[rescue] Cluesticks (was Mounting and Dumping)

[Phil Stracchino]

On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 08:01:22AM -0600, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> Eighteen months ago the salaried staff at work were "asked" to take a
> 10% pay cut.  The folks at the VP and C*O rank took a 15% pay cut.*
> The amounts involved for the latter were negligible, but the morale
> boost involved was not unsubstantial.

Yay for them!  Though at many companies, the senior staff could probably
afford to take a 30% pay cut under such conditions without feeling a
pinch in their personal entertainment budgets.  (Aside from, say, having
to buy the new Ferrari on a 12-month payment plan instead of paying
cash.)

> Perhaps what Dave was getting at was not that the money involved makes
> the difference to the bottom line, but that the environment generated
> by the disparity in salary is lethal to the company's esprit-de-corps?

I wouldn't dispute that.  There's something wrong, IMHO, when a
company's officers are taking home 2.5 orders of magnitude more than its
engineers.

I was about to say that the problem is these days the top people
*expect* that kind of money, and you can't get them without offering it.
But then after a moment's thought, it occurred to me that an expectation
of that kind of salary is in fact probably a sign of exactly the kind of
senior officers you DON'T want.  They should be in it to make the
company a success, not to make themselves filthy stinking obscenely
rolling-in-it rich.


-- 
 .*********  Fight Back!  It may not be just YOUR life at risk.  *********.
 : phil stracchino : unix ronin : renaissance man : mystic zen biker geek :
 : alaric at caerllewys.net|alaric-ruthven at earthlink.net|alaric at novylen.net  :
 :   2000 CBR929RR, 1991 VFR750F3 (foully murdered), 1986 VF500F (sold)   :
 :    Linux Now!   ...Because friends don't let friends use Microsoft.    :