re: #144 kirkspencer

[snip]

History tells me how much to trust any company that says “trust me, take a hit now and I’ll make it up to you in the future.”

Math can be a bitch. Reminds me of a time years ago I was working for a large county in Texas (Harris) in central data processing. The Houston police would come in every evening to pick up tapes with data that they processed at their data center.

One evening as I was waiting for the tapes to get produced I struck up a conversation with the officers at the window about the just completed salary negotiations they had just concluded. They were fairly happy about the outcome. I asked what they had agreed to. They said they would all take a 5% cut in pay to last 2 years and then they would be given a 5% raise after that 2 year freeze. I asked if they ever said anything about giving back all the money they gave up. They said the 5% would do that. I said no it won’t. Taking 5% of a larger number is more money than giving you 5% back of the lower number. They would still be short money from what they are giving up right now. Kinda set them back.