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The place I work has had an amazing 5~10 years. Constantly surpassing prior revenue “far and beyond what we expected”. And yet, annual raises are capped at 3%. No matter how well the company is doing, nobody gets a raise higher than 3%. 7% inflation? Fuck you, here’s 3%. Management wildly speculates about the coming year, and misses targets? Fuck you, here’s 1.5%. Sure, the company grew wildly last year, but not as wildly as they predicted, and they just can’t afford raises this year.
Coupled with all this growth meant a hiring spree. As the company grew, it seemed like there were always new faces walking around.
Then, the rug pull. Their #1 customer (about 50% of the business) announced they wouldn’t buy anything in 2024. Management found out in September. Before announcing anything, management forces everyone to sign a non-compete agreement. Nobody is allowed to go to work for a competitor, supplier, partner, customer, or start a new business in the same sector for 2 years after leaving the company. The agreement is filled with scary clauses such as forcing the ex-employee to pay all of the company’s legal fees in the event of a disagreement.
Once everyone signs (a few people left instead of signing), they announce the loss, and say that a lot of people will lose their job in 6 weeks. December 23rd. Christmas. This is painted as the CEO being generous in letting everyone know ahead of time, so they can make arrangements. Actually, it’s their legal obligation (look up the WARN act).
Remember that surge in hiring? Some of those people had only been with the company a few months. Some of them came from our competitors. Suddenly, they’re out of a job, plus they just signed an agreement that’s going to probably force them to move to get another one.
Yes, I know, non-competes are generally unenforceable, but that’s not the purpose. Because they’re not enforceable, they’re written to scare employees into not testing the company’s resolve if they ever leave or are fired. Someone suddenly out of work usually won’t take on that risk.
So yes, I’m a little radical now. I don’t hide it, I’m the “office socialist”. And I found out I’m not alone.
Always check with a Lawyer first. This is not legal advice. I am yelling from a rooftop into the air.
ahem
Non-compete agreements often have tagged on bullshit meant to sound scary! A lot of that bullshit cannot be enforced and can be ignored with impunity. In fact, there is often legal precedence to back this up. NEVER assume signing a contract means you are stuck by its terms as the contract must also be legal in scope.
Thankfully in the US the FTC just banned non-compete agreements
It should be mention that to actually get fired is also a lengthy process where it’s on the employer to document e.g. unwillingness to perform assigned work and prove the employee has been given the opportunity to improve etc. etc… You can’t just tell someone they’re fired, get out, or you’d be in a world of hurt.
At least that’s how it is in Norway and I assume Germany is similar in such regards.
Yes. You need a very good reason to fire someone. When a large company is doing layoffs they negotiate with the unions about how to make it as painless as possible for the employees. That usually involves extra compensation, training etc. Note though, that this doesn’t apply to small companies below 30 employees. They can fire you pretty much any time. You’ll still get unemployment benefit and health insurance of course.
Smaller companies still cant fire you any time, they have to have a valid reason as well.
My first job was working in a property management company. At one point i was tasked to check all flats of a new property that got assigned to us, after the client bought it. I had to go through 30 flats in a day, to assess if there is legal possibilities for increasing the rent of people within the legal limits, based on the condition of the flat.
Going through the personal space of so many people in a single day, having to deflect about what the purpose of this is, being met with worry and hostility… There being the guy who took the day off, so he could assist his old mother, because she would have been overwhelmed if by herself. The guys who had a strongly water damaged flat in the ground floor, but me already knowing that our client will avoid any investment. The old couple where the guy kept yelling at me and his wife trying to calm him down…
This was just wrong. And now like a decade later i still remember some of the people and their flats, even though i couldn’t remember a single name.
Peoples homes shouldn’t be subjected to a profit maximizing market.
Not in workplace, but seeing older people in my country fetishizing suffering and injuries during work, and thus them throwing a temper tantrum every time workplace conditions improved, or the worst thing: not getting covered in oil during office work, and blaming said office workers for economic downturns for “being a deadweight on the economy”, and effectively calling them not workers. All while fetishizing CEOs of companies that do “real work” because they sometimes photo themselves in a designer-made “dirty” worker’s clothing (which costs like thousands of dollars) on the construction site.
One of the most ghoulistic such incident was under a news report of a female employee cutting her finger off at a quite infamous Hungarian supermarket franchise, and how her bosses didn’t let her to leave for the hospital. One such boomer said it was right for her bosses to stay, because it’s just a “minor injury”, and scars from it would be cool to show for crying little boys that injured themselves during play. Everyone but other boomers bodied him, but you have to remember our country is being shaped for these very boomers that won’t live for very long, but are insisting on passing their trauma onto the younger generations.
Worked in insurance for 9 months. Was treated like absolute shit, got paid way too little, and was told profits were what mattered, not the good of the patients. Came out of that job so broken and jaded.
This is the thirteenth year of my illustrious career in accounting. You really get to see the dark underbelly of humanity.
I used to be a social person.
Now I’m a misanthropic agoraphobe who generally avoids human interaction to the fullest extent possible.
Fifty percent of this is the people I work for and the general environment, the other fifty percent is how dishonest and abusive the clients can be.
Anytime you’re dealing with somebody’s personal finances, it gets ugly. I’m sure that insurance has parallels to my experience.
As someone who spent weeks trying and failing to hire an accountant, this explains a lot.
Starting at my first job and being promised a 90 day review and pay increase. Only to he told at 90 days that they’ve changed the policy going forwards.
Promises are worth jack shit is they are not in the contract. And this is true in Europe too
My peer was let go last year, and they received their full benefit package for a year, two weeks pay for each year of service (he had 28 years of service, so 14 months pay) and a “lump sum” of $15,000. He was in management, but everyone who was laid off got the same deal which included many individual contributors.
From what I have seen and heard there are many American companies that do this, the problem is that there is no law or other regulation that says they must. It should be this way for everyone, no matter who your employer is.
From what I have seen and heard there are many American companies that do this
There aren’t. Unless it’s a highly organized layoff involving unions, they typically just fire people now because layoffs have rules.
The last bit is somewhat similar to Sweden. There is no minimum wage in Sweden as it is negotiated between unions and employers. Employers could easily fire an employee as compromise of this deal, I suppose. However, a fired employee receives training from union to help with finding a new job.
Being informed that “from now on, we’ll use Microsoft development tools” because our branch in $other_country decided to.
Soon after that, I informed the boss that I’d wrap my projects up (using development tools of my choosing) during the subsequent year, and then leave, and support the projects in future as a subcontractor.
So I went and started my one-person-company. It was hard, but so far it has worked.
