h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just received the results of our annual appraisals. We are graded from S (super super bestest of all) to E (should worry they are about to be fired)

Every year for 13 years I'm A or S pretty evenly spaced. Until now - after the year when I really pushed hard for everything to work, have been the go-to person for every little question about how everything works and to train new people. Through promises of a job change that didn't come, to getting pushed into one I don't really want. And all the time turning up on time, rain or shine, sick kids or not, and working long freaking hours.

And they tell me I need to co-operate with people more and have a B.

I am spitting hopping mad.

I'm feeling a bit like damning my employers as well lately. It's not on personal level for me though, mostly just the current economic state and feeling unappreciated as they deny us yet another cost of living increase, nor any bonuses this year, take 4 days from our annual time off by reclassifying much of it, take away yet another day by not observing the federal holiday declared by the president before Xmas eve, seeing our insurance premiums go up yet again as our coverage goes down yet again. All this happening while we watch other departments and companies on our contract being treated better. And of course, management are being given plenty of bonuses and raises.

Evaluations are always pretty straightforward here. My job is very routine and so my supervisors (who are feeling similarly about the contract) typically just repeat previous evaluations, which is fine by me for now.

that's awful, BG.

Frankly, it's not so bad. But... I have worked my backside off for years, under the impression (haha more fool me) that if you work hard, do well, etc you will get your rewards.

The money is ok, they pay a profit-sharing bonus when we are in profit, and there is an annual personal incentive bonus usually, plus the usual German holidays, vacation entitlements etc etc.

But the simple fact is that they are treating the hard workers like idiots (we are for allowing it) and just letting the shirkers have an easy ride. I was told by a previous Managing Director he'll never promote me because I'm too old, too female and have children. And I have watched the men get their advancement as a matter of course.

It's money for old rope, and given the job situation I can't realistically (and my age is against me) leave. So i guess there will be a lot more going on time and "smoke breaks". Because that is equally well rewarded as working flat out all the time.

That managing director sounds like a good target for a discrimination lawsuit.

too late he's gone - at the time I really really needed to keep the job (still do) and he was drunk (it was at month end and he'd been for dinner)

but if it happens again...

For years I tried to appear eager and willing and did this and that to get a raise and better conditions overall

Went to w*rk sick, w*rked overtime without claiming compensation

Didn't w*rk

Then I listened to an older and wiser (at least more experienced) colleague:

1. Never go anywhere without a piece of paper in your hand and look busy

2. The boss determines your monthly salary - but you determine your time wages

My job is comparatively secure (not that anyone in my generation and younger have ever experienced job security around here). There really is no room for advancement for me, but also, I'd have to screw up pretty bad to risk it. That said, I'm always just one more budget cut away from being out of work and have very few options if that happens as my current job is very unique, scanning astronaut flight film. There's just not a lot of places that do that... Precisely one.

Sho, seriously, try to look for something else... those losers don't deserve you.

Oh, Sho.

I always hate to sound like I'm stealing someone's thunder ("I'll see your inaccurate performance appraisal and raise you a micromanager"), but since we always moan about work, and I've been holding back, here goes...

(I haven't moaned yet because it's been year end close and I haven't had time to think, not to mention moan...)

December 24th and 25th were paid holidays at my company this year, as was January 1st. I didn't take time off, because I didn't want to waste vacation time on what should be a very slow, quiet week.* Six of the eight people in my department were out, as well as my immediate supervisor. On the 26th, I saw how much mail had come in, and asked the other guy if we could split it 50/50. His response was that no one told him he had to, so he wasn't going to. So for three days, I did my work and that of the other six people. My boss expressed her gratitude, but I really get tired of that guy being so useless (everyone coddles him because he's a bit hard of hearing). And he goes on about how he's a preacher, as if that makes him so special... it certainly doesn't make him a decent human being. Oh - this is the guy who doesn't know how to perform simple Excel calculations or formulas, or do Mail Merge, for whom I have always gone out of my way to be helpful. Won't happen again, that's for sure.

*and then to top it all off, I find out Payroll didn't notify those of us who'd accrued too much PTO to roll it all over (we can only roll over 60 hours), and I lost three days' PTO. Should've taken it. Next year, screw it, I'm taking PTO for any office hours from the 24th through the 1st, and the hell with them.

I'm hearing so many stories like those being expressed here, and I have personal and immediate experience of more. The recession isn't the entire story. True, businesses are having to cut back or go under, but the power and arrogance of business and business practices that, as far as I can make out, began in 1980s, leastways in Britain it did with Thatcher and her monetarist policies, has wiped out so many of the securities that the working class had gained over the previous decades.

My Dad's pension scheme had so much money they hardly knew what to do with it. He paid in so much while he was working that he ended up paying income tax on it when he started drawing it! He used to grumble about that a lot and wish he'd made fewer contributions.

If you were working class there were jobs which would give you a pretty good living, such as working in a car plant. I hear stories on the radio of how blue collar workers could earn $50,000, $60,000 a year working on the line. I used to know someone in who worked at Fords in Detroit who was making $25,000 a year - in 1985! That's $500 a week, give or take, at a time when I was... well, I'm not sure what I was making because I'd been self employed for a few years and was starting up a business, but the last paid job I'd had before that was in 1982 and I got a lot less than £100 a week. A few years before that my weekly wage packet contained £18.50 after tax and NI. And if you worked at Ford's in Dagenham, which a lot of my friends' Dads did, you had a good wage, a nice lifestyle and security.

There aren't too many of those well-paid blue collar jobs these days. The new generation of managers and executives didn't come up through the company, they've come out of business school and their only loyalty is to the balance sheet. All they know about is formulas, percentages, goals and targets. People aren't seen as employees but as labour costs, and as labour costs are often the biggest expenditure on a balance sheet they have to be made smaller, so pay rises are slowing down or stopping altogether, employees have to increase their productivity, give up perks and benefits, including paid time off, staffing is being cut to the bone and beyond. The thing is, a mechanism needs muscle and bone to work. It's okay to cut off the fat, but when there are more people doing too much work, eventually the mechanism will fall over. I've seen it happen, and when one of the managers got angry and tried to chew out the *three* people who were trying to do the work of *six* because that's all the labour cost targets would allow he got an earful back from one of them about how it was purely because of underscheduling that the work hadn't been done. He didn't get it. All he could come back with was a remark about how he had the best labour cost percentage in the area.

That wasn't when I decided to leave. I'd already made up my mind before that, but that was just one instance among many.

When we started this contract last year, our new company made a point of inviting the employees to "round table" discussions. Well, we were quite new when I went to one and really didn't have any strong opinions about things. Now that they've destroyed our morale with the recent changes, disappointments and cutbacks, I haven't heard of any round table discussions lately.

Morale, that's one of the biggest losses too. It's even happening at my apartment complex. The head maintenance guy left recently because there were so many callouts that he was working seven days a week without overtime. The complex manager has also left because the company won't let him spend the money to do what needs to be done, which is one big reason why there are so many callouts. Meanwhile they're spending tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace the siding and repaint the buildings, and they can't even get that done right. My front door has been painted four times in a month. I won't go into details.

What we really need is insulation in the walls and the lofts, new windows, better weather- and sound-proofing all-round. But they don't care because it's a sellers' market right now - there's 98% rental capacity in Austin at the moment so rents are going up and the only improvements being made are cosmetic.

blimey, PC - we really have to form a self-help group about "thinking about number 1 while at work"

and all round

Gosho has it spot on. It is ALL about the bottom line. Although although... I work for Koreans and they place a very high emphasis on loyalty. So that means all our managers tend (probably not at the very very top) to come from our branch of the massiver corporate glob be belong to - it's the one with the cute smiley face logo...) The CEO, CFO, CTO etc are rotated around the various companies in the group - actually, not the CTO becuase he started as an engineer in one of the first factories here. Makes sense.

The appraisals are hugely important for the Koreans who are contracted to the headquarters (we have "german"Koreans here who are employed locally - they have the worst deal of all, especially the female ones - but that's a whole other rant). Basically if you don't get a C-grade or above you can bet your bottom dollar that you won't be here for the next round of promotions in March.

It also affects your pay - there is usally (remains to be seen if there will be one next year) a small yearly increment which is usually inflation for the local staff like me, and something accross the board for the Koreans. Then if you get a C grade no additional increment, an extra 1% for the B, 2% for the A and 3% for the S (I've only ever had A & S as I said and have been basically happy with that). There is also a Personal Incentive bonus usually (again, not been announced for this year so it's not clear if there will be one - last year local Managers and above didn't get one, the rest of us did. Not sure how it worked for the Koreans) And again, there is a basic one which is a % of annual salary, with increments for the different grades.

Since I won't be promoted, and since I am the main wage earner in our family, it's important to me to make sure I maximise my income. And I'm one of those people (Like PC and Gosho - BG I don't know you well enough, but you seem focussed to me) who works hard and always does the best job. Goes that extra mile etc. It's in our make-up and I don't see it changing.

But little by little, in exactly the ways Gosho described, that goodwill is being eroded. And because I'm always used as the "example" (been here longest, get awards for my performance - seriously, employee of the year 3 times... 2 incentive [jollies] to Korea...) i am very visible. So when everyone comes up to me and tells me they wonder how I'm still putting up with it, and I see that we are now losing good people to other companies, I start to wonder.

Your apartment complex owners sound like Idiots Gosho. Weren't you thinking of moving?

Maybe you should become one of those good people being lost to other companies...

with no German qualification and nearly 50 I have been turned down for more jobs here than hot dinners at this stage. And the Arbeitsamt will only recommend me for jobs that require no qualifications. Theoretically, even Aldi wouldn't take me under those conditions

No, I haven't thought about moving from this complex, Sho although I'd like a bigger apartment, and a bedroom. I can't afford it though. I've lived here (this complex, several different apartments) since December 2000 and enjoyed it 99% of the time, but the way rents have been going up lately it's getting tougher and tougher, and the part of town where I live is getting hit twice.

Austin is a boom town. Okay, I moved here so I'm part of the problem, but I've been here for more than 14 years so I consider myself a local now. Like I said, apartment owners can pretty much charge what they want because there's near-100% occupancy here, which also means it's hard to find a place. This part of town also has several new developments built, being built or planned. They're all mixed use, meaning apartments/condos and retail, so that gives apartment owners like mine another reason to put up rents because this is 'an up-and-coming are' It isn't.

So, since I don't currently have a job I can't apply for an apartment in a place like this because I have no income. They do all kinds of checks on you when you apply. I had to renew the lease on this one last month which means I had to swallow a big rent increase and I'm stuck here until next February, which I wouldn't mind too much if the apartments were in better condition. It's a handy place to live. Handy for a bar, a good supermarket, a not-so-good but halfway decent supermarket, a Target (all of which I can walk to in 15 minutes or less), buses into town and other things besides, but the fabric of these buildings isn't worth the rent they're charging. The only way I'd be able to move would be to move into a shared house with people who know I don't have a job. I'd certainly pay a whole lot less in rent, but sharing isn't for me.

how is the job hunting going? There were some breweries if I recall?

So what you're experiencing is the gentrification of Austin? What is it that's bringing everyone in?

They're all fleeing the conservative paranoia and intolerance that dominates the rest of the state.

Gentrification, yuppification, yeah, that's probably a good description. It's not the first time, actually. When I got here in 1999 it was the height of the dotcom bubble which burst a year or two later, and rents were, comparatively speaking, as high as they are now. A after the bubble burst there was a slump and rents fell by quite a margin.

It's not just Austin either - Texas and the entire sunbelt is booming. I'm sure the fact that most (all?) southern states are right-to-work has done a lot in attracting businesses (yeah, we're back to that), which is why a lot of the Japanese and Korean car manufacturers are building plants south of the Mason-Dixon line instead of where the car workers are - in the unionised north.

And, fact is, Austin's a good place to live, or it has been. It's losing its Austin identity with the influx, and it's mostly the IT industry that's bringing them here. It's one of those snowball things - the better the lifestyle gets the more people come here, and the more people come here the more companies and the city are encouraged to build more amenities. Case in point - the new Formula One track that held its first Grand Prix last November. It wouldn't have happened without Austin's growth and new wealth, and it's going to attract even more growth and wealth.

You see a lot of old hippies in Austin, wandering around and wondering what's happened to their quiet little town.

Oh, and did I mention the dozen or so breweries in and around Austin