The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

[Zilnad]

Nice, now you'll be able to retire by the age of 102!

[Victor Mildew]

So my work are doing something nice for us - apparantly pensions are now going up to 8% minimum. My company have been paying in 3% of that so far, but they're going to up their contribution for everyone to 4%, but if you've been with them over 3 years they're going to up their contribution to 7% as long as we're putting in the minimum of 4% which is nice. Every little helps!

That's great! Our work pension plan is superb, one of the proper perks of joining. I forget what they match up to, but it's a lot, and as I put 20% a month in my pot is up to a daft amount after 3 years, far outstripping anything you could get from any savings account. Put as much as you possibly can in as soon as you can, even if you try what seems like a high % for a few months and drop it later.

[Qikz]

So my work are doing something nice for us - apparantly pensions are now going up to 8% minimum. My company have been paying in 3% of that so far, but they're going to up their contribution for everyone to 4%, but if you've been with them over 3 years they're going to up their contribution to 7% as long as we're putting in the minimum of 4% which is nice. Every little helps!

That's great! Our work pension plan is superb, one of the proper perks of joining. I forget what they match up to, but it's a lot, and as I put 20% a month in my pot is up to a daft amount after 3 years, far outstripping anything you could get from any savings account. Put as much as you possibly can in as soon as you can, even if you try what seems like a high % for a few months and drop it later.

I'm trying to up my savings at the minute more so than money for when im older, so I think I'll stick to the 4% for now.

My money is very, very slowly going up in my bank account since moving and I think I'm going to need to eventually buy back more of my house from the shared ownership people so I'm saving for that.

[Dual]

So my work are doing something nice for us - apparantly pensions are now going up to 8% minimum. My company have been paying in 3% of that so far, but they're going to up their contribution for everyone to 4%, but if you've been with them over 3 years they're going to up their contribution to 7% as long as we're putting in the minimum of 4% which is nice. Every little helps!

Put in as much as you can bro.

[Victor Mildew]

The only reason I was able to go to 20% was the pay rise from the previous place also offset the travel savings, so I worked out how much I was spending a month on fuel and bridge fees, then upped the % to be the equivalent deduction. I was so used to that money going out that I didn't feel the difference with the rise on top. I don't think I would have ever done that without that way of thinking.

[Green Gecko]

So if anyone remembers, last month my employer called every single employee into the warehouse to complete their first stock-take in years. Today, I've discovered that this was because they weren't recording any stock being brought into or leaving the warehouse for a fairly massive customer that makes up most of their business.

So what happens today? I get informed that they still aren't tracking the stock and that I need to go through all the purchase and sales invoices for the last month to work out what has been coming and going in and out of the warehouse in August. And that I need to start doing this "going forward".

For a start, just wow. Honestly, what the strawberry float? How can a business function without even having any kind of strawberry floating stock management in place? Secondly, I work in finance. Why am I being asked to deal with a strawberry floating stock issue when there's a warehouse manager and several company directors who should deal with it?

Honestly, if the job market wasn't currently strawberry floated I would be considering handing my notice in over this. I'm in complete and utter shock that a company's processes can be so utterly FUBAR to the point they don't even exist. I knew this place was bad but I never imagined things were this much of a joke.

Am I over-reacting? I can't even think straight.

That's hilarious.

Your company really really really need to look at moving over from Sage to something like Xero which includes inventory management as standard (as well as a fixed assets register), plus they should hire additional personal or train them to manage that inventory.

Purchase orders, assigning stock deductions to invoices when assigned to orders, and inventory are all synchronised in real-time automatically. Plus it loads really fast and you don't need to mess around with backups or giant local databases that get corrupted or go missing.

This gooseberry fool costs about £25 ex VAT per month for a business of any size, it's crazy the inefficiencies you've pointed out at your place over time and my business is like, what, 1 person and about £5k in assets. You can process RTI payroll, digitally file VAT returns and more on the same system. It automatically imports your bank transactions and can be configured to 1-click reconcile statement lines, thre's a reconciliation report to find duplicate statement lines if you worry about that, it generates and sends invoices via email and supports direct/debit card payments and even direct debits or PayPal. I'm not even an accountant and I can figure it out!

Speaking of pensions, I should probably start paying voluntarily Class 2 or 4 NICs

[Zilnad]

Oh man, that sounds like a dream. If you're ever looking to employ staff, send me a PM

[Rocsteady]

I won my largest client an award at work today which is nice. Get no real benefit beyond the recognition and a better line on my CV, but still.

[Green Gecko]

Lol, my account and bank statements still don't match thanks to some gooseberry fool with PayPal years ago (and probably some duplicate statement lines) but I might just wipe the slate clean and start again with a Ltd company. I'll let you know if I need drop-in accountancy help.

Thing is that doesn't matter as the profit/loss is still going to be correct and that's all I need for self-assessment purchases and tracking profitability. The system is really overkill for my needs but, one review made a great point which is that, some of the free solutions and cheaper systems for self employed people run really slow or the interfaces is poor. It saves me a lot of time even if it does cost me a couple of hundred a year.

Just placed my largest single garment order of about £400 (which is a lot wholesale), normally comes in drips and drabs, nice to have some orders come in but then there's the issue of seeing it mostly gone immediately into the direct costs . Waiting on another payment though.

Still stuck in this good gross margin but miserable net loss black hole, really need to get out of that and ironically the solutions seems more and more apparent to me to just stop focusing on sales and focus on creating designs people want.

I ordered like 20 nice colours in fine ringspun jersey knit. American Apparel, if anyone wants a cracking deal hit me up. It looks like the parent company Gildan are closing them down. Shame really, nice tees, a bit long for my tastes but good colours and very soft.

[That's not a growth]

I won my largest client an award at work today which is nice. Get no real benefit beyond the recognition and a better line on my CV, but still.

[Rocsteady]

I won my largest client an award at work today which is nice. Get no real benefit beyond the recognition and a better line on my CV, but still.

Mate that's closer to it than you could imagine.

[Green Gecko]

Well done! I get mixed feelings about client successes on the back of my own work, I guess that's just the nature of freelance/agency work lol

I just quietly add "worked with" to my website etc, it's nice to know you did this or that. That's what you get paid for!

Unless you weren't paid for it, in which case, erm, better luck next time, they say

[Rocsteady]

Well done! I get mixed feelings about client successes on the back of my own work, I guess that's just the nature of freelance/agency work lol

I just quietly add "worked with" to my website etc, it's nice to know you did this or that. That's what you get paid for!

Unless you weren't paid for it, in which case, erm, better luck next time, they say

Thanks! Yeah I got paid for it thankfully, hoping my days of working for free are behind me...

[Green Gecko]

Oh sure.

Wasn't the greatest start in my career. Pretty sure my gooseberry fool is still on 4oD, they did me a nice favour offering me a job by, you know, not paying me. strawberry float that industry.

[Dual]

I won my largest client an award at work today which is nice. Get no real benefit beyond the recognition and a better line on my CV, but still.

You should do it for the love of the job

[Cuttooth]

Oh sure.

Wasn't the greatest start in my career. Pretty sure my gooseberry fool is still on 4oD, they did me a nice favour offering me a job by, you know, not paying me. strawberry float that industry.

Surely the exposure was enough? If you want to make it in this industry you really should be expecting to pay us for the opportunity to collaborate.

[Memento Mori]

Currently sitting on a call listening to how we're going to do more business in China. Yes let's all pretend they're not committing genocide in Xianjing.

[Memento Mori]

strawberry float me. They just brought up Xianjing but only in the context of getting more clients there.

[Rocsteady]

Oh sure.

Wasn't the greatest start in my career. Pretty sure my gooseberry fool is still on 4oD, they did me a nice favour offering me a job by, you know, not paying me. strawberry float that industry.

Creative industries are utterly awful for it. I've only gotten anywhere because I'm fortunate enough to have been able to afford unpaid work/internships at the start of my career by dint of being from a middle class family.

[Green Gecko]

Oh sure.

Wasn't the greatest start in my career. Pretty sure my gooseberry fool is still on 4oD, they did me a nice favour offering me a job by, you know, not paying me. strawberry float that industry.

Surely the exposure was enough? If you want to make it in this industry you really should be expecting to pay us for the opportunity to collaborate.

Pretty much

Oh sure.

Wasn't the greatest start in my career. Pretty sure my gooseberry fool is still on 4oD, they did me a nice favour offering me a job by, you know, not paying me. strawberry float that industry.

Creative industries are utterly awful for it. I've only gotten anywhere because I'm fortunate enough to have been able to afford unpaid work/internships at the start of my career by dint of being from a middle class family.

I realised I was much better off doing my own freelance work and very quickly shrugging off any crap that wasn't going to at least pay me something, seeing as I actually started demonstrating that at school doing silly things like painting Tech Decks (I actually reckon that would be kickass Instagram account/business now ) and building websites for legit film professionals. Both of these things I was paid for. To graduate and then get strawberry floated around was so backwards it really hit my confidence hard and I still feel stupid and gutted for falling for it.

I couldn't even clam job seeker's allowance for strawberry float's sake and went through all that jobcentre hell too at the same time. The idea of doing a job for the TV/film industry in the middle of Soho in London, commuting etc, work being published on actual national platforms etc while claiming and not receiving JSA is the stupidest thing I ever been drawn into in retrospect.

I mean I literally lost money. I'd rather lose money with speculative business ideas or stock intakes, straight up selling gooseberry fool on the street in sales etc then doing that. Commute can strawberry float off as well, I used to go through Chinatown just to make it a bit more inspiring but even that I have strawberry floating PTSD walking through there now as it reminds me how grimy and unprofessional the whole thing was.

The company winded down about a year ago which was about the only thing I could feel happy about years later.

In fact the whole story back in 2012 is in this very thread, you can see my hopes being put up and the crushing lows within the span of mere weeks but what really never leaves you is the sense of being manipulated and abused in terms of foul employment practices. It's the worst way to start out in any industry but is sold as the only way, which is not true. Not only that they were homophobic too and there were at least 3 or 4 unpaid staff there, all day, everyday, working for nothing.