Subscribe to RSSMillion Dollar Man Still Uses PT
Good to see that even someone on a $1.75 million base salary humbly queues up for tickets to use the Waiheke ferry.
I would have thought Telecom’s CEO Paul Reynolds might have chartered a boat or helicopter for the trip.
Maybe it was the fact a few days ago he had a $2m bonus cut after the company reported a 0.2 fall in full year adjusted earnings that has caused him to become more one of the people.
Let’s hope XT reception worked for him well on Waiheke.
12 Comments
Probably worked better than Vodafone’s network given today’s outage on their “reliable” network.
Come on Ingvar Kamprad the founder of IKEA and for a while the richest man in the world still uses PT to get around - it’s a completely American attitude and one that NZ is unfortunately also infected by that only people who can’t afford a car catch PT.
Yeah, the sooner we can get over the myth that public transport is just a welfare service for those too poor, too disabled or otherwise to unfortunate to drive like a normal/successful person… the better.
I think that is changing, I know a number of people at work who would be earning decent 6 figure salary’s and who catch public transport to get to work. Of 10 people who sit near me (myself included) 6 catch PT, 3 drive and one walks.
I must say, even if I was earning more than 1 mil a year I would probably still catch the train, it’s a much nicer and less stressful journey than driving.
I think a big problem is that many higher income earners get free parking. This removes one of the big costs to driving to work everyday. My solution cut free parking for management and give everyone a free bus pass. It would be an interesting experiment.
James that would be an interesting experiment. The company could have that added to it’s “green” credentials.
James - I have thought for a while that would be a good and inexpensive way to give someone a work perk. At about $1200 per year it is also cheaper than a carpark and likely a company car that comes along with it.
“I think a big problem is that many higher income earners get free parking. This removes one of the big costs to driving to work everyday”
Its even worse - many high earners also get company cars with a petrol card / petrol allowance. So even with higher fuel prices they can just go on driving (delighting in the suddenly free roads), at the same time that the fuel price increase increases their effective pay package to the detriment of everybody else in the company who doesn’t get petrol paid for by the boss (company overheads go up, profits go down).
It’s a sore point for me in terms of societal fairness as well as transport idiocy, really - just another case of “the rich get richer at the cost of the (more) poor(ly paid)”.
karl - I don’t know about other companies, however the one’s I have worked in, petrol cards and cars are only given to those who need it, or give them out to people who need it, so the higher income workers don’t actually get these benefits. It’s more the middle income workers, as I said this is for the companies I have worked for.
Also those who do get a car have the option of the car and petrol card or just the petrol card or neither, depending on their decision, it influences their salary amount. Again this is just for the companies I have worked for. The free parking is definitely a incentive to drive though, as this is the largest cost of driving to work, especially if you work in the CBD.
Admittedly, it will probably figure into their total salary package amount, so I could guess that if they wanted, they could ask for more money and no car/petrol allowance. Though I am not sure that they would be better/same off in that instance, as cash is likely to impact their taxes more directly?
Waitakere City Council offers all staff a 50 percent discount on all public transport to get to and from work. It is a great incentive. Will have to wait and see if this will continue to be offered as the Council is merged.
It certainlz should - though I am afraid a lot of such good things will fall by the wayside, because somebody looks at the line item and says “Extending that to all staff would cost X, we don’t have X, so out it goes”. Hope I am wrong, though.