Part of what he had to build on wasn't just a bunch of bodies occupying jobs, but people who do their jobs well enough to produce a product that's good and cheap enough for him to be able to broker that deal.
I dunno, some of those plant jobs could be done by robots... we're just not that sophisticated. And, personally, I'm happy to see humans out there working.
Its those of us in here, TSR&D dept., that made sure our products matched the competitors and didn't fall apart once implemented, that are the ones that put in the extra effort to make sure it went down smoothly (we're all on salaries tho). Hell, they even got me out of the office and lab and into the field turning wrenched. No, literally, bolting shit together hooking up products. And I didn't see a dime for all the extra work I put in. But ya know, that's the agreement I have with my employer and I'm free to seek out something better somewhere else or propose my own changes to my current position.
And this has come up before. I've seen sales opportunities during my personal free time and approached the head of sales about how I'd get paid if I sold some of our products. The reply was that the way things are currently set-up, it would be a house account and I wouldn't receive any commission on it (I don't have an account set-up for myself). Or, I could write up a proposal that details the commission structure, and they could approve it and set up an account for me (I've seen new salesguys hired that had deals already in their back pocket and that's what they did: "I'll provide your company with this business if you give me X"). The only problem with that is there's already a local salesguy that covers this territory and I'd be stepping on his toes. He's a nice guy, so I just provide him the leads when I see them instead of pursuing them myself. I don't know how to propose a commission deal like that anyways. I could put all the effort into it, but then, there goes my medium chill.
I've never gotten a bonus. Ever. At any job. At my current employer, I;ve gotten exactly one raise. I have personally saved my current company (and previous employers) at minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars (one recent project we projected to save over $200,000 per year, and I was one of two people who worked on that project, and I did all of the planning and documentation and half of the implementation). I was the "single key" person in many of those cases, largely because I work in IT and I'm often the only person working on a given project. I consistently get stellar performance reviews from my management.
We estimate that every dollar saved on our end is the equivalent of $10 won in a project. But when some project manager or executive wins a job worth a few hundred grand or a few million in fees for the company, they get bonuses and raises. Including the very, very large win we recently got where I provided all of the IT support for all of our employees and subcontractors and basically made it possible for them to make their proposal.
Nobody is going to hand those savings to you. You have to go and grab them yourself. Maybe you can ammend you're agreement with the company to provide you with a percentage of those savings. You're gonna have to play hard ball. If they're unwilling, you might have to find a different company that is. But you're gonna have to do it yourself.
I get notified that my yearly healthcare costs are going up by $1000 out of my pocket, and that I'll be lucky to see a $500 raise. I work hard and get results, but the only people getting rewarded are the people who are already making six figures or more.
I don't think my experience is particularly unique.
As long as you sit there and let them fuck you and not go and make the changes to make it any different, they're gonna continue to do it. Whining on the sidewalk that its not fair isn't going to provide you with anything.
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