Do you feel bad for him?

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Ha!

Co-worker complaining her home appraisal came in low and didn't allow her to get an additional home equity loan.

She also has: a boat loan, 2 car loans, snowmobile loan, current home equity loan for a 40k unattached garage with full bar, heating/AC, etc.

She also wants to redo her master bath....again.

Conversations in the middle east where everyone is "tax free" and gets allowances for housing, schools, flights and utilities

Imevitably every time you go for a drink.....

"I've saved nothing. I can't believe that x is flying first class to y........."

X in this instance is probably one of the top endocrinologists in the world, ran one of the largest academic health systems in the world and the person complaining is, like me, middle to senior management...........

The only reason they even know them is there are only 70 westerners in the organiasation........

What i learnt was people like to fucking moan about anything. Tax free salary - moan about subsidised school fees. Paid for flights - complain its bus not first or econ not bus

Everyone likes to moan

I feel bad he only gets a 10K bonus

Not even a little bit.

Hmmmm... So he bitches about others making relatively more than him and then he says "I haven't had any motivation to help make these people money."
I wonder if he sees the ironic cause and effect here.

One of my pet peeves is when an employee comes to me asking for a significant raise and justifies it by saying "If you give me this raise I will work extra hard and make you more money than you give me".
Some people just don't understand how the world works.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

This.

I don't give a damn what other people make. It has no bearing on how I live my life.


Unsurprisingly, this guy was one of the Berniest of Berniacs for a while.

I had an employee at my previous company who was obsessed with what other people made, despite making fairly decent money himself. He'd bitch about our implementation consultants and PMs making more than him because he "knew the application inside and out, way better than them", ignoring the fact they were out there billing good money while he would refuse to take even one-night trips to do what would be lucrative installs for clients. Every year we'd give him bare minimum raises in comparison to some of my other reports because while he knew his stuff, he was a fucking PITA to manage and work with.

When the company got acquired and most of us started bailing out, someone got hold of a spreadsheet outlining what everyone in the company made, and ensured a copy found its way to him. He found that some other SA's who were hired after him were making between 20-50% more than him, but it was because they were willing to (and did) travel and take on projects to bring in consulting dollars. The ensuing shitfest - which is still kind of going on because he's now the last one from my team left there and blew his salary negotiation wad too early when the remaining workload fell on him - made for some quality entertainment.

I do, but I work in HR so its part of my job to care. People also fail to realize that those who make more generally also have tougher jobs. My job is a joke compared to the guy who works 14 days straight of 12 hr shifts.

What I do hate is when higher level employees complain about very minor things that negatively effect them and I really want to say "you still have it way better then the other 90% of our workforce" I'm talking pay, benefits, other perks, etc.

It is human nature to compare yourselves to others. It has always been helpful to me to compare to the less fortunate. One would think that after just being to the Virgin Islands it would at least take a couple of weeks before you started feeling hard done by.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I think he is upset that he hasn't been able to buy a new truck yet since the camper he bought last year is too big for his current truck.

 
People who talk about how much they make or don't make are very off-putting to me. I have one friend that just can't let it go, every damn conversation turns into how abused and underpaid he is as a teacher. I haven't broken the news to him that despite my wife and I living in a nice house and driving decent cars, he makes more than we do. Maybe one of these days I'll let it slip.

I was at our local playground with my kids. Parents were talking. Conversation went something like this:

Mom/Dad: "So do your kids go to school here?"

Me: "yeah, 1st and 4th"

Dad: "So are you close by?"

So this is a stupid question because the zone for the school is small so of course I live close by. What he is really asking me is do I live in the Village (high very high average home price ) or do I live west (nice suburban homes but not like that.).

Me: "yeah we walked here, isn't the weather great."

Stymied, Mom chimes in: "So what do you do?"

Me: "oh my wife is a teacher and I am a triathlete."

Mom: "you can make money doing that?"

Me: "sure, though she is only part-time."

Uncomfortable chuckle. I tell them I am just joking but leave it at that.

Dad: "Your wife is a teacher here, are you zoned to the school?"

Okay, so I told you we walked here. But now your head is exploding because as best you can tell I don't work and my wife is a part-time teacher. Did I pitch a tent on a vacant lot? Is there a nearby apartment they don't know about?

This would have gone on for 20 minutes if I didn't redirect. I tell them their children are good runners and must be athletic...

Idiotic is an accurate descriptor....

Trucks are funny.

One of my patients was complaining about the price of gas. He parks right out front so I see the Ford 350 or something like that with the dual wheels on the back. So I say maybe if you got a smaller truck? He says I need it to pull my camper. "How often do you do that?" Once in the spring to bring to the trailer park and once in the fall to bring it back."

Another guy complaining he is so tired. "Why so tired?' "I am working a lot of overtime shifts?' "Why?" "To pay for my truck which cost 60K" (this is ten years ago) "Wow that must be a great truck, what do you do with it?" "Not much I don't have time to do anything but drive it back and forth to work what with all the overtime shifts"

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I own a 2003 F150. I do so because I love driving a truck. I don't have anything to pull with it(yet), but I also plan to keep this truck around for awhile. I don't need the newest and greatest of anything. I want what's functional.

And my fiance likes that she can slide over and sit in the middle seat when I drive it. It's a win for everybody.

Whatever happened to that employee of yours who seemed to have no motivation? The one who, if I recall correctly, clocked in early, clocked out late, didn't clock out for breaks, etc. If I recall the conversation (it was probably at least a year ago), you didn't want to let him go, but were on the verge. What happened to that guy?

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War is god

"...totally inaccurate..." My apologies. I was going purely from memory. How long ago was that?

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War is god

The dude did his job, would be difficult to replace (trust and training) but for some reason was paid hourly. A 30 minute trip to a store to get parts could take 2-3 hours due to his social nature. Likewise, he would linger around jobs being on the clock significantly more hours than the work actually took. How's this recollection?

Instead of hourly, I think he should then and now have some sort of performance/ production reimbursement. I pay Project Managers that can handle 10+ projects effectively more than the ones that handle 4-6 irrespective of hours worked.

My family of origin's poormouthing is one of the main reasons I moved 6 hours away. One of the favorite things to do is to whine about how my two cousins, both teachers, can't buy a house (they've been living in the same apartment they rented when they got married in '95 or '96). Since public employees salaries are online, I can see that there has never been a year since we've had kids that those two haven't outearned my husband and I. I don't know what they're doing with their money, but to say they can't afford a house is pure bull. And for two people to sit on the sidelines during the greatest buying opportunity in 25 years (the housing bust) when they had dry power is just dumb.

Good luck with that. As soon as you buy something to pull you are going to find out that wimpy little F150 isn't gonna cut the mustard. Then you get to join us in the diesel truck crowd and really have something you don't need!

Co-worker to another co-worker trying to sell his old holiday trailer 10 minutes after I was supposed to go for lunch...

Hey "Joe", (apparently now a used RV salesman) are you going for lunch?

Me: He may as well go on my break, I've been answering his phone calls for the last 10 minutes...