NYS CON CON

tjf1967 wrote

If the system is sustainable I have no problem with it. But when I have to pay to fund another person's retirement there is something that does not sit well with me.

What's wrong with that?  Retirement is just one component of compensation.  Why would you object to paying retirement if you don't object to paying salary?  Do you expect people to work for free?

mm

campgottagopee wrote

MC2 5678F589 wrote

  job security.  

There's the other shoe. You can be one of the shittiest workers around but they can't get rid of you. Not sure how that benefits the tax payers at all.

There's some truth to that, and it's not good for anyone.  No one wants to fire anyone in the state because the one you want to fire might turn out to be the governor's nephew or a senator's back-up girlfriend.  Even the dumbest guys can have powerful friends.

The whole NY civil service system is dysfunctional and archaic.  Managers have very little choice about who they hire or promote, and the relationship between competence and promotions is pretty random.  Compensation is backloaded with pension benefits, so it's hard for a 45 year old with a few years service to justify leaving.  It's hard to find a private sector job unless you have very specific skills, but if you have specific skills it's very likely that the so-called ethics law will prevent you from using them for 2 years. It's all a recipe for low morale and career stagnation.    

mm

The problem with defined benefit pensions (like the State's) is that you lose most of the value of your pension if you take a job with a different employer.  401Ks solve that problem but add other problems.

Most young people don't save enough in their 401Ks, and don't invest aggressively enough to fund a reasonable retirement.  They cash them in whenever they change jobs or buy a house.  All the risk is transferred to employees, and a lot of them are not equipped to deal with investment risk competently.

When the MAGA crowd finds out they can't afford to retire, they're gonna go full socialist.  

mm

And that is what I have a problem with. Thank you for articulating the thoughts I could not come up with.

Milo Maltbie wrote

. It's all a recipe for low morale and career stagnation

"Low morale and career stagnation" happen in every job these days. Haven't you heard camp complain about the cost of his health Care on here?

The problem isn't the state. The problem is bullshit jobs that don't pay enough.

http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-david-graeber/

MC2 5678F589 wrote

Milo Maltbie wrote

. It's all a recipe for low morale and career stagnation

"Low morale and career stagnation" happen in every job these days. Haven't you heard camp complain about the cost of his health Care on here?

The problem isn't the state. The problem is bullshit jobs that don't pay enough.

http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-david-graeber/

Maybe I'm in the minority, but my experience in the private sector was that there is an inverse relationship between salary and production.  Over 25 years, as I moved up the ladder, I was paid more to do less.  By the time I left my job, I was being paid a full salary to "work" for about an hour a day.... sometimes less.

nepa wrote

MC2 5678F589 wrote

Milo Maltbie wrote

. It's all a recipe for low morale and career stagnation

"Low morale and career stagnation" happen in every job these days. Haven't you heard camp complain about the cost of his health Care on here?

The problem isn't the state. The problem is bullshit jobs that don't pay enough.

http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-david-graeber/

Maybe I'm in the minority, but my experience in the private sector was that there is an inverse relationship between salary and production.  Over 25 years, as I moved up the ladder, I was paid more to do less.  By the time I left my job, I was being paid a full salary to "work" for about an hour a day.... sometimes less.

And you left this job because???????

JasonWx wrote

nepa wrote

MC2 5678F589 wrote

Milo Maltbie wrote

. It's all a recipe for low morale and career stagnation

"Low morale and career stagnation" happen in every job these days. Haven't you heard camp complain about the cost of his health Care on here?

The problem isn't the state. The problem is bullshit jobs that don't pay enough.

http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-david-graeber/

Maybe I'm in the minority, but my experience in the private sector was that there is an inverse relationship between salary and production.  Over 25 years, as I moved up the ladder, I was paid more to do less.  By the time I left my job, I was being paid a full salary to "work" for about an hour a day.... sometimes less.

And you left this job because???????

All of our bills were paid... it sounds f'd up, but we no longer needed to the money.  Dual Income No-Kids => Early Retirement.  To be honest... The situation made me very depressed.  Getting paid to do nothing made me feel pretty worthless.  The job and associated depression were driving a wedge between me and my wife.

nepa wrote

All of our bills were paid... it sounds f'd up, but we no longer needed to the money.  Dual Income No-Kids => Early Retirement.  To be honest... The situation made me very depressed.  Getting paid to do nothing made me feel pretty worthless.  The job and associated depression were driving a wedge between me and my wife.

Doesn't sound f'd up to me, at all.  If I had a lot more money, I might retire today.

nepa wrote

Maybe I'm in the minority, but my experience in the private sector was that there is an inverse relationship between salary and production.  Over 25 years, as I moved up the ladder, I was paid more to do less.  By the time I left my job, I was being paid a full salary to "work" for about an hour a day.... sometimes less.

My experience is different than this. When I was employee I worked nights and weekend on occasion. As an owner, my salary is about 15% higher (on average), but a full day off is really an exception for me.  Disclaimer, I've worked for one company almost my entire career, so my experience is very limited.

Harvey wrote

My experience is different than this. When I was employee I worked nights and weekend on occasion. As an owner, my salary is about 15% higher (on average), but a full day off is really an exception for me.  Disclaimer, I've worked for one company almost my entire career, so my experience is very limited.

Not surprising Harv.  If I had to guess, I would say, you probably work in a small organization that employs less than 1000 people.  I think as organizations grow larger, the number of worthless management positions increases significantly.

My 25 year experience was with a corporate behemoth in the Financial Services sector (55000 employed globally).

nepa wrote

If I had to guess, I would say, you probably work in a small organization that employs less than 1000 people.

You guess right bro. We have 28 full time employees.

Awesome that you made the jump.

Who knows how much you need to retire, that's really the game.  Our accountant of 25 years retired two year ago. She didn't have much money, but felt like she'd be bummed if she got sick or hit by a bus and had never pursued her dreams.

nepa wrote

The situation made me very depressed.  Getting paid to do nothing made me feel pretty worthless.  The job and associated depression were driving a wedge between me and my wife.

Me too.   I bailed out of a state job early.  I figured I could make my nut by driving a school bus.  It turned out way better than that, and nobody was more surprised than me.

mm

Harvey wrote

Who knows how much you need to retire

Not as much as the propaganda produced by the Financial Service industry would like you to believe.  

With my strategy, It's been more about managing expenses (debt free living is key), as opposed to accumulating enormous amounts of wealth.  My family is small.  We have no heirs (not even any nieces or nephews)  ... wealth accumulation seemed pointless.

nepa wrote

I think as organizations grow larger, the number of worthless management positions increases significantly.

I think big organizations are almost all soul-deadening.  I have a lot of experience in government and regulated industries, and they all seem to develop an insular culture that ignores and overlooks some important things, while sometimes focusing on irrelevant stuff.  It's like they develop their own language that sounds like ordinary conversation, but the words they use are redefined to mean something different from what outsiders understand.  Regulatory agencies are the worst, because they all believe their purpose is to protect the public, but in reality the most effective thing they do is to protect the revenue of the industries they regulate.  It takes a lot of twisted around thinking and a whole bizarro world vocabulary to reconcile what you believe to be a worthwhile purpose with what you are actually doing.  It's not surprising that most large organizations have a lot of brain dead and/or depressed people that no one trusts to do anything.

mm

Milo Maltbie wrote

nepa wrote

I think as organizations grow larger, the number of worthless management positions increases significantly.

I think big organizations are almost all soul-deadening.  I have a lot of experience in government and regulated industries, and they all seem to develop an insular culture that ignores and overlooks some important things, while sometimes focusing on irrelevant stuff.  It's like they develop their own language that sounds like ordinary conversation, but the words they use are redefined to mean something different from what outsiders understand.  Regulatory agencies are the worst, because they all believe their purpose is to protect the public, but in reality the most effective thing they do is to protect the revenue of the industries they regulate.  It takes a lot of twisted around thinking and vocabulary to reconcile what you believe to be a worthwhile purpose with what you are actually doing.  It's not surprising that most large organizations have a lot of brain dead and/or hostile people that no one trusts to do anything.

mm

Exactly... in my organization, we had nomenclature that made us feel special.  Nomenclature was actually one of my favorite techno-buzzwords for quite some time.  We often changed it up if we heard other teams using "our words."  It was laughable.  I found myself often stinging together buzz phrases.  In meetings, I would often blow a long winded buzz of hot air ("Going forward we need to develop a nomenclature in order to solve for redeploying next quarter's core visualizations of blah, blah, blah).  


I shit you not... I could go on for long periods without really saying anything.  I think that's why I excelled for so long.  It was not about what you did... it was more about how you said what you did.  I became masterful at making horse-shit sound like Gold.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance......baffle them with bullshit!

nepa wrote

I shit you not... I could go on for long periods without really saying anything.  I think that's why I excelled for so long.  It was not about what you did... it was more about how you said what you did.  I became masterful at making horse-shit sound like Gold.

One thing about a smaller company is that the actual sources of revenue are pretty obvious.  It makes sense to me that with 10,000 employees it would be easier to obfuscate.

nepa wrote

My 25 year experience was with a corporate behemoth

nepa wrote

All of our bills were paid... it sounds f'd up, but we no longer needed to the money.  Dual Income No-Kids => Early Retirement.  To be honest... The situation made me very depressed.  Getting paid to do nothing made me feel pretty worthless.  The job and associated depression were driving a wedge between me and my wife.

This is my current plan. I've been trying to be good about saving. People like nepa and warp prove that a life "deceleration" at a young(ish) age are possible. Lots of world to explore, and working your ass off for 40 years to afford bigger houses and nicer cars never really appealed to me.

Sounds like your meetings would have been great for b***s*** bingo.

http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/bullshit/

Financial Discipline is the key : get debt free, hyper save and then some , simplify on many levels , mentally shift gears ( American's over identify with what we do , as if we are but ONE self. ) We are MUCH more than what we do for a  living  . We have lived in thsame 2000 sq ft home for 48 yrs and have been debt free since i was in my early forties  always paid cash for vehicles UNless i could make more by keeping iinvested

Time is our most precious commodity ,we ONLY  have so much life force ,  use it wisely , get busy making a life not a living , collect people not stuff. Then  realize that IF you have this financial discipline you TOO can reach the point in life where serenity, peace , happiness, financial independence  and actual joy are continuous events .

Oh btw you will never run out of money if you have this budgetery discipline it will put you in a situation where life becomes : Adolescence with money !!

 Ill be 75 this coming May . Our investments allow a life style way more than double of that when i was working . As an added bonus our financial corpus is still growing annually in spite of being totally retired since 51 years of age. I did consult 30 to 40 days a year  till i was 57 but never more than 2 days a week ( the mountain beckoned 😉) . We were also able to help our two now adult children to attain professional degrees DEBT free so they too are following a similar stategy .

Do it for your future .. Be wise let your Young self sacrifice now so your slightly  older self 😎can reach that glorious state of financial independence  or as i call it Adolescence With Money  .

Always taught my undergrad students this lesson  back when i was in the professor game and then later on taught it to my staff and to our consulting clients in our leadership training programs