PART 9 - Your Career Arc through the Alberta downturn

[SKR]

Has anybody ever offered to take a lower salary to try to keep from being laid off? I'd rather take 80% than 0%, but I'd also like to not draw any negative attention to myself.

[ExtraSlow]

Never done it, but I'd offer to work part time instead of reduced $/hr.

[SKR]

What would your reasoning be there? One concern I'd have is that if I took 80%, I might never get back to 100%. Is that why you'd rather a reduction in hours?

[ExtraSlow]

My reasoning is that the value of your work hasn't changed, so you should get paid as much for the work you are doing. But if your company isn't busy, you work fewer days. Once it's busy, and they have the work, it's easy to increase your hours again.

I think taking a 20% pay cut and still working five days a week is something you'll have an incredibly hard time getting back from.

In my career, I've had both done to me involuntarily, and I sure felt better about extra days off than a straight pay cut working the same number of hours.

[lasimmon]

I took a 10% cut once and only worked 9 days every 2 weeks. I distinctly told them if they were only going to pay me 90% of what I was worth to them I would only work 90% of the time for them, which eventually led to the 1 day off every 2 weeks.

Would never take a cut and keep working the same amount.

[The_Rural_Juror]

Taking a pay cut doesn't make sense sometimes because you end up doing the same job in less time.

[ExtraSlow]

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I took a 10% cut once and only worked 9 days every 2 weeks.

Would never take a cut and keep working the same amount.

Well, never voluntarily. If your option is a 10% cut or quitting, you'd take it. I mean ideally we'd all work full hours for full pay, but that's not always a choice.

[88CRX]

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Well, never voluntarily. If your option is a 10% cut or quitting, you'd take it. I mean ideally we'd all work full hours for full pay, but that's not always a choice.

Well that sounds like a fucking fun conversation to have!

"So uh.... like... uh... I'm not taking a paycut for the same hours. Unless you're going to fire me, then I'll take anything."

[pheoxs]

I'd offer to cut my hours before I cut pay, always. Tbh for the majority office people I bet you could cut 20% of their hours and they'd still get their work done so it could be savings for the company. Getting more hours 6 months from now when stuff picks up is wayyyyyy easier than ever getting a 20% raise back.

[lasimmon]

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Well that sounds like a fucking fun conversation to have!

"So uh.... like... uh... I'm not taking a paycut for the same hours. Unless you're going to fire me, then I'll take anything."

Depends how valuable you are to your company.

[killramos]

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Depends how valuable you are to your company.

This is the only thing that matters

[SKR]

Edit, since there's a lot more posts now.

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My reasoning is that the value of your work hasn't changed, so you should get paid as much for the work you are doing. But if your company isn't busy, you work fewer days. Once it's busy, and they have the work, it's easy to increase your hours again.

I think taking a 20% pay cut and still working five days a week is something you'll have an incredibly hard time getting back from.

In my career, I've had both done to me involuntarily, and I sure felt better about extra days off than a straight pay cut working the same number of hours.

I see.

There's not really anything to cut hours from, since we're on breakup and nothing is running. Even if something was running, I'm on call 24/7 and I don't know how to cut 20% of that.

[SKR]

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Well, never voluntarily. If your option is a 10% cut or quitting, you'd take it. I mean ideally we'd all work full hours for full pay, but that's not always a choice.

That's the boat I think I'm in, except layoffs instead of quitting. I work in the field on call so if there's work to do they're going to make me do it. I don't think that part of it is negotiable. On the other hand, if there's no work then both my pay and my hours will be cut to 0% so it won't matter.

Anyway, I just wondered if that's something people do or if they'd look at you like you had two heads.

[ExtraSlow]

yeah, I guess your job is a lot different than anything I've done, @SKR .
I've had basically every possible combination of these over the years. Pay cuts, bonuses unpaid, expenses unpaid, commissions unpaid, involuntary part-time, involuntary unpaid fridays off (that was the best, was just for one summer)

Plus layoffs too. That's the worst of the bunch.

[SKR]

I called my boss and offered, he said just to wait. No percentages were discussed, but he said there was no sense volunteering a bigger cut than what they're going to force us to take.

For 10 months of the year all I think about is how awesome breakup is going to be, now it's here and it's ruined by Russians and Arabs and bat soup.

[revelations]

In the SMB, IT contract support side, I am always much busier when things get volatile.

People get laid off, I get called into remove their accounts, etc.

People want to work from home, I get calls for remote access setup,. etc.

People want to up size or downsize in times like this, I get requests for moves and re-setups.

[vengie]

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I called my boss and offered, he said just to wait. No percentages were discussed, but he said there was no sense volunteering a bigger cut than what they're going to force us to take.

For 10 months of the year all I think about is how awesome breakup is going to be, now it's here and it's ruined by Russians and Arabs and bat soup.

+ rep, haven’t enjoyed a breakup in 5 years...

[ExtraSlow]

Stressful as hell.

[The_Rural_Juror]

My boss just added me to Linkedin after some years. I fully expect to receive some news soon.

[phreezee]