I don’t understand. You are getting paid more than you would somewhere else. You’re relied on by your colleagues. It’s a unique job that you like.
The only thing screwing things up for you is the absence of a raise? So much so that a lower paid job is preferable? This doesn’t make sense to me. The sole thing driving you to self-destructive behavior is the absence of more money? What am I missing?
No, not the absence of a raise, the absence of any recognition for my work.
It’s not the money, it’s being sent a clear message that I have wasted my time doing all this work and should have just been doing what my job description requires. Say “Sorry that’s not my job. Get IT to do it”
Edit: I don’t think I said anywhere in this thread that I like the job. When I say ‘uniqe’ I mean literally that there are no similar jobs here.
If you don’t like the job then it’s pretty clear that you should be looking for a different job.
I wonder, though, whether you’re setting yourself up for future disappointment by expecting “recognition,” whatever you mean by that. The recognition you get for working is a wage. If the wage is satisfactory and you like the work and there isn’t overt abuse of you and your time, then I don’t know how much more one should expect from a job. It’s just a job, after all.
Lobsang, quit hijacking the hijack of your thread! Rigby, Finn and Alessan were making this interesting!
People are trying to learn something here!
But it is my opinion that there is abuse of me and my time. And it’s not just me. It’s my good friends and colleagues who have been treated worse than me. I got a small pay rise when I became Manager because they had to. I have had the same stealth pay-cuts as my colleagues. A stealth pay cut is not getting the inflation-based pay rises. So as inflation goes up our wage is worth less and less.
I expect recognition because the “Previous administration” gave it readilly. I liked my job in those times.
I was even told by my boss that the board “Has a policy of trying to save money on staff wages” This being told to a member of staff!!! (Me) so basically this is My boss telling me to my face - “We want to give you as little money as possible”
As I say I’ll see what happens at christmas, and then leave.
I’m not looking for more money for the sake of it. I’m asking for the value of our wages to be restored. And for them to acknowledge the increase in productivity that has come from me. I do more, than I did when the current wage came into effect.
It seems to me you’re dissatisfied because they are cutting your real wages. There’s no shame in that and no need to dress it up as “lack of recognition.” And there’s no need to see it as an insult to your entire existence on earth. I think you’re perfectly justified in wanting to find a new job. Your company is behaving like douchbags, like many companies are. Unless you feel like you have no other option but to stay, I think you have reason to be optimistic.
You want your effective wage cuts revoked. You want as much compensation now as you used to get. Just keep it simple. It’s a perfectly valid desire and there’s no need to qualify it with statements like this.
I want more money because I’m doing more work, which takes up more of my time and energy and puts more stress on me. Perfectly valid.
There’s no need for the “acknowledgment” and “value” language here. Employment is not ultimately about self-validation. It’s about negotiating time/effort/stress/workplace conditions in exchange for money to a balance that you find satisfactory.
I have to admit, I’ve forgotten pretty much everything I ever learned about key scales and celestial correspondences, etc… When I head back to Vermont for this Thanksgiving, I’m going to have to try to look through my folks’ barn and try to see where the hell most of my old library is. In the meanwhile, could you recommend any books/online resources that jive with your tradition? (And, what tradition would that be? I assume it isn’t Christian or Jewish Kabbalism?)
I was, however, under the impression that “el” was a name of God. Such as in Hebrew naming conventions the ending “el” such as in Daniel means “of God” so that Daniel becomes “Judged by God.”
I think.
I must say though as a somewhat-Thelemite, I had no idea that Chessed was referred to as Love is the Law. If so, I seriously need to reexamine a fuckload of what Crowley wrote.
P.S. Alessan, I just noticed that you’ve got 9 of the sephirot and Daath (or da’at, am I transliterating incorrectly?), but not Chokhmah. What’s the best Hebrew->English translation for that?
" Buckminster Fuller said ‘I seem to be a verb’ but I am definitely a gerund.’ -Simon Moon
I think this is a narrow view of what people want out of a job. Look up Maslow’s pyramid. Those needs don’t go away just because you’re in the workplace.
There’s obviously some mixing going on – wages have an obvious economic dimension, but they have a less obvious psychological dimension, and it’s not always easy to separate them.
Lobsang’s complaint isn’t that work is unsatisfying, it isn’t that the work conditions are onerous, it isn’t that he is being verbally or emotionally abused. He’s saying that he feels slighted because his real wages have been cut and he didn’t get the pay raise he expected or wanted. He’s conflating two different things here and it seems to me that he’s doing it in order to disguise his desire for adequate monetary compensation (nothing wrong with that) as something else. I’m suggesting that he’s doing himself a disservice in this respect.
Let me try to make this as clear as possible.
I do want more money.
I also consider a pay rise as a gesture of appreciation. I want appreciation for what I do/have done monetary or not.
I did genuinely feel walked on when I did not get that appreciation.
Then I stand by my conclusion that your expectations are setting you up for continued disappointment. Employers base their pay decisions on the availability of funds for payroll, the price competition for an employee in the employment marketplace, and the costs of losing that employee as a result of underpayment. They don’t hand out money as a gesture of appreciation, but as a concession to losing you to another employer.
What, exactly? A certificate of appreciation? A cakes and ballons party?
No. You’re dissatisfied because you see the sacrifice you are making (in terms of time, effort, stress, etc.) are being inadequately compensated in monetary terms.
You’ll do yourself a favor by thinking of this in terms of “I’m not being paid enough to make it worthwhile to keep doing this” rather than “My employer is failing to express sufficient appreciation of my value by declining to pay me more.”
In the latter case, you’re making the whole thing about your value, which is playing hell with your sense of self worth. Don’t make it about your value. Make it about how much money it would take to make it worth my time/effort/physical health/etc. to stay here.
Hermetic Philosophy. I never figured out what the fuck that meant, either. It’s a sort of Wiccan/Hermetic/Golden Dawn hybrid. Nowadays I just call myself an eclectic agnostic neopagan for short. 
I think you’re right. In each Sephirot, God has a different name, according to my notes. Some of them should look familiar from The Middle Pillar ritual.
Malhuth: Adonai Malekh or Adonai Ha Aretz
Yesod: Shaddai El Chai
Hod: Elohim Tzadbaoth
Netzach YHVH Tazdbaoth
Tipareth: YHVH Aloah Va Daath
Geburah: Elohim Gebor
Hesed/Chessed: El
Binah: YHVH Elohim
C/Hokhmah: YHVH
Kether: Eheieh
I take responsibility for all transliteration and spelling errors, of course!
I’m not certain that Crowley was that explicit. Y’know, being Crowley and all. Plus, of course, I left off the second part of The Rule. In The Book of Thoth, he did write: “The important characteristic is that Four is “below the Abyss”; therefore, in practice, it means solidification, materialization. Things have become manifest. The essential point is that it expresses the Rule of Law…The manifestation promised by Binah has now taken place. Chesed…is the highest idea which can be understood in an intellectual way.” (As quoted here.)
Other people, of course, have taken the idea and run with it. In the Appendixto QBL, Achad writes, “Note also how “Love is the law, love under will” is clearly shown on the Tree, for Love (Venus) is the Law (Libra) love (Chesed) under (Sameck = Temperance) Will (Chokmah).”
I won’t retype them, because I think these links will take you to the proper place in Google books, but John Bonner, Gareth Knight and Pamela Eakins all have interesting, if basic, things to say on the matter, more directly associating specifically Chessed with The Rule, as my teachers did.
OK, I see what you are saying. And I will consider approaching this problem in this way.
In answer to your question What exactly?: Well, simple, the knowledge that they are aware of how much I put in, and the knowledge that they do appreciate it.
And, in an ideal world (though I know this is wishful thinking) The knowledge that they think they should pay me more than they do, but can’t afford to.
I am sorry for being sentimental but I actually do value appreciation a lot. A lot of the stuff I have done has been done to receive appreciation. Mostly from my fellow employees who’s lives I’ve made easier by creating and automating processes.
Thanks for the links WhyNot. Some of my books are simply scattered around a couple states, but some were stolen by a ‘friend’ who I loaned them to. All these years later I’m not sure exactly what I do and don’t have in my personal library anymore, but I’m pretty sure I have the Book of Thoth (and the deck to go along with it) but that 777 was one of the books that was stolen from me. Too bad… it was rather useful when I was first analyzing Finnegans Wake, especially when you consider that ALP is Aleph Lamed Peh or that when the sound of thunder (signifying The Fall) is first heard it’s broken up on three lines so that the number of letters on each line corresponds to the gematria values for ‘father’, ‘pregnant mother’ and ‘son’, and so on.
And after all, Joyce was rather close with Yeats and would have been aware of the upsurge of ‘Hermetic’ philosophy of the era.
He is conflating two different things. That doesn’t mean they aren’t both real. I don’t see why you ignore the perfectly natural desire to be recognized for your accomplishments in non-financial **in addition to **financial ways. Conflating isn’t disguising his desire. He has two desires that are both being expressed through the salary.
I think that made it perfectly clear. Both desires are valid.
Many people like having a certificate of appreciation or a cake and balloons party. And employers give them for a reason, not just because they’re soft wishy-washy dummies. They give them because productivity and retention and other direct, hard, quantifiable, benifits are connected to employee happiness and happiness is connected to recognition.
Just look at this case. To me it looks like his employer could pay Lobsang much less money if he also did something nice for him, like a cake and balloons party. That would be smart business and make everyone better off.
I agree with this. Lobsang’s problem is that he isn’t separating out the two desires. Money and recognition are two related, but different, problems. As long as he sees them both being expressed through the raise, he won’t be able to act the right way. He’s better off understanding the financial issue as a financial issue and understanding the recognition issue as a (probably) non-financial one.
And I AM that fat, black bitch–I want equal time!
Not really.
Just to mess with FinnAgain, I want to add that you betcha “el” means name of God–and look at MY name: ELeanor. Just sayin’. (I have read Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man–which I liked- and Ulysses. Someday I’ll read FW. Someday…)
But he hasn’t expressed any desire for one, even after I asked him if he did.
I think you see my point.
He has clearly expressed a desire for recognition. I don’t see how he could express it any more clearly. That he didn’t respond to your semi-snarky example about cake and balloons doesn’t mean the desire isn’t there. It’s obvious he wants recognition in whatever form he can get it.
Lobsang, here’s my question for you. Suppose your employer did recognize and appreciate you - an award certificate, a public award ceremony, a better cubicle, a new title, more deference to your opinions, etc. If that happened, would you be okay with the financial side of it? That’s where the rubber hits the road.
There’s comparing what one might want and what one is likely to get and then weighing whether it’s worth it to enter a spiral of self destruction over it. Yes, he might want “recognition,” but stepping back a bit and looking at it less emotionally, he might make a decision on a more rational basis, valuing his time, effort, financial status, physical health, and other factors more heavily than a need for recognition. He might also find that the compensation he gets for the non-emotional factors is actually more valuable to him than “recognition.”
We’re more or less in agreement - the only thing I object to is your use of words like “rational”. Wanting recognition is rational and deserves just as much thought and calculation as wanting money.
And that’s my last word… I’m done with this hyar thread.