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My wife works a decent white-collar job at a giant company and negotiated a 20% pay decrease to go down to 4 days a week. She's never been happier, she doesn't

My wife works a decent white-collar job at a giant company and negotiated a 20% pay decrease to go down to 4 days a week. She's never been happier, she doesn't even feel like she needs to take vacations very often as that simple switch is life altering. She's the only one she knows that will say No to overtime. If she wasn't so valuable, she wouldn't have been approved at a company like that, and even now it still seems unheard of to do such a thing, but people are finally starting to try. Her boss is asking her quarterly about her goals with the company and more specifically about taking over his director level job, to which she says "no way" every time. She can see how shittily bosses are treated at the company, they are forced to work insane overtime without pay, deal with personnel issues, eat shit from above constantly, deal with all issues, can't fire the dead weight (which is everywhere), are expected to work over lunch every day and be available to work on vacation, which they usually can't take. Yet they don't seem to grasp that anybody with a brain can see this is an awful trade off for like 10-30% more pay, which just gets taxed away anyway and which you never have time to spend. You can see it in the faces of these folks, they look prematurely aged. You know how you see a picture of someone's face and say "they look like they had a hard life"? Yeah, go on facebook and see which of your colleagues took the management job and go back 5 years and be blown away at how they aged. It's both sad and shocking. Misery loves company, why wouldn't young employees want to be as "successful" as us?

mythhouse 4y ago
> negotiated a 20% pay decrease to go down to 4 days a week. Is this in USA? I want this but haven't been able to convince any of my employers to let me do this. They said its a legal/HR issue and need approvals from those orgs within the company. I have a question for you. Are you also doing this? Do you feel extra pressure to now climb up and be ambitious now that the spouse has let her foot off the accelerator.
- CosmicShadow 4y ago
  This is in Canada. Bosses will always defer to legal/HR and it's usually just BS. Oh this isn't policy, but policy is just made up for the company so they a) don't have to think, and b) can refer to the policy and say it's iron clad rule. businesses can do almost anything, it's that they _don't want to have to do the work_ to figure it out for you. Maybe they'll actually miss some rule where you are now "part-time" vs "full-time" if there is a legal distinction in your country based on hours worked and you can catch them in some loop hole or something and they don't want to try and figure it out, but in 99% of cases, it's just that they don't know what to actually do without thinking or researching, so they won't do it. If they make a mistake it's their ass on the line, and they don't know or care about you. The best way to get away with this is to find an employer who is open to it from the start (good luck), or be so valuable that if you threaten to quit if you don't get it, they'll relent and do it for you. In my wife's case, they can't afford to lose her so they'll push HR into making the change. It wasn't painless and there was some annoyances and nuances to fix in the HR system, but it was worth it. I've been self-employed for almost 15 years so that I would never have to deal with this kind of bullshit. I do consulting and work on my own business ideas. I've run several startups in the past, some of which were funded, so I've seen the back end of all this kind of stuff. My wife makes more money than I do and I work on finding businesses that can free us both from having to work. It sucks that she is making less now and we can feel it a bit, but it's not a huge blow as we aren't big spenders. It was 100% worth it, she is by far happier than she has been in years. They did a very poor job of reducing her workload with her time though, so watch out for that if you can get your 20% reduction. They'll pay you less, but expect you to work the 5th day in the 4. This is mainly a staffing issue on her team however. I do feel some pressure to finally get something working so she can just leave her employment and in the last year I've managed to grow my latest business to twice her annual gross salary. If I can keep it up we'll be able to meet our goals, but a business is an ongoing monster with it's own risks and expenses, so it'll take some time before the leap can be made. I hope you can achieve what you want, sometimes it takes some serious pressure to get your way, or you have to be willing to walk if they don't agree, but man that 3 day weekend every week is that much better and she still talks about how great it is a year later.
Balgair 4y ago
> Yet they don't seem to grasp that anybody with a brain can see this is an awful trade off for like 10-30% more pay It's possible that your wife's boss is looking to get your wife into the job and then leave it. Precisely because they know that the job is that toxic and they are desperate to go. They may be looking for a replacement and have identified your wife as a good candidate. >which just gets taxed away anyway I don't know what country you are in, but in the US we have a tax system where rates only increase on dollars earned above certain thresholds. Unless y'all are jumping up from ~$83k or ~$340k, the tax increases are not that bad on the extra earned dollars https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-...

mythhouse 4y ago

> negotiated a 20% pay decrease to go down to 4 days a week. Is this in USA? I want this but haven't been able to convince any of my employers to let me do this. They said its a legal/HR issue and need approvals from those orgs within the company. I have a question for you. Are you also doing this? Do you feel extra pressure to now climb up and be ambitious now that the spouse has let her foot off the accelerator.

CosmicShadow 4y ago
This is in Canada. Bosses will always defer to legal/HR and it's usually just BS. Oh this isn't policy, but policy is just made up for the company so they a) don't have to think, and b) can refer to the policy and say it's iron clad rule. businesses can do almost anything, it's that they _don't want to have to do the work_ to figure it out for you. Maybe they'll actually miss some rule where you are now "part-time" vs "full-time" if there is a legal distinction in your country based on hours worked and you can catch them in some loop hole or something and they don't want to try and figure it out, but in 99% of cases, it's just that they don't know what to actually do without thinking or researching, so they won't do it. If they make a mistake it's their ass on the line, and they don't know or care about you. The best way to get away with this is to find an employer who is open to it from the start (good luck), or be so valuable that if you threaten to quit if you don't get it, they'll relent and do it for you. In my wife's case, they can't afford to lose her so they'll push HR into making the change. It wasn't painless and there was some annoyances and nuances to fix in the HR system, but it was worth it. I've been self-employed for almost 15 years so that I would never have to deal with this kind of bullshit. I do consulting and work on my own business ideas. I've run several startups in the past, some of which were funded, so I've seen the back end of all this kind of stuff. My wife makes more money than I do and I work on finding businesses that can free us both from having to work. It sucks that she is making less now and we can feel it a bit, but it's not a huge blow as we aren't big spenders. It was 100% worth it, she is by far happier than she has been in years. They did a very poor job of reducing her workload with her time though, so watch out for that if you can get your 20% reduction. They'll pay you less, but expect you to work the 5th day in the 4. This is mainly a staffing issue on her team however. I do feel some pressure to finally get something working so she can just leave her employment and in the last year I've managed to grow my latest business to twice her annual gross salary. If I can keep it up we'll be able to meet our goals, but a business is an ongoing monster with it's own risks and expenses, so it'll take some time before the leap can be made. I hope you can achieve what you want, sometimes it takes some serious pressure to get your way, or you have to be willing to walk if they don't agree, but man that 3 day weekend every week is that much better and she still talks about how great it is a year later.

Balgair 4y ago

> Yet they don't seem to grasp that anybody with a brain can see this is an awful trade off for like 10-30% more pay It's possible that your wife's boss is looking to get your wife into the job and then leave it. Precisely because they know that the job is that toxic and they are desperate to go. They may be looking for a replacement and have identified your wife as a good candidate. >which just gets taxed away anyway I don't know what country you are in, but in the US we have a tax system where rates only increase on dollars earned above certain thresholds. Unless y'all are jumping up from ~$83k or ~$340k, the tax increases are not that bad on the extra earned dollars https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-...