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?!

I think what you need to account of in the gap between high and low is the difference in tax rates. That tends to lead to bigger jumps in salary around the tax change rate point as a £5k rise ends up not resulting in much of a difference in actual take home so people don't necessarily want the extra responsibility for only a little increase.

You sound so entitled. Just because you DD has a degree doesn't automatically push her up into being paid well. This other woman has worked since she was 16 learning and gaining qualifications and experience. Of course she's going to get paid alot more. Your DD has come in at entry level and it's up to her to find opportunities just like his other girl has.

BBC News - New Year Honours: Publication of addresses a 'complete disaster'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50937775

Exactly why someone who is skilled and experienced at this stuff and holds a senior position with responsibility is valuable to their employer

I went to an interview in that office last year Justacog
I got the impression it is really only a very few people and i got the impression they were having to tidy up their act back then.

I think the issue is not how much your friend's daughter earns but how little your daughter earns.

Grumpel if you get a job in a call centre then you can work as hard as you want but promotion is hard to come by and when you look for another job you get ignored by employers who are offering non call centre jobs so you get stuck in a rut.

You're a communist, aren't you OP?

Aquilla

WTF OP

Well played DD of friend, well played.

This has to be a wind up....

It's a great lesson for others about the benefit of an apprenticeship vs doing a degree. I think many would take that choice if they could turn back the clock.

I don’t think OP is coming back

What a pompous snob you are OP

I think OP gets the point now...

Altough remember the data protection person with no degree is proably stuck on £70k whereas had she qualified as a London solicitor doing data protection work £70 would be after a year or 2 of qualification and potentially could earn £100k - £2m - thus if you pick the right career, degree and area it still tends to pay to have the degree.

Fuck me , I can’t believe someone actually posted this ..
Bitter and nasty

Its the same employer but two different jobs?

Experience trumps qualifications always

Xenia makes a fair point - I recruited a 5 PQE data privacy lawyer two years ago on a salary double that. But let’s face it that is never going to be the OPs DD who has spent three years doing very little.

OP ignoring the fact that your post was dripping in jealousy does your DD want support to move on? Perhaps start another thread where you can get some proper advice.

Front line workers are always badly paid and treated like shit. Of course management get all the perks it's the same everywhere. Why don't you encourage your daughter to retrain?

It is very difficult to rise up the ranks in a corporate environment so your DD friend will have spent the last ten years working very hard. Your daughter needs to work equally hard and change to a different area if this is not working out.

I got a first class degree in a shit subject without accreditation from a bog standard polytechnic and yet I was determined to build a career so I did so in a completely unrelated field. I'm now 30 and earning more than my parents ever did (although not comparable to your friends daughters salary). I am doing a masters degree to specialise, this time fully self funded and at a top university whilst still working full time.

I don't think it's fair to assume that your friends daughter has not worked her butt off for her job now - people often suggest that my academic success has come easy to me but they don't see all the hard work I have put into it. Your friends daughter is likely the same.

Things don't just get handed to people. In the majority of cases people work really really hard and plan to get into a good position.

I think there were some unfortunate phrases in your first post OP - which did sound like jealousy, anger and a bit unfair and you are getting a hard time. I understand your point and I kind of agree that a £70,000 salary is a lot of money for a 26 year old who left school at 16, especially if it was up here in the north-east.

My DH is Head of a secondary school of 1000+ students and earns £85,000 with no additional perks and he was 40 this year. BIL is an Ed Psych and earns about £60,000 after 3 years and his job is a doddle- his working conditions are ridiculously protected. SIL works part-time in a bookshop and earns about £8,000 with crap working conditions and no perks. DH employs apprentices and they are so badly paid at 16. Your DD's daughter sounds like she has worked really hard to get where she is. There is little point in comparing the salaries. Businesses pay managers what they think they are worth.
Would your daughter consider interning in the career she would like to be involved in. She might get a job if she had some experience?

Your daughter might have a degree but your friends daughter has worked from the very bottom of the employment chain, in a poorly paid apprenticeship, earning qualifications which after 10 years experience has allowed her to obtain this position. I'm sorry, but degrees don't equal experience in a role, and more so when you factor in that her (your friends daughter, not yours) qualifications are more specific therefore more valuable to the company. You are being extremely* jealous, bitter and unreasonable!

@DisgustedParent
"They are constantly told that they are replaceable... Why are they not entitled to the same benefits that a senior manager working for the same firm is entitled to? Why are they not deserving of a parking space or as much annual leave?"

I'm sorry but your daughter being unskilled is replaceable. What part of her job is so niche and demanding that no one else could do it with only a few weeks training? None!

"whilst I don’t agree with everyone’s point of view, I take it all on board!" I would be mortified if you were my mother.

It is possible to appreciate the work the friend's dd has done, and the skills she has acquired, and still wish the differences were not quite so stark and poverty not quite so rife at the lower end.

I am currently spending Xmas in Scandinavia where I have been meeting up with a number of youngish people who started life in unskilled jobs (including at least one in a call centre). The thing that made them stand out, even at the time, from dc's friends back in the UK is how secure they seemed, how it clearly never occurred to them that people like them, working conscientiously, doing a real job, might not have enough to eat or a roof over their heads or be able to have a bit of modest fun.

Back in the UK society has become more polarised over the last few decades, fear and uncertainty and indeed deprivation have become more of an issue. People running shelters report that their facilities are now being used by people in full-time employment. Foodbanks report they get working people referred to them. That was not the case in the 1980s and 90s.

It was not a necessary development either: other countries took measures to mitigate the potential suffering of the poorer population after their economies were hit by the banking crisis. The UK chose not to do so. Ironically, the UK did not seem to recover any faster from the crisis, nor has national borrowing gone down in consequence. It was an ideological choice.

And as an ideological choice it only works because people, as a rule, are happy that other people, doing jobs that are necessary for their own infrastructure, should be treated badly. Of course they know that the "change your job if you don't like it" is never going to get rid of poverty because we still need someone to do the shit jobs. Of course anyone in a reasonably comfortable position who utters those words as a solution to the problem of poverty is aware of their own hypocrisy: the reason they still say them is, they don't think you're going to care any more than they do.

That doesn't mean it is not possible to care. It is even possible to want a slightly fairer society without being a communist.