Ready, Aye, Ready

Link: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080301/how-hard-could-it-be-lessons-i-learned-in-the-army.html?partner=fogcreek

As always, Joel Spolsky has an excellent article on how there's a significant perception gap between the more senior people in an organization and those a bit further down.

My personal two cents: at one point, the company I worked for was going through a rough patch and unilaterally reduced my wages (and indeed all the other employees) by 10%, with the comment that this was required to make it through the period. We grumbled but opted to live with it. A year of so later, the company didn't make it and was sold off to another in a fire sale.

The CEO of the new company then gave us a pep talk about how wonderful things were going to be. I asked if he was planning to restore the wage rollback. His reply was that since he wasn't drawing a salary, we ought to be happy with what we were currently earning and in fact should be grateful we had jobs at all. I get the "working on commission" deal wherein one makes more if things work out than if a salary is drawn; it's a gamble. However, in this case the CEO was a former pipeline CEO who'd retired with full benefits and a rather nice leaving package. It distinctly changes the message being passed down. He didn't get it then and I'm not sure to this day that he did.