Just venting

[Masteryota]

The title says it all. I found out this week, that my income potential at my dealership has been capped indefinitely. I find this a hard pill to swallow, considering the level of work expected by management, and the fact they also expect me and a few select senior techs to basically babysit the new guys, and make sure they don't cost the dealership money by screwing something up, and ensuring all repairs are performed correctly, and efficiently, all while denying monetary compensation or promotions. When asked for a reason behind locking down our salaries, I was told their 'profit margin' couldn't decrease. Keep in mind, the dealer charges in excess of $100/hr, and pay less than $20/hr, so even at my level, their 'profit margin' stays above 80%, with the proposed raises, that number would drop less than 1% for the highest paid technicians in the shop, and remain at or above 85% for the lower level guys, which is about 70% of the shop.

I feel that at my age(29), my earning potential should not be capped and allowed to plateau beyond my control, I figured at this point, my earning potential would begin to increase with my level of expertise, certification, and education. I am beginning to realize what used to be a good company to work for has been taken over by greedy share holders and managers.

Thanks for listening, I just needed to vent my frustrations, and get some validation from some of my peers without fear of retaliation from co-workers and snooping managers. I would like you to take this from the above, if you choose to use a dealership for service or repairs, steer away from corporate owned entities, as they treat their employees like numbers.

[BuggyMaster]

Ahhh...the great Greed. That's the new today man. In our case, it is more work, less people. Those of us that have jobs are happy to have jobs (especially if you know what it's like NOT to have a job for a period of time) so we just put up with it. Greed rules the world.....

[Masteryota]

Sounds about right, I am making other plans as we speak, and in time, should pay off rather well. The part I think managers forget, is that there are no techs at my level looking for low paying jobs, so once we all filter out, they won't won't have much to work with. Unfortunately, one of the old timers here told a similar story from another local dealer, and their reputation precedes them being not desirable. Sounds like a pattern that repeats like our recessions....

[x-bird]

corporate management and bean counters--good for fubaring things top to bottom --and not much else.

[bear]

I'm 53 and I run 80% of all the out of town projects for our company, have so many different certifications my employee file looks like a copy of war and peace, am the "primary" apprentise trainer for the company, am on the cover of every brochure of each of the companies divisions as the "face of the company" and have been told that I will not be promoted to a senior position with the company due to a cap and that I should be happy to just have the opportunity to "Showcase" my skills to others!!! oh and they cut my "out of town" expense cache by approx. 30%! ah living the dream!!! Oops sorry, thats just my 2 cents, but I feel ya Masterman!

[bear]

Buggymaster it may be everybodies birthday, but you are the "GODFATHER" Thanks for giving us all a place to call home and grow together!!!

[300cpilot]

I know your pain, about 20 years ago I was the lead designer on a 50 million dollar substation expansion and had a team of people that answered to me and I was making $12.00 an hour, every engineer on my team was making more than 30.00 an hour straight out of college. Yet I had to train them...

The solution I found was to open my own business. At least any markup is yours!

[Masteryota]

Thanks guys, at least I know I'm not alone. I had thought about opening my own shop, but the risk is too great, with insurance, space needed, tools needed for start up, I decided against it. My end goal is to work for our regional distributor as a field engineer or an instructor, but I need a 4 year degree to even apply. In the mean time, I am looking at moving to toyota's luxury line, where they actually pay their tech's what they are worth, while I work on my schooling. I have 2 ex-bosses that have gone to the regional office, and one of them calls me regularly to see if I have removed my head from the dark orifice and started school, this time I can say yes.