Feeling disgusted by friend’s DD’s salary

[DisgustedParent]

Best friend’s DD is the same age as mine (26) and we’ve known each other since both DD’s were born. My DD went off to uni but struggled to find a job after her degree and has ended up working in a call centre (financial services) where she is paid very poorly, has to work unsociable hours and is not treated well by management at all. It’s awful to watch her struggling to get by after rent and bills, knowing that despite working long hours, she may never own a property of her own or be able to afford to do all of the things she wants to do in life. My friend knows all about DD’s struggles and my worries for her as we are very close.

Her DD went straight in to an apprenticeship after school at 16 and landed herself in a role in Data Protection. Over the years she’s completed all sorts of professional certifications in the field and worked her way up, but never did a degree. I hear today from my friend that she has just accepted a senior management data protection role at the same large financial firm where my DD works. Friend has gleefully told me that her DD will be earning an eye watering £70,000 per year along with all sorts of benefits such as home working, health insurance, allocated parking... all of which of course aren’t available to my DD despite working for the same employer.

AIBU in feeling absolutely furious about this on DD’s behalf and thinking that there is something so very wrong about a company which pays its front line workers the absolute minimum, with no benefits whatsoever, whereas those with more ‘fancy’ job roles who probably don’t do an awful lot at all (and friend’s DD at 26 is still barely old enough to be out of school!) get to swan in to the company earning an astronomical amount, with lots of benefits on top too. Friend’s DD has already bought a house, has a brand new car, is always on holiday and draped in designer clothes. Meanwhile my DD and the rest of her call centre colleagues are threatened with redundancy regularly and are frequently told that salaries will not be increased as cuts have to be made.....How can this be justified?!

She's clearly earned that salary and benefits, sometimes it's the work behind the scenes you don't see. My daughter wants to do an apprenticeship and reading this I hope she does if she has these opportunities. Good luck to this young lady, your own daughter has choices as we all do and can, as adult, make them to progress herself

Yabvu - sour grapes and pathetic

The country is short of people for specialist and technical roles. These need special, not broad based, any degree fits all, skills. In the age of the degree, it pays to specialise.

YABVU.

Why should senior and junior employees have the same benefits?

It really is irrelevant if your friends DD has just started there; she deserves and is entitled to the benefits of the role to which she has been given, and she has been given that role because of her experience in the industry.

There really would be no incentive for anyone to better themselves if everyone had the same perks.

What it comes down to is that your DD wasted her years at university (and I’m willing to bet it was a Mickey Mouse degree considering you haven’t answered anyone’s questions on what the degree is), is in a shitload of debt and you are angry because you feel your DD is smarter than friends DD because she went to uni.

Going to university doesn’t mean you’re smarter or better than anyone else. And in this particular case, it would appear your friends DD is smarter than your DD considering how she’s managed to work her way up into such a great position.

Instead of being jealous and bitter, help your DD to better herself if she wants to.

Yes, you are being completely unreasonable. Call centre work is basic and anyone can do it. Thats just a fact. Its not rocket science and it needs little to no training.
Your friend's DD is doing a job that is highly skilled and requires years of experience which is exactly why she is getting paid more.
Being this bitter/jealous is going to affect your health if you carry on at this rate.

Wow. Okay, so a couple of issues. Firstly - the salary and benefits package that you consider so unfair. The purpose of competitive salaries and enhanced benefits is so companies can attract a certain calibre of employee into a senior role that carries a lot of stress and responsibility. They will want people who have chosen this as a career (as opposed to just another job) and who are likely to stay with the company and be committed to the firm, while also adding a lot of value and are prepared to go the extra mile. If the company doesn't offer enhanced perks then the good candidates will simply go to another company that does offer them. Benefits are a means of attracting certain people into certain roles and keeping them.

With the greatest of respect, people working in a call centre generally don't do it as a career choice - it is a job and one that the company know the employee is likely to leave as soon as a better option comes along. So the company is less bothered about keeping people in those roles and they can easily re-fill them with more people who will do it for a while then leave to greener pastures.

Now...your daughter's degree, while admirable, is only a small part of her building a career. She has to go out there and really hunt down opportunities. She also has to be prepared to start at the bottom in a role that is RELEVANT to her degree/chosen career path, or reconsider her chosen career and work out a plan.

I work in law and am very well paid with a good benefits package, but I'd say that 99% of my success has been from working my arse off getting years and years of experience and proving myself in crap positions, doing the work of lawyers while getting paid much less... it is tough and highly competitive, but sadly, experience wins every time. I know many people in my firm with law degrees who think they should be earning the same as me but they are struggling to demonstrate their skills even in admin roles because they have no common sense, an attitude of entitlement and they don't seem to realise that it takes years of experience and grafting ridiculous hours to really start making money.

I don't know what path your DD wants to go down in terms of a career, but there is no point sitting moaning about her lot. Her best bet is to get an entry level admin job in a firm that is relevant to the career she wishes to pursue. A massive amount of my experience came from being a legal secretary... then a very low-paid paralegal... it was shit, but it's paying off now and I'm a better lawyer because of it.

Your DD needs to prove herself... and I suggest she looks at post-grad or professional qualifications that again, are RELEVANT. I studied while working full time - so I got RELEVANT qualifications whilst also getting a shit ton of experience. It's been HARD WORK but no one was going to do it for me. One thing I have noticed these days is that too many young people think having a degree is a fast track into a high paying job - they are almost offended at the mere suggestion that they might have to prove themselves in a lower level role first. Your DD is not working smart. If she wants to be like your friend's DD and get offered those kinds of positions, she needs to do what your friend's DD has done - that is identify exactly what she wants to do and work her arse off proving herself in that field - getting additional qualifications if need be - but right now if she's simply working in a call centre in a field unrelated to what she wants to do then what more does she expect? The employer knows full well she has no desire to be in that career so why would they be bothered if she stays or leaves? If she wants to move up the scale she has to show commitment and initiative.

I'd like to think you are now feeling quite embarrassed of your attitude. But I suspect you still feel aggrieved.

@Jocasta2018 Hahahaha, I pictured the OP as a Hyacinth too!

OP, I doubt anyone misunderstood your initial opening gambit. And all the little tidbits of info thrown in speak volumes. It sounds as though that you and the other mother were never real friends but had that sort of competitive parent thing going on since their birth, well, at least from your side. I can just see the entitlement and bitter resentment dripping through that you lost your top dog bragging status. I bet you kept rubbing in your daughter’s ongoing A-level journey and then bathed in the reflected glory of her albeit pretty useless degree. I can just see how you probably patronised her over her daughter’s gradual professional development while gloating about the riches to come for your own DD once she graduated. Maybe your DD has the same entitled and presumptuous attitude. Instead of whining about your daughter stagnating in her role where she feels unappreciated, encourage her to also do more qualifications, etc to make her more employable. At 26 years old, your DD is old enough to get off her arse and look for other solutions and stop feeling sorry for herself. Your frenemy has every right to be super proud of her talented and hardworking child.

What makes you think she swans in and does nothing? Companies tend not to throw money at employees who don't work hard for it. Especially people in managerial roles. She will have responsibilities that your daughter doesn't. She will have projects and teams to manage. Deadlines to meet, targets to set and meet. She will need to take responsibility when other workers don't fulfill their role. In essence, she is doing a very different job, and a hell of a lot more than your daughter who is answering phones.

Your daughter is only 26. As you say it is very young (not exactly barely out of school, but young nonetheless). Your daughter has plenty of opportunity to retrain, change career, work her way up as her friend has done.

Some people are ambitious and "go-getters" some people are passive and take what's offered to them. Your daughter and her friend are very different people, and the company is paying them both what they think they are worth.

The simple reason why your daughter doesn't get nice perks in her job; which many people have explained already; is because your daughter is in a low skilled job; your friends daughter is not.

I'm afraid your daughter doesn't deserve a parking space or extra days off. Just because she got a degree doesn't mean she is entitled to anything.

Your friends daughter will be bringing in more money and clients to that company than your daughter. Basically without the hard graft of people like your friends daughter , your daughter would not have a job.

Sorry to be a bit harsh but that's life.

Not your friends daughters fault the part of that company that deals with the call centre work area treats them like shit.

Your friends daughter worked her way from the bottom rung at a VERY young age to where she is now through bloody hard work. She no doubt had to spend her free time, evenings and weekends studying/ training whilst also working full time for the last 10 years. I bet you she will still be working evenings and weekends in her new job.

What did your daughter do with her spare time when she wasn't studying? Was she doing any part time work in companies that specialized in the fields she was studying to build up "experience"? Did she spend her summers and time off when not at Uni doing the same? (even if unpaid?)

Is she now doing further studying/ volunteering on her days/ time off to build up her experience?

Or did you and your daughter assume that just studying and having a degree would let her walk into a dream job?

I bet that the people she was/is competing with for a job are the ones who had spent every second of their free time working for companies for below the wage your daughter now earns or for free to build up their experience so they would have something to show future employees once they left Uni.

I wonder if the reason you are so bitter about all this is because you perhaps "looked down" at your friends daughter for not going to Uni and "doing an apprenticeship" and smugly thought your daughter would do better than her because she was going to go to Uni....

YABU
I suspect your DDs degree was something that perhaps is very specific and explains why jobs in that field are hard to come by or have stiff competition?
I think this is true for many professions, I know qualified teachers can earn less than someone who works full time in a supermarket or retail shop full time? It's just the way the world is.
If your DD is unhappy in her role and with her wage why doesn't she switch job? If she has a degree perhaps she can do a conversion degree to change/progress her qualifications to something with more higher paid opportunities.
Barely anyone I went to university with actually does a job related to their studies, all have well paid jobs now. In my friendship group 3 of us went to uni and the 4th did an apprenticeship. The apprentice now earns almost triple I do (and I earn above the national average) because their CV shows 5 years more experience within their field than mine does? So similarly surely your friends DD who started at 16 has more years experience than your DD?

Is this post a piss take?!

No OP, people haven't misunderstood or misread your original post. You made it clear you felt your degree earning child should be automatically entitled to a higher salary than a hard working person of a similar ago who didn't do university but actually worked her way up. You are a snob. Your daughter will doubtless so much better. Your friends daughter however is in course to do brilliantly. Suck it up !!

Wow yabvu

You sound very jealous.

It also goes to show how much more beneficial an apprenticeship is as opposed to a degree unless you want to be in a profession where it's a must.

So 10 years work experience and a load of professional qualifications / training trumps a degree and no relevant work experience.

Who'd of thunk it?

Were you equally as awful when dd friend did an apprenticeship and dd went to uni?

Christ. If you were my mum I'd be absolutely mortified and embarrassed by your reaction to your friends DD's good news.

Haha. Just shows uni and degrees (and quite often pissing about for 3 years) isn’t the be all and end all.

Your friend’s dd has worked since she left school so she has more experience in the work place. A degree doesn’t give your dd a big shiny badge that allows her to get whatever job she wants. It means nothing a lot of the time and a lot of employers want people with actual experience.

Do you work op?

She didn't just swan in though did she. She earnt her position through 10 years of hard toil.

This went swimmingly

What I have said is that I believe the gap between the highest and lowest paid should not be so wide within one company and that the same benefits should be made available to all staff.

So in that case, what would be the incentive for gaining more qualifications and experience, and taking on more responsibility?

Why would anyone bother if you’d get all the same benefits in an entry level call centre position?

This is the problem with socialism, that socialists never quite seem to get.

@disgustedparent I completely get why you're feeling angry on your daughter's behalf.

However, and I mean this with all respect - your daughter works in a call centre. Call centres are notorious for poor pay and micromanagement. She cannot expect to earn much more than minimum wage I'm afraid. But you know what - you should be proud that your daughter went to uni and is holding down a job.

Your friend's daughter has worked her way up over 10 years. She bloody deserves to get paid well and it's great that she is so successful.

I went to uni myself and have NEVER found a job that my degree has come in useful for, which is a massive shame. Most people I know who either went straight into the working world or undertook an apprenticeship seem to be faring far better now than the uni goers (with the exceptions of nurses, doctors etc).

Please try not control the green eyed monster (It bites us all from time to time) and be supportive of your daughter. Why don't you channel your frustration you feel for your friend's daughter into helping your daughter find a better line of work?
Best of luck to both you and your friends' daughters x

People get paid according to how specialised their role is.

That is the key to high pay - specialise in something niche that not everyone can do.

Obviously her degree is not related to her job so it really doesn’t matter that she has a degree at all!

Ok - realise this is a bit besides the point. But would data protection be a good career change kind of role for someone with decent analytical skills? Is it interesting and what's the best course to go on? There seems to be loads of courses but it's not clear what would be a good one