My boss picked up his new C8 yesterday. I needed to vent.

The boss at the place I worked in January, which had less than 10 employees total, had 2 houses, drove an F-Pace and was considering an Audi or a Tesla. He seemed to be trying to build a dream team of people who were comfortable with an insane pace of work and his drill sergeant/gang leader hybrid management style, and thus was blowing through employees like crazy. The last guy they hired simply ghosted them after less than a week.

Streetwiseguy said:

Jerry said:

Teh E36 M3 said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of jealousy in this thread. You are all free to start your own company and see if you have what it takes to succeed. It takes a lot. 

Cute. Except employees of the company have waaay more skin in the game. The stories of bootstraps and employers who are just hard working Americans who "made it on their own" and so their employees get to be second class citizens are such bullE36 M3. 

There are two techs and myself, a Quality Manager.  He wouldn't have this business if we didn't do the actual work.

Sounds easy.  You should open your own place and buy a Corvette.

rotard said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Jerry said:

Teh E36 M3 said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of jealousy in this thread. You are all free to start your own company and see if you have what it takes to succeed. It takes a lot. 

Cute. Except employees of the company have waaay more skin in the game. The stories of bootstraps and employers who are just hard working Americans who "made it on their own" and so their employees get to be second class citizens are such bullE36 M3. 

There are two techs and myself, a Quality Manager.  He wouldn't have this business if we didn't do the actual work.

Sounds easy.  You should open your own place and buy a Corvette.

 

At least include the apology for floundering a thread if you are going to quote me. Context matters. I stand by my original comment, but I feel bad about it, because now is a time we need peacemakers more than flounders.

Datsun310Guy said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of jealousy in this thread. You are all free to start your own company and see if you have what it takes to succeed. It takes a lot. 

Good point. My manager would always tell us the owner has all the risk and we have none. 

That dude hoped you had never thought to find out what LLC's were created for.

To the OP, I'd say there's no reason to do anything rash, but it seems like a number of reasons that you'd want to start looking at how you're going to go out the door to something better in an orderly fashion. 

It's possible he ordered the C8 ages ago and it's just taken this long to get delivered.  Granted, I agree the optics are not ideal. 

My ex- never drove the convertible MINI we bought in 2007 to her office. She was under the impression they wouldn't give her a raise if she showed up with another car (in addition to her MINI, Volvo 1800ES and Spitfire).  That the value of all 4 cars was less than most of the SUVs in the lot where she worked didn't seem to matter.  Whenever I drove the car to my office, nobody cared.  My coworkers are more envious of my paid-off house than my fleet of cars. Granted, none of them have seem my small house... 

Reminds of when I'd see John Sullivan being chauffered just two blocks from the AFL-CIO headquarters to lunch 

In a Rolls Royce.

Seemed a little incongruous especially given the pending Cadillac tax in the PPACA.

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of jealousy in this thread. You are all free to start your own company and see if you have what it takes to succeed. It takes a lot. 

One of the most sanctimonious comments I’ve ever read on this forum.

So, I didn't see anyone mention this, but maybe he financed the purchases with a loan? Yeah, it's still somewhat in poor taste to splurge on a personal car while saying business has been tight, but a few hundred a month extra on a car payment isn't exactly the same level of snobbery as dropping $50K+ cash on that same car.

People I work with think I'm "rich" cuz I have several cars. I make less than most of them and my "new" vehicle is  a 2011. If I sold every single car I own, I could maybe buy a new Accord.

A 401 CJ said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of jealousy in this thread. You are all free to start your own company and see if you have what it takes to succeed. It takes a lot. 

One of the most sanctimonious comments I’ve ever read on this forum.

I mean, he isn't exactly wrong. Like others said, the owner could have other streams of income and business might be tight for that particular business but it doesn't mean he can't enjoy the fruits of his labor. The OP didn't mention anything unethical being done with the money. "Optics" meh, my big boss is the POTUS, think about those optics when they show up to our jobs lol.

Seriously though, if you're tired of being/feeling underpaid, undervalued, and don't like how your boss spends or seemingly flaunts their money then go work for yourself. Or change jobs.

The risk of entrepreneurship is high and the effort is great. 

After years spent working for privately owned companies of every size & large corporations, the best thing to ever happen in my working life was to get hired by an ESOP company. It's just a completely different mindset. 
 

Granted, part of it is certainly our internal culture that makes the ESOP work well for us, but I expect the two will generally go hand-in-hand for any successful ESOP.  

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

Granted, part of it is certainly our internal culture that makes the <insert any company>  work well 

Mildly changed that for you.  It's the culture, and most times that comes from leadership and the ability to communicate passion and vision.

I had a customer, a privately held company, where the owner was wealthy beyond wealthy.  It certainly didn't all come from this one business.  It was like a joke, and quite fun as a car-guy.  Every time I went there was a different super-car parked in his spot. From AMG S-series and S8's to Lambos, Ferraris, it was top shelf every time.  The employees that I interacted with probably had a bit of underlying, normal jealousy, but would smile and speak excitedly about them - "hey did you see today's ride?  Isn't that freakin awesome??  You should get him to open it up for you, the dash display is crazy!"

I think the real problem here isn't the Vette but what it represents: 3 guys not being adequately recognized and compensated for their hard work, while the boss (possibly, probably) is enjoying the fruits of their hard work while being oblivious to how its affected company moral.

Appleseed said:

3 guys not being adequately recognized and compensated for their hard work, while the boss (possibly, probably) is enjoying the fruits of their hard work while being oblivious to how its affected company moral.

That's America! And has always been America. Whew! 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

After years spent working for privately owned companies of every size & large corporations, the best thing to ever happen in my working life was to get hired by an ESOP company. It's just a completely different mindset. 
 

Granted, part of it is certainly our internal culture that makes the ESOP work well for us, but I expect the two will generally go hand-in-hand for any successful ESOP.  

I personally don't really agree with this.  ESOP (employee stock ownership programs) are a great way for employees in small growing companies (e.g. startups), to share in the growth of the company. In larger companies, they really don't do much. An average employee in such situations have wildly insignificant effect on the stock price and the price does change enough to have a significant income effect.

There of course is a huge downside to a public company.  They are, pretty much by definition, slaves to their stock prices, which very much come before the employees. It can be fine in good time, but hell in bad ones.

I have worked for all three (the third being a latter stage startup) and I can say I am very happy to be out of a large publicly held company and be in a large privately held company.  Fortunately, the owner seems to be a reasonable, good guy. And yes he is very very very wealthy.  He seems to lean towards nice Mercedes type cars rather than exotics though. He could easily afford buying a new Ferrari each day, but that is just not his style.

In reply to yupididit :

That's not America. That's life. That's reality. Every society throughout history has a few folks benefiting from the work of the masses. Every country on the planet. Every economy. Every single one. Every single time. 
 

America is one of the only ones in history where ones social and economic circumstances can be changed for the better. It's not fair, and hard work isn't guaranteed to pay off every time, but it does pay off. And we're all free to try. That can't be said of most places. 
 

The system is unfair and imperfect, but it has created more wealth and opportunity for more people everywhere than any system that came before. 
 

I may get patio'd. Don't care. Im tired of the rhetoric. I'm tired of the divisiveness. Yes, America is flawed, but so are we. Better to learn from the flaws and do our best to improve them. 

Jerry said:

Teh E36 M3 said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of jealousy in this thread. You are all free to start your own company and see if you have what it takes to succeed. It takes a lot. 

Cute. Except employees of the company have waaay more skin in the game. The stories of bootstraps and employers who are just hard working Americans who "made it on their own" and so their employees get to be second class citizens are such bullE36 M3. 

There are two techs and myself, a Quality Manager.  He wouldn't have this business if we didn't do the actual work.

That's where you are wrong. He'd just have different employees. Just like you'd have a different job if he didn't succeed.

In reply to barefootskater (Shaun) :

It is America too though. You said exactly what I said and just expanded upon it by adding the world society humans etc. And there's nothing wrong with that. We're both right 

In America, anyone could get rich but 99% won't, and that's ok.

In reply to yupididit :

Yeah man. Sorry if I came off a little hot on that one. We're all in this together. 

yupididit said:

A 401 CJ said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of jealousy in this thread. You are all free to start your own company and see if you have what it takes to succeed. It takes a lot. 

One of the most sanctimonious comments I’ve ever read on this forum.

 

I mean, he isn't exactly wrong. Like others said, the owner could have other streams of income and business might be tight for that particular business but it doesn't mean he can't enjoy the fruits of his labor. The OP didn't mention anything unethical being done with the money. "Optics" meh, my big boss is the POTUS, think about those optics when they show up to our jobs lol.

Seriously though, if you're tired of being/feeling underpaid, undervalued, and don't like how your boss spends or seemingly flaunts their money then go work for yourself. Or change jobs.

The risk of entrepreneurship is high and the effort is great. 

 

I mean, you’re not exactly wrong by that but have you looked at how the bankruptcy game can be played?  How about private equity?  Do you know how that works and how it’s related to the bankruptcy laws?  My point is that there isn’t always as much skin in the game as it appears.  

And sorry in advance if I came off like a Richard.  The more I study this paradigm the angrier I get.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but a lot of y'all are assuming that the boss with the C8 pulled himself up by the bootstraps.  
'Hard work and a small million dollar loan from his father' is a thing, right?  

Regardless, maybe not a savvy move when times are tough for many folks.

SnowMongoose said:

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but a lot of y'all are assuming that the boss with the C8 pulled himself up by the bootstraps.  
'Hard work and a small million dollar loan from his father' is a thing, right?  

Regardless, maybe not a savvy move when times are tough for many folks.

Zactly

I can say for certain the guy I work for absolutely came up from almost nothing.  

That may be why he is a bit more humble and considerate than some other "richy" types.

That being said, it will be pretty hard (almost impossible?) to be a "nice guy" all the time if you run a big business and be successful. There are always those that will "go there" to take any advantage they can.  Sometimes you need to be an a-hole to deal with other a-holes.  Some will be able to avoid having that bleed into the rest of their life, others, not so much...

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Which is likely part of why he's venting to us instead of telling his boss how tossing his money around looks.  

Clearly OP is a lazy roustabout, not deserving of credit or nice things. /s

In reply to SnowMongoose :

zactly