Great things come to those who meme

Hi y'all. AusCorp is all geared up for the Xmas crunch and wondering just how there are just over 2 months left until 2023.

At TAC, we’ve been working hard on our 2022 Salary Survey, which received ~2500 submissions across a tonne of industries including law, consulting, finance and more.

As mentioned in our socials, we've included a little sneak peek for Flat White subscribers in our "Under the Hood" segment further down.

If you were forwarded this email, you can sign up to Flat White here:

💡 Brain’s Trust - conversations in Auscorp

Track and wield

57% of Aussie Corporates use one phone for both work and play. It’s less clunky, and more efficient so why doesn’t everyone do it? The common response seemed to be our common fear of being tracked.

We’ve looked into this a bit more and long story short, most mobile device management (MDM) software can’t actually see what you’re doing on your personal apps (e.g. Whatsapp, Messenger, Instagram etc). Whew!

Typically, firms will only have limited permissions like seeing stuff on your work apps and some system settings (e.g. locking your phone remotely). BUT WAIT….

…there are a couple of things that might make you do a double take:

1. firms do have the power to wipe your phone remotely (most likely for when a phone is misplaced). Key here is to back up those precious photos and anything not stored in the cloud; and

2. if your company gets sued, the courts can subpoena your phone for evidence. So there is a chance that some pesky litigation junior could have some solid laughs over your texts.

The choice is yours. Despite what you might think though, we’ve been told by the IT peeps in our community that they are generally far too busy to be keeping track of your every move anyway.

⭐️ AusCorp tip: A fellow Aussie Corporate also suggested using Shelter if you have an Android phone, which allows you to create a work profile and personal profile to actually help create some semblance of a boundary.

Not all work phones are created equal

Only a handful of firms get a gold star here, supplying both the handset and fully reimbursing phone costs. Even some big-name, top tier firms (A) don’t provide a work phone AND (B) don’t fully cover the phone plan (which you use for work!).

We’re in 2022… surely something as basic as a work phone should be fully expensed, especially if you’re expected to check emails and field calls whilst out of office?

📮 Postbox - our best post

Unlike the white/blue shirt, dark pants, RMs combo that AusCorp guys follow almost religiously, womens’ workwear is far more varied and complex.

From outfits costing over $2,000 to simply kitting out in full-on lululemon, we managed to capture the essence of this in our recent post.

For those that need some inspiration, here were some of the most mentioned Aussie womens’ brands in our DMs:

• Scanlan Theodore - winner by a country mile

• Camilla and Marc - power blazer and trench coat for bizness

• Saba - poor gal’s Scanlan #1

• Cue - poor gal’s Scanlan #2

• Portmans - poor gal’s Cue

• Oroton - they still exist?!

• Jillian Boustred - up and coming

• Dannii Minogue Petites - get them from your nearest Target!

• Footwear (Bared, Nine West, Jo Mercer)

🙊 Community Bantz - best comments from Auscorp

It’s like this came straight out of the Real Housewives of Auscorp (not a real show but #1 in the charts if this ever got made).

This didn’t make it into our IG stories so here’s a little exclusive for our Flat White readers!

🩺 Health Check - monthly health tip/reminder

Shoot us for being Captain Obvious but some people just don’t get it. We think AusCorp glorifies late nights and 16 hour working days too much. Why else are there so many caffeine addicts and bald men around town? Well, we want to glorify sleep.

Getting your zzz's means better concentration, more stable emotions and higher energy levels. Getting more sleep is like hitting the restart button on your computer. You might not know why you're feeling crap, but a good night's sleep will usually do it.

Given sleep quality generally declines as you age, it's probably smart to knuckle down now and think about some ways to prioritise.

Want more?

If you want to read more about all this, we recommend checking out Why We Sleep (link), which sets out all a whole tonne of theories and reasons to optimise your Zzz's.

For the more visual out there, here is Matt Walker, the author of said book, starting his TED talk discussing testicles.

Finally if you have the attention span of a gnat, check out this blog that summarises the book in 5 key takeaways.

👴🏻 Old is Cool - meme throwback (20 October 2021)

There's no official release date yet for Squid Game - Season 2, but its coming. If you haven’t watched Season 1 yet, do yourself a favour and set aside a weekend to binge it like the rest of us did.

🏹 Missed Connection - social experiment

It’s not every day that you spy your potential soulmate sitting on the steps of the office eating lunch.

This month, we received a DM asking whether we could help identify a young lad. As leads and clues started to flood into our DMs, ol’ mate was identified in under 2 hours. Check out our story highlights on Instagram for a recap.

The singles in our community have told us how hard it is to find a partner with the limited time and mental energy we have with our jobs. So heres the deal.

If there is someone you met in passing or felt a connection with in AusCorp that you consider a “missed opportunity”, send in a love letter or details of the encounter and we’ll take it from there - SUBMIT HERE.

👍 The Nook - what AusCorp recommends

🎵 Midnights - Taylor Swift (music) - smashing Spotify records and making heads bop in the office.

📺 Industry (TV show) - Season 2 just finished up last month... and it has just been renewed for Season 3. Catch up fam.

📺 Only Murders in the Building (TV show) - “Unique spin on true crime, with an episode from the perspective of a deaf character”.

🎙 The Imperfects (Podcast) - “The hosts go deep with some really interesting guests who have enjoyed success in their fields but have had their own struggles and imperfections”

🍸 Cantina OK! (Bar) (Sydney) - “Little mexican bar near Baxter’s Inn. Literally a converted garage space but best cocktails and amazing vibe.”

🍸 Caretaker’s Cottage (Bar) (Melbs) - “Tiny bar with a big ambience perfect for bumble/date nights. Try the martinis with Plymouth gin, served cool from the freezer.”

SEND THROUGH anything else interesting you're consuming (whether it be cool products, food, wine, cafe, restaurants, bars, videos, podcasts, tv shows, movies, books, newsletters, blogs) and we'll feature it in next edition's Flat White!

🚗 Under the Hood - what we're working on

Salary Survey 2022 - sneak peek

Still a work in progress, but here’s an exclusive for Flat White readers. We've distilled some interesting insights for a few categories that passed our cut-off for inclusion in the results:

👨🏻‍⚖️ Law - lawyers at the big firms are generally breaking $200,000 at 6PQE but you’ll have to reach Special Counsel (or equivalent) before passing the $300,000 mark.

 🏦 Finance - a few years in and some quants are taking home $500,000 in salary + bonus. At an IB, you’ll typically need to reach VP level (around 7 years) to earn $300,000+. Those working in corporate finance at a Big 4 bank are generally waiting least 10+ years to hit $200,000+.

🔎 Strategy consulting - Graduates are still earning under $100,000, which seems low compared to law and finance graduate salaries.

  📊 Management consulting - PwC continue to pay graduates the most out of the Big 4 at $72,000. Bigger picture, you’ll only start making $200,000+ once you become a director at these shops (generally 10+ years exp).

⚠️ Risk - Macquarie looks to be a decent look for a job change given it is consistently pays 10-20% higher than its accounting firm competitors.

✅ Assurance (Audit) - it will generally take an average of 4-5 years before breaking the $100,000 mark.

✍️ Feedback Loop - share your thoughts

We are always open to feedback from our dear community.

Let us know if there's anything you would like to see (or don't want to see). We are also very open to any cool, funny or interesting segments that you want to see permanently in Flat White.

Send us feedback HERE.

🫶 Share the Love

We're a community at heart so PLEASE share this around if you found it fun. This helps us tremendously and also gives us the validation that we're doing a good job around here.