As for Bill Gates, he does a lot for eduation with the money he’s made so far. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on improving inner-city public education and working to eradiate AIDS in the third-world. For all the complaining that people do about the rich not contributing to solving the world’s problems, I think Gates has proven himself an noteworthy exception.

In the past 8 years I’ve worked for AT&T, ATT Wireless, Cingular Wireless and now “the new at&t” … all without every leaving the company.

We grew from about 70k people to ~150k and with the last merger, up to close to 300k employees.

With each step; benefits were cut, medical costs were increased, salaries were frozen, as well as promotions.

And new management was brought in to “crack the whip” and further try to push up productivity … all the while doing more with less people.

I’m so sick of this corporate mentality, its so plainly obvious that there is only (1) over-all theme happening. Meeting the “bottom line”, aka making the few people in upper management very rich at the expense of everyone below them.

I watched them lay off nearly 300 people in the course of a week … and then a month later, approve huge bonuses for the few elites running the company.

Rumors suggest that the benefit of a corporation is that you’ll get paid more salary … but I’ll take less pay to be treated like a person again.

The company I am at now simply doesn’t know how to find talent, if though they are willing to pay largs sums for it.

Bill Gates’ SALARY: $970,000
(note this number is based on wikipedia…I couldn’t find a better source)

His salary from one year could send 17 people to public college for a bachelors degree or 70 people for one year (08-09).

His total income is 2.2 Billion per year. So…He could send 38,684 people to college to receive their 4 year degree or 159,651 people through public college for the 08-09 school year. He would have to use some of his net worth to live off of, but then he wouldn’t have to bother congress to get more H1B Visas.
Then again, maybe the problem is that Mr. Gates hasn’t run the numbers like I just did. Maybe he should have stayed in Harvard and gotten his degree like he demands of the people he hires. Oh, wait! I don’t have a degree either and I can run the numbers…
When you go into a company know your worth and stand for nothing less. Leave if they don’t value you. If everyone did this the companies would finally have to treat their employess less like serfs.

This is very true. For some reason companies think they can get the best people for low wages. Outsourcing has convinced them that all employees are interchangeable. Fire a dozen in NYC and hire a dozen in Mumbai. There’s no difference.

At the same time, CEO’s demand top dollar for mediocre performance.

Hear hear! Paul in Seattle is speaking the truth!

It’s just like “jobs Americans won’t do,” which everyone knows really means “jobs Americans won’t do in sh**y conditions for slave wages.”

I’m now with a small startup where people enjoy coming to work, the work is challenging and fun and everyone from the CEO down is awesome to work with.

There are jobs which most can learn in few weeks.

If you need a surgeon, few weeks may not be enough.

Similar case for a Pilot. Can any be trained to become next President of USA.

Companies outsource jobs overseas at the drop of a hat for cheaper, less qualified, engineering and computer science applicants. That’s why enrollment is down in US colleges for these subjects. Its all about short term profits.

My own company won’t allow me to hire programmers for more then $40k in a high cost of living area because they think they are too expensive compared to their Indian counterparts (who cost a lot more when you factor in the required micro-mgmt of those resources). Ridiculous.

When companies say there’s a labor shortage it just means they’re not willing to train anyone and they won’t pay the market rate for the work they need done. The executives in charge deserve to be fired immediately for incompetence.

It’s not a bad company, but there is virtually no upward movement within the company. There have been a total of six promotions handed out to employees over the past two years (two of them last week to two members of the executive team). In that time the company has grown from 67 employees to over 170 today. The reward those have obtained for being here since the beginning is nothing more than being locked in the same position as when we started. With pay raises that lag behind inflation, no increased benefits, and tons more responsibility.

To make matters even more dismal for my hope of ever moving up, my current boss was one of the six a year and half ago. He was promoted to the Vice President position, and after four months on the job asked for a demotion. So he is permanently stuck at the director level. Our corporate structure doesn’t allow directors to report to directors, so as a manager I am also permanently stuck.

I love my job, and completely believe in the company. Is there anything I can do? If not, is it worth it to stay at job that I enjoy, at a company I believe in, even if it means I am intentionally stalling my career?

It seems mildly self-centered to me to quit just because I can never have a promotion. At the same time, at 25 I am definitely not in a phase of my career where I should be knowingly stalling any advancement.

Any advice would be paramount.

Thanks.