The List of Kens

I understand if you have the impression that Ken Marlton and myself were leaving Dowty because of the taunting from our coworkers, because that's the way I've pitched it. In fact, there were several other things that a lot of the permanent members of staff had become pissed off with, and as I composed my two weeks notice letter, I could not resist making a list.

We had enjoyed a 37 hour week at Dowty and in one giant sweep of the pen, the company informed every one of the permanent office staff that in fact, the working week would now be 40 hours, and our salaries would remain the same.

An instant 8% pay cut.

Ken Marlton had told me what his salary was before leaving, something that was taboo in our industry, nevertheless, Ken had informed me that he been enticed into the managerial role with a salary 30% higher than we "senior" analysts were earning, all strength to Ken, but details like that along with a fake profit sharing scheme for the grunts added to the overall disgruntlement.

In my three years at Dowty, the yearly salary reviews had been phased out and management had started to display a "like it or lump it" attitude, something I had seen in previous employment, the odd thing about all of it was that management were quite surprised when we started to jump ship.

I was never on the Christmas card list, but my pointed letter of notice certainly placed me on what we ended up calling "the list of Kens" a list that had us permanently added to that bad monkey group in the eyes of a certain few.

A group that would continue to get bigger.