2 weeks notice life lesson

Shit is real out there for sure. I am convinced the average HR person is as competent as a grocery bagger that puts the bread in with the canned goods.

I've been looking for a new job. I've had a few interviews. So far no one wants to pay... like the same pay as last time I was looking 5 years ago. The HR people are clueless with regard to benefits. They say things like "competitive total compensation package" but have no idea how the retirement, vacation, or fringe works. As an older worker, I'm not starting at the bottom. Somehow some Fortune 500 companies think that an experienced and proven worker is going to accept 2 weeks of vacation and minimal retirement.

One place got pretty close... negotiated to a $30k hit between salary and retirement (I get 13% company match which I know is rare) and up to 25 days of vacation (I get 30). I told them if they coughed up another $10k in base salary I'd bite but nope. So they ended up going with someone internally that cost way more than I was asking and has none of the skills I have (not kidding, hiring manager said so). That person hasn't accepted yet, the only reason they wanted it is because they're capped in their current role and the job has a higher salary. So it's not that they couldn't pay me more, the compensation department just chose not to despite what the whole food chain of the hiring manager said. They kept increasing the signing bonus which meh? $15k doesn't even buy a used car these days. Kind of got a bad feeling from the HR person even though the whole team was awesome.

Had the same exact experience with Quicken Loans a million years ago.

NAPA did the same thing to a friend of mine, hired then ghosted them and claimed the HR manager left when he finally got through. Then they ghosted him again after sending him through the process and saying that they were hired.

wrath said:

Shit is real out there for sure. I am convinced the average HR person is as competent as a grocery bagger that puts the bread in with the canned goods.

Click to expand...

That is an accurate assessment. They also are all coming out of the same liberal HR brainwashing schools and setting policy accordingly. We used to have 2 HR people, then we bought another company of equal size that was more 'corporate' and now we have 8 or so HR people. I swear they just think up policy to validate their jobs.

They have 0 connection to what we in the field are doing, and making policy that directly affects us. I have lost perks every year.

We pushed back and won last year, but this year I think the sales and management staff will lose.

Examples: for decades spouses if needed, could drive our company vehicle because we pay for personal use - that is gone this year. It wouldn't normally be a big deal, but my wifes daily has historically been our tow rig. If I need the tow rig then she would take the company truck to work. Additionally, they took towing away from us as well. The 'personal use' is being so restricted on many levels that it is not personal use anymore.

Same with firearms: We do company hunts, and take customers hunting and shooting. They have now said we cannot have a firearm in the vehicle, no matter how legal it is. Most of the sales staff have CPL's. We go to sketchy areas, unlike the office staff.

In reality it is first world problems, but longer term staff is getting pretty fed up with losing a little every year. These are probably some of the more minor things, a more major example is they screw with our bonus structure almost every year now, and it is obviously a ploy to get out of paying it to us. They want huge growth in a niche market all while not investing to actually get the growth they want.

Unfortunately the niche market I am in makes it pretty hard to jump to a new company, as that means starting all over. Starting all over to a new company on training means a pretty big wage/benefit cut to the guy they are onboarding.

Last I counted we had 249 people in our HR department, including 1 SVP and 2 VPs. 53 of those people are flagged as "management". My executive director has 221 technical and professional staff. The VP my executive director reports to has ~1600 people. Modern HR policy is that no supervisor should have less than 4 reports at any level and the ideal band is 6-11 subordinates. Our HR department has no person with 6-11 subordinates.

My experience with HR people is that they aren't paid real well. They also don't work real hard and don't really know much. So they don't understand why they don't get paid much which since they see Engineers making 2x as much they wonder why and decided to just loosely go through the motions doing the minimum to not get terminated. The ones that do like to do good work don't stick around long. HR is one department I've never understood why companies don't outsource. They're rarely worth their weight in asphalt millings and they're a dime a dozen to replace.