Blizzard employees post their salaries to protest

[spartaman64]

5 minutes ago, gloop said:

Have managed to find something that looks half legit from reddit:

  Reveal hidden contents

Click for spreadsheet

 

 

if it wasnt cali those numbers dont seem that bad

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

if it wasnt cali those numbers dont seem that bad

There isn’t a stupendous pay discrepancy  either, though it’s not small.  Numbers seem to range between 20-30% between highest and lowest in a job category.  20% is the relative distance one study I saw as being the difference between what regular Americans seem to see as a socio economic level.  It was pretty consistent in the study.  No matter what a persons income was 20% more was “that person is doing well”

 

 There did seem to be some outliers. Not many though

[mr moose]

In Australia workers compare wages all the time,  hell we even have websites (including government controlled ones) that tell people how much they should expect form each position. 

 

Don't like the pay in one job get a different job.    People boast about silicon valley earning $200K  maybe they should go there.

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

source: https://time.com/5875371/blizzard-wage-disaparities/

 

I'm sort of torn on this. It's sort of expected for testers and customer service reps to be paid less and you shouldn't go into those positions expecting to make lots of money. But the report that employees got significant pay raises when they left for other companies shows that there are problems with pay and raises at blizzard. 

Not really. That is a fact in almost any industry. If you move to a different company you usually get a bigger pay bump than you would out of an annual raise. I have a friend who works in the biomedical engineering field and it is super common for people to jump back and forth between the big biomedical companies because it is simply easier to make more money that way. I mean the dynamic is completely different because when you are work someplace and you don't like your raise you mostly likely won't do anything about it while if you already have a job and they don't offer you enough money to switch over you can simply reject the offer. Actually I have had friends who have found other job offers and used it as leverage for getting a better raise and it works. 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, comander said:

 

So I used to live in that dark area under "Santa Monica"

Rent (had roommate) - $900
Food - $350
Insurance on old truck - $100

Utilities - $70

Cell - $50

Gas - $50
Misc - $100

If I worked full time at $13ish/hour (I made closer to $40/hr at the time) I could have made it work with margin to spare and all the food I could've wanted. 
I knew people who's quality of life wasn't THAT much higher who spent double. 

Most peoples' finance problems are from waste and stupidity.

 

Get a better job. It's definitely harder now, but 1 year ago someone could conceivably put 100-300 hours into interview practice and stuff would just happen. 99% of people do not put 100 hours interview/resume preparation. The average person in the US puts around 1400 hours a year into TV. If they put 10% of that every 5 years (so 2% overall) into job prep they'd make 2x as much. 

Most people are grossly underulized professionally. They're paid accordingly. Want more pay? get into a role that's more influential. 

I am guilty of this. When I was 16-22 I made between $7-10/hour. I was underutilized and I definitely worried about food. 
If I switched to IT I could've made $10-20/hour. I didn't. That was my fault. I would've been happier too. 

My first job out of college I made $30-50/hour... when I job hopped it went up to around $100-150ish (depending on bonus/equity grants/stock price). Looking back, I could've made that job hop 1-3 years earlier (spent the time trying to get a Harvard MBA - Harvard wouldn't even interview me... though Yale, Chicago, Wharton, etc. all did - ended up taking a job at Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Google/Netflix instead). That was a mistake on my end. I expect that in ~5ish years I could go to $150-200ish an hour. 

Situationally dependent.  Some are, some arent.  Cali is known for rather high rents, but some areas are crazy.   The issue is as I have heard it is assessed home value freezes.  People don’t want to move out of their houses even though their home value is way higher than their income, so they froze assessed value.  If a house gets sold on the open market it’s assessed value goes up, so they’re not sold on the open market. They’re inherited. Basically entire cities  went rent control. Rent control has problems as a solution which get worse over time.  It works well for the immediate future but 40-50 years down the line massive inequalities develop. What I find mysterious is why companies set up shop in these areas.  IT is fairly portable. 

[Bombastinator]

13 minutes ago, mr moose said:

In Australia workers compare wages all the time,  hell we even have websites (including government controlled ones) that tell people how much they should expect form each position. 

 

Don't like the pay in one job get a different job.    People boast about silicon valley earning $200K  maybe they should go there.

Doesn’t work so much that way in the US.  People can get targeted.  There are websites but they are carefully anonymous.  Glass door is one.  The advantage of forcing such behavior is it exposes the overly high numbers as well as the overly low ones. 

[divito]

A raise is only one of two things:

1. COLA
2. Recognition for superior performance

I don't know where the entitled masses started believing that they were going to simply receive raises in general. Showing up and doing your job is what you're compensated for with your hourly wage, or by your salary. Unless you're going above and beyond, there is little incentive for a boss or company to reward that with a raise in excess of a COLA, or with a promotion. It also makes little financial sense.

Some of the people complaining also don't take into account various forms of insurance, perks, benefits, or bonuses that they receive when discussing things like wages and salaries. There are many companies and sectors that utilize a lower industry salary for bonuses or other perks based on merit and/or company performance. Raising everyone's wages beyond cost-of-living does not incentivize or protect companies from economic downturns, and bonus structures help alleviate that.

Yes, some companies are ruthless in that they remove people from its ranks to bring in fresh blood that can allow for lower starting wages, but if those people were truly valuable, they wouldn't be let go.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Brooksie359 said:

 Actually I have had friends who have found other job offers and used it as leverage for getting a better raise and it works. 

It works if you're an in-demand worker and the company needs/wants you and your skill set.  This will not work for lazy workers or dime'a'dozen work forces.     Having worked with both (people who get offered a decent raise and better hours to stay,  and those who asked why are they still hanging around if there's somewhere better to work)  the dime a dozen lot don't seem to understand the reason they get paid so little is because the job could be done by anyone and there is always someone else willing to do it, they then make silly demands for more pay and try to protest. 

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Doesn’t work so much that way in the US.  People can get targeted.  There are websites but they are carefully anonymous.  Glass door is one.  The advantage of forcing such behavior is it exposes the overly high numbers as well as the overly low ones. 

And that I believe is a problem with the system/culture.   There aren't huge discrepancies between workers here in Australia, 1 is because we have mandated minimum wages for each sector and 2 it's because everyone knows the average wage,  people know before they even start that the only people earning more than them are the ones who are doing more or have a noted different responsibility.   

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, divito said:

 Unless you're going above and beyond, there is little incentive for a boss or company to reward that with a raise in excess of a COLA, or with a promotion. It also makes little financial sense.
 

This is very very very true.  I heard a radio talk back program a few years back and they were talking about companies that give people temporary promotions to leader/team leader/supervisor roles but without the pay while that person takes leave.   It was extraordinary to hear so many people not take the opportunity to prove they can do it,  instead arguing that if they aren't getting paid  extra then they won't do it.  They were effectively demanding their efforts be recognized before they actually put any effort in.   

 

It's just a fact of life, if you want to earn more you have to work harder/better, you have to prove you are worth more before any employer will start paying you more.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, Kisai said:

It's usually considered unprofessional to share wage data, but the thing is... that's why

Well no it actually isn't, only employers want people to believe that is the case. So long as you share that information respectfully then it is not unprofessional to do so. Where I work every professional employee knows what each other is earning because every position is attributed a skill score and placed in to a salary bracket/grade. Every position and their salary bracket is public information, even you could go and find out.

 

For academic employees it is much the same except for those with Professorship titles who have no limit but you can just figure it out based on how long they have been employed. Each year everyone gets a standard increment based on their salary scale bracket, for those Professors since there is no limit it's just (increment * years) + base salary = estimated salary.

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It's just a fact of life, if you want to earn more you have to work harder/better, you have to prove you are worth more before any employer will start paying you more.

Problem is not all employers do that. They will work the ever living dog shit out of you and not want to give you anything. That how too many employers are here in the US. Thats why people will barely just scrap by doing their job. The other side of it, too many employees only look at the money. They dont look at other benefits or how management treats you. 

 

For example, I work for a company making $14.50 an hour. Its not a lot. BUT I get 10hrs of paid time off a month. If I hit my numbers I get incentive hours (paid time off, but doesn't count against the 240hrs of paid time off I can accumulate). If the warehouse reaches a 99.5% accuracy each month the company gives us a lunch. On top of we get decent medical, dental, vision, 401k, life insurance, and disability. Too many focus on the hourly rate and not the other benefits. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

Problem is not all employers do that. They will work the ever living dog shit out of you and not want to give you anything.

Then leave and go to an employer who does recognize it. 

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

That how too many employers are here in the US. Thats why people will barely just scrap by doing their job. The other side of it, too many employees only look at the money. They dont look at other benefits or how management treats you. 

As I said before, that's an issue with the system/culture. 

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

For example, I work for a company making $14.50 an hour. Its not a lot. BUT I get 10hrs of paid time off a month. If I hit my numbers I get incentive hours (paid time off, but doesn't count against the 240hrs of paid time off I can accumulate). If the warehouse reaches a 99.5% accuracy each month the company gives us a lunch. On top of we get decent medical, dental, vision, 401k, life insurance, and disability. Too many focus on the hourly rate and not the other benefits. 

 

I don't know if that's good or not.  I just know in a system that works for everyone you don't have to fight for better conditions. 

 

The thing with companies is that they are managed to leverage the most out of what they have, while they have an infinite supply of dead beats that they can churn through and pay peanuts then that's what they'll do,  if retraining costs too much then they'll start paying more to retain,  if paying more means more revenue then they'll start doing that too.  The whole thing starts with the worker, if they are willing to suck it up or take it on to get by then that is all they will have on offer.   If they are willing to leave and find greener pastures then the original company will start to reconsider the base rate.

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

Then leave and go to an employer who does recognize it. 

As I said before, that's an issue with the system/culture. 

 

I don't know if that's good or not.  I just know in a system that works for everyone you don't have to fight for better conditions. 

 

The thing with companies is that they are managed to leverage the most out of what they have, while they have an infinite supply of dead beats that they can churn through and pay peanuts then that's what they'll do,  if retraining costs too much then they'll start paying more to retain,  if paying more means more revenue then they'll start doing that too.  The whole thing starts with the worker, if they are willing to suck it up or take it on to get by then that is all they will have on offer.   If they are willing to leave and find greener pastures then the original company will start to reconsider the base rate.

like someone else said often times they become passionate about the game they work on and dont want to go to another company and blizzard is exploiting that

[Trik'Stari]

Interesting move, since it makes these employees almost untouchable.

 

In the US, you are federally protected when discussing your salary with other employees. Any company policy that claims you may not do so, is a blatant violation of federal law. Blizzard firing any of these employees had best do their paperwork and have a clear and legitimate reason for do so, or they will get sued out the ass.

 

That being said, I don't care all that much. If your employer treats you like shit, go elsewhere and let them hire someone less talented, sooner or later it will bite them on the ass. I'm trying to do the same thing currently. My current employer has frozen all wage increases because of covid, because 90% of the company is furloughed over it. I'm apart of the 10% that is "essential" and still bringing in money for the company. Yet I cannot get my yearly evaluation and wage increase because reasons.

 

So, I'm going to go elsewhere. And rest easy in the knowledge that those directly in line to replace me give way less of a shit about doing a good job, and are less competent. My biggest regret is that I cannot simply quit one the spot, because I care too much and am too close with my manager, who is a solid dude. His boss however, is a moron and an asshole to boot.

 

The best part is, my manager knows all this, and has been encouraging me to move on to greener pastures. He's trying to as well.

 

https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/national-labor-relations-act

 

Posting that just in case anyone is curious. You absolutely have a constitutional right to discuss your salary with fellow employees. Everything I have ever read about labor law has told me that federal labor regulations supersede all state regulations, in regards to employee protections.

[Bombastinator]

29 minutes ago, comander said:

Yep. 9/10 people aren't exceptional in their roles. 

 

 

With that said, the same person who is only OK or above average in one role could be AWESOME in another or at the very least worth a lot more doing something else. 

Low pay is a symptom of people not making the most of their potential. 

I wouldn't make a very good ditch digger. There's 0 way to justify paying me $100/hour to dig ditches. As a data scientist though... it's a lot easier to justify that rate. 

I still need to figure out how to improve the value of what I'm doing to others... if I add $1M in value and skim off half of it... that's awesome. 

Low pay is a symptom of low training which is not available to many people.  You think this other person wouldn’t go get that other job if they had the 2 years and $20,000 to train for that different role?  There was an instance earlier where you blamed people for not being careful with money in one post and then admitted to in your words merely “winning the lottery” in another.  Can’t be both.  Having parents with the money to provide higher education to their children is “winning the lottery” too because a lot of people don’t have that. Privilidge is a big big deal in America.  It’s the similarity that American society has to a caste system.  It’s not a caste system yet, but over the last 40 years it’s grown more and more that way.  In order to rise of fall to the level of ones own ability a crust must be broken through which takes a variable amount of effort dependent on the society.  With a caste system it’s nearly impenetrable.  It’s not impenetrable in the US yet, but it’s thicker than it was.

[leadeater]

Just now, spartaman64 said:

like someone else said often times they become passionate about the game they work on and dont want to go to another company and blizzard is exploiting that

Plus changing jobs honestly sucks, who actually wants to update their CV, apply for jobs, go through the hassle of going to interviews along with all the BS that comes with it if your employer knows about it.

 

No thanks.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

like someone else said often times they become passionate about the game they work on and dont want to go to another company and blizzard is exploiting that

Then stay and don't complain.  You don;t get to choose to stay and complain about the pay.  Either the pay is a problem or it isn't.

 

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Plus changing jobs honestly sucks, who actually wants to update their CV, apply for jobs, go through the hassle of going to interviews along with all the BS that comes with it if your employer knows about it.

 

No thanks.

I would if they weren't paying what I considered to be reasonable or forced me to live below reasonable standards for a full time worker.  It is the only way any work culture is going to take pay seriously.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I would if they weren't paying what I considered to be reasonable or forced me to live below reasonable standards for a full time worker.  It is the only way any work culture is going to take pay seriously.

It's not the only way, where I work is a prime example of that. Go back to the other page and read my post. It's that way because the relevant Union actually is useful and does and good job and has a decent amount of power so has a very long time ago negotiated very good working conditions and salary policies, which also apply to non union members too btw.

[Trik'Stari]

14 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Low pay is a symptom of low training which is not available to many people.  You think this other person wouldn’t go get that other job if they had the 2 years and $20,000 to train for that different role?  There was an instance earlier where you blamed people for not being careful with money in one post and then admitted to in your words merely “winning the lottery” in another.  Can’t be both.  Having parents with the money to provide higher education to their children is “winning the lottery” too because a lot of people don’t have that. Privilidge is a big big deal in America.  It’s the similarity that American society has to a caste system.  It’s not a caste system yet, but over the last 40 years it’s grown more and more that way.  In order to rise of fall to the level of ones own ability a crust must be broken through which takes a variable amount of effort dependent on the society.  With a caste system it’s nearly impenetrable.  It’s not impenetrable in the US yet, but it’s thicker than it was.

I'm $25,000 in debt, have a network security degree, and I make $13.50 an hour to basically deliver laptops in bulk to customers. While there is a bit more to it, and I do bust my ass at it, it's not a highly skilled job that requires a lot of training.

 

Does it underpay? Yeah, but not by all that much.

 

Another issue is that the state I live in is a shithole where nepotism is the name of the game. Our biggest sector is government jobs, and I can tell you from first hand experience that those job advertisements go up with someone already selected for the job.

 

More importantly, my inability, either through effort or talent, to capitalize upon my training, is my biggest issue.

 

Training is nowhere near 100% of the issue. Motivation is the single biggest factor for every single person out there. Some are driven, some are not. I can tell you, again from first hand experience, that a LOT of those who are not driven, end up in government jobs. Be it motivation to work hard, or get better training on your own, or simply motivation to look for a better job.

 

You are the ONLY person 100% responsible for your own success. I say this, although I struggle with it. I'm all too happy to just come home and drink beer and watch youtube videos, and occasionally play some games. But I am trying, just looking for a path I think is a good one, and when I find it, I'm going to take it.

 

To quote:

“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music ... Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”

-Martin Luther King Jr.

 

It is your personal responsibility to yourself to succeed in spite of adversity, not only in the absence of it.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's not the only way, where I work is a prime example of that. Go back to the other page and read my post. It's that way because the relevant Union actually is useful and does and good job and has a decent amount of power so has a very long time ago negotiated very good working conditions and salary policies, which also apply to non union members too btw.

There are many ways to skin a cat, but it seems for the particular problem people are arguing here,   there is either no union or it is piss weak or there is a larger cultural difference that will only change when the larger workforce stops letting the big boys use them as door mats.

[Kisai]

43 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well no it actually isn't, only employers want people to believe that is the case. So long as you share that information respectfully then it is not unprofessional to do so. Where I work every professional employee knows what each other is earning because every position is attributed a skill score and placed in to a salary bracket/grade. Every position and their salary bracket is public information, even you could go and find out.

 

For academic employees it is much the same except for those with Professorship titles who have no limit but you can just figure it out based on how long they have been employed. Each year everyone gets a standard increment based on their salary scale bracket, for those Professors since there is no limit it's just (increment * years) + base salary = estimated salary.

 

It's unprofessional for much the same reason it's unprofessional to sell girl guide/scout cookies at work, or promote your kid's school bakesale. As much as a lot of people would like to know, the office is a bit of a captive audience, and if everyone in your office is sending emails about their kids bake-sales, then multiply that by the size of the office and people start getting mighty irate at being guilted into volunteering things. It's much better if the company is required to post everyone's salary as part of tax processing, otherwise the accountants are the only ones who know anyway and they absolutely know who is getting low-balled. There's nothing wrong with asking someone if the topic comes up, but unless there's some reason for that to come up, you are asking an invasive personal question. May as well ask when was the last time they had a cancer screening from their doctor.

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

It's unprofessional for much the same reason it's unprofessional to sell girl guide/scout cookies at work, or promote your kid's school bakesale. As much as a lot of people would like to know, the office is a bit of a captive audience, and if everyone in your office is sending emails about their kids bake-sales, then multiply that by the size of the office and people start getting mighty irate at being guilted into volunteering things. It's much better if the company is required to post everyone's salary as part of tax processing, otherwise the accountants are the only ones who know anyway and they absolutely know who is getting low-balled. There's nothing wrong with asking someone if the topic comes up, but unless there's some reason for that to come up, you are asking an invasive personal question. May as well ask when was the last time they had a cancer screening from their doctor.

It's not unprofessional to ask, it is highly unprofessional to continue to ask when someone says "I'm not comfortable discussing that with you".

 

You can ask, in fact you have a right to discuss it, however the other person has every right to decline that discussion.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Kisai said:

It's unprofessional for much the same reason it's unprofessional to sell girl guide/scout cookies at work

No it isn't, there are ways to do it professionally or it's public information for where you work and makes it irrelevant. It is not at all like your example, just don't be a muppit about it.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

It's unprofessional for much the same reason it's unprofessional to sell girl guide/scout cookies at work, or promote your kid's school bakesale. As much as a lot of people would like to know, the office is a bit of a captive audience, and if everyone in your office is sending emails about their kids bake-sales, then multiply that by the size of the office and people start getting mighty irate at being guilted into volunteering things. It's much better if the company is required to post everyone's salary as part of tax processing, otherwise the accountants are the only ones who know anyway and they absolutely know who is getting low-balled. There's nothing wrong with asking someone if the topic comes up, but unless there's some reason for that to come up, you are asking an invasive personal question. May as well ask when was the last time they had a cancer screening from their doctor.

Not unprofessional at all,  that's just a societal thing large employers want you to think so will keep pushing the narrative.  Just like not tipping is rude,  Employees want you to tip so they can pay their wait staff less.  FUK that, pay them what they deserve and up the price of the meal if you have to.  Tipping is not a thing in many parts of the world because insisting a customer pay more as part of some non-negotiated pay deal that only benefits employers is BS.     Not talking about your pay is BS.