paid dramatically more than somebody whose only value is in picking up heavy metal things for the welder to weld on.

I dont think he was saying that unskilled labor deserves the kind of money skilled labor does. He was responding sarcastically to me making a face when repiv said that a job that left him barely able to stand isn't difficult. Or at least I think he was.

 

[Bad^Hat]

He was responding sarcastically to me making a face

Assimilation complete.

Also hey this probably isn't news to anyone but I have nothing else to contribute so wheeeee. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

 

[repiV]

I dont think he was saying that unskilled labor deserves the kind of money skilled labor does. He was responding sarcastically to me making a face when repiv said that a job that left him barely able to stand isn't difficult. Or at least I think he was.

Just because something is hard work doesn't make it difficult. If pretty much anyone can do something, than by definition it's not really that difficult. It might be tiring, hard graft, but still not difficult. Highly paid people are highly paid because a) very few people are able and/or willing to do what they can and b) what they do either makes or saves an organisation a substantial amount of money. If either or both of those factors is not met, you will not be well paid.

Anyone can work in a McDonalds, a person who does that job exceptionally well won't be much more effective in that position than someone who does it just competently, there is a more than ample supply of people willing to work in McDonalds, and each individual person doing that job has a negligible contribution to the overall financial well-being of the organisation.

That's why it pays minimum wage. It's not a difficult concept to understand. The same way you wouldn't in a million years pay ten dollars for a cardboard box, when there are thousands of cardboard boxes you could buy for a few cents, and it wouldn't make a great deal of difference which cardboard box you bought anyway.

And then for example, being a Royal Marines Commando is one of the most difficult endeavours any human could embark upon and only a tiny minority are even capable of doing it, let alone excelling at it. But it doesn't make anyone any money, rather it just costs the public purse, and there are plenty of willing applicants to supply the demand, so again you'll never get rich by doing it.

He means "low skill ceiling". Nevermind things like physical toil or psychological grind; your value as a working person should be determined by a piece of paper, your selection of friends, and whether or not you can take financial credit for others' collective efforts.

What a load of nonsense.

 

[hool10]

repiV reminds me of that "Ken" on Breaking Bad.

[video=youtube_share;eHDFyWQX9oY]http://youtu.be/eHDFyWQX9oY[/video]

 

[Ennui]

I dunno why you guys are antagonizing repiV, he's speaking truth for the most part. Yeah, it sucks that you can work your ass off at a labor-intensive unskilled job and get paid minimum wage, but that doesn't mean you need to hate people that get paid for doing "skilled" work. To be honest, if you went to college or had the opportunity to go to college (whether or not you actually took it) then you have the toolset to be successful, and it really does boil down largely to motivation and initiative and personal effort. Yes, you can mope around and apply to fast food jobs and get paid shit and whine about your life, or you can go work your ass off, actively meet people and network, get stuff done and be productive and you can rise in the world. It's all up to you, and I think that's mostly what repiV is saying without commenting as much on what people "deserve".

 

[CptStern]

the problem is that if you're not educated to begin with chances are you're not going to have the skills needed to get that high paying job or to improve your skills to get a better job. simply surviving takes up most of your time.

also the majority of you would be living on the street if not for your parents. it's easy to judge when you're still at the point where most things needed for survival are provided for you

 

[Stigmata]

My thoughts are pretty much exactly Ennui's post followed by Stern's. That's what makes it so difficult to argue against what repiV is saying - it's all perfectly logical and rational, but it relies on a world that is massively and violently unfair by virtue of the people it consists of.

[edit] that's not an attack against repiV or anyone else.

 

[repiV]

I dunno why you guys are antagonizing repiV, he's speaking truth for the most part. Yeah, it sucks that you can work your ass off at a labor-intensive unskilled job and get paid minimum wage, but that doesn't mean you need to hate people that get paid for doing "skilled" work. To be honest, if you went to college or had the opportunity to go to college (whether or not you actually took it) then you have the toolset to be successful, and it really does boil down largely to motivation and initiative and personal effort. Yes, you can mope around and apply to fast food jobs and get paid shit and whine about your life, or you can go work your ass off, actively meet people and network, get stuff done and be productive and you can rise in the world. It's all up to you, and I think that's mostly what repiV is saying without commenting as much on what people "deserve".

To be fair, anyone with a modicum of intelligence and initiative, and the right attitude, can do far better for themselves than working for minimum wage. Emotional intelligence and social aptitude is what really opens doors for you in life anyway, not academic ability.

On the other hand, I have a friend who is very intelligent but extremely negative. She has a PHD in microbiology or genetics or something like that, and yet she currently works part-time at a clothes shop because noone wants to employ her. She's been fired from four pub jobs in a row, and has never earned more than £15,000 a year in her entire life despite being 29 years old. It's entirely because of her attitude. Nothing is ever her fault, it's always the job market or the government or someone else's fault that she's virtually unemployed. And, very sadly, I'm entirely sure her situation will never, ever change. You can train an enthusiastic and determined, but less-able person to do good or even great things. But you can't teach someone to have the right attitude. And if you don't take full responsibility for your own situation, then you will never be able to improve it.

the problem is that if you're not educated to begin with chances are you're not going to have the skills needed to get that high paying job or to improve your skills to get a better job. simply surviving takes up most of your time.

It certainly makes things more challenging, but then that's true of so many things in life. Did you know that 22 of the last 25 US Presidents to be elected have been the taller candidate of the two? And that there has never been a US President under 6 foot? Being short is actually a massive disadvantage in life, as a man. Nothing you can do about it though!

also the majority of you would be living on the street if not for your parents. it's easy to judge when you're still at the point where most things needed for survival are provided for you

I lived hand to mouth for the first couple years after moving out. It certainly teaches you some lessons! Made the stupid mistake of living in a village that was a 20 mile round trip from work or friends or the shops or anything else. I remember putting £3 worth of petrol in at a time just to get me to work before payday...good times...

My thoughts are pretty much exactly Ennui's post followed by Stern's. That's what makes it so difficult to argue against what repiV is saying - it's all perfectly logical and rational, but it relies on a world that is massively and violently unfair by virtue of the people it consists of.

[edit] that's not an attack against repiV or anyone else.

I'm not so sure it is that unfair, really, although I can certainly see why you might think that way. We may be dealt a bad hand or a good one, but ultimately we all have the opportunity to make the best of what we have. True poverty doesn't really exist in the developed world, aside from some rare cases, and by most measures you can live a pretty decent life on extremely meagre wages in the UK. Bearing in mind we have a far higher cost of living and tax rate, and significantly lower wages, than for example the US, I expect it is even more so the case over there. My housemate takes home about £800 a month, which is **** all when you consider his rent is half that. He might not live in luxury, but he owns a car, a nice motorbike, and has a decent if very frugal lifestyle. He just doesn't blow all his money down the pub like the rest of us do.

I don't have a degree and in fact I dropped out of school at 14. My parents lived off benefits since I was very young. I directly attribute the life I have built for myself to these things, as well as all the other shit I went through when I was younger. In my observation, people who have had very comfortable lives tend to do all right, but they rarely excel. They're not driven enough.

Hardship makes a man. In fact, training in jiu jitsu has done so much for me this past year and a half it would be hard to overstate how much it's done for me. It's hard and it's painful and when I first started I had to sit out half the warmups because I wanted to throw up. Was amazed when I made it through my first grading without collapsing. I still get nervous about being thrown 360 degrees in the air and then slammed into the mat. But that's why it's great. Everyone should push themselves to the limit and outside of their comfort zone, it makes you a better, more capable, more confident and more determined person. Probably the best thing I've ever decided to do.

Think about what the world would be like if everyone had it good and nobody had to fight for anything they wanted. We'd never accomplish anything or progress as a species. It's really not a bad thing that life is tough, you just have to face it with the right attitude and then it's all fun and games.

 

[The Monkey]

The problem though remains that in order to excel in the job market, if that is your life goal, you need not only determination and a hard work attitude. Structural elements of social immobility severely inhibits people from the lower classes to achieve financial success, however hard they might try. This is especially true for neo-liberal oriented economies such as the US and the UK. Obviously there are exceptions, but to me it seems like the whole myth of being able to achieve wealth solely through your own hard work (the "American Dream" is a variant of this lie), is simply a way for the elites to prevent the poor from demanding policies to aid social equality.

 

[Stigmata]

And it's very easy to say "Well if you just worked harder, you'd succeed" when you're one of those who succeeded. You didn't live a life where trying hard and knowing people and being good at what you do wasn't enough.

 

[repiV]

The problem though remains that in order to excel in the job market, if that is your life goal, you need not only determination and a hard work attitude. Structural elements of social immobility severely inhibits people from the lower classes to achieve financial success, however hard they might try. This is especially true for neo-liberal oriented economies such as the US and the UK. Obviously there are exceptions, but to me it seems like the whole myth of being able to achieve wealth solely through your own hard work (the "American Dream" is a variant of this lie), is simply a way for the elites to prevent the poor from demanding policies to aid social equality.

What structural elements of social immobility?

Also, "social equality" is neither a fair nor a desirable outcome anyway. It's a nice-sounding phrase used to describe the process of taking away what people have earned and giving it to others who haven't. Nothing fair about that, any more than if everyone automatically got a grade C in their exams.

And it's very easy to say "Well if you just worked harder, you'd succeed" when you're one of those who succeeded. You didn't live a life where trying hard and knowing people and being good at what you do wasn't enough.

You have to work hard at the right things as well. I could slave away at work for day after day after day, make hundreds of truly exceptional calls, and accomplish absolutely nothing, if I spent all my energies calling on people who could never have a use for my services. There is a formula for success, and if you follow it, you will succeed. It's got nothing to do with luck, other than to the extent that a bit of luck can give you a foot in the door initially.

What most people lack is the knowledge or ability of how to market themselves properly. Following the usual process of sending in applications for jobs relies on the very misguided assumption that the person on the other end knows best. Getting a job or a promotion, much like influencing people or getting your way in any other area of life, is an artform in itself and doesn't have a great deal to do with how good you actually are at your job. Also you might be the best person at your job in the world, but if you stay working in a zero growth company with no ambition or prospects then your career will never go anywhere.

 

[Bad^Hat]

What most people lack is the knowledge or ability

I'm pretty sure this is what he was trying to say, just not in the way you're interpreting it. Circumstance is a bitch, and for some people it has everything to do with luck.

 

[repiV]

I'm pretty sure this is what he was trying to say, just not in the way you're interpreting it. Circumstance is a bitch, and for some people it has everything to do with luck.

Circumstance doesn't trap people into eternal poverty, unless they're mentally ill or have something else quite wrong with them. Even then, usually there's a good support system in place for that kind of thing.

Yes, circumstance makes life a lot easier for some people than for others. That's really irrelevant - what people who grew up in shit and subsequently spend the rest of their lives living in shit lack is the impetus to do anything about it, or the belief that they can have a better life. Other people grow up in shit, are determined to make a better life for themselves and they usually succeed - often to far greater heights than those who have had all the advantages in life manage.

Skills can be learned - and it's easier to teach yourself now than it has ever been in history. Attitude is everything. Winners in life hear of a concept and ask "how could that work for me?". Losers, on the other hand, say "that wouldn't work for me". And that right there is the overriding difference between successful people and failures. 90% of success is just observing what successful people do and then emulating it.

It's not as if people who are "privileged" to have gone to university just walk into a great job, either. Nothing could be further from the truth. A degree doesn't mean shit nowadays unless it's in a specialised field and you're following a niche career path which actually requires that particular degree. I had to start doing the crappy low-paid boring jobs, same as everyone else. I've been working for 6 or 7 years now and it's only in the last couple of years I've really found something I'm both good at and happy with, and which has the potential to really take me places. It's rarely any different if you've been gone to uni either - the days where higher education was a free pass to riches are long gone. It's you who then has the opportunity to work your way up the ladder, not your educational background.

 

[No Limit]

This idea that if you live in shit and you can get out of it if you simply put your mind to it seems like a speech I heard at an Amway pyramid scheme sales pitch I was forced to go to once.

I generally agree with most of what you are saying. But I don't agree that all people living in shit are thinking to themselves that they are living that way because they don't want to change. Many people do try to get out of situations like that. It's certainly not impossible, but failure is always real option for everybody no matter how motivated or smart you are.

I just got back from printing something at Office Depot. I was there for a while talking to the guy that does the printing since they were having network problems. Guy helping me was probably 10 maybe 15 years older than me. As we were talking he started to talk to me about how everything doesn't work because they had a company come in to replace their server and they screwed it all up. He was able to tell me all kinds of details about the server including what kind of raid array it had, how the exchange server was configured, how active directory was set up, and what kind of managed switch they used. To know all this you have to have a large skill set when it comes to managing networks and you should be making good money. Yet the entire time I couldn't help ask myself what this dude was doing working at the print counter at office depot making shitty pay.

I doubt the guy was lazy, I doubt he was stupid, and I doubt he had no motiviation to work at a better job. Yet there he was working in a crappy job he was clearly over qualified for. So sometimes shit does happen, and it's not fair to tell a person in that position that if they simply worked harder they wouldn't be where they are at.

 

[repiV]

This idea that if you live in shit and you can get out of it if you simply put your mind to it seems like a speech I heard at an Amway pyramid scheme sales pitch I was forced to go to once.

I generally agree with most of what you are saying. But I don't agree that all people living in shit are thinking to themselves that they are living that way because they don't want to change. Many people do try to get out of situations like that. It's certainly not impossible, but failure is always real option for everybody no matter how motivated or smart you are.

I just got back from printing something at Office Depot. I was there for a while talking to the guy that does the printing since they were having network problems. Guy helping me was probably 10 maybe 15 years older than me. As we were talking he started to talk to me about how everything doesn't work because they had a company come in to replace their server and they screwed it all up. He was able to tell me all kinds of details about the server including what kind of raid array it had, how the exchange server was configured, how active directory was set up, and what kind of managed switch they used. To know all this you have to have a large skill set when it comes to managing networks and you should be making good money. Yet the entire time I couldn't help ask myself what this dude was doing working at the print counter at office depot making shitty pay.

I doubt the guy was lazy, I doubt he was stupid, and I doubt he had no motiviation to work at a better job. Yet there he was working in a crappy job he was clearly over qualified for. So sometimes shit does happen, and it's not fair to tell a person in that position that if they simply worked harder they wouldn't be where they are at.

I'm not saying it's just a case of working harder, although that's certainly a large part of it. I don't think anyone without a strong work ethic can ever be truly successful, regardless of their standing in life. I'm also convinced that the lack of a strong work ethic is the main reason why countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece are a long way behind the US, UK, Germany etc. economically.

Like I said, you also have to work hard at the right things. You can work as hard as you want but if you're trying to open a Yale lock with a Chubb key then you're not going to accomplish anything. It takes learning and study too. Now, providing you're an OK and employable sort of guy, if you really study and implement all the advice you can find on Ask the Headhunter then I promise you'll never have problems finding a job - the right job for you, more specifically - ever again.

Lots of people want to change. Few people manage it. Just look at the number of morbidly obese people who are constantly on one diet or another. It's not that they don't want to change, it's just that they lack the single-minded drive and focus, force of will, bloodymindedness as well as the impetus to educate themselves on correct nutrition and exercise (a lot more complex than most people think). They don't want it enough to make the huge sacrifices that are necessary to make ANY lasting improvement to your life.

Personally I've spent my whole life struggling with my weight. I always wanted to change, but I never quite seemed able to manage it. It seemed impossible. Over the last year and a half I decided it really was time to make a change, totally and radically altered my entire lifestyle and lost four stone. Turns out I never really wanted it enough before. I might have a slow metabolism. I might have bad genes. I might be naturally inclined to be fat rather than skinny or muscular. In fact, I'm certain all of these things are true. That's why I do martial arts or weightlifting six times a week and watch what I eat and drink every day. There are plenty of people who never do any exercise, eat utter shite and drink alcohol every night and are in better shape than me. There's nothing I can do about it, so why concern myself with the fact?

And so it is with people who are at any other disadvantage in life. It might be a lot harder, but you CAN get what you want if you REALLY want to and are willing to invest the time, thought and graft to do so.

 

[CptStern]

ya spain doesnt belong in that list with portugal and greece:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

 

[Gargantou]

I'm not saying it's just a case of working harder, although that's certainly a large part of it. I don't think anyone without a strong work ethic can ever be truly successful, regardless of their standing in life. I'm also convinced that the lack of a strong work ethic is the main reason why countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece are a long way behind the US, UK, Germany etc. economically.

What about Sweden, it has a stronger welfare system than the UK and US and as far as I know has a more stable economy than either of those two countries and is in fact being looked at by many countries currently as a role model for how to safeguard against a future global financial crisis.

Also, the reason Greece is in the shit it is isn't really poor work ethic, as much as it is poor government that spended far more money than they should have. That's why we have these discussions of guidelines and oversight for Euro countries to make sure they don't overstretch their economy.

One of the main reasons Sweden has handled the financial crisis so well was that we implemented such guidelines on a national level during our crisis in the '90s, causing us to always make sure we have a decent budget balance.

I know this is kind of off-topic, but I felt I had to point out these things.

Any country would have been in equal shit to Greece no matter work ethic if they had politicians that spent cash as though there were no tomorrow solely to please their voters.

 

[Eejit]

I don't understand. If you made hundreds of millions of dollars for your company, wouldn't you be pretty pissed off if you weren't rewarded in kind? And then go and work for a more enlightened organisation that did pay you what you were worth?

Yet the same principle should apply to those at any level in the company, whereas in actuality it's far more common for only the upper management get rewarded fairly for their performance (or sometimes more than is fair).

Do want more co-ops...

 

[repiV]

I wasn't referring to the recent economic meltdown actually, I just meant in general. Mediterranean countries have never exactly been powerhouse economies. Not unless you go back to ancient times anyway. The same accusation could be levelled at a lot of second world countries to be fair. Of course Russia is poor, they don't take business seriously in the same way people from Western Europe and East Asia do.

Americans work hard. Germans work hard. The Japanese work stupidly hard. That's why they're top of the list. Not solely why, but it's a big factor.

 

[No Limit]

Well as far as weight is concerned you aren't going to get any argument from me, that is something you can control and if you have a weight problem in the end you only have yourself to blame. And I say this eventhough my weight is much higher than it should be.

But that's far different from what we are talking about, which is success in a career. You can have a good work ethic, you could be smart, you could be likable, and you could still fail due to reasons totally out of your control. As I said, sometimes shit does happen, that's just how the world works.

My main disagreement with what you are saying is that there seems to be this assumption on your part that success is there for anybody's taking and if you aren't successful then you must be the one at fault. If that were true I don't think the guy printing my stuff at Office Depot for a crappy wage would know how to manage and set up enterprise servers.

I love my job, I don't even think of it as a job anymore, I consider it a career. I started at the very bottom earning minimum wage and worked myself up to be someone that is irreplaceable in the company I work for and I'm proud of that. But aside from my hard work I know that luck did have something to do with it. And not only did it have something to do with it but it will continue to do so in the future. We are hanging by a thread here as far as money goes and any time my cushy job which I worked my ass off for over the last 9 years could just disappear. And going out and finding another one in the industry I work for isn't just a simple matter of wanting to go out there and getting it. A lot more plays in to that including alot of luck.

 

[repiV]

Yet the same principle should apply to those at any level in the company, whereas in actuality it's far more common for only the upper management get rewarded fairly for their performance (or sometimes more than is fair).

Do want more co-ops...

I agree completely. If I ran my own business, I would have performance-related pay for everyone, with your wages being directly proportional to the outcomes achieved against the specific performance goals of the job. Those who consistently over-performed would be rewarded significantly and those who consistently failed to deliver would be fired.

It seems obvious to me that, as well as being fairer, such a system combined with hiring the right people in the first place would make an organisation incredibly effective. In my experience, most companies are run by idiots. They'll hang on to terrible performers who are a waste of their salary and desk as well as a morale drain on their entire team because they're a "nice guy", and they'll neglect top performers enough for them to leave and work somewhere else. The cost of paying a good person well above market rate is negligible compared to the cost of staff turnover, or the benefit of having exceptionally motivated staff.

 

[repiV]

Well as far as weight is concerned you aren't going to get any argument from me, that is something you can control and if you have a weight problem in the end you only have yourself to blame. And I say this eventhough my weight is much higher than it should be.

But that's far different from what we are talking about, which is success in a career. You can have a good work ethic, you could be smart, you could be likable, and you could still fail due to reasons totally out of your control. As I said, sometimes shit does happen, that's just how the world works.

I see why you say that, but I disagree. You could fail due to reasons totally irrelevant to how good you are at your job, that's true. But that's why you ALSO have to learn how to play the game. When you cut right down to it, career success essentially depends on your ability to influence those who are able to grant it to you. That's it. Nothing else. Even if you work for yourself, your career success ultimately depends on your customers saying "yes" to you. So, it all comes down to being able to sell at the end of the day.

Now, a significant element of your ability to influence those people comes from your ability to do your job. But an equally significant element of it comes from your ability to personally influence the people that matter. That's why you can send off a hundred applications for jobs you're totally suited to and not even get an interview. You have no influence over the situation. Five well-targeted and expertly-handled phonecalls to the right people hiring for the right jobs, will net you five interviews.

My main disagreement with what you are saying is that there seems to be this assumption on your part that success is there for anybody's taking and if you aren't successful then you must be the one at fault. If that were true I don't think the guy printing my stuff at Office Depot for a crappy wage would know how to manage and set up enterprise servers.

Well, if he sends off applications here there and everywhere to be a network admin, he's bound to get nowhere because they'll get thousands of the things, take one glance at his CV and discard him for having no experience. If he learned how to go through the back door, sell himself in, ask the right questions to uncover their real needs, demonstrate how specifically he could meet every one of those needs, and close the deal, he'd have a better job in no time at all.

You have to be a good salesman to do well in life and not rely on luck, regardless of what your chosen career path is.

I love my job, I don't even think of it as a job anymore, I consider it a career. I started at the very bottom earning minimum wage and worked myself up to be someone that is irreplaceable in the company I work for and I'm proud of that. But aside from my hard work I know that luck did have something to do with it. And not only did it have something to do with it but it will continue to do so in the future. We are hanging by a thread here as far as money goes and any time my cushy job which I worked my ass off for over the last 9 years could just disappear. And going out and finding another one in the industry I work for isn't just a simple matter of wanting to go out there and getting it. A lot more plays in to that including alot of luck.

Surely you make your own luck by working for the right company in the first place. I had two job offers when I took my current job - the other place was a much larger company, offered a better basic salary, a company car and this and that and the other. Where I worked now offered a commitment to lifetime training and development, a structured career path resulting in automatic promotion right through to senior management providing you hit certain targets, better commission, and an enterprising leader who is happy to listen to and implement ideas if they make sense. Due to this, I've had the great fortune to be able to start my own division, the internal interview process we use because I read a book and got my boss to implement it, and I have my boss' blessing to open an office in San Diego in a few years when I've got the required skills.

You could say I'm extremely fortunate to work at such a great company, and you'd be right. But I specifically sought out a company like this one, and made damn sure I got the job. You gotta play the career game, not just take what's handed to you. If you can learn to sell yourself correctly, you won't have to settle for second best - regardless of the economic climate.

 

[Eejit]

I agree completely. If I ran my own business, I would have performance-related pay for everyone, with your wages being directly proportional to the outcomes achieved against the specific performance goals of the job. Those who consistently over-performed would be rewarded significantly and those who consistently failed to deliver would be fired.

It seems obvious to me that, as well as being fairer, such a system combined with hiring the right people in the first place would make an organisation incredibly effective. In my experience, most companies are run by idiots. They'll hang on to terrible performers who are a waste of their salary and desk as well as a morale drain on their entire team because they're a "nice guy", and they'll neglect top performers enough for them to leave and work somewhere else. The cost of paying a good person well above market rate is negligible compared to the cost of staff turnover, or the benefit of having exceptionally motivated staff.

Aye some co-ops can be pretty big and effective, such as the John Lewis group.

While some jobs do reward skill with financial awards the majority do not. There's no good why reason those with sales and managerial skills are rewarded for performance so much more than, say R&D, creative and so on.
How much do those creating lucrative patents actually get rewarded for doing so?

That said I'm far from convinced that bonuses are a good idea rather than adjusted basic wages. There's a bunch of research showing that the prospect of additional reward actually retards performance in any non-banal tasks.

 

[No Limit]

Right, so you are good now. What happens if in 20 years the company goes under? And while you are out job hunting every company you apply to makes the decision that hiring someone younger would be a much smarter business decision since the costs of just keeping you on their healthcare plan isn't worth it? Granted you are in the UK so healthcare costs aren't as much a factor as here, but there are other things that could screw you.

I totally agree with you that you must work hard, you must be good at what you do, and you must know how to sell yourself to people. All this you can control and if you want to improve your life you must do all these things. But even then there will always be things that are outside of your control. I'm sure there are thousands of middle aged IT workers in this country who had their jobs outsourced to India that would tell you the same exact thing. And when you are in your late 40s or early 50s finding another job in the industry or starting from scratch by retraining for another career isn't always realistic.

 

[repiV]

Aye some co-ops can be pretty big and effective, such as the John Lewis group.

While some jobs do reward skill with financial awards the majority do not. There's no good why reason those with sales and managerial skills are rewarded for performance so much more than, say R&D, creative and so on.
How much do those creating lucrative patents actually get rewarded for doing so?

Well there's a bunch of good reasons, but they're more to do with supply and demand than anything else. Engineers and technical people by nature are generally pretty conservative, they don't like to move around too often, are attracted to security and stability, and aren't very good at negotiating their salary. Also, being problem-solvers by nature, they're more likely to accept the lot they're given and figure out how to make best use of it, rather than seek out a better deal.

Salespeople are pretty much the opposite. Good salespeople are also in extremely high demand. While good engineers may be also, their skills are a lot more specific to the environment in which they work. A company will either have a use for them at that time, or they won't. Salespeople are always in demand. The vast majority of people who try their hand at sales fail, and the vast majority of those who stay are mediocre at best. But the impact a really good salesperson can have on an organisation is dramatic - and everyone wants to hire them. The good ones will get headhunted twice a week or more. If you want them then you have to pay for them.

It's also a hell of a lot easier to measure the contribution of a salesperson, and to pay out according to that. And to be fair, it works both ways. If you have a bad time of it, you earn very little, or get fired. The engineer still makes the same salary in a bad patch, and can usually get away with slacking off a lot more.

That said I'm far from convinced that bonuses are a good idea rather than adjusted basic wages. There's a bunch of research showing that the prospect of additional reward actually retards performance in any non-banal tasks.

I can only speak from my personal experience really. I'm not primarily driven by money, although I'm certainly driven by the desire to avoid being skint - which I am if I don't achieve to a certain degree. I don't think it's a demotivating factor to be able to earn lots more though, but I do what I do because I love it. I would still do this job without commission, but I would expect a significantly higher basic salary because it's really not worth the stress if the rewards aren't there.

I've done plenty of commission-based jobs in my time (although never with anything like the same earning potential I have now), and they've generally been really boring, repetitive telemarketing jobs which didn't hold my interest for very long and I would end up doing very little work even though that behaviour quite obviously cost me money. These days I work flat out all day long, every day and am happy to do so.

In my experience of recruiting, the vast majority of people (salespeople and senior executives included) are not driven by money. They want to enjoy their work, feel challenged and valued. Most of the time the salary issue is about feeling valued to a certain extent - it's not that they need the extra money, it's that they'd be feeling cheated and ripped off by their employer if they didn't get it.

Right, so you are good now. What happens if in 20 years the company goes under? And while you are out job hunting every company you apply to makes the decision that hiring someone younger would be a much smarter business decision since the costs of just keeping you on their healthcare plan isn't worth it? Granted you are in the UK so healthcare costs aren't as much a factor as here, but there are other things that could screw you.

I totally agree with you that you must work hard, you must be good at what you do, and you must know how to sell yourself to people. All this you can control and if you want to improve your life you must do all these things. But even then there will always be things that are outside of your control. I'm sure there are thousands of middle aged IT workers in this country who had their jobs outsourced to India that would tell you the same exact thing. And when you are in your late 40s or early 50s finding another job in the industry or starting from scratch by retraining for another career isn't always realistic.

Ok, strictly speaking, you can't control everything (well, you can't control anything when it comes to people). You can, however, stack the odds in your favour and in the end the numbers always work for you. It's amazing how accurate numbers and ratios are actually - we keep track of things like that at work. For example, number of calls, conversations, with which type of person, for which purpose, numbers of first-time interviews, number of second-time interviews, placements, new vacancies, etc.

For example, based on my last six months' numbers (which are eerily consistent), I know that in order to achieve my personal yearly goals, I need to generate 2.5 new vacancies per week, and 3.5 first interviews per week, through around 30 calls to clients and 40 calls to candidates each and every working day - resulting in 21 placements in a year at an average value of around £9,500. These ratios will alter over time as my skills improve, but assuming no major changes to the methodology then just by following the numbers you can be confident in achieving your goals regardless of what happens with each individual situation.

Just the other week I made a placement, offer accepted on Friday, due to hand in his notice on Monday but had fully made up his mind to leave. Then as it happens over the weekend he finds out his wife is pregnant, and all of a sudden the security of his current company is far more valuable than the opportunity of the new one. Bam, £12,000 gone. Cost me a lot of money that. And nothing I could have done to prevent it. But for every case of that happening, there's the opposite situation where somehow it all came together against impossible odds.

The same principles apply to the stock market - you may gain or lose in the short term, but the numbers always work out in the long term. I'm sure these principles apply to everything in life - it may or may not work for you each time you try, but if you find a winning formula and stick to it then it will eventually work for you.

What I'm saying is that there is a hell of a lot more that's in your control than people generally realise. The more you work on all these things, the better off you will be. Not everyone can be a rock star, but that doesn't matter. There's really no reason to be poor, not for more than a short period anyway, if you decide you don't want to be. That's a privilege most of the world is not afforded, but I think people should take more stock of it here.

 

[No Limit]

Again, mostly agree with you. However:

The same principles apply to the stock market - you may gain or lose in the short term, but the numbers always work out in the long term. I'm sure these principles apply to everything in life - it may or may not work for you each time you try, but if you find a winning formula and stick to it then it will eventually work for you.

See, but that's the thing, the numbers don't always work out in the end and you have no way to guarantee that they will. Crashes happen, and they can be huge. Same thing was said about real estate not too long ago, own a home because it will never lose value we were told. I can buy a house in Phoenix that cost $300,000 when it was built in 2007 for $60,000 today. Nasdaq was $5,000 in 2000, it is under $3,000 today. The dow jones does have a good track record of going up but it does have it's crashes, and those crashes can be absolutely devastating when they happen. Take even the 2008 crash, for most people that remained calm and didn't sell all their stocks they are doing okay today even though they are still lower from their height. But many people around that time were hitting retirement age and needed to start cashing in on their 401 ks. The effect on them was absolutely devastating.

So when you say:

There's really no reason to be poor, not for more than a short period anyway, if you decide you don't want to be. That's a privilege most of the world is not afforded, but I think people should take more stock of it here.

Again that's not really true. Yes, we live in countries where we have a lot of opportunity to succeed, no doubt. But failure outside of your control is always a possibility. Before finding the job you love now did you consider yourself successful? How long did it take you to get here? And what makes you so certain that if anything happens at your current job it won't take you as long to find another job as it took you to find this one?

 

[repiV]

Again, mostly agree with you. However:



See, but that's the thing, the numbers don't always work out in the end and you have no way to guarantee that they will. Crashes happen, and they can be huge. Same thing was said about real estate not too long ago, own a home because it will never lose value we were told. I can buy a house in Phoenix that cost $300,000 when it was built in 2007 for $60,000 today. Nasdaq was $5,000 in 2000, it is under $3,000 today. The dow jones does have a good track record of going up but it does have it's crashes, and those crashes can be absolutely devastating when they happen. Take even the 2008 crash, for most people that remained calm and didn't sell all their stocks they are doing okay today even though they are still lower from their height. But many people around that time were hitting retirement age and needed to start cashing in on their 401 ks. The effect on them was absolutely devastating.

Even with the crash, you must still be significantly better off than before if you've been investing over a period of 30 years, purely due to inflation.

Again that's not really true. Yes, we live in countries where we have a lot of opportunity to succeed, no doubt. But failure outside of your control is always a possibility. Before finding the job you love now did you consider yourself successful?

No, not really. I think it's a bit premature to say I'm successful now to be fair, although I'm sure I will be because I am very dedicated to my craft, get the best training, the personal attributes required to do well at it are very closely aligned to mine, and unlike most salespeople I am quite aware that I have two ears and one mouth. I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do, was disillusioned for years at all the crap temp jobs I was doing and then stumbled across recruitment. Decided I really wanted to do that, went for interview after interview after interview and got turned down repeatedly, mostly because I'm not your stereotypical salesman. That's another bane of mine altogether, some of the best salespeople out there are quite introverted and analytical, but that's another matter...

Eventually got given a chance at one company, only to get fired three months later for underperformance. As much their fault as mine, they wouldn't know the concept of training if it hit them on the head. Then I drifted from one crappy temp telemarketing job to another, doubting for a long time if I was really capable of doing well at sales at all, or if I even wanted to do it - but not knowing what else I could do instead. And then my bike crash interrupted any career prospects for a good couple of years. Then I moved down here and got a permanent telemarketing job for a photocopier company, which was a step in the right direction but still boring and beneath me. And then I got made redundant in 2009. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I had been thinking of looking for something better anyway, I rang up my current boss and one other company and got offered both jobs. I was only out of work three weeks.

How long did it take you to get here? And what makes you so certain that if anything happens at your current job it won't take you as long to find another job as it took you to find this one?

It took a few years. It took a year to start being any good at it aswell, although that's not unusual as the learning curve is monumental and some of that can also be blamed on the recession.

It would be very easy for me to get a job in any other recruitment company, I have no doubt of that. The bigger issue would be finding a company I would actually want to work for, as most of them are highly unethical, highly incompetent, or both. I would certainly have to move away from here as there isn't a single other company anywhere around here I would be at all interested in working for. Either that, or I'd set up on my own. Devon is a bit like the Florida of the UK, everyone goes on holiday here or retires here but there's very little in the way of opportunity. The flipside of that is that London acts like a massive national black hole, sucking everything and everybody of worth to it. Which is a shame as it's a shithole.

But my own job security is really in my own hands, I'm a third of the revenue generating capacity of the company so if the company goes bad it's largely my fault anyway.

 

[99.vikram]

But my own job security is really in my own hands, I'm a third of the revenue generating capacity of the company so if the company goes bad it's largely my fault anyway.

I agree largely with what you're saying but still feel that you're significantly underplaying the role of luck in success, and the extent of unfairness in society.

Yes, picking the right skills and then learning it as deeply and as fast as you can makes success *almost* certain. But there are life changing events that occur to most of us at some point that prevent us from reaching our full potential - familial obligations such as having to take care of a dependent sibling or parent, serious illness (a much bigger problem early in your career) and so on. Any one of these can shatter your chances at the bigtime and consign you to mediocrity even if you've got the drive and the smarts to succeed spectacularly.

Coming to the issue of unfairness, it is a simple fact that in most of the world, "upwardly mobile" is a joke. People usually die in roughly the same conditions they were born into, adjusting for efficiencies from technological advancement. This is for many reasons - increased mortality, increased exposure to all kinds of risk, more obligations to family members or simply having to scavenge for work in economies with double digit unemployment and hyperinflation. College is off limits, of course. They couldn't pay for it if they ate bread and soup every day of their lives while working the best jobs they can find (where, inevitably, they learn nothing valuable.)

The point I'm trying to make is that while the poor in first-world countries don't have it this bad, the difference is only a matter of intensity. You may have built a good life for yourself from your own effort, but you are part of the exception to the rule. For every rags-to-riches story, there are nine untold stories of smart, driven people falling by the wayside due to all kinds of environmental handicaps. Same goes for entrepreneurship.

I'm a programmer, which means my job is reasonably secure until the singularity hits. But you are a facilitator of transactions. I can easily imagine an online trust + testing + interview webservice that could disrupt the entire headhunting industry someday, and a lifetime of business knowledge could turn useless. That's the kind of monumental change that can destroy people, and that's what taxes (social security) insures us against.