receiving a low-ball salary offer for a position that is 7k less than I make now and knowing that If I don't accept this position and relocate I will more than likely not get my contract renewed at my current job. 
Geez that sucks mate, the company I work for just won the defence contract for another 6-10 years which is great, but no-one knows yet what additional responsibilities we'll have or what we'll get paid to do it, so there's a few pissed off people around my neck of the woods too......... 
I know the feeling. We were in contract renewal talks starting last fall. So from November to June we would get one months extensions. And usually not signed until close of business on the last day of the month!
Well we finally got a new contract for, get this, FIVE months!! You just can't live this way! And 5 of our team of 13 said screw it and left over the course of the talks. So, we have five positions to fill, but who's guna sign up for such a short time? Hell, their background check won't even be finalized in that amount of time! So the remaining 8 of us are stuck covering the work of 13. I'd leave too if it weren't for having to walk away from that rarest of benefits, a pension!
I wasn't pissed off before, but I am now!!
Yep, that's crap mate, how does the pension system work there? Over here we have Superannuation, where your employer deposits a percentage of your wage into a retirement fund of your choice (not his) that you can't touch until you're ready to retire, and of course we have the government age pension as well, so while most of us won't be millionaires in retirement, we'll be able to survive. Sadly I don't have any rich old uncles that I can count on to leave me a fortune, which pisses me off.........
How does it work? Here's how. As a fresh college grad in your mid 20's, after completing your 4-year degree in only 6 years, you land your first REAL job. Salary is good, at least compared to the money you earned serving food like you did to pay those tuition fees that were inexplicably increasing at 5 times the inflation rate. The job has plenty of growth potential and great benefits. You settle in for what you assume is a life long career. The commonly offered pension sounds GREAT!, as long as you can make it to 84 "points". Points are your age + years at company.
So the plan then is to work thirty-some years and walk out of there with them continuing to send you 70% of your base pay (average of what you earned over your last 3 years). You can even buy in to the company health plan at employee rates to help cover what the government provided elder care doesen't. All set! Let's go!
Then, about 10 years in to your 30-year plan, the big money share holders decide it's time to cash out. They merge the company with a competator and suddenly your job is "redundant" with the same job being performed by some snot nosed high school intern that worked for the other company. The new company offers to buy you out, or you can take your chances of possibly being forced out at a later date. You do get to keep your pension, although, because you didn't make it to 84 points, you'll only get the pepperonis, not the pizza.
There's another company offering you more money AND a signing bonus cuz they need people who can make computers understand that, when a silly human types "01" upon their terminal that they really mean "2001". One company paying me to leave, the other paying me to come. Made a lot of sence to a 30-something who still had plenty of hair.
Starting over at a new company now. Plenty of $$, decent bennifits but no pension. They do offer a "401k" retirement option tho. A 401k (which is the name of the section of federal tax code that lays out the plan rules) is a way for workers to set aside some of their paycheck into an account that can't be touched until they reach retirement age. The money can be invested with a broker (for a nominal fee of course) in hopes of building on the balance. The company even offers to match your contribution, dollar for dollar, all the way up to a whooping 5% of your contribution. SWEET!
So you throw in on that. Working, working, working. The year 2000 comes along and... nothing. No global apocalypse, no crashing power grid, airplanes remain in the sky, trains continue to run 3-hours late just like they always have. WE DID IT!! We conquered the dreaded Y2K bug! Champaign and caviar all around! Oh, and here is your last paycheck, thank you very much for all the hard work, don't let the door hit you in the azz on the way out.
SHYT, PIZZ, FVCK, COCSVCKER, MOTHAFVCKER and TYTS!
I knew we should have flickered the lights or SOMETHING!! The population needed to know that we were still important people to keep around, still needing heeps of money shoveled at us!
Oh well, it was good while it lasted. So ya start looking for a new job that will bridge ya until Y10K is ready to be tackled. Well, there was this dust up in the desert a few years back where one national leader threatened another. Now the C-student legacy of one of these guys gets swept into office because he's likeable enough that you might wana have a beer with him even though he doesn't drink, not anymore anyway, or snort anything anymore either, or crash cars into shrubbery or chase women or...
Well, we get punched in the nose one day and this C-student legacy says to his team, "Hay, wouldn't it be fun to make up some lies about this other guy and use this bloody nose as an excuse to go beat HIM up?" His team, thinking that this is a GREAT way to swing their dicks around and drain the treasury into their own pockets while they are at it say "Sure! Sounds like a great idea, Bob!"
So off to a permenent war stance we go. Opening up "opportunities" for people who know how to make computers understand that when a silly human types "01" upon their terminal that they really mean "Ship 2001 tons of whoop azz to the front line". What more, the powers that be, who don't want this flood of new workers showing up on their books, decide that they can disguize the whole process by hiring just a single "contractor". And at only twice the cost of hiring the workers directly! What a great way to spread all that treasury money around to our friends too. Luckily, the voters who were dumb enough to fall for that "have a beer with a tea totaller" gag will never figure it out.
Those contract companies, flush with treasury cash, can offer decent cash and decent benifits too. Being somewhat OldSchool (n'yuck, n'yuck, n'yuck) they even offer that now rare beast, a pension! So ya hold your nose, tell yourself that the "01's" being typed upon terminals by silly humans are shipping 2001 tons of beans and bandages too. You take the job.
The plan is going along swimmingly until some Wall Street douch bags, noticing that their books are loaded with mortgages sold to people who have no way to ever pay them back. They bundle up these mortgages into "derivatives" and sell them to other Wall Street douch bags who think they can flip them like a Sandcast Honda with a 1972 vin plate. Eventually someone notices that their garages are loaded with 1972 Sandcasts and the whole shebang, Wall Street, Main Street, Easy Street, turns from gold to gravel over night.
Short story long, now that the gravey train has run off the rails and a pushover puppet like Bob isn't in office anymore, time to roll up our sleeves and NOT PAY for anything. No roads, no bridges, no dams, no tunnels, no employees. Gee, why is the unemployment rate so high? No worries, we'll blame it on Bob's replacement. Those contracts that were once our salvation are now a blight upon our land. The 2001 tons of whoop azz will just have to get shipped on their own without some silly human typing "01" upon their terminal. Contractors will now have to fight for the minuscule scraps of treasury dollars. The dollars that aren't going into listening in on phone calls and reading emails and the hot Sexting texts of other foreign leaders.
Ok, time to get out of this game but still need my pension. Look around the company at more lucrative opportunities such as crime fighting data, civil control system or maybe even that juicy healthcare website. Might even be able to move cross country to where my kids now live.
Check with HR about the portability of my pension and, what's this? Pension plan is frozen? That if I transfer my points toward retirement will freeze too? Well maybe I'll just leave the company entirely. I have that 401k to retire on, yeah? What do you mean that the broker who took his nominal fee invested my 401k money in 1972 Sandcasts?? WTF!?
SHYT, PIZZ, FVCK, COCSUCKER, MUTHAFVCKER and TYTS again!
So now you are stuck, fighting a battle for scares dollars. Unable to move to better, more challenging opportunities you desperately need to grow your skills and remain employable. Holding on to the scraps of that ambitious retirement plan crafted back when you had hair. Knowing the whole time that moments before it's time to actually retire, that some snot-nosed high school intern calling themselves an "Actuarial" will notice that you misspelled your middle name when you filled out your pension paperwork 22 years ago and that they now "don't have record" that you ever actually signed up. The whole thing goes poof!
SHYT, PIZZ, FVCK, COCSUCKER, MUTHAFVCKER and TYTS thrice!
Fast forward 15 years. Guess I'll just have to live off the government elder plan. What's this? A friggen VOUCHER? The baby boomers only slightly older than myself screwed the pooch by spending the plan into the toilet and all I get is this stink'n VOUCHER? How did that happen? Well, ya know those voters who were dumb enough to vote for a good 'ol boy oil man who couldn't find oil in Texas were also dumb enough to vote in a half-term Govenor who convinced everyone through cute but only vaguely relevant catch phrases, that giving breaks to the well off is exactly what the not well off need to do.
So Terry, that's how it works here in the land of opportunity. Opportunity for those who have already made it anyway.
