I'm not sure they'd be too concerned about that.
I'm not sure they'd be too concerned about that.
Yes, all of them.Originally Posted by Ian
Well that's something. Wouldn't have surprised me at all if they were trying to wangle their way out of that somehow.
Still, as you've said you can do better elsewhere. Get them applications going. Your haunting tale of brushes with Nazi holdouts will tug the heartstrings of any potential employer I'm sure.
The boss (European one who I went to Spain with) phoned me this morning to welcome me back and says he reckons that the old fella deliberately made our South American trip have an overly punishing schedule to try and break me and show I wasn't up to the job.
As conspiracy theories go, it's right up there.
15 years here
That sounds like exactly the sort of shit a 'ready for the scrap heap' tosser would pull on an up and comer in the business, so I'd be inclined to believe it.
What’s the Arab’s take on it all?
I'm a twit
Imagine the carnage if The Arab went with them.
The Arab went on a two week trip to Iraq and is now on holiday for a week. Part timer.
When does Barney get his chance, that's what I want to know.
Barney would go sick after a half day visit to Slough based on Jim's insights.
There was a re-allocation of markets going on while I was away which I have missed, but all indications are he's getting Ireland.
I'm rumoured to be getting Central America which would be a genuinely awful result from every conceivable angle. We'll see what happens.
Wasn't that what you were promised?
I was 'promised' (as much as these things mean anything in business) succeeding old man river in Central & South America when he retires. As far as I can see he'd be keeping all the big markets for now and I'd be getting the countries that make up the bottom part of the Concacaf hexagonal.
Old fella, MD and the guy from the photo with General Pinochet are all now having a meeting to run over the trip. Should I be seething that I'm not invited? Probably.
Next trip to Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua then
There is no way in this world you shouldn’t be job hunting and holding them to ransom.
Yeah, by all accounts they don't have anyone under 70 to do the jobs you are doing/being promised and as already said multilingual candidates will lol at them when they see what package is offered. You have the advantage.
Jimmy doesn't like to rock the boat. Unless the boat belongs to Barney. In which case you should definitely be leading him to believe the "Ł44k" is a thing of the past.
Nah. The industry is so cyclic and leadership often just pivots as a way to show they’ve done something.
Now I’ve been promoted I’m into a tier which is quite broad and has a lot of very senior engineers or team leaders, of which I am neither. Performance wise I’ve always been assured I’m well thought of but I’m much more exposed now than I have been previously.
How they treated me the last 2 years doesn’t fill me with confidence they actually care. My (new) line manager who pleaded my case told me recently he was surprised it hadn’t been done previously and how much resistance he faced making it happen.
I’m not on 100k though, so guess I should be applying for underground roles.
After an hour they called me up. 82 year old vice president, 79 year old I went round with, the MD who is 50, and the 35 year old new sales director who, I think, really likes me.
First MD asks me how it was, etc. I said the time with the customers was great and I learned a lot from it, but the rest of it was really hard - body clock, lack of sleep and all the various other issues, especially once you get towards day 12 onwards. MD says yes, well we used to have a 2 week limit on trips, but we don't anymore.
Then he asked me how we can grow business in these countries. I gave a series of well thought-out answers around marketing, product development and so on.
Then he asked me how my Spanish was. I say I think it was fine but the old man (3 of these 4 people are called John FFS) would be in a better position to judge. The old man says yes, it was perfectly good. When I think about it, this verdict in itself is a massive fucking achievement given that I have never lived in a Spanish-speaking country and have no qualification in it higher than A level which was 17 years ago. A massive fucking achievement and I'm even better at French with the same restrictions, but anyway.
Then MD wants to talk about the future. He says are you willing to travel in the future. I said yes, I am, but only to a certain extent - I have a life here and don't want it to disrupt it a huge amount or have to make sacrifices. At this he becomes instantly rather flustered, and starts going 'Well, you know, if you want to make it in this industry, this company, you're going to have to travel.' I looked around and the 82 year old was nodding sagely. I said well, I know, and as I just said, I am very happy to travel as long as it's manageable. I then started listing things - my parents are here and I want to do things with my dad before he gets old, my sister lives nearby and I spend time with her, I'm not in a relationship at the moment but I might want to be in the future. He said 'You're not married, though', and started listing things he had to give up earlier in his career to travel for work - golf club memberships and tennis club memberships. Seething to fuck inside, I said 'No, I'm not married'. What I didn't do was mention my side career as a cricket umpire, which is very important to me but I'm well aware won't play well with these types and I suspect the golf/tennis mentions were an attempt to satirise/belittle this.
MD then turned to 79 year old and asked him how many weeks a year it was to cover Latin American markets. He said ten weeks. MD turned back to me and said 'There you go, ten weeks'. Ten weeks a year sounds a fuckton to me. I said right.
Then, somewhat out of the blue, the 79 year old asked him about business class travel and got lolled out of the fucking building. Having just spent 9 hours on company time with a Colombian child clambering over my cramped airline seat as I tried to sleep, I didn't really see the funny side personally.
The MD then said right, in that case, your next trip (also with the 79 year old) will be to central America in May/June and then to Guyana and the Caribbean in September/October. I said right, ok. This all came as a shock so couldn't respond logically while taking it in.
He said you're going to get a few of 79 year old's markets, which he wouldn't specify but I suspect it will be the ones that currently perform poorly under the 79 year old i.e. Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, possibly Jamaica if I want to complete the set of high murder rates. He said we'll make you a new contract before 1 April to put you on salary plus commission. I said ok.
I was starting to feel quite rubbish at this point but, call me weak or whatever, in front of those 4 people I couldn't stop and say 'fuck you pay me'. I just couldn't, and the MD's attitude and the fact that he insisted on doing it in front of all of these other people really put me off both him and the prospects of putting my point across. Instead, I left the room, went downstairs feeling horrible, and waited for the 35 year old sales director to come back. When he did, I went in and said to him 'I want a meeting with you on Monday, because there are quite a few things I wasn't comfortable saying up there in that environment with those people'. He said of course.
I have three options: a) meekly go along with them, b) make a bit of a fuss, c) blow the whole thing up and hold them explicitly to ransom. I am very well practised in a) but just at the moment, I don't know what it is, maybe it's the jet lag, but I'm feeling closer to c).
It's happening.Next trip to Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua then
Have a think about what you want Jimmy (salary, lifestyle etc) and think about what you would accept as a minimum. Also think about where else would benefit from your skills and put yourself out there, even if it's a feeler.
If you don't know what you want, it's much easier to be bullied out of it. You clearly have a valued skillset that they don't want to lose. I'd also demand to set the timetable next time so it's not ridiculous early morning flights.
Definitely don't do a) Jimmy, for fuck's sake, they're clearly taking the piss. They might genuinely not think they are, because they're thick and clearly indoctrinated by what they think the job requires, but they are. 'Well, you know, if you want to make it in this industry, this company' is a massive red flag and a phrase clearly designed to make you feel like you're at fault for not wanting to bin off a fifth of your year for not enough reward. At least have a look at what you might get elsewhere, and even if you'd rather stay where you are for whatever the reasons may be at least use that (plus the fact that you know the company, the customers, etc) to wangle yourself a better deal.
They're taking you for a ride.
And 'You're not married, though', this attitude just winds me up whenever people use their families/your lack of one to wheedle you into or themselves out of doing something.
Jimmy, my wife's Uncle - another one, not Keith - used to work for a pharmaceutical company selling drugs to new markets and regularly traveled to Asia and the Middle East. Doesn't speak a word of the lingo. I don't know what he was earning, but he retired at 50, has bought his 3 children a house each and drives a top-spec BMW.
Obviously a different market, but I think it highlights quite how majorly you are being "mugged off" here.
You’ve a lot to offer by the sounds of all you’ve said here. I’d do any of them and start looking.
Yeah, this really winds me up too, and possibly has an extra needle of irritation in my case.
Thanks for the advice all, posting on here really helps sometimes.
Biggest cliche of all time but ‘work to live, not live to work’ is correct all the same. It’s no business of theirs if you’re single, married, or whatever. No job should rely heavily on any home situation.
One of my uncles used to commute weekly to Abu Dhabi. Night flight Sunday night, work through the week, night flight back Friday night. Some sort of engineering consultancy work or something.
There's no way this doesn't end up with you somehow ending up managing Paraguay for an unlikely tilt at the 2034 World Cup
My advice would be to make sure you know what your number is - make sure you don't blink first in the negotiation (get used to some uncountable silences). Whoever says a number first loses. You clearly passed the "interview" and it's now down to the details. It sounds like you hold a lot of cards as they're clearly succession planning (20 years too late).
The problem is, without wanting to appall my mother by talking about money, I'm currently on Ł35k. To do three of this kind of trip a year I'd want minimum Ł50k plus commission. Even that might be low, I don't know. The chances of them putting me on that are, I reckon, fucking zero.
I'd be perfectly happy carrying on as I am as basically an account manager for what I'm on now, but under the South Africans that doesn't seem to be on the table, I think if you start introducing this kind of long range travel to shithole countries it turns into a completely different gig.
Anyway of finding out what the 2 people you travelled with are on?
I'm a twit
No matter what they offer you, get another job.
The European sales manager brings in around Ł8k a month, as far as my best intelligence has it. Not sure what this old fella is on but I bet he's underpaid as he's an old Yorkshireman with a frugal attitude to expenses. The Arab's dad, who does the MENA countries, is said to bring in about Ł25k a month. These are all mostly commission - somehow I doubt El Salvador is going to generate the kind of commission that Spain, France and Germany do.
The Arab is on only very slightly more than me (no commission) for managing a market that makes Ł1 million a year in sales, or about 5% of our turnover, and spending 6 weeks a year bumming round Iraq. He's very unhappy about this but has no choice until he's served out his 5 year British visa tied to the company, they have him utterly over a barrel until that point.
Couldn't he just elbow them to death?
Do you want to earn more money Jim or is it more that you feel you should be paid more for the shit show they want you to do? You'd breeze into plenty of 35-40k roles with less hassle and proper fluffy modern corporate cultures.
Sounds quite similar to Magic's job in that he's a sales guy who has to travel around shithole countries. But he's paid (a lot?) more than that from what I remember.
Ł35k in London for that level of work, plus language skills, is absolute banter money though
Ł50k + commission sounds low as fuck for that travel itinerary to me, unless the percentage is good enough to net you at least a few more grand a month.
Travelling might look cool on Instagram but travelling to work is a right cunt on.
He might enjoy it more if he goes solo but his bosses love to tag along.
I suppose you could take a camera with you and be a more sophisticated and less pervy version of Bald and Bankrupt and make millions as an unlikely YouTube star.
I value a work-life balance, so it's basically being bought off to do all that shit.
You definitely need to do some research.
An extra 3-5k to go travelling around the world without any time in lieu to pretty tough countries seems completely out of touch with reality.
I’d get yourself on indeed or wherever and start seeing what other jobs you’ve got transferable skills for. Sounds like you’d be suited to procurement or contract management roles in BIG INDUSTRY.
I'm not in Jim's industry, but you could come and work for my company as almost anything in sales for more than Ł35k, you wouldn't have to travel half way around the World to earn it either.
In my experience there are two types of employers when it comes to the package, those that are reasonable and even proactive about salary and those that are not. Your lot seem to fall squarely in the latter camp and if they do, they won't change.
Get the old CV/linkedin dusted off and start firing off a few applications and having some conversations with recruiters. Even if not to actually move on but just to get an idea of the market and what you could be getting.
Change jobs then. You would get a far better work life balance for the same if not better renumeration elsewhere, I guarantee it.
Barely slept last night, whether because of jet lag or stress or both I don't know, but it's a bad way to start my 27th consecutive working day. I think the boat is going to have to be rocked at last.
The wage you are on for London surprises me to be honest. Effectively working in a sale type role I can’t see that anything less than 50/60k should be acceptable and if you went elsewhere I’d expect something in that line. Hell you can earn that in Norfolk as an employee mortgage broker so fuck knows what they earn in London.
What I would say is that I worked for a firm very similar to the one you currently work for. It was all about doing free overtime, wages were screwed down as much as possible and everything was always done with a nod and a wink. “Next year will be your year.” It never fucking was.
And you can tell the old bastards are cooking the books. That little industry under the radar with all that money getting pocketed. The backhanders being a cheap alternative to paying you every week.
Had a chat with the Indian guy in the office, he thinks exactly the same as me about all this but god bless him he's even more of a doormat than me. He recalled the time when he was on a work trip in India over a British bank holiday weekend (which wasn't a BH in India), came back and asked for the bank holiday back which he'd been working through. The company said sorry no, bank holidays apply in the country you're working in at the time.
He also revealed that he'd once been in a meeting where bosses had repeatedly cited my unmarried status as a good opportunity to get me on the road. I mean, lol.
Sounds like you're in the market for a sham marriage.
that's fucking cheeky.
They're proper pisstakers.
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