What You've Done Today - Always You Must Meddle, Looking For Trouble Where None Exists.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

I've been so busy with work lately. The biggest problem is the tedium of data entry. The data that I use for my work comes from multiple platforms because we are using multiple vendors.  I am pretty handy with VB so I use Excel & Power BI for my actual work. The tedium is all this data has to be entered into excel. Manually on some formats. Some come in .csv so that's easy. 

Bri was over doing her laundry and we got to talking about it. She offered to do the data entry for me. I told her there was $20 an hour and a license for MS Office in it for her if she would. She agreed and my workload just got cut in half.

Sub-contracting. Why didn't I think of that???

GD I hope you paying her overtime, medical aid, UIF, leave pay and ensuring she gets a bonus with no KPI ....you dont want to be seen as greedy, Capitalist abusing his workers and only being concerned with profit !!!!

[Gorth]

9 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

I've been so busy with work lately. The biggest problem is the tedium of data entry. The data that I use for my work comes from multiple platforms because we are using multiple vendors.  I am pretty handy with VB so I use Excel & Power BI for my actual work. The tedium is all this data has to be entered into excel. Manually on some formats. Some come in .csv so that's easy. 

Bri was over doing her laundry and we got to talking about it. She offered to do the data entry for me. I told her there was $20 an hour and a license for MS Office in it for her if she would. She agreed and my workload just got cut in half.

Sub-contracting. Why didn't I think of that???

The first company I worked for in Australia (many years ago by now) opened up a Fiji office at some point. Charging customers Aussie prices for services provided by people who got paid 20% Australian salaries. Hard to compete with that for profitability. After rains and floods, the sun is shining again and temperatures back up close to 30C (around 85F for those who don't speak metric). Doesn't mean all the water is gone. Note to self: Buy more deodorant, as air humidity is close to 100%

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

The first company I worked for in Australia (many years ago by now) opened up a Fiji office at some point. Charging customers Aussie prices for services provided by people who got paid 20% Australian salaries. Hard to compete with that for profitability. After rains and floods, the sun is shining again and temperatures back up close to 30C (around 85F for those who don't speak metric). Doesn't mean all the water is gone. Note to self: Buy more deodorant, as air humidity is close to 100%

How did you know peoples salaries? In SA salaries are confidential and you can honestly be dismissed or get a written warning for revealing salaries and you not suppose to talk about your salary either with other staff for various reasons 

[Gorth]

17 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

How did you know peoples salaries? In SA salaries are confidential and you can honestly be dismissed or get a written warning for revealing salaries and you not suppose to talk about your salary either with other staff for various reasons 

Nobody ever explicitly, verbally or in writing forbade it. It does make sense though, as cost of living in Fiji as also about 20% of Aussie prices at the time (may not be the same now, 15+ years later)

Different roles in the company had a base salary plus a bonus arrangement. The formula behind the bonuses were not secret (tl;dr; the more overtime you did, the better you got paid)

 

Edit: Our boss would present an Excel spreadsheet at the end of every month for the team, showing how much utilization each consultant had for that month, to encourage competitiveness in doing as much overtime as possible.

 

[Gfted1]

I wish I got paid overtime, Id be retired and living the fatcat lifestyle.

[Amentep]

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

How did you know peoples salaries? In SA salaries are confidential and you can honestly be dismissed or get a written warning for revealing salaries and you not suppose to talk about your salary either with other staff for various reasons 

I'd be very concerned about what any company that forbade conversations about salaries between non-managerial employees might be wanting to hide.  Its one thing to forbid a manager from telling their direct reports what each of them make and another to forbid colleagues from discussing their own salaries with each other.

[Gorth]

41 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

I wish I got paid overtime, Id be retired and living the fatcat lifestyle.

Meh, it's overrated. After too many years of 200% utilization, you feel "burnt out" in a real, bad way

 

[Gfted1]

At least you get paid for it! Im "overutilized" and dont get bupkis for extra hours because Im on salary.  Well I get a fat bonus at the end of the year but Id rather be paid for every hour I put in.

[Amentep]

"Bonus"?  What is this "Bonus" that you speak of...?

[majestic]

2 minutes ago, Amentep said:

"Bonus"?  What is this "Bonus" that you speak of...?

[BruceVC]

22 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I'd be very concerned about what any company that forbade conversations about salaries between non-managerial employees might be wanting to hide.  Its one thing to forbid a manager from telling their direct reports what each of them make and another to forbid colleagues from discussing their own salaries with each other.

Really? In every company I have ever worked at your salary is confidential and its the same as your bonus structure

Commission is different because in sales its common knowledge what peoples target is because this information is shared in weekly sales meetings normally 

But to clarify what I mean by confidential and why,  if you and I work at the same company and we doing more or less the same job and we sitting in the canteen and I say " Im earning $5k  a month., this company underpays and it sux  " and you tell me " Im earning $7.5k ...you must be bad at your job " that can create unnecessary tension and people feeling they underpaid for the same job. When in fact many factors contribute towards your remuneration

If you want to go around telling people what you earn I suppose it may be okay but I have never heard of that before in 23 years of working in listed companies 

But if I find out your salary because I read your salary slip because you left in by the printer accidently  and I go  around telling people  that would be serious problem around confidentiality 

And in closing the reason I asked is Gorth said " people in Fiji  earn 20 % of what Oz people " ...so my next question would be " how would you know that, did you see their salary slips " because that would be  the only way to be 100% certain irrespective of what  someone tells you

But he explained what he meant. But in SA your salary is confidential and you definitely dont talk about other peoples salary unless its approved and allowed 

 

[BruceVC]

27 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

At least you get paid for it! Im "overutilized" and dont get bupkis for extra hours because Im on salary.  Well I get a fat bonus at the end of the year but Id rather be paid for every hour I put in.

Gfted1 you and I long for the same thing, we want to make the fatcats pay 

[majestic]

6 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Gfted1 you and I long for the same thing, we want to make the fatcats pay 

If I give you my bank account number, will you start paying? I don't mind a bonus or two. How much are we talking about? Gotta be careful with the taxes and all.

Edited March 1, 2022 by majestic

[Amentep]

5 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Really? In every company I have ever worked at your salary is confidential and its the same as your bonus structure

To be fair, I work for the government (since I work at a state funded school), so my salary (as well as my supervisors and subordinates) is all a matter of public record.

5 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

But to clarify what I mean by confidential and why,  if you and I work at the same company and we doing more or less the same job and we sitting in the canteen and I say " Im earning $5k  a month., this company underpays and it sux  " and you tell me " Im earning $7.5k ...you must be bad at your job " that can create unnecessary tension and people feeling they underpaid for the same job. When in fact many factors contribute towards your remuneration

But, the opposite can also be true - if the guy earning 7.5k is the boss' friend and never does near the amount of work as the other employees with the same job title, not allowing them to discuss it seems to be a way to hide the fact that the boss' friend is being unfairly compensated.  That's why I find mandating a lack of transparency to be a worrying sign - because it is open to abuse.

[BruceVC]

8 minutes ago, majestic said:

If I give you my bank account number, will you start paying? I don't mind a bonus or two. How much are we talking about? Gotta be careful with the taxes and all.

You make me laugh 

But just to clear Im not a fatcat, some of my family are but not me 

[BruceVC]

10 minutes ago, Amentep said:

To be fair, I work for the government (since I work at a state funded school), so my salary (as well as my supervisors and subordinates) is all a matter of public record.

But, the opposite can also be true - if the guy earning 7.5k is the boss' friend and never does near the amount of work as the other employees with the same job title, not allowing them to discuss it seems to be a way to hide the fact that the boss' friend is being unfairly compensated.  That's why I find mandating a lack of transparency to be a worrying sign - because it is open to abuse.

I think its because we do different types of work, what exactly does your job entail and what do you do? Then I can clarify better because the system we have works and actually prevents misunderstandings and unnecessary friction in  the work place 

[Gfted1]

46 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Gfted1 you and I long for the same thing, we want to make the fatcats pay 

Yes and no. Since Im not a fatcat then I want them to pay, but make no mistake, if I ever get the opportunity to become a fatcat, then this will be my wife and I.

[Amentep]

24 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I think its because we do different types of work, what exactly does your job entail and what do you do? Then I can clarify better because the system we have works and actually prevents misunderstandings and unnecessary friction in  the work place 

Don't get me wrong, I understand your argument (ie that people have different scope to their job that may not be understood by colleagues who have the same basic job title or job description).  I'd argue that is a problem in not having clarity in job titles and descriptions, more so than a problem whose only cure is to make talking about ones salary a firing offence.

2 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Yes and no. Since Im not a fatcat then I want them to pay, but make no mistake, if I ever get the opportunity to become a fatcat, then this will be my wife and I.

I always figured you for more of a Scrooge McDuck in his money vault type!

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, Amentep said:

Don't get me wrong, I understand your argument (ie that people have different scope to their job that may not be understood by colleagues who have the same basic job title or job description).  I'd argue that is a problem in not having clarity in job titles and descriptions, more so than a problem whose only cure is to make talking about ones salary a firing offence.

I always figured you for more of a Scrooge McDuck in his money vault type!

Yes that was basically what I was going to explain in more detail. I wasnt sure if I was explaining my point properly 

I LOL  at that Scrooge McDuck, I remember the first time I watched that cartoon, I loved it 

 

[Gfted1]

2 hours ago, Amentep said:

I always figured you for more of a Scrooge McDuck in his money vault type!

When I hit the MegaLotto, I wont tell anyone, but theyll know.

[Calax]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I think its because we do different types of work, what exactly does your job entail and what do you do? Then I can clarify better because the system we have works and actually prevents misunderstandings and unnecessary friction in  the work place 

The fact that (at least in America) the discussion of salary has been discouraged also leads to things like pay gaps based on race and gender. You don't know you're being paid 20% less than your coworker, unless you talk to that co-worker about how much everyone is getting paid.

 

Lotta stuff has changed since I've been on this. Still in Minnesota, Single again (that was.... an unpleasant relationship) And trying to be more social.

[BruceVC]

21 minutes ago, Calax said:

The fact that (at least in America) the discussion of salary has been discouraged also leads to things like pay gaps based on race and gender. You don't know you're being paid 20% less than your coworker, unless you talk to that co-worker about how much everyone is getting paid.

 

Lotta stuff has changed since I've been on this. Still in Minnesota, Single again (that was.... an unpleasant relationship) And trying to be more social.

Welcome back, things are still great here 

What happened in your relationship, we love news and gossip 

Edited March 1, 2022 by BruceVC

[Gfted1]

Welcome back, Calax. Its been a while!

[Totally not Gorgon]

Hi

[Gfted1]

You too, Totally not Gorgon. Where you been hiding?