Are Skimpy Raises the New Normal? 736
Lam1969 writes "Computerworld just released their latest salary survey, and it finds that IT worker bees have once again only received small raises. The article notes, "IT raises still lagged slightly behind the average of about 3.2% for all U.S. workers as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the majority of respondents (69%) said their 2004 base salary increased from one year ago, 31% experienced either no change in salary or had their pay cut." It goes on to quote LAN specialist Stephen Noisseau as saying, "I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles ... I'll take 4% over nothing. We're getting basically cost-of-living raises.""
Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the way the rest of the universe works. Be glad you even got that. Most poeple have to find new jobs to get a raise at all.
Don't worry, I'm sure another bubble will be along to get you a 100% raise every 6 months like the good ol days.
Raises shouldn't be the norm (Score:5, Insightful)
0% raise is a pay cut (Score:5, Insightful)
IT=cost center (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets get off the 1990s mindsets (Score:3, Insightful)
3-4% really is the norm (Score:5, Insightful)
What I do have a problem with is when I only get a 3-4% raise, yet, executives can give themselves 50% raises, 4 million dollar bonuses, etc. There is nothing a CEO can produce that warrants that level of compensation. PERIOD.
I say we find somebody crazy enough in congress to propose a salary cap for CEO's bill. Then tell everyone in the public about it, and see how many people really support something like that. Especially when the workers outnumber the C-level's probably 100 to 1.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hard Times (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, it has a lot more to do with profit-center focus at a micro level within a company (at least, when evaluating most medium to large employers). For instance, Paypal employs many in our metro but looks at IT employees as cost-center workers one step up from fast food. Cost-centers "create costs" not profits, and are only there to support the profit center. Right now, the mode of operation in most corporations is lean (except for incentives for profit center performers) and subsequently IT people rank near the bottom.
Add to that a general exhausted attitude in execs about IT (things like endless security nightmares (which are always the IT shop's fault, not the vendor the CEO picked after reading a really cool marketing slick in the back of a magazine), licensing issues, and out-of-control IT spending over the past decade) and you'll find IT is a black-sheep in many organizations. We're in a midwestern market where the IT outlook is especially bleak - insurance companies, banks, food giants and others who are rebelling at IT's expense and telling the "geeks" to be happy with less for awhile. That IBM server farm ad (with the psycho sysadmin who believes servers "serve us") very much plays into this attitude of perceived IT excess.
Understand things go in cycles and this one will work itself out. As always, the more valuable you make yourself to an organization's process of making money, the better off you'll do.
Part of the culture change (Score:1, Insightful)
In a few cases, companies that use forced retention [wikipedia.org] simply don't have to do as much to retain employees, since they count on lawsuits to deter employees from leaving.
Outsourcing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation:
Beggers can't be choosers.
Re:Raises shouldn't be the norm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I must pose the question, why is it perfectly fine for managers (especially those in the upper echelons) hand out massive raises to themselves and their cronies that are often the equivalent of several times the average salary of their subordinates? The typical CEO makes 450 times as much as the average person they employ. Even when business is bad, layoffs are rampant and wages stagnant, the raises for the managers continue - because according to them, poor performance is always the fault of the lower rungs, while good quarters are always thanks to their expert stewardship.
The auto parts company Delphi is asking for their non-management staff to accept 50-69% pay cuts, (these workers were described as being basically worthless in a speech the CEO gave two weeks ago) while the managers that have presided over the company sliding into bankruptcy are going to get massive raises.
Please explain who spending tons of money to compensate workers who are being asked to produce more per hour, work more hours and accept fewer fringe benefits like comprehensive healthcare coverage is some evil, evil thing that shall destroy every company and drive them into bankruptcy, while distributing the same amount of money to the higher ups is no problem whatsoever?
here's a good interview tip (Score:5, Insightful)
I always ask this question, and as a result, i've never had a raise less than 9%.
Re:3-4% really is the norm (Score:1, Insightful)
At my place of employment, the bonus checks (In the years they are actually given out) go on the 6 - 10 - 15% system. Depending on your paygrade, checks are figured out with a complicated system of goals and performance. It isn't enough of course to just give everyone say a 6% bonus times your base salary. No, more salt is rubbed in the employees wounds by giving the already overpaid managers a bigger raise. No sour grapes, just the facts. If companies would just look in the mirror sometimes, and see what they do to piss people off, they could more than make up for these costs by not having to hire do-nothing consultants, pay big bucks for the latest fad (create a misson statement - remember those?), or spend big bucks on retraining yet another employee that will last 6 months and leave for greener pastures.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
People that have the attitude of entitlement, that someone must take care of them, that they deserve increases, tend to do worse in the long run over people who believe they are owed nothing and must earn every penny.
All my evidence is strictly anecdotal, so I won't bother detailing it. Feel free to discount this.
Re:IT=cost center (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need IT to run a company, just like you don't need oil to run a car!
Just don't expect it to run very well or for very long.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IT=cost center (Score:3, Insightful)
"A companies IT infrastructure is like a highway. No one really notices it when everything is smooth. However, just add one pothole..."
As I said, he was a very intelligent man.
Soko
Re:Disorganized Labor (Score:3, Insightful)
Because during the years when revenues drop, those same employees will fight like hell against taking a corresponding pay cut. Are you really sure you want to tie salaries directly to revenues?
Re:Disorganized Labor (Score:4, Insightful)
I lived through the 70s & 80s in the UK. Unions help nobdy but those elected to an office within the union.
I'd rather join the bloody masons than a union and I consider the masons scum.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's no raise, there's no incentive to work harder. Unless of course you're easy to replace and your experience doesn't matter to the company...
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Going Backwards (Score:2, Insightful)
3% is an insult. (Score:1, Insightful)
These are not "good things".
I always strive to learn new things, and to extend myself. If this isn't reflected in salary ($, stock or benefits), I move on.
I remember surprising an HR person by saying that in my 10 years since university, I have never received an annual pay raise smaller than 10% (10% being 6 months after I joined!), and averaged 20%. He was absolutely shocked.
People need to separate themselves from their jobs. The job they are doing may only be worth 3% more, but they, themselves, should be worth a larger pay increase than that.
The trick is to manage your own career, and find the opportunities.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:0% raise is a pay cut (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The causality of the situation will be debated until the end of time. Are people unsuccessful because they are lazy, or are people lazy because they are unsuccessful? I'll decline to share my view for fear of starting an offtopic flamewar. All the same, it is an interesting question.
Re:Programmers are not well paid in the U.S vs Ind (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to be callous, man. A 2% raise... adjusted for cost of living, that's actually a pay cut.
Health care costs are up, gas costs twice as much as it did a year ago, houses are unaffordable - up 85% in the past year - in any location where there are jobs, but you can't live far away because you can't afford to commute, and yet you can't work for some small town company with no health benefits...
I didn't get a piece of the Dot-Com bubble, and now that we're on the downside of it, there are no jobs that pay a living wage, and lots of us are looking for other ways to make a living. It'll come back around, and salaries will become more consistant with cost of living... but in the mean time, I wonder about whether or not I should take my 1 year old to the hospital or if his cough is going to get better on its own with time and generic robitussin, because the emergency room doctors here don't participate with my independant keycare health plan and I really can't afford it.
Save your harsh words for the realtors, man. All I'm trying to do is scrape by and take care of my family.
~Will
Be prepared to quit (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, there's too many saps out there who complain about shit raises, but won't go out and do something about it. Don't like your raise? Get a new job, and then when you leave, tell them exactly why. If more people did that, raises would be higher for everyone.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in a very liberal city (Madison, WI). There's a lot of well-educated, wealthy people here, many of whom (based on local politics and recent elections) vote liberal. A lot of more rural areas (which tend to have less wealthy individuals), both in Wisconsin and nation-wide, vote conservative. At the same time, you have many conservative business owners who, as you mentioned, tend to vote to the right.
I think people tend to vote more on ideology, and here the conservatives have a strong following on two orthogonal axes - the "values" plank (typified by the pro-life movement), and the pro-business plank (tax breaks & trickle-down economics). The liberals tend to appeal to a more diverse segment - environmentalists, humanitarians, those willing to spend more government money on social & educational programs, etc. Not all of those are people who necessarily directly benefit from such programs, just as not all conservatives directly benefit from a pro-life or pro-business agenda. But that's where their ideology lies.
Just my $0.02, anyway.
Re:Raises shouldn't be the norm (Score:3, Insightful)
Salaries aren't about "earning it". The company figures out how much they value your labor, and then figure out how much less than that you will accept. If the later is lower than the former, they offer it to you, otherwise, they fire you.
Salaries are low because most people don't seem to understand that a company will generally attempt to pay you as little as it can without losing you.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is talking about entitlements here, that is a typical right wing talking point without foothold in reality.
Over the past 6 years, we haven't even gotten cost of living raises, basically resulting in making LESS and LESS money each year.
10 reasons to get slapped with a cluestick (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Gas prices have gone up a LOT more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
2) Natural gas (Consumer's Energy) has gone up a LOT more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
3) Our health "benefit" premiums have gone up WAY more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
4) Tuituion at school has gone up more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
5) Day care has gone up more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
6) School lunches have gone up more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
7) Grocery and clothing prices have gone up more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
8) Car and home insurance rates have gone up more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
9) Hell, the cost of a McDonald's extra value meal has gone up more than 2.75% in the last 18 months.
and the biggest slap with the cluestick goes to (drum roll):
10) The company's profits have gone up a HELL OF A LOT more than 2.75% in the last 18 months (I know, I work in a financial area of the company).
So what the hell? Your profits aren't down, business has been up, volume has way more than recovered since 9/11 (which was the original blame for all business' woes whether it really was or not). The scapegoat of a poor economy and a poor job market are no longer valid. The company isn't "hurting" any more. So why shit on your employees?
Here's why - because they're a large corporation who could really give a flying fuck about their employees. Seriously. They'll put on the politically correct speeches about "we're for family" and "our employees mean a lot to us" garbage, but they never put their money where their mouth is. Our "health benefits" are absolute crap. After paying the high premiums, I can't afford to go to the hospital because of the outrageous co-pays. My theory behind the horrible insurance is the fact that our company is Canadian-based. In Canada, they don't have to worry about paying for health care premiums because their health care system is integrated into the government and paid for by taxes. This way EVERYONE gets health care. If they are to stay competitive in the United States, they HAVE to offer health benefits, but they don't have to offer GOOD benefits...just enough to keep someone there. It makes perfect business sense, but you're pissing off your employees. Is it worth the hassle of creating employees that resent you for your greedy business tactics? I would think not.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you saying that the productivity of the CEO's is continuing to skyrocket, despite all this? This would explain why CEO's salaries rise like crazy and the gap between the rich and the poor keeps increasing. I didn't realize it was all the poor people's fault.
It's kinda like copyright infringement is on the increase, but the media industry is having another record breaking year, while laying off employees at the bottom level. A bit like that?
Re:Cry me a river (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hard Times (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not begrudge effective, honest and successful CEOs their salaries. If they earn it, they earn it.
BUT
Ovitz did not deserve $140 million. Ken Lay did not earn his $42 million in 1999. Ebbers did not deserve a guaranteed 1.5 million annual pay for life. Jure Sola did not earn his $20 million bonus for hitting targets one quarter out of 16 as the investors in the company saw shares fall 78%.
The complaint isn't how much CEOs make... it is how much BAD CEOs make. Could I perform as well as a CEO? Well, pay me $1,000,000/month and I'll see if I can drive the nation's largest retailer into the ground along with 57,000 jobs like Chuck Conaway did.
Why do companies exist? To generate profit. If the CEO can't do that then the CEO needs to be replaced. And if the CEO is engaged in any sort of corruption, fraud or outright stupidity then he has to go.
Are all CEO's inept, devoid of skill and undeserving of large salaries? Absolutely not. Only a silly extremist would make such a claim.
However. I find it inexcusable to tell the employees that there isn't enough money for raises (or even adequate equipment) then siphon off several times the profit for one overpaid and underworked twit who just isn't bringing any value to the organization.
organize, organize, organize! (Score:3, Insightful)
it is precisely circumstances like these that led to the development of labor unions (well, plus a few deaths-by-locked-door-in-a-fire)
it's alarming how many modern workers buy the company line about unions and how they're only in it for the dues. why is it ingrained in modern companies that teamwork is the solution to problems, but then teamwork is lambasted as a strategy to improve conditions?
i had a discussion with my sister once in which she railed against the organized workers at her job because they didn't have to work as much and got paid more. ? why is that bad? it's in the power of every worker! (except those working for the tsa, thanks to mr. bush.)
the communications workers [cwa-union.org] is the first place to look if you're looking to get started. you have nothing to lose but your lousy schedule and crappy raise percentages. and your chains, but that's more metaphorical.
Re:3-4% really is the norm (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering the obvious (look at the stock chart prices) effect of hiring SJ as CEO, Apple ought to be paying him loadsadosh. And no, I'm not Steve Jobs, I just think he's done a phenomenal job (didn't you hear ? Apple has been "dying" for years now...).
I don't see a problem paying CEO's who perform that well. It's pure jealousy to advovate otherwise - especially as the man is only getting richer when the company does better!
I *do* have a problem with 'golden handshakes' when a CEO runs a company into the ground. I *do* think a lot of CEO's sit on their collective arses, do little (or worse, meddle!) and badly affect their company, and I don't think this should be rewarded. I don't think you can level that at SJ.
Simon.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:1, Insightful)
That is NOT intelligent (Score:3, Insightful)
If you market the IT department and prove its value to the company, raises are much easier to come by. Been there, done that, a number of times.
Re:Disorganized Labor (Score:1, Insightful)
How whiny and superficial (Score:1, Insightful)
Puhleeze.
For every one of us whining about how our salaries aren't increasing at the rates that please us, there are thousands more with our skill levels or more who go to bed on a stomach full of rice or air.
These same people share 400 square foot rooms with their entire families and when their kids catch colds and die, they cry, bury them, and go work some more to feed the remainder of the family.
Too many people in this country (the U.S.), can't grasp the concept that we have it pretty damned easy. It's deservedly so (thanks to God and a stable government), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate it.
If you're able to pay your bills and put good food on the table, stop bitching. If you find that difficult to do, use your frequent flier miles and paid vacation to go to the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mexico, etc., so that you can witness real hardship being suffered by people every bit as (or more) intelligent than you who were simply born into a cultural or political system inferior to ours.
I bet when you come back, your job will seem pretty damned comfy, and your pay level will suit you a little better, and a drive on a crowded L.A. freeway will feel like a drive through the country (the voice of experience talking).
...and think about this (and be honest)....do you really deserve more?
And Congress just approved more Visa workers (Score:4, Insightful)
If we don't collectively apply political pressure, they will do to our field what they have done to agricultural workers.
Laughing was dumb (Score:3, Insightful)
Be reasonable: Tell them exactly how much it wil cost them to keep you.
If they are willing to pay it, then tell the new company you were going to go to
about it, and tell them how much it would cost to still hire you.
There is no point in throwing away perfectly good leverage.
Re:organize, organize, organize! (Score:3, Insightful)
Labor unions are an example of too much of a good thing. Unions started out to level the playing field between labor and management. Now, many unions are out to do no less than screw the company. It is no long about fair treatment. It is about padding pockets, political power, and greed.
You ask why it is bad for employees to work less and get paid more. The answer is that everyone has to pay more for products. And, with overly powerful unions, you get what happened in the 60s and 70s auto market, declining quality.
An example of a labor union hurting more than helping is the UAW and GM. GM needed to lay off some workers to cut costs. Under labor contract, junior workers were laid off first. This caused the production lines to stop. Why you ask? Simple, under the labor contract senior workers couldn't do a junior persons job and all the junior worker jobs were making parts and at the beginning of the assembly line. So, GM was forced to either stop making cars in some plants because they laid off some employees, or closing a couple of plants. But, the UAW didn't want the plants closed and threatened to strike.
The unions didn't care about the health of the company. Because of this, they will hurt the company for a short term gain.
See the problem now?
Re:IT=cost center (Score:3, Insightful)
You probably saved a dime by having 50% of your incoming calls handled by an automated information line vs having call center employees.
You probably saved a dime by having a teleconference over flying everyone to some location, renting a center and having a meeting.
I could go on.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The horesh*t about not everyone having the same opportunities falls flat and exposed as such when you consider that every year people come here from nations where poverty isn't defined as being able to afford digital cable, a projection screen TV, leather couches, and a $30K SUV while living on welfare and foodstamps (I used to install said cable for said people while they sat on said leather couches screaming at each other over who spent the money that should have gone towards the baby's diapers; drugs? working under the table and collecting? who am I to even ask?). It's defined as "will there be any food tomorrow?".
They come here, work hard, sacrifice mightily, just as they did every day just to live where they came from, and such pays off here where it didn't there. How is it that people come here from places where fortunate isn't a tax payer run apartment building but a scrap metal roof instead of one made of rotten scrap boards, and make it so much better?
Does anyone think that these largely non-white people are getting a break and aren't the victims of racism and bigotry? Does anyone think "the man" is going easy on them? That they have special opportunities that people here four generations or more don't?
They point up what American families need to do to be fruitful: stick together, work hard for the common good of the family, put off what you want right now for what you need later, and think of each other over your self. If people think this should be a world where individuals can think only of themselves and be as wealthy as they want all by themselves, they need to realize that's not generally the rule no matter what Hollywood seems like. Long term stable success is a lot of long hard work usually. If you're not up to the cost, don't step up. Stay in the project eating macaroni and cheese and sitting on your front porch staring at the beat up Camaro that you haven't got the money to get on the road. Or scamming the system while crying it doesn't pay you enough money to afford the newest X-Box game.
I may scramble from job to job to keep my income paying a mortgage and ten dozen other bills, but I'd rather be doing this for my family than letting them sit around without hope living at the mercy of others.
Short answer: YES... (Score:3, Insightful)
Meager wage increases (if you get them at all) are now the norm rather than the exception. The change to labor laws under George W. Bush were not an anomally -- your employer now expects you to work longer hours for less pay and benefits. Consider yourself lucky if your job hasn't already been offshore outsourced, or not in the planning stages. Your 401K overseas investments are growing fastest because you are helping to finance your company's globalization. But do not expect to gain enough from these investments to make up for when your job finally disappears overseas -- it won't.
The government's job is no longer to be of any particular benefit to you -- only to your employer. The tax cuts, tax loopholes, and outright federal grants were never intended for you, but for your employers. There was never any possibility that your political campaign contributions would ever provide the politicians with either an evenhanded or even populist world view -- you cannot compete with your employers when it comes to buying those politicians because they do not come cheap.
Expect that the time will come when your job will disappear overseas, or that your employer will replace you with cheaper imported (L1-A or H1-B) labor. And do not expect that you can fall back on the experience from those summer construction jobs you took while a student -- those jobs are now taken by the hundreds of thousands of illegal alien laborers that have continued to pour across our borders. This is no accident, but a concerted effort by the George W. Bush administration to force all wages down for his corporate sponsers. Between open borders, the INS "catch and release" policies, and zero enforcement against employers hiring illegal aliens, the plan is to do for domestic skilled blue collar jobs what has been done to the shoe, textile, steel, and IT white collar jobs.
The only substantial wage and benefit increases are destined for the pockets of upper management and the executive board room, and especially for those companies who not only cater to government contracting but also make the largest campaign contributions. And by the way, don't make too much noise when you protest the current status quo, because the term "terrorist" is largely undefined in the latest and greatest version of the US Patriot Act.
Welcome to "1984", and be certain to take your daily dose of "soma". Not taking your meds could provide you with an extended stay at Club Med - Gitmo.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If one CANT work while going to school, guess what! Financial aid is easily available in the form of student loans and grants. (A) they are living over their means
(B) they lack the skills necessary to make "2" or "3" low paying jobs in income from one job.
(C) they are living in an area where the cost of living exceeds their income potential (see A) Your ability to reason certainly resembles something the GP may have left floating in his toilet.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's what it is with most companies: After a while they take you for granted, and are no longer interested in paying you what you're worth. But to another company you're all new and shiny and irresistably mysterious, so they'll offer you more to lure you away. So your old company now has to pay market value+ to replace you, so they're now paying *more* for someone 1) they don't know, and 2) who's not familiar with the code base and procedures for getting reimbursed for travel etc. Each company would be better off working to retain the competent that are already up-to-speed on that company's stuff, but instead they in effect force musical chairs amongst all but the dead wood.
Whine, Moan, Bitch, Complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, hasn't anyone ever told you? You don't get rich working for someone else.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is about the people who do not have above-average skills. In rich environments, they start out decent, and have (through connections, background and money) an easier time getting a decent job. If not, they still have something to fall back on. If something in their life goes wrong (with financial impact, which it often has) before they finish education, they have a far better chance of recovering.
In poor environments, the options are more limited. You plainly have to work a lot harder for food and shelter, and education. Once harder work has to be done to get succesful, fewer will succeed (doh!).
The idea that everyone is capable of everything is a myth. Let alone regardless of connections and money. This has little to do with mindset.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you that rich liberals tend to be snobby, Starbucks-sipping, SVU-driving, etc. These are the so-called "Limosuine Liberals" that the conservatives trot out as the face of the Democratic party in order to forment a perverse sort of backlash against some of the economic agenda of those Democrats (see "What's Wrong With Kansas" for a great analysis).
On the same token, rich conservatives don't care two shits about keeping government spending in check or personal responsibility, mostly because they're not conservatives, but neo-cons. I don't think any self-respecting conservative would demand the government bail out their failing business, but we see literally billions of dollars in government subsidy (welfare, if you like) going towards these businesses. These people don't care about anything other than the size of the number in their bank accounts and aren't afraid to do anything in order to increase it.
Of course, your common liberals and conservatives tend to be honest, hard-working people, but with different views on how to best run the country. These commoners never get seen in the news media. They'd have you believe that everyone who voted for Bush wants to force you to worship God as they see fit and that everyone who voted for Kerry wants to make gay marriage and abortions manditory. This obviously isn't the case, and it is our duty as the "commoner" to make sure we don't let our breathren be mislead in this fashion.
Another reason.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And another thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the cost of the additional salary more or less than the cost of replacing the potential loss of personel?
What percentage of those who find other jobs can be lured back in with an offer for a bit more?
Is the product produced by the employee worth the money being paid?
Can an employee that costs less create the same quality of product in the same amount of time?
In the end, if you truely believe you're worth more than you make, and the company you work for seems unwilling to compensate you in this manner, everyone is better off if you find that job. In reality, your true market value is only what the highest bidder will pay. And, in our current job market, there are typically at least a dozen people willing to do what you do for the same or less... supply and demand at its best.
Re:Welcome to reality.... (Score:2, Insightful)
You may still end up a liberal, but don't be surprised if you don't. Your attitude is fairly common among college folk, but keep in mind, the conservatives do come from somewhere. Most people don't go from conservative to liberal, but many conservatives were once liberal. When you have a lot more responsibilities, you may find the need for a corresponding level of freedom.
I was once a staunch liberal in that I thought government could work, if only