Well, happy pre-birthday, Vet, from a 40 year old pervert narwhal on the internet. Take that to the bank!
Okay, so at work today, we got this email talking about continuing health benefits, and making special comment that the company's health expenses have been rising 10%-15% a year.
Which, you know, is only a set-up for telling us our health insurance rates are climbing again, like they do every year, with another reduction in service. That part, I don't blame the company for: they contract out for our medical insurance, and if the contractor raises its rates, they can't control that. What they CAN control is the proportion. You kids, you may not realize that the days when your employer would pay for your insurance are long gone. No, just about everyone I ever hear about has to pay a percentage of their own insurance rates. What the company CAN control is the percentage. They say their expenses have been rising 10%-15% a year? I can guaran-fucking-tee you they've been shifting the percentage they pay versus the percentage their workers pay by more than enough to make the increase manageable.
At the same time, while medical expenses have been climbing, they've been artificially suppressing our raises. They make us jump through hoops on the annual evaluations, and then some exec just goes through and downgrades everybody, regardless of actual performance, claiming the department can't afford to pay more than 1.5%. So yes, big motivational incentive to knock yourself out, just so you can get rated back down to "expected contribution" by a guy who's met you face to face maybe three times in two years, tops.
And then they raise your insurance rates, so yeah, you get a raise, but you actually take home less money every month, and your insurance doesn't cover you as well as it did last year, anyway.
Fuck corporate America. Fuck it right in the ear.