To think it is not that easy to 'get a better job'

[EuclidianGeometryFan]

Seen a few threads lately about people with money issues, and on low wages or minimum wage.
Then some posters say things like 'why haven't you got a promotion in the last X years?' 'Why don't you re-train / upskill?' 'Why don't you get a better job?'

As if anyone stays in a minimum wage job for years just for the fun of it!

The job market is a pyramid - there is not enough room on the higher levels for everyone. Even as you age you can't automatically expect to climb the ladder and move up - the maths don't stack up. Not every field of work has a 'career ladder'.
Some people are stuck on minimum wage or not much more, for life. They may not have the ability or skills or aptitude to re-train or get promoted, let alone the time and energy.

It smacks of blaming the OP for not being ambitious enough. Some posters seem to have no conception of what life and the job market is like for minimum wage workers.

if you work in a home and become a senior you have lots of extra duties and there must always be a senior on every shift. So if you’ve just done a 12 hour shift and the senior for the next shift doesn’t turn up, you have to stay for another 12 hours.

Except that's literally illegal. The Working Time Regulations 1998 mandate that workers must have at least 11 hours of rest between the end of one shift and the beginning of the next.

A lot of jobs, the 'promotion' can mean a shed load of pressure, concrete KPIs for less than 2k more than their direct reports

And a lot of the time, you take that promotion, do it two or 3 years, and its the stepping stone to the more senior role where suddenly they say "sure 3 days a week is fine" and you can work some it from home etc

You can't get to better pay without working for it. Most successful people take the hit and work bloody hard in their twenties to get through those tough stages to the well paid experienced roles.

I used to go out with a man who worked in the computer games industry. During crunch time he would be working in the office until 11pm and back there at 8am for weeks on end.
His boss said he signed away his rights to have the legal amount of time off as it is optional. I am not sure how right that is. This was years ago so it might be different now.

I know. There’s plenty of illegal practices taking place in low-paying sectors, but they’re notoriously ununionised so if you’ve kick up a stink they’ll just get rid of you and find someone else.

My DD works behind a bar. She regularly finishes at 2am and is back in at 9am to clear up before they open for breakfast. It’s wrong, but she needs the job.

I used to clean hospital wards in the NHS band 1. The only promotion opportunity was up to supervisor which was band 2. So band 1 to band 2. There was no where to go after that as the next grade above that was the manager who was band 6/7. That was someone degree educated with a lot of managerial experience.
Yes I know the bandings are different now before anyone jumps on me.
Band 2 is the bottom now from what I gather.
BY the way no one that was a cleaner wanted to be a supervisor anyway. Some tried it and dropped back down to their old job. Too much hassle and shit from above.

Which calculator did you use?

I used to go out with a man who worked in the computer games industry. During crunch time he would be working in the office until 11pm and back there at 8am for weeks on end.
His boss said he signed away his rights to have the legal amount of time off as it is optional. I am not sure how right that is. This was years ago so it might be different now.

Working the crunch in a highly paid game development industry (where its a choice) is not the same as a min wage employee being told they have no choice to just work 24 hours straight with no gap (which is illegal).

People need to be braver. Join a union (they will defend you if there's trouble) and fucking say no. They cannot make you do it and they know full well they will get their arses roasted if they try. And yep if they fire you etc over it, you will get a fat pay out at tribunal.

@BlueyNeedsToFuckOff what salary did you input?

NMW full time £1750 net a month
so £23795 a year

Some tried it and dropped back down to their old job. Too much hassle and shit from above.

they weren’t cut out for it
that is the truth
so many excuses

I told you in my previous post.

40 hours at minimum wage. So 12.21 x 40 =488.40 gross per week. As entitledto asks for gross figures.

I’m getting really bored with this now, Believe me or not. Up to you.

Oh don’t be daft 🙄

Not an excuse. The manager was a toxic asshole.
And why do you refer to it as excuses? Are people not allowed to make a choice that works for them?

I’ll do it now

I don't think anybody gives a damn about legal any more. It's disgusting.
Is it legal for some guy on a bike to deliver food? The so called gig economy stinks.

And you are absolutely correct @BlueyNeedsToFuckOff

To be clear

No one is saying its easy to get a better paid job. Its hard it often means more stress/pressure, doing paperwork instead of more fulfilling tasks, more responsibility.

But often people on here genuinely don't seem to have properly tried. They'll say "ive applied for promotion loads". They don't say:

• "I spent 2 years studying an nvq in the evenings to get promoted" or
• "I offered to work extra shifts as cover manager to get the experience to apply for a manager role elsewhere"
• "I found free excel training online then offered to use it to rework the rota files so I could put those skills on my CV".
• "I want to get out of retail so I'm doing an electrician course".

Things that will stop you:

• refusing to use any childcare whatsoever on principal, limiting yourself to very very part time roles with no prospects.
• having kids very young before you have had time to gain any skills and experience, not going back to work for 20 years.

I do get that there will be exceptions. Disability, caring for disabled children or relatives. This is a different issue and one DLA/pip is suppose to help with (not one for here).

But for able bodied folk,with no learning disability, i lose patience will what people think is "trying" is not really doing much at all to upskill. It does take giving up your time or accepting more responsibility etc.

This person told you their manager was a “toxic arsehole”

does it occur to you for one moment that there may be more to it than a “toxic arsehole” manager

perhaps a manager that doesn’t take
kindly to a team member repeatedly being late or repeatedly taking a long lunch etc

you heard one side from the person who tired a band job but then too much hassle because of “arsehole manager” so thought “nah this is too much for me, I’ll go back to my band 1 where life easier”

No, he was my manager too and I can tell you for sure that he was toxic and a bully.
I was off with mental health issues and he had told me that I had no reason to be depressed. He was in work and fine despite his dad just dying. His dad was in a care home and it was expected.
A close friend and colleague went up to supervisor and burnt out within weeks. Said it was our manager. He was a total bully and I have lots more examples of it but this is not the thread for it.
And it was not just one person who went up the band and dropped back again. I knew of 4 whilst I was there.

In what respect? What do you think benefits cuts are?

This reminds me of when I secured a part-time job as a teenager at a time when it wasn’t easy to find a Saturday job (financial crash). It was because I had worked for almost a year volunteering in a charity shop and therefore gained retail experience. Friends talked about “applying for loads of jobs” but not about making themselves more employable. Anyone can fire their CV to companies left, right and centre, and fill out hundreds of job applications regurgitating the same answers, but finding a better job takes more than that: you actually have to show you’re worth hiring, especially in a tough job market. This often means doing a qualification, learning new skills, volunteering for tasks to demonstrate you’re ready for promotion etc.

What if a car smashed into you and you were paralysed and suddenly you were one of those people who should try just a little bit harderto work?

what a ridiculous and completely irrelevant analogy

I totally agree @Velmy

This was a cleaning job

She could have sucked up the hassle of being band 2 for a short while and then applied to a different company, with the band 2 promotion on her CV and gone in to a higher role there. She and the 4 others that all went up and then decided to jack it in and move down… could have pursued a complaint. There was 5 of them (6 with you)

now I’ll kick back and wait for the excuse

Are your initials GM? Because you sound like my old manager making excuses for him acting like a toxic bully. Why do you presume to know the circumstances better than I do? He had a disciplinary after the way he treated me. His awful behaviour came out during a disciplinary he was putting me through. He was that bad.

And so what if it was a cleaning job? Does that mean we are allowed to be treated like shit?

He bullied his staff. That is why no one wanted to be his lackey and directly accountable to him.

But yes. You make excuses for him.

You need skills that will have you stand out from others

But you are talking to 'the others'. I mean, I don't find data analysis hard but if you can't see that above-average excludes the majority by definition, it isn't surprising that you're having difficulties.

OP's point about a pyramid/hierarchy is rock-solid. "Anyone can do it" is a blatant, demonstrable falsehood and a statistical absurdity.