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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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I hope you're right. But where I am, in tech, promised salaries increased for like a year, then dropped right back down once the companies started laying people off. They knew they could get away with it.

You got a pay cut?

Not quite. My company promised increased salaries in 2022, and did it for people who were promoted or hired that year. But then the rest of us never saw the increase. As for those folks who did get the initial pay increase, I'm not sure if they kept it. It's possible that the company simply replenished them less stocks subsequently. My company never actually tells you how much your target comp is, and more than half of your comp comes from stocks, so it's ambiguous.

It's pretty rare to see a nominal pay cut, although of course salaries for new employees fluctuate.

Surely your company does tell you your salary and target bonus and how many stock units you'll be given. Hopefully at least you got nice gains on the stock.

My company wouldn't do a nominal pay cut, but they can be nice and shifty when they want to be. They don't tell you your target bonus or stock, just your base salary. I did get good gains on stock for this year, but next year my compensation (stock included) shoots right back down again, because when they granted me stocks for next year, the stock price was already doing well, meaning they gave me fewer shares.