La Li Lu Le Lo said:
My school cost would not even come close to covering the "redistribution of wealth" the government has imposed on me over the 20 years prior.
I can say I have been promoted 3 times since I started and gotten several dollars in pay raises based on merit? Can you?
Didn't think so.
Kev3188 said:
As can I. I'd been on a corporate fast-track once before and literally started at the bottom (of a warehouse floor) and worked my way into my own office, with a cute title, on the other side of the country in a relatively short time and at a young age. I got there because I busted my a**, never said no, and did whatever it took to get the job done. (Never saw necessary to hold it over anyone else though...)
I also got burnt out, and got tired of butting heads with careerists, title-chasers, nit-pickers, petty tyrants, and all the folks tripping over one another to claim others' hard work as their own in the scramble up the corporate ladder - so much so that I was willing to take a pay cut to apply for a job that did physical labor and required of me (at the time) the least amount of responsibility possible. I work with a few former professionals with similar stories from different backgrounds who got tired of jumping through the hoops and kissing the right rings in order to play the game of "upward mobility".
Merit based promotions...that's really impressive. That's an Important Man™ that can get three promotions, do you have a Chrysler Pacifica with extra-big cupholders too? I mean, as long as they actually are merit based, because what I've noticed from my past and present employers is that oftentimes promotions go to the most conniving and well-connected instead of to the most capable or deserving. I've known plenty of people at different firms who've pulled six figures doing little more than schedule meetings, attend meetings, and then just screw around the rest of the day, having no idea what their subordinates were doing and certainly not understanding how it was done. You can hate all you want on entitled and lazy airline employees but if you think there's not an army of pasty, chubby office dwellers in collared shirts and khakis sitting under sickly fluorescent lights sucking the company teat watching golf videos on company time then maybe you're not paying attention. A 30-year airline employee shouldn't get $30/hr to "just throw bags" but some schmuck right out of college can start at $100k/yr by virtue of being the VP's nephew?
I'm not saying that the entire superstructure of the American professional working class is rife with inexperience, nepotism, political appointments and sycophants, but I am saying that you don't have the standing to hold me or anyone in contempt just because we don't subscribe to or pursue your narrow or idealized version of success. I really like this job, and I derive all kinds of value out of it that has nothing to do with "merit-based promotions and raises"; it's given me many opportunities to grow as a person and develop skills that don't include me immediately whoring them out to an employer for a raise or title change as you seem to imply any good American should. I will sincerely say I'm glad it's worked out for you, but what I don't understand why it's so important for you to come here and try to guilt trip people for getting paid more and try to shame them for their relationship with labor, and the only logical explanation I can think of is the distress it's causing you that so many thousands of people have been so undeservedly placed closer to the pay scale you'd picked yourself up by your bootstraps to attain. I mean, how insecure, angry at the world, and utterly bored with your life do you have to be? Are there really so few scandals, causes, outrages, and atrocities on the planet that
this is the cross you have to bear, to us?
I don't feel guilty about my new pay raise, and it's not from lack of integrity. I know I should lie awake at night, gnashing my teeth and rending my garments and crying in lamentation of those poor, poor fund managers whose dividends will be somewhat less, and the losses to all those shareholders - those shareholders whose dollars work tirelessly each day in the hot sun or bitter freezing cold doing all they can to safely get those flights out on time. I should cry bitter tears for those investors, and all the bread I'm stealing out of the mouths of their children. Will no one think of Wall Street? Where will the madness end? If the lazy working masses of this airline don't stop their vampire ways the executives might have to trade their golden parachutes for golden-trimmed silver ones, and that would be the real dishonor.
So you keep jumping from pedestal to pedestal riding your high horse, we'll keep gaping in awe at your blinding virtue and steadfast integrity. Me, I'ma take my lump sum, my pay raise, and come next year, my profit sharing check and
imposed redistribution of wealth refund check
and take them to the bank. Only in America, baby.