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It was back in 1984. Ask this question, are the minimum wage workers in America earning the same number of dollars a rookie lieutenant was earning? There is a PDF of USArmy pay scales of 1984 https://www.dfas.mil/dam/jcr:1...

Assuming O for Officers and W for Warrant Officers and E for Enlisted men, The lowest basic pay seems to be 1150$ a month. 302$ a month for quarters. Then you need to add other benefits. Looks like the pay would come to around 18K a year basic pay. Typical pay is likely to be around 22 K. The minimum wage worker would make the equivalent of 15K a year in USA. So compared to US minimum wage workers, Indian minimum wage worker pay has gone up by 50% more.

[I am not sure of my calculations. Can't believe rookie lieutenant was making just 22K a year in 1984. Actual numbers from people who have started their career at that time would prove to be use ful]

Also, here's the current military pay scales:

http://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/militarypaytables.html

The guy is making around 12K a month.

That's got to be a serious habbit to resort to using fake chips.

Technically, military personnel in combat zones get additional pay (imminent danger pay). But I agree with the larger point.

Let's say he's an E-2. According to the 2010 Military Pay Table located here he'd be making 1622.10 a month before the bonuses. His BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) as an E-2 with a dependent is 619.50. Add to that his family separation allowance of $250 (since I assume he was away from his wife). According to the pay table, his hazard pay (assuming he wasn't on an air crew or in a submarine or something like that) is $150. The BAQ allowance would vary based on where he lives assuming his wife lived off base when he deployed. But that would essentially just cover housing costs. So he makes a grand total of approximately 2641.6 a month to defend our country, assuming he's an E-2 with typical years in service for an E-2. That sounds like a lot, but then let's look at the parent's claim that he makes less than a typical garbage man in a large city. Searched at random for a large city's sanitation work site, found this for New York. They start off making 31,200 a year. Assuming they get paid bi-monthly, that's 1300.00 every paycheck, or 2600 a month, right off the bat, and can increase to as much as slightly over 67,000. So right off the bat, a garbage man makes, without accounting for any benefits, just slightly less than an E-2 who is married, in a combat zone, and lives on base. As the increases for the sanitation workers is periodic, and judging the fact that within 5.5 years they are making near or at their cap (a cap that enlisted won't reach for some time even with benefits), I'd say that his claim is valid (and rather sad).

"Really? You might want to tell that to the military... I can't get Firefox installed much less supported on a military computer"

Really, what exactly is the rule regarding Firefox on military computers?

'Here's an easy way to have Firefox allow popups for our site'

'If you have a CAC card and reader, use Internet Explorer instead of Firefox and follow the previously mentioned CAC installation instructions'

Jump to How to manage certificates in Firefox.:Enter the password for Firefox's certificate database

http://www.dfas.mil/militarypay/militarypaytables/2008MilitaryPayCharts35.pdf

This table includes the monthly base pay for all pay grades, as well as any incentive pay.

Single soldiers deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan, they would receive Hazardous Duty pay: $150 and Hostile Fire Pay: $225 for all pay grades

Married Soldiers would also receive Family separation allowance of $250 for all pay grades

So, for an Private E-2 with less than 2 years of service, that's quite a bonus over his monthly base of $1,509, but not even close to 3x his base pay.

For a Major 0-4, with over 12 years of service, it's a drop in the bucket of his base pay of $6,088

In my personal experience, government IT projects (especially social welfare systems) tend to have a higher problem rate than commercial projects due to conflicting political goals, pork-barrel spending, and faulty oversight. *shrug*

Hey, I know what you mean, having been on the receiving end of some government IT projects before. Still, I bet a lot of these problems are minimized when the government is paying for something it really wants (as opposed to something mandated by Congress or military-industrial lobbyists.)

Not quite accurate. The retirement plans of the various armed services have moved away from the 50% @ 20 years model(+2.5% each extra year up to the 75%@30). It is *very* complicated, here is the DFAS link for all the info you (never) wanted. http://www.dfas.mil/retiredpay/preparingforretirem ent/howyourpayiscomputed.html Just hit 21 years of service myself yesterday (yay me).

I'm not calling Scrum bizzare. Scrum seems like a good way to develop a piece of software where the requirements churn is very high. I have a hard time thinking of such a system off the top of my head. It might be an acceptable way to develop a low-churn system where you want your time-to-market to be next to zero, provided the cost of a failure is very low, and redeployment costs are minimal, and you don't mind burning some cash down the road to get to market first. A web-based email system, for example, might be a good candidate for scrum. I'd also think that you would need a fairly small team size for scrum to work properly, although I don't have data to back that up.

A mission critical system, though, where the cost of failure is high (say, death), is not really a good candidate for Scrum. If you worked at Boeing and found "777 left wing" in your process backlog, you'd probably want to seek employment elsewhere.

With any mission critical system, you need a very clear understanding of the requirements before you start design - otherwise there is a high probability that your design will fail to meet one of those requirements, and therefore the system will likely fail. The whole point of scrum is that you basically make up features (and, therefore, requirements) as you go along, and hack them in. Your product backlog is basically just a list of features you want but haven't had time to hack at yet.

The requirements of a mission critical system do change, as new features do get added (communications gear is a good example of a critical system with low-medium requirement churn), but scrum is still, IMO, inappropriate, as the rate of change is generally far too low.

Scrum also seems to lead to a lot of rework. If you find a requirement buried in your product backlog which you hadn't previously considered carefully, you may find you have to rewrite a substantial ammount of design to add that requirement. Again, in a system where your requirement churn is high, this is perhaps unavoidable, but in most systems (especially mission critical systems) the majority of your requirements are known ahead of time, so all that rework just becomes waste. The waterfall model would serve you better.

Finally, Scrum has a few pitfalls. Since your product backlog is generally full of features, it's easy to end up doing things like assigning features to designers instead of subsystems. The "sprint" mentality also seems to make it easy to shirk the responsability of producing correct documenation. You can do (or fail to do) these things with the waterfall method too, of course, it just seems like Scrum almost promotes them.

As for "There's nothing inherent in any agile methodology that precludes CMMI compliance," I'll point you to the Agile Manifesto. Let's just look at those first two points here;

1) "Individuals and interactions over process and tools"

How does this relate to CMM?

"Success in Level 1 organizations depends on the competence and heroics of the people in the organization and cannot be repeated unless the same competent individuals are assigned to the next project. Thus, at Level 1, capability is a characteristic of the individuals, not of the organization." - http://www.dfas.mil/technology/pal/cmm/lvl1desc.ht m

So the first point of the Agile Manifesto seems to scream out CMM level 1.

2) "Working software over comprehensive documentation"

Even if you had excellent quality software with poor documentation, the software would be difficult to change and maintain, unless you assign tasks to people who are intimately familiar with the existing code base (Sound like CMM 1 again?). If a person moves to a new project, there is a siginifigant learning curve. This is compounded by the unfortunate fact that, at my company, developers are assigned features, rather than subsystems. A new developer must t

On the other hand you're getting a deal on their wages
Monthly Pay:
E-1:1193.40
E-2:1337.70
E-3:1407.00
Figur e four fourty hour weeks, 160 hours a month
E-1: $7.46
E-2: $8.36
E-3: $8.79
Now, you have lots of other benefits, but ask yourself. Does that really counterbalance the three months to a year over in the desert, with the chance of being shot or blown up, if you're not a patriot?

The basic pay scale does not reflect the fact that both your housing (BAH) and subsistence (BAS, aka food) are provided for. If you live off the military base, this can take the form of tax-free money. Also, the amount of time served has a large effect on basic pay, especially after four years. Here are some numbers (BAH is based on location, these numbers are for San Diego 92055, and w/o dependents):

Rank..Yrs..Base.Pay...BAS......BAH.......Total
E1....<2...14320.80...3150.00..11088.00..28558.80
E4....2....19659.60...3150.00..11088.00..33897.60
E5....4....23893.20...3150.00..12204.00..39247.20
E6....6....27720.00...3150.00..12888.00..43758.00
E8....12...39675.60...3150.00..15276.00..58101.00

01....<2...27172.80...2102.76..12744.00..42019.56
03....4....48326.40...2102.76..16308.00..66737.16
04....8....57711.60...2102.76..18768.00..78582.36
o6....16...81687.60...2102.76..21240.00..105030.36

Now, what are those tax-free BAH dollars worth?

Tax A is the estimated Fed Tax for 2003 if base pay, BAS, and BAH were all taxed.
Tax B is the estimated Fed Tax for 2003 if only base pay and BAH are taxed.
Taxes calculated are based on single status with standard deduction.

Rank..Tax.A.....Tax.B.....Savings
E4....4104.00...2361.00...1743.00
E8....10154.00..6329.00...3825.00
03....12304.00..8229.00...4075.00
06....22824.40..18873.00..3951.40

Of course, you will never be paid for overtime, but there are other special pay items:
Family Separation Allowance $250 / month? (not sure about this one)
Hazardous Duty Pay $150 / month
Diving Pay $340 / month
Parachute, Flight Deck, Demolition, some Others $150 / month
if Qualified HALO, $225 / month
Submarine Pay (increases with cumulative years at sea): $75 - $595 / month
Sea Pay (increase with years at sea): $50 - $646 / month
Doctors and dentists get anywhere from 12,000 to 36,000 / year incentive pay.

All in all, I think it is a fair pay scale. Some may argue for more considering that lives are (sometimes) on the line. To each his own. There are other benefits... medical/dental, 401k equiv (TSP), education assistance, life insurance...

If you have a bachelor's degree, then you should start out as an officer. A 2nd lieutenant makes about $27,000. If you have a degree in computer science and don't suck, you will get promoted very quickly.

$1,150.80 / month or just under $14K per year... Of course, I remember that as pretty much spending money - live in BEQ and eat at the mess most of the time.

If you want IT, go with the Air Force. If any of my nephews decide to join the service, I will strongly counsel them to go in the Air Force instead of the Amry (where I spent 7 years).

I agree. I just finished my third year in the U.S. Chair Force and do not regret it. The pay sucks, but...

• Guaranteed retirement as long as I don't go to jail.
• Guaranteed medical benefits (100%, no copay) as long as there is a government.
• Guaranteed housing subsidy or free housing on base as long as there is a government.
• Almost guaranteed job security.
• 100% tuition assistance. You heard me right, free college! There is a $4,500 cap per year, but I have yet to hit it, since every college that accepts TA also gives discounts.
• It ain't Full Metal Jacket, kids. This is the 21st century Air Force!

Check out the Defense Finance and Accounting Service for pay information. I am a three year E-4, so I make roughly $23,000 per year with food allowance, but I also get 100% free housing and utilities on base. I.e. no rent, no mortgage, no electricity bills, and I do not pay sales tax at the base exchange or liquor store (also no sin tax).

Of course, in return, I have to work. But in my job I probably will never go to a combat zone. The farthest I deploy is Atlanta or Washington, DC, for training.

Here is a link to the Defence Finance and Accounting Service http://www.dfas.mil (Yeap .mil)
http://www.dfas.mil/technology/pal/dcii/dcii-proce dures/dcii-doc/ept.pdf Otherwise a Complete Testing/Performance Procedures for Many Different Approachs are described at the http://www.tpc.org
Test TPC-C TPC-H TPC-R and TPC-W
You will find a description of all of them here http://www.tpc.org/information/benchmarks.asp and each have their own pdf description. VERY FORMAL and detailed. Have Fun ])

Well acording to DFAS the payrate of an E2 is about 1200 a month which comes out to a little over 7 dollars an hour. In my opinion thats still not very much money, even when you may live on base, but you still have to pay your phone bill, almost all units make you have a phone in case of recalls. What about a car, you supervisor won't come and get you every morning, what about high insurance rates, I know when I was an airmen living in Colorado (one of the highest states for auto insurace) I was broke all the time. We are not talking about a lot of money. Other branches offer other benefits like paying off student loans, and things of that nature.

There has been talk for years about adjusting pay scales according to what your designation is, but it will never happen, cause how much are you going to pay the guys that actually go out and risk their lives in the field, should they get more then the programmer in his climate controlled server room? One poster explained how he went on to become an officer, and make more money. Yes the military pays 75% of your tuition, but it doesn't cover books or lab fees, that alone gets very expensive, and tough to handle on an airmens pay. Why would someone want to stay in for crappy pay, living in a 8X12 closet with a roomate who sheds like sasquatch, when they can go out and get a job at Mcdonalds, thats 9-5, no recalls, and offers almost the same benefits (ie. TA, insurance).

Sorry to pop your bubble, but E-1 to E-4 pay ranges from $1022.70 to $1752.30 per month depending on time in service (dfas.mil). This is on top of the fact that all your food, housing, electricity, water, trash, medical, dental, and training are provided to you free of charge. In other words, the only financial obligations you have are the ones you create yourself. Even if you take a loan out on a car($300/mo. + $100/mo. for expensive insurance + $50/mo. for gas/upkeep), get a cell phone ($50/mo with a ton of minutes), and get cable plus wide-band access (up to $100/mo) that still leaves over $400 pure spending cash for even a boot E-1. Average promotion times are 6 mo. to E-2, 8 more mo. to E-3 and an average of 18 months for E-4 depending on how good of a worker you are. Most folks straight out of high school with little to no work experience usually don't have it nearly that good. Also, starting Oct 1st, the Military pays 100% tuition assistance for undergrad education, so free college to boot!

Now, that being said, the military is still a tad behind the civilian world in overall fiscal compensation. But it's a bit too far to say that enlisted make "almost nothing". As far as the IT field goes, most military people suck up the free training and bail after the 4 year stint for better paying jobs. This rapid attrition rate allows those that stay in to reach the ranks of E-5 and E-6 faster. Benefits begin to increase in the form of priviledges which makes staying in just about as worth while as getting out.

FYI, the daily unclassified, non-critical networks that the E-1 through E-4's usually administer have terrible up-time rates and is usually directly attributed to the lack of experience and education. Most of these self-proclaimed IT wizards couldn't manage a Nintendo without their roomate's assistance.

Before the blasting starts, I enlisted 9 years ago and have worked my way to the officer ranks. I think I made plenty of money then and make plenty of money now with the increase in pay directly related to the increase in my education level and responsibilities.

I've been in the Air Force in a computer desk job for two years now and I've definitely seen my fair share of idiots. But overall, the system works, and the pay isn't bad -- for civil service. Being enlisted, I make about $24,000 with allowances (extra money for food and rent). I could do the same thing in civil service (DOD civilian) making more than twice what I do now.

The difference? Civil service is tough to get into. Any decent job requires civil service experience AND a bachelor's degree. But once you get going, you get decent money, 50k+, excellent job security (there are layoffs and office closures but it's better than the private sector), and decent benefits.

For information on military and government civilian pay, check out the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. They handle all DOD pay matters and have charts and graphs. They also have a few other resources concerning DOD jobs. It is far from complete, but it's certainly a good start.

The military is great because it stresses the chain of command -- and it works. There is definite accountability, most everything is above board making embezzling, favoritism, sexual harassment, etc. next to impossible to get away with. It could be better, but efficiency is better than I've seen in the private sector. That is why once my military enlistment is up, I'm planning to stay in the DOD and get a civilian job working with military people. I love the environment, plus I'll get paid more money $-)