BoyBurning":s07ukq3t said:
Maybe Marky, but...
...very, very few of the private sector workers I know have ever had the huge pay bonuses and perks etc. alluded to in this thread.
Many moons ago, now, I moved from a public sector job to a private sector job.
My reasons at the time were money and career progression - reward for skill and ability, that sort of thing - rather than aspiring to progress up some ageing, perhaps out-of-date, middle management structure, that was probably just there on ceremony as opposed to true required process or structure.
And in true, Norman Tebbit fashion I got on my bike - or more factually, got off my bike and into my car - but the sentiment was the same, leaving the metaphor intact, even if the devil wasn't in the detail.
So I effectively gave up a very good pension, but the company I then joined, also had a very good pension, albeit I would be paying more in contributions than I had in my previous public sector job.
The job I moved to was essentially the same type of skilled role (much the same type of work, no more responsibility or grandiosity). As part of that move, I did negotiate a little more money than I was currently earning - I effectively got a little on top (couple of k) of the gross of my existing salary+overtime/on-call payments from my previous job, as my base salary in my then new, shiny, private sector job.
Within a short period of working in that private sector job (less than a year), I was promoted with a pay rise - that was unprovoked or asked for by me (it was based on them wanting to try and keep me there and feeling threatened that I may choose to move on, at a key time when they felt they needed my (supplementary, at the time to the main type of work I was then employed for) new skills to their area - not that I'd made any overt comments or hints about moving anywhere - it was entirely their initiative, that at the time was something of a (albeit pleasant) surprise.
Within a couple of years, I was golden-handcuffed (read: a reasonable payment up front, to be followed by another, towards the end of that "vulnerable" period) again, just to keep me working there, and not leaving for somewhere else, during a period where the company was effectively up for sale. And once again, that was entirely unprovoked from my end - it was once again a complete - albeit very pleasant - surprise.
Not long after that, I was also golden-handcuffed over the Y2K period - again a payment up front, followed by another, some time later. And again, the rationale was the same - to try and keep me there (well not just me, individually, there were others, too, in both instances).
A couple of years later, I was also given an unsolicited pay raise (reasonably sizable) - I'd not asked or even hinted that I was clamouring for extra money. At that point, it was given on a "harmonisation" rationale - keeping various people on a par, within a bigger organisation (pay rates weren't public knowledge, anyways, so people would only have known what others were earning, if they discussed it in a Frank and Earnest fashion...). At the time, I found it quietly amusing that both my line manager and department manager both claimed it was their initiative to give me the rise, during semi-formal meetings with them, separately, where they both claimed credit for it.
Now it's not all been unsolicited bonuses and pay rises - in much of the last decade, things have dried up considerably - and none of those bonuses were any true comparison to the sorts of bonuses people talk about in, say, the banking or finance organisations.
All the same, it was a stark difference to the sorts of rewards I could expect - for the same type of work that I did in a public sector role (actually, the work I did in the public sector role, was probably more challenging).
That's not to say how much better I've found the private sector to the public sector. In truth, there's a fair part of me that looks back to my early days with more than nostalgia (but that's not really about the conditions or rewards, perhaps more the time, circumstance, and location). And true to form, the people I used to work with, are now themselves, private sector workers as they have been privatised and transitioned to work within private sector companies.
As to people pointing at the private sector, and maybe specifically the banking and finance industries, well surely they have a point. Being lectured that the private sector answers the inefficiencies of the public sector, when many public sector people have their roles, contributions, and rewards scrutinised and effectively targeted for attack, and in stark contrast, they can see the dynamic, example-setting, private sector example of the banking and finance industries - ones which are considered, largely, the jewel in the UK's industrial crown, and the epitome of an ideal business model - effectively fail under their own steam, but because they are so large, and involve the finances of so many, are considered too big to actually let fail...
When they then see that private sector principles don't always hold true - that the old market principle of living or failing on success doesn't always apply, and in some circumstances, the
public sector finances have to be used to such a huge degree to prop up private sector companies (to the degree they're now, pretty much, public sector "companies") - but uncannily, they seemed to find it hugely irritating that tax payers felt they had just cause to scrutinise and criticise come bonus season time. I suspect, the public sector posters, here, then probably find it quite galling to be told that the private sector answers all the ineffeciences and problems with their organisations.
But then I'm just hypothesising on behalf of the public sectors workers posting in this debate (shrug).
