On 07/11/2015 07:02 AM, Rajesh Mehar wrote:
Hey again Bruce!
Thanks for reviving this thread. I've had a similarly non-linear career
path up until now.
Nowadays, I'm more hesitant to make creative leaps across competencies
because there's a pervasive idea that people who are new to a particular
industry should earn less than people who've held similar jobs all their
lives.
Did you ever face that? Or did you manage to somehow earn more and more
money even though you were doing newer things?
Oh yeah. I enjoyed a steady reduction in inflation-adjusted pay from the
technical editors position to today, when I'm essentially a volunteer.
But I've also seen the other side of this coin -- where people from
outside the company, outside the field, are brought in at wages above
those of incumbent co-workers when they haven't a clue about how the
business works. True, most have shiny new MBAs, but that doesn't qualify
them to manage front-line employees or understand why the company does
business the way it does. Slather that with a corporate philosophy that
encourages experimentation (even if prior tries of the same ideas have
failed miserably), and you have a formula for massive discontent in the
front (customer-facing) ranks, and a high turnover.
New voices and fresh ideas are always needed, but there seems to be a
complete disconnect between benefit to the company and salary offered,
and the higher in rank one goes, the worse this disconnect becomes. "His
last company paid him $2.5million, he must be able to do well here!"
I see this as the willful abdication of decision-making. It's easy to
give a numerical ranking to applicants based on former salary; it's hard
to rank them according to what value they might offer to *your* company.
Numeric rankings are easy to defend, avoid legal liabilities (of great
value in this litigious society), and require no application of brains,
which may not be available in any event due to prior application of this
approach.
Thinking is hard. Making good choices is hard. Making good choices
without thinking is impossible.
Cheers,
Bruce
