I also assume that you have weekends, vacation leave, and some amount of sick leave right? Well, you wouldn't if your employer was in charge, you'd have none of those privileges.
My compensation is not a product of Government Regulation. It is the product of competition with similar companies.
They are not required by the Government to provide me with 31 Days a year of PTO but they do.
They are not required by law to give me weekends off either. But they do.
Federal law doesn't even require them to allow breaks or a lunch hour during a work day. But they do.
They are not required to give quarterly or annual bonuses or several other "Benefits" I receive either. But they do.
3 years in a row my cost of Health Insurance Premiums stayed flat. Costs went up for sure but my company covered the additional expense in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
I do not credit the ACA for keeping my health insurance cost flat. That was my Company.
Yes they went up last year and will again next year but I'm pretty sure everyone else’s did too.
I was out for 12 weeks in 2001 when I broke my back. Never missed a paycheck. I still have 488 hours in the bank saved.
Never belonged to a Union. Never paid union dues. Never felt the need to have any collective bargaining. Not bashing unions either. If anyone wants to belong to one, fine.
The multi-billion dollar company I work for provides these Benefits because they want quality employees and without a quality compensation package they would not be competitive.
So yeah, I may have a different opinion of Big Multi-Billion Dollar corporations.
The one I work for is possibly one of the best anyone could want to work for.
Am I biased? Hell yes. They have treated me well in my 36 years of continuous employment.
Could I be gone tomorrow? Hell yes. Am I worried about it? F*ck no.
Having marketable skills in an economy that has more high tech openings than qualified applicants is not a bad place to be.
So who is most important to my company, it's customers or it's employees?
The correct answer is both. Without both there is no company.
And yes there is competition. Between my house and the 2 across the street from me we each have a different ISP. 3 Houses 3 different Internet Service Providers!
I think that qualifies as competition.
I am certainly in the minority here but it comes from my intimacy and understanding that comes from being a Network Engineer since 2000.
Having built and rebuilt, grown, expanded, evolved and created networks over the years gives me a different perspective.
Being part of developing the Next Generation Access Networks is pretty freaking cool.
The next 5 years will be pretty amazing.
Any content, anywhere, anytime on any device.
IoT will be everywhere you can imagine.
My opinion is based on my life experience. Not saying I'm more qualified just that I have a different set of experiences that have formed my opinions.
