Sorry - I knew "politics of envy" was a lazy cliché I ought to have avoided. It's a highly charged one, and I didn't intend to invoke the politics of those who usually use it... but I was in a rush, so, er :oops:.
What's been worrying me in some of the posts I see (not just here, but in the press, etc) is people dismissing, not just criticising, but dismissing all of "them" as baddies somehow responsible for everything that's gone wrong. I don't think they are the baddies, any more than the rest of us are. They're just more high profile and they're the sort of people that the media can point out so that we all know who we're meant to blame...
"Consequences" do go up as well as down. I'm at the bottom, a quite well paid bottom (I'm in IT as well, one of the red-shirted ones :lol:) but no-one works below me. I am a resource/commodity to my management, I accept that, that's the way it works - but I'm a bluddy useful resource and I make sure they know it. Now, if I mess up, here at the bottom, it does have consequences to those above me – up to and including loss of salary, demotion, redundancy. They could suffer these consequences because one of the people whose actions they're responsible for has messed up. Those consequences can go all the way to the top, same as the mess ups at the top can have consequences all the way down. Both the top and the bottom have the power to screw the whole operation up.
However, if I (or anyone else) mess up enough so that I get made redundant, I expect two things for myself:
a) I expect to get paid (assuming the funds are still available) for all my efforts up until now, and to cover my notice period, according to the terms of my contract.
b) I expect to be able to find another job eventually, with remuneration commensurate with the sector I work in, my skills, experience, and how many other idiots like me are looking at the same time, etc.
I don't see how I can possibly require that lower expectations than this are imposed on someone higher up than me. The only problem is that the terms of their contracts are somewhat different than mine, so their severance pay seems extortionately large to me. And they have somewhat different skillsets than I do, one of which is being able to take that kind of pressure and risk. So other companies are prepared to take them on doing the same sort of job, fully aware that "mistakes get made". When it comes down to it, track-record-wise, these guys are successful at what they do, otherwise they wouldn't be kept on, or be able to sign another extortionate contract with a competitor.
That's the way it works - when it comes down to it, it is a roughly level playing field we're all on, unfortunately some people can "run faster" than I can, and some people can't. We can learn to go a bit faster by putting some effort in, etc, but at the moment we're all born with the legs that we're born with.
I decided years ago that I really don't want the system changed so that I'm no longer allowed to run faster than the blokes down the road if I put a bit more effort in. But that means I have to accept the fact that there are far many more blokes up the road who are allowed to run faster than I can ever hope to.
I used to get wound up by this stuff. But one day I realised that me having a hard time about those blokes running faster than me was pretty much down to envy, and that's why I resorted to the cliché earlier.
I've probably managed to say something else now :roll:. Apologies if I have - I really don't want to wind anyone up here. I'm not wound up about it at all, but I obviously feel strongly enough to want to try and get something across. I just wish I could encapsulate it in a "soundbite" that everyone understands, it would have saved me writing all the drivel above!
