Feminist Pub 17: The Bluestocking frolics in the fells and fens of feminism

[AKnickerfulOfMenace]

This is the 17th incarnation of the Feminist Pub!

Here be goats, cannons and chat on feminism and related themes. Also snacks. And booze, copious booze.

Welcome!

It will be the Year of Our Pub Goat tomorrow!

I have lots two rooms full of Boxes of the Patriarchy. We moved 23 months ago.

Feeling grumpy this evening. No pay rise again this year despite getting a good performance rating. Colleague who does the same job as me (but is 18 months more senior than me) will have earned £16 k more than me in 2014/15 tax year.

(I should better get promoted to his grade in the autumn, and I did get an out-of-round pay rise of 9% in October, and I know this because we are both totally open about pay 'n' stuff, but still...)

Oh - and following our upcoming refurbishment I'm going to have useless secretary sitting next to me

We get below inflation increment every year because we are not worth it.

I never really considered myself poorly paid until I started looking for new jobs, and woah. That was a rude awakening.

Interview tomorrow. Fingers crossed it's good, and they're nice and I don't jibber and sweat like I'm on trial.

Lucky us - we get to decide our pay rises ourselves as a collective of sorts. We do have a budget to stick to so we can't go mad.
However, after deciding on a rate-of-inflation pay rise last October, one of the team suggested we reduce our pay rise to 0.4% because inflation has reduced!
I had to point out that, no matter that inflation was down, the housing association I rent from will no doubt put the rent up.
It's not as if we're well paid anyway.

Good luck hoppy!

I can't really complain about being poorly paid but surely everyone would like £16k more - nevertheless, inflation isn't zero. My outgoings increase, and my income doesn't.

Really annoys me that the 'wonderful' system payroll have dreamed up works against me at the moment. Seriously, who designs a system that means only the junior staff at each level get a pay rise and tries to sell it as being a 'performance culture'?

Yes - good luck Hoppy - hope your interview goes well.

May I pull up a chair, please?

I missed this pub, but I'd love a moment to sit by the pub fire (we have a fire, right?).

Hi Jeanne. I can't join in payrise discussions, so I'll just pull up a chair by the fire (and nod off....)

Yup, proper inglenook job, wicker basket for the logs, copper coal scuttle, toasting forks and a good solid poker.

Pint of craft ale? G&T? Cider?

I'll have a nice glass of red please.

And a packet of Nobby's.

Oh, performance-related pay is just such rot. It's way more dependent on who you get on with or not, rather than your actual performance, not to mention be given opportunities to perform. They need to insist on pay audits across companies. I wonder how that bill's getting on...

Can I have gin please? I tried in RL and regretted my choice.

Feeling surprisingly glum after failing to get a thing I applied for at work that I didn't expect to get anyway. it's not a feministy thing at all though. Got useful and constructive feedback but feel like they were disappointed with my performance and I am too, despite the fact that I didn't expect to get it. Maybe that was the problem?

Right, that's my assignment done, it was like pulling teeth. Why do they give such vague bloody titles for things? 500 of the hardest words ever... bah!

And performance related pay sucks ass... especially for unquantifiable things. I agree with EBear, it really does depend on how well you put yourself across to your line manager and how well you get on.

IME performance-related pay meant very little when it came to actual numbers, because each department was given a finite pot of money to be shared across all salaries. So if you had a high-performing team they would get less of a share each than the few highest performers (who might be performing well below the level of the high-performing team) of a below average team. It was such bollocks

That too. If you've got a high-performing team, they're likely to be working well together so all them achieves more than they could as individuals - and a manager isn't likely to point out that his team doesn't perform well, because that reflects badly on him. It would be more okay if there are objective goals and measurements, but quite often there aren't. We've got one this year about showing a good attitude - well, fine, but how do you measure that without biases getting in the way especially in our department? How can you measure something like that objectively?

Sorry to hear that, petula.

Come and join me and penguins in the inglenook with the craft ale (or something).

It sounds depressing.

Thanks. I don't like craft ale but I like inglenooks. I nearly bought a house purely for the inglenook until I came to my senses and realised it had little else going for it

I am not actually sure I know what an inglenook is. I know of them from Anne of Green Gables, but ...

An inglenook's basically a girt big fireplace that you can sit in.

www.willkemp.com/Inglenook.JPG

(Actually, I'm not sure you can always sit in them. But the sort of chimney you could have sent a child up before Shaftesbury decided that was a bad idea.)

Please may I come in? I've just been on twitter and all the shouting has made me miserable.

Ooh. Nice fire!