You get a raise! You get a raise! Everybody gets a raise!

In yet another idiotic move to prevent people from feeling "discriminated against" we blindly assign "GREAT JOB" stickers to all our employees and keep them all on the same playing field.

Welcome to real life, folks...we aren't all equal and we aren't all worth the same amount of money, praise or respect either. You have to earn what you have in this world and while there will always be someone that's better than you, there will always be someone worse.

Lumping all employees into one performance classification is not only unfair but it's insulting to those that go above and beyond to perform for your company. Even good employees can have off moments which could result in poor reviews/scores on occasion. It's a fact of life that we all have to deal with. Trying to make all your employees feel like winners all the time will only succeed in pleasing your lowest performers and driving off your best performance...the ones that you should want to keep!

As an example:

Company A awards bonuses to employees based on their personal goals and achievements as well as giving management the discretion to give random pay outs for those that have gone above and beyond. Employees have clear goals and know what they must do to be an asset to the team. They happily stay with the same company for many years because they feel valued and rewarded when they work well.

Company B gives flat bonuses across the board twice a year that are based on tenure and company performance. Hard workers get no more than their peers that merely show up and do the basics to get buy. Taking on additional tasks is not rewarded because management is not given any freedom with recognizing outstanding performance. Annual review time results in all employees being promoted to a "Level II" status, no matter what their overall performance review. In most cases, the employees received no more than "meets expectations" in each category.

What I'm saying is that you should NEVER promote someone who gets nothing more than meets expectations on their annual review. Likewise, management should have the ability to recognize employees throughout the year that go above and beyond the norm. On the flip side, employees that do not meet expectations should get NOTHING. Promoting them with the rest of your high performers does nothing but bring moral down and push your good workers to look for positions elsewhere!

The minimum wage debate

There are all kinds of stories from both sides of the coin on this issue. What I've not been able to find are middle class folks who are in favor of it. Those of us that work 40-75 hours a week to support our families because we live just far enough outside the poverty level to get assistance but top close to it to get ahead.

In this story, they claim the majority of women that make over $100,000/year are in favor of the increase.

WELL, WHY WOULDNT THEY?

These will be the folks least impacted by a change to minimum wage because they already make enough to live on, have an emergency fund and save for retirement.

The people that will get the wage increase will be happier than pigs in slop because they will be making more money...at first. What they fail to realize is that when you make more  money, you lose benefits & there is a place in the middle where you don't qualify for help but you don't quite make enough to stay afloat.

Then, the cost of living goes up so all you've done is screw the lower & middle class that are working their butts off to survive. Now, it'll be even harder to do.

That is, if they can keep their jobs. Small business owners won't be able to afford to pay that much and hours will get cut, as well as entire positions. I just don't see how this is going to benefit anyone.