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Subject:Re: perspective on rates From:Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:27:28 -0700 (PDT)
I know what you mean. There was a lot of just plain craziness in those years. A lot of people got high on dollar signs. Everybody had decided they were going to get rich on stock options; I knew some people who jumped ship up to three times a year. One day I pulled up at a gas station and I heard the manager inside on the phone, yelling at his stock broker that he *must* get in on this one particular IPO deal - that was an era of industrial strength financial nuttiness.
In the long run, stock options in lieu of salary, and a rented margarita machine in the break room Friday afternoons, are not adequate substitutes for a sensible business plan. But boy, was it fun while it lasted.
> From: Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
> Subject: Re: perspective on rates
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 2:04 PM
> It can be good all around. During the dotcom I frequently
> spoke to other managers who lost good people because
> some startup came along and dangled a big increase in
> front of their eyes. I'm talking about absurd,
> five-figure
> increases that should have been a red flag for the people
> being courted that there was unsustainable venture capital
> being burned to get people onboard. But most of them
> had no access to data that confirmed their current pay
> was competitive with established employers in their field,
> so away they went. A couple of years later, they were
> unemployed.
>
> The last point underscores the need for employee pay
> grades and performance evaluations to have clearly
> defined qualification and performance criteria and
> processes. The old-fashioned "give the manager a
> raise pool and let him/her dole it out based on
> opinion"
> just helps feed employees' impressions that their pay
> and promotion are all beyond their control or influence.
>
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