Rant thread

[Farmduck]

20th anniversary of the minimum wage? In NSW we've had a minimum wage since 1902.

Quote

senior nurse at Ward Sister level in charge of a complex ward and the treatment of very ill people graded at Band 7 (£31-£41k)

In OZ that's the starter wage for Registered Nurse with no supervisory role. GBP 36,460

https://www.livingin-australia.com/registered-nurse-salary-australia/

[Oxford]

56 minutes ago, ckn said:

just a good old equality rant.

Anything else is a waste of time, breath and typing fingers usage.

 

58 minutes ago, ckn said:

A perfect example are MPs voting to give themselves large pay rises "because they deserve it" while in the same month voting to keep benefits low, or actually cutting them.

Or very rich Americans getting the lion's share of tax cuts to help them through these difficult periods.

If the Tories win the next election with anything like a majority that'll be the next manifesto, agenda policy.

Personally I'm still waiting for the trickle down to reach me!

[getdownmonkeyman]

3 hours ago, Oxford said:

Anything else is a waste of time, breath and typing fingers usage.

 

Or very rich Americans getting the lion's share of tax cuts to help them through these difficult periods.

If the Tories win the next election with anything like a majority that'll be the next manifesto, agenda policy.

Personally I'm still waiting for the trickle down to reach me!

The trickle ran dry at the end of the 1%

[Oxford]

2 hours ago, getdownmonkeyman said:

The trickle ran dry at the end of the 1%

1% sounds like a flood to me!

Happy New Year everyone!

Edited December 31, 2017 by Oxford

[Bleep1673]

2 hours ago, Oxford said:

Happy New Year everyone!

WAIT! Just because Duckie hasn't done a thread yet, doesn't mean there won't be one.

[Oxford]

9 hours ago, Bleep1673 said:

WAIT! Just because Duckie hasn't done a thread yet, doesn't mean there won't be one.

We're only a minute way into 2018 give him a chance!

On another note that new Lions chairman looks like a good find just been reading his notes ... excellent stuff.

But my official rant for today 1st Jan. 2018 is the season hasn't kicked off yet, what's that all about?

[Farmduck]

11 hours ago, Bleep1673 said:

WAIT! Just because Duckie hasn't done a thread yet, doesn't mean there won't be one.

Am I the fat lady whose appearance signals the official end of the section? OK then:

 

[Bleep1673]

Iran or UK

Corruption

Extensive inflation

Unusable wages

High Unemployment rates, as much as 60% in some areas

Revolution in Iran, while we sit with our thumbs up our butts, being British.

[Farmduck]

I just read a comments thread on YouTube and even the Nazis are splitting into factions. I've been observing Alt-Right trends for a while and I believe the Alt-Right is a fiction of the media's imagination - it exists but it is so fragmented and so small that to consider it a meaningful threat is absurd. (I'm talking about the USA. In a 2-party State, minority parties have no hope. It's only in countries like Italy or Israel where Governments are usually made up of coalitions of up to 4 or 5 parties that minority parties get any real pull.)

I watched an Evalion video, she's changed over the years from a devout Hitlerite in her teens to more of a Strasserite, now that she's married. Her commenters range from your basic "Hitler is God" crowd through Giovanni Gentile to your National Syndicalists to your Revolutionary Fascist (Mosleyite structure w/policies similar to the Manifesto of Verona and National Syndicalism).

I had to copy/paste that last bit because I'd never heard of it. What happened to the good ole days when you could just shave your head, buy a few brown shirts, get a copy of Mein Kampf and just start bashing non-whites on trains? Nazism was intended to be the last refuge of the hopelessly retarded, just like any normal cult. If I wanted to learn stuff and do my own thinking, why would I be joining a cult in the first place?

Damn modern world!! Everything's gotta be so complicated.

[kiyan]

I think I have just been mugged off by my 3 elderly neighbours! All are widows and I am happy to look out for them all but got a call today saying next door had been ill all Christmas (widow she may be but she has attentive children.  grand children and now great grand kids) and she  said I would love some of your soup. 

So pan on, lamb curry veg soup, made some fresh bread  d and as soon as it was in the oven the poorly 89 year old hopped in her car and off down the shops saying " will it be ready when I get back?"

All 3 got a saucepan of thick lamb curry soup and a third of a freshly baked loaf each!

Edited January 2, 2018 by kiyan

[ckn]

5 minutes ago, kiyan said:

I think I have just been mugged off by my 3 elderly neighbours! All are widows and I am happy to look out for them all but got a call today saying next door had been ill all Christmas (widow she may be but she has attentive children.  grand children and now great grand kids) and she  said I would love some of your soup. 

So pan on, lamb curry veg soup, made some fresh bread  d and as soon as it was in the oven the poorly 89 year old hopped in her car and off down the shops saying " will it be ready when I get back?"

All 3 got a saucepan of thick lamb curry soup and a third of a freshly baked loaf each!

Turn that round the other way, your lonely old neighbours like spending time with you so much that they're trying to get more of your time.  Plus your cooking is obviously better than they're used to so are giving you quite a good complement!

Also, it's a nice community spirit thing to do! 

Well done that man.

[Robin Evans]

My best mate and I oft refer to each other in what some may describe as ausive names. He oft refers to me as "fatty" and regularly "fat b'sard/fat 2@"etc. He gets similar guff from myself.

Now..... he's my best mate and has permission to take that liberty.... it's a reciprocal arrangement.

So, when friends of his next door neighbour, whom I've met only twice called me fat b'sard, they got a broadside. I advised them they didn't know me and shouldn't assume they could use those terms to me

Well..... did he get the monk on? Morngy bug ger didn't speak for an hour..... just sat n sulked. 

[groundhopper]

suggest you move to kiyan's street and learn to cook

[Phil]

On 31/12/2017 at 11:37 AM, ckn said:

2018 will be the 20th anniversary of the minimum wage, if wage inflation for minimum wage workers had kept up with that of executive salaries then it'd be £12.74 an hour rather than £7.50.

Qualifying statement: before I write this rant, I'd like to point out that I have been at at least manager grade since 1991, with good periods at senior and very senior manager grades.  There's nothing about jealousy in this post at all, just a good old equality rant.

Onto the rant itself.

Why does being a "manager" or "executive" entitle people to higher pay?  Surely managing people is just a skill like all other workplace skills?  Why should a world-class engineer get paid less than their manager, or manager's manager, who may struggle to replace a fuse in a plug.

I think that somewhere down the line there was a failure to split the historical owner/manager into "owner" who took personal financial risks and "manager" who just managed staff but had no personal stake in the company.  Instead, "owner" stepped out into shareholders and "managers" kept the pay anyway.

I worked at one place where they did a complete salary review globally.  The outcome was that no grade should ever be paid more than the grade above, that ALL managers down to team-leader level were at least a band above the non-managerial staff, and entire departments were graded within one pay structure.  So, you had very junior IT Helpdesk team leaders of 6 call handlers getting paid more than the highest skilled techies in the company.  Also, anyone not a defined line manager was banned from calling themselves "manager", so project managers and programme managers managing 9-figure projects with 200-500 staff on them were banned from calling themselves "manager" on the pain of disciplinary action.  All so that senior management could fellate each other over being above their underlings.

Even in the NHS, the much-vaunted "Agenda for Change" is meant to grade people based on skills and objective criteria.  Designed by committee and approved by people who got very scared at what properly objective review would mean for how much they had to pay.  You can have a senior nurse at Ward Sister level in charge of a complex ward and the treatment of very ill people graded at Band 7 (£31-£41k), but the IT department of that same hospital will grade a junior IT team leader at the same band.  The grading handbook for new posts is a massive thing with sorts of things getting "points" towards a higher grade and they're hopelessly biased towards basic staff management being significantly more valuable than any other skill.

Then you get pay.  Managers at board level recognise each other as highly diligent, skilled professionals and they need to keep increasing their salary above inflation to ensure they attract the best talent, anyone not a manager further down the food-chain obviously isn't as important therefore they can get away with an inflationary rise.  I left one company in 2007, I saw that my old job was being advertised earlier this year yet the salary band hadn't changed in a decade, the company had been publicly complaining about the tough global market keeping salaries down, all while the money the partnership level took home doubled from an average of £1m to an average of £2m in that decade, more junior lawyers had also benefited but not to the same extent, anyone not a lawyer has had to put up with a decade of wage stagnation.

A perfect example are MPs voting to give themselves large pay rises "because they deserve it" while in the same month voting to keep benefits low, or actually cutting them.

Everybody where I work gets the same hourly rate, whether they sweep the warehouse floor or prepare the management accounts. 

We’ve never made any redundancies in our 40 year history and we recruit year on year. 

It works, management being paid huge amounts for managing is a myth perpetrated by managers. 

[ckn]

29 minutes ago, Phil said:

Everybody where I work gets the same hourly rate, whether they sweep the warehouse floor or prepare the management accounts. 

We’ve never made any redundancies in our 40 year history and we recruit year on year. 

It works, management being paid huge amounts for managing is a myth perpetrated by managers. 

You wouldn't happen to be opening an office near Ipswich (or anywhere near Essex, Suffolk or Norfolk, to be flexible), would you?

[Bleep1673]

Sorry, forgive me, but all these numpties who are complaining about their annual rail season ticket price rise, that was announced in November, couldn't they trek down to their local station, say, December 29th, and update their season ticket at last year's prices? Why did they wait until today, when the prices had gone up?
Idiots.

[Phil]

34 minutes ago, ckn said:

You wouldn't happen to be opening an office near Ipswich (or anywhere near Essex, Suffolk or Norfolk, to be flexible), would you?

Nearest to them is Greenford which is basically a distribution depot, sorry ? 

[Bearman]

 

The Council didnt collect our recyclable rubbish on Saturday ( they had changed it to Sat from the usual Fri). Its a 2 weekly collection.

As it was Christmas week my bin was full so I put some of mine into next doors bin. During the night her bin blew over.  My rubbish was blown all down the road so I felt obliged to go and pick it up.

They all ways tell us to leave the bins out and they will collect next day if we are misssed. The office opens at 9 this morning so I will be trying to get through first thing.

Blodoy Council!

[Mark S]

1 hour ago, Bearman said:

 

The Council didnt collect our recyclable rubbish on Saturday ( they had changed it to Sat from the usual Fri). Its a 2 weekly collection.

As it was Christmas week my bin was full so I put some of mine into next doors bin. During the night her bin blew over.  My rubbish was blown all down the road so I felt obliged to go and pick it up.

They all ways tell us to leave the bins out and they will collect next day if we are misssed. The office opens at 9 this morning so I will be trying to get through first thing.

Blodoy Council!

5

Due to the wind overnight our street resembled a landfill this morning, as we all put our bins out but they weren't emptied.

 

[Bob8]

On 12/31/2017 at 12:37 PM, ckn said:

2018 will be the 20th anniversary of the minimum wage, if wage inflation for minimum wage workers had kept up with that of executive salaries then it'd be £12.74 an hour rather than £7.50.

Qualifying statement: before I write this rant, I'd like to point out that I have been at at least manager grade since 1991, with good periods at senior and very senior manager grades.  There's nothing about jealousy in this post at all, just a good old equality rant.

Onto the rant itself.

Why does being a "manager" or "executive" entitle people to higher pay?  Surely managing people is just a skill like all other workplace skills?  Why should a world-class engineer get paid less than their manager, or manager's manager, who may struggle to replace a fuse in a plug.

I think that somewhere down the line there was a failure to split the historical owner/manager into "owner" who took personal financial risks and "manager" who just managed staff but had no personal stake in the company.  Instead, "owner" stepped out into shareholders and "managers" kept the pay anyway.

I worked at one place where they did a complete salary review globally.  The outcome was that no grade should ever be paid more than the grade above, that ALL managers down to team-leader level were at least a band above the non-managerial staff, and entire departments were graded within one pay structure.  So, you had very junior IT Helpdesk team leaders of 6 call handlers getting paid more than the highest skilled techies in the company.  Also, anyone not a defined line manager was banned from calling themselves "manager", so project managers and programme managers managing 9-figure projects with 200-500 staff on them were banned from calling themselves "manager" on the pain of disciplinary action.  All so that senior management could fellate each other over being above their underlings.

Even in the NHS, the much-vaunted "Agenda for Change" is meant to grade people based on skills and objective criteria.  Designed by committee and approved by people who got very scared at what properly objective review would mean for how much they had to pay.  You can have a senior nurse at Ward Sister level in charge of a complex ward and the treatment of very ill people graded at Band 7 (£31-£41k), but the IT department of that same hospital will grade a junior IT team leader at the same band.  The grading handbook for new posts is a massive thing with sorts of things getting "points" towards a higher grade and they're hopelessly biased towards basic staff management being significantly more valuable than any other skill.

Then you get pay.  Managers at board level recognise each other as highly diligent, skilled professionals and they need to keep increasing their salary above inflation to ensure they attract the best talent, anyone not a manager further down the food-chain obviously isn't as important therefore they can get away with an inflationary rise.  I left one company in 2007, I saw that my old job was being advertised earlier this year yet the salary band hadn't changed in a decade, the company had been publicly complaining about the tough global market keeping salaries down, all while the money the partnership level took home doubled from an average of £1m to an average of £2m in that decade, more junior lawyers had also benefited but not to the same extent, anyone not a lawyer has had to put up with a decade of wage stagnation.

A perfect example are MPs voting to give themselves large pay rises "because they deserve it" while in the same month voting to keep benefits low, or actually cutting them.

It is peculiar that I think historical ideas of class still dominate the thinking in pay.  

I did a PhD in a scientific subject and then got work at 24K.  While doing the PhD, I helped run a charitable student society, that meant had I gone to a public school, I could well have started work at Oxfam at 36K

There is still a large class element in reaching upper management in the UK and selecting by criteria other than ability boosts the wages.  Equally, the academic areas that are seen as more working class (science and engineering) will have an artificial pressure ot keep them low as it is seen as more appropriate.  

It is only since leaving the UK that I really see it as stark in teh UK.

[Saintslass]

People on here like to have a go at me for one reason or another, but my tendency towards scepticism when it comes to the motives of the human race are often validated, such as when this obnoxious individual not only steals a debit card from a seriously injured woman who is lying near her dying granddaughter but then proceeds to spend her money, sharing the card with another who also felt able to spend the injured woman's money.  To top it off, the obnoxious individual then portrays himself as a hero and loads of money is raised for him by suckers. Thankfully he didn't see a penny of the money.  Hopefully he will spend some time behind bars, not least for committing a criminal act against a severely injured woman who lay beside her dying granddaughter.

What a hideous individual.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Saintslass

[ckn]

On the subject of homeless people...

[ckn]

The average FTSE 100 Chief Executive will have already earned the UK's average wage this year.

[MattSantos]

32 minutes ago, ckn said:

The average FTSE 100 Chief Executive will have already earned the UK's average wage this year.

Woof. Really?

Is it a rant though? Shareholders prerogative and all that?

[ckn]

5 minutes ago, MattSantos said:

Woof. Really?

Is it a rant though? Shareholders prerogative and all that?

The Guardian say it's lunchtime, I heard on the news this morning that it was late morning.

Most publicly listed companies have rules that shareholders get virtually no say in executive remuneration for a set year.