Sorry to hear that - please pass on my best wishes to Bob, I’m sure we’re all rooting for him. If he’s anything like you, I’m sure he’ll work things out sooner rather than later.
If I were Bob, I’d work 40 hours a week and no more. Once things start stacking up, the company will either give him more resources or let him go. If they let him go, they will have to pay him unemployment while he looks for another job.
Bob just needs to have a few hits of Enzyte, and he’ll be his old Smilin’ Bob self all over again.
Bumping this one more time - OP, feel free to ask a mod to lock the thread if you feel Bob would rather his situation wasn’t discussed further.
I’ve seen more of this with younger generations than I do with my own.
I think every industry has a flavor of this.
Two choices: You can either not put in the extra effort and get screwed over or put in the extra effort and eventually be rewarded in some way (I’ve had merit raises, promotions, and additional PTO over the years). Why somebody would choose the former over the latter has always flummoxed me. I know part of it is because I’ve got very much a “worker” mentality and I hate not being busy so I expect everyone else to feel the same way I do. Other than that…???
dupe - true post below
So as I see it; Bob throttles back, shit starts to go wrong
a) additional resource is provided after Bob professionally lays out the situation
b) they threaten to fire Bob after which
I) Bob threatens legal action and gets settlement - woo! financial breathing space to find alternative employment
or
II) Bob has lost his job involuntarily - his insurance his good - woo! financial breathing space to find new employment.
Screw 'em
Well, the issue is that if you’re in a job where they’re screwing you over right now, why do you believe this will change?
Your employer might have a history of treat its employees badly in the short term but making things right in the long term. This is, however, not typical. Most companies that have a pattern of treating you badly now will treat you just as badly tomorrow.
My employer: I’ve been with them for nearly 14 years (they acquired my prior employer). During that time I’ve had perhaps 6 raises - totalling maybe 10%. I’ve gone 3-4 years between any salary adjustment. Bonuses happen some years, maybe. This was a “good” year; I got a bonus - of about 500 dollars - with a very good performance rating. One year I had a very good rating and got nothing - neither bonus nor raise. They changed their 401(k) plan so that you have to work the entire year to get a dime of their matching money. You leave (or are fired) one day early and you get nada.
If someone 20 years younger were in my shoes I’d tell 'em to jump ship. We’re expected to do significant overtime (exempt), and they aren’t rewarding the people who are doing the work. For me, being my age and tenure, it’d be hard to get the benefits anywhere else (vacation time, level of 401(k) matching, some other retirement benefits) so I’m sticking it out if I can.
In Bob’s case, he’s clearly critical to the company’s functioning, and they can’t be bothered to have a backup plan. Hell, even if they weren’t treating him badly, what if he gets run over by a bus on the way to work? It’ foolish of the company to leave themselves this vulnerable.
Add to that, the fact that the company’s MO is clearly “suck 'em dry, throw 'em away, and replace 'em”, Bob needs to get the hell out.
You are assuming that in every company and every industry, putting in extra effort WILL eventually be rewarded, and I believe that is a false assumption.
For example, I worked once for an outfit that had a 5-level performance rating (Exceptional, Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, Needs Improvement, and Failing). Institutional policy was that Exceptional performers got big raises, and Failing performers got shown to the door. The boss of my unit, however, had a standing rule that NOBODY received a exceptional rating. No matter how hard you worked or how brilliant you were, you could not be Exceptional, because if he assigned you that rating, he had to give you a big raise, which affected his budget, and he wasn’t going to ante up the money, period. Why bother going the extra mile, then?
Many government jobs, particularly in state/local govt, fall into the same trap: promotions and raises are at the whim of the governing body (legislature, city council, etc), not the decision of the manager. Political philosophies (“Government employees produce nothing. They’re a net consumer.”–Ray Merrick, presently Speaker of the House in Kansas) dictate rewards or lack thereof, not performance.
Well, if I were the one being screwed over, I probably wouldn’t believe it’d change, so screw 'em. I get that. I know some of my coworkers are being screwed over right this very minute or who will be screwed over once the new owners officially take the helm. Maybe I’ll be one of them, I don’t know. Given that the new owners gave me a promotion, a raise, and extra PTO come next year, suffice to say that no, I’m not being screwed over…at least not right now.
I’ve heard coworkers say this, and it’s almost always the younger ones, the ones who’d like coworkers like to me either take early retirement or quit altogether so they can go FT. They probably won’t ever make what I make unless they go into management, tbh, and very few of them want to go into management. Can’t blame 'em, but at the same time it makes me wonder what the future is for my industry.
I’ve been grandfathered X times with every merger/sale because I’ve been in the business for a very long time. I was shocked to get a raise this time around because I’ve been capped for so long (aka “only eligible for bonuses or merit raises”, neither of which are guaranteed every year). My current manager, who has probably a similar number of years in the business, received the same. She thinks it’s because our skill set is quickly disappearing in the industry; ergo, a company will reward you for it if they desire it. All this, btw, is why I’m sticking it out too, not to mention my age, tenure, and no doubt not getting anywhere near the benefits I get now.
I need to reread the beginning of this thread, but has the OP mentioned what industry “Bob” is in? That philosophy sounds like many tech startups my husband worked for at the start of his career.
I was in a similar situation except that the Exceptional people got slightly better raises than the Meets Expectations ones. Like 3% vs 2%. So there was no real benefit going the extra mile to be Exceptional. In fact, it’s the wrong choice. You’re working 10-30% more for a 1% higher raise. I put in the extra time to do things that helped my development and then jumped ship for a 40% raise.
Insurance is unlikely to pay out in the case of being fired, and being fired is a likely outcome of allowing things to fail by throttling back.
Reasonable people would notice that impending failure of this kind indicates a problem with proper resourcing, but it turns out you don’t need to be a reasonable person to own or run a business, and up to a certain scale, you can be quite successful without being reasonable to your staff.
The situation is that you put in the extra effort and for the most part get screwed over anyhow. The other companies I’ve worked for (and I did salary review, so I saw this from the inside) tried to allocate salary dollars as fairly as possible. Merit definitely counted, as did your current position on the salary curve.
The current situation is that there is a solid limit of raises to the top 20% or 30% or whatever. If 50% or even 80% of the group is putting in extra effort, and, more importantly, producing, that is tough on them.
TPTB have decided that no matter how good a job you do recruiting or managing, most of your workforce are slackers and don’t deserve anything.
After two years of this, is it surprising that the people who get screwed stop making the effort?
People who are doing well - which usually includes managers - will tell you the system is great. People who know they are slacking off or not performing won’t complain about not getting a raise - they are happy not to get fired. It is the people working their asses off who get screwed who complain. And then stop working so hard.
Mama Zappa is absolutely right about it not getting better. Raise come from the pool for this year. You had better not plan on their being a gigantic pot of money to make things better next year. Even if you are as fair as possible, it is not going to be perfect, but you can try.
I did salary admin at Bell Labs for 10 years, and ran it for a few years. I usually walked out of that meeting feeling we did as well as we could. Back in the days of 12% inflation you could really correct things, but even in more normal years we tried. And we paid attention to the message. Give someone a 100 a year raise and you are insulting them almost more than a 0 raise.
The deal with startups is that while you may not make anything now, you have stock and so will make a bundle if the company IPOs or gets bought. And you realize that if it does not you lose, but that is expected. The problem is if they expect to work 16 hours a day but don’t give you stock or anything that will benefit you on the upside. If the managers of the startup expect workers to work so the managers can make a killing, they are idiots.
It is common around here for there to be a forced Unsatisfactory category. I sat through one performance review meeting where a person who only worked until 6 pm and didn’t stick around pretending to work until 9 like the rest of us was sacrificed to this policy - despite the strong objections of his manager. Even the second level manager, my psycho boss, didn’t like doing this but had to.
Statistically there may be 5 - 10% deadwood in the company - but not necessarily in each department, especially ones who get rid of their deadwood early and hire intelligently. But HR rules.
I see I’m not the only one who read this and thought “Sounds like a win to me.”
I think you significantly overestimate this risk. Obviously this varies from company to company but companies are usually very reluctant to fire people. You have to really suck or do something grossly objectionable to get fired from a white collar job. Even if you do get fired you almost certainly will get unemployment insurance. Typically insurance pays out unless you are fired for cause. In most cases “for cause” means things like you stole or haven’t shown up for work in a month. It’s extraordinarily unlikely that they will consider working only 40 hours a week as cause.
This thread is TL;DR … perhaps this has been covered already …
Bob’s kids don’t want a fancy house, they don’t want all the latest toys, they don’t want private schooling … they want papa.
What are Bob’s priorities that his children should suffer so?
It’s not that working a regular week would be the cause of being fired; the cause would be related to the outcomes that will arise from cutting back the working hours - critical, business-impacting failure. It’s not that Bob is delusional in imagining himself indespensible, its that the company as a whole is terrible at planning - therefore, they have repeatedly piled enormous burden on their staff, then acted surprised every time it all went to shit.
This is not a business that has a proper, sane understanding of cause and effect. They’ll fire people and throw other people into the breach to try to mop up the outcome.
I reread the first two pages, and haven’t seen any of the following, though I might have forgotten it.
Bob needs to see a doctor and a lawyer. The doctor might be able to diagnose the effects of the stress he is under. It can happen - my father was able to prove that the stroke he had when we were in Africa was due to stress and overwork, and got compensated for it. And continued to work for the UN, in a less stressful job, until he retired.
He might be able to get a rational work week prescribed.
The lawyer might be able to tell him his rights. Perhaps a letter telling them that he is physically unable to work more than say 45 hours a week for more than one week in four. Then, they’d either have to fire him for only working more than 40 hours, or they would not be able to pretend he volunteered.
I’d say doctor first, probably. If the doctor orders a vacation, because it is medically necessary, and they fire him because of it, in the US at least he could sue their ears off. In the US people on disability were even protect from being laid off during RIFs. Happened to someone who worked for me. And very appropriate, I must say.