| 70 k seems a lot for a single step. I've seen from up close how salary declined for about 1000 people in an unskilled physical job (that didn't change for 100 years). They were initially paid handsomely. Today 700 people do the same work for 1/5 of the money. When paid handsomely the workers went out of their way to get the job done in time. When pay sufficiently declined they stopped doing that. To get rid of the uncertainty they contracted another company to manage it. (along with a bunch of other work) When pay declined further that company hired another company specialized in the task. When pay declined further that company hired a job agency to fill the holes in the schedule and another company to monitor materials and supply them. Its funny in a way, people on the work floor use to make their own schedule. If they needed extra employees they would call their wife, their kids, their friends, their neighbors - you have to come help right now! If tools and materials were lacking they would jump in their car and go get it. They often paid it out of pocket and didn't bother asking it back. All of the money and then some went towards an army of office folk who have been unable to organize a large list of things for longer than 6 months. The quality of work is inferior in countless ways but with all these managers and administrators they did manage to increase cost. I estimate it is something around 2-3 fold. What use to be a beautiful paper administration is now a series of crufty apps made by people who don't understand the work. When the apps fail the old employees are happy to do it on paper again. When the work schedule is delivered the employees start rearranging it. The only long term employees who stuck around are the ones who don't give a flying fuck if the work is done properly if at all. It use to be that people worked double shifts just to get things done. The solution, management thinks, is to hire better more expensive managers and more of them. |