The Sweatshop Was All Arround Us
Few years ago, during another recession, I got a job in another sweatshop. Medium size company with a lot of branches in North America. I was hired in the R&D department, but this department also had to deal with the manufacturing department and with some other departments.
Form an outsider perspective a company nice to work for, good benefits, vacation, not very good pay but decent for that time.
First day of work, after I signed all the papers: “You have to bring clients to this company and to get what we promised, you will have to be an account manager” “OK, but from my understanding this staff is handled by the marketing and sales department” “No, you have to do it” “Look, I signed a contract as R&D not sales, and to be sincere if I have to sale something to me I will not be able to convince myself to buy it, how do you think I will be able to convince others” “Don’t care, you have to do this job, and I don’t care how you manage it”
At that moment I knew I will not spend too much time in that company, but still, it was a recession and I needed a job. I decided to stay and see what will happen. The time passed, made some friends in the company, find out that the salaries were under the lower limit of the job market. And… one day… we where asked to came to a meeting, a meeting where will be discussed the bonuses and staff like that.
I was amazed, bonuses in a company where the salary is minimum allowed by the government, maybe they came to their senses. I went in the meeting room, there, only guys from R&D and testing departments, all of them sitting straight on the chairs, no smile on their faces, a very cloudy atmosphere. The boss came and .. he started by announcing the bonuses: “Will be 5% of your salary every year” “Great” I was thinking, a senior engineer there was making maximum 29k/year so the bonus will be 14.5 hundred per year - not bad but also not very good.
The nice moment passed, still no smile on the fellow employees faces. And the boss started with the conditions that will lead to getting the bonus. As he was speaking a smile started to grow on my face, and after a few of the requirements I started laughing. He asked me “Why are you laughing?” “OK, I said, I would prefer to tell you this in private and not here” “No, tell it here for the others to hear” “You are sure?” “Yes!!!, he yell” I said “What you are saying is that we will never see these bonuses, because we can’t meet the requirements” “How is this so?”. “First of all you are saying that the company should not lose more than 3 employees per year for us to get the money, but only last week 16 employees left the company, this means that we will never get our bonuses, because we can’t do anything to keep them here, this is the management job and not of a guy from R&D or testing” “No, we plan to keep the employees here, and they will stay because of the bonuses.” I was thinking “You are joking, right? If someone will find a job that is paying 32k instead of 29k do you think that person will stay? Or if a worker payed with minimum allowed will get 1$ more/ hour do you think that worker will stay for a bonus that is covering the gas for one month”. I said: “OK, let say you take care of this (in my mind” in your dreams”) now you are saying that we have to bring at least 10 new customers a year. The total number of the customers that the company have is twelve, and this was done over a long time, how do you think someone from R&D will bring customers? I don’t think we have any chances to do that, if we are lucky and we can convince people in the company that we worked for, may be we will be able to bring one or two, but not 10/year. From what you are saying, the company is giving us a nice bonus that we will never see and that is the reason I am laughing”
Two weeks after this meeting I took another job. The nice part is that after a few days from my resignation I was called by them and offered a job. Job that I turned down and I am sure you understand why.