Slashdot Mirror
Engineers Working Harder for Their Paycheck
Editorgirl35 writes to tell us Design News has posted their annual engineering salary survey. While it does offer encouraging results with salaries up a bit from last year it also shows that engineers are, on the average, doing a lot more to earn that paycheck including supervisory and budgetary functions. From the article: "Kody Baker, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer agrees, "Yes, we are doing far more than just designing products," he says. He's a project manager, manufacturing engineer, product designer, R&D engineer, test engineer, CAD systems specialist, CAD instructor/mentor, and more, juggling many roles in his job as a mechanical application engineer at Honeywell."
It's not how many jobs you do, it's how much effort each of them takes.
and the fact that your actual job duties will entail far more than what your job description said.
Seriously, someone managed to write an article about this concept?
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
"Engineers earned an average of $73,000 last year," if you can find a job that pay the "average" salary, half of people that i know get far less than that.
As I understand it, people across America have been working harder for the same pay for some time now. This trend is exemplified by less vacation time taken by Americans, greater hours worked for the same relative pay, and fewer benefits offered than even a decade ago.
I believe the Economist had a special on this a while ago, showing that Americans are four times less likely to achieve high net worth status than Canadians, even though they work more hours and take on more responsibilities.
I spend most of my time in bed, darling.
Since when is taking on new responsibilities and learning new skills that make yourself more marketable as a whole something to complain about? More and more companies are moving towards organic structures where cross functional skills are a necessity. If you want to be stuck in the same job forever then by all means turn down any offer to showcase your capabilities. In my opinion engineers are some of the most able-minded people to take on other roles in an organization. They possess the critical thinking and deductive skills to approach many types of problems. But given the historic and stereotypical personality (or lack thereof) of engineers I'm not sure I would want them giving too many sales pitches to my customers!
compared to the workload they dump on people 30-40 years ago. however less pay.
Read radical news here
What this may be showing is the trend towards smaller companies (already noted elsewhere) or larger companies using smaller, self-organized teams rather than groups of hundreds or thousands who have several layers of management for one project. My current project team has less than twenty staff assigned, including support and management -- and it's the largest team I've worked on since 1979.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
If this guy can tap dance also, he's hired!
But seriously folks, 28 year-old mechanical engineers are notorious for their ability to do everything.
As a mechanical contractor, working with Honeywell products, and having to apply the engineering to real world application, I find, that the leadership that many contractors are looking for, is lacking. Many times, actual project engineers are sub-par, and it is the contractors' experience that get's the job done, with the engineer walking away with not having to use his insurance to cover mistakes.
It is not that the engineer is not intellegent, but in fact is he/she is over worked, dealing with multiple projects, with impossible dead lines. Many contractors are able to get away with sub-par work, because the job for the engineer is very stressed. Many engineers don't understand what they are engineering, since mechanical engineering is a wide field. They use rule of thumb. And when the contractor uses rule of thumb, we have a recipe for disaster.
More engineers need to go in to the real world, as a helper, or technician. Understand the way things are done, and then become the leadership that a company and a project needs.
It was just on a rerun of 60 Minutes tonight saying the same thing. Thanks to technology (especially the Crackberry) and this social more were quantity is more important than quality - hence all of the stupid meetings and being in the office for the sake of being there. It's too bad that the jobs that pay based on results are only in sales. I'd go there, but I suck at it.
I have been one of these hat-wearers since 1997. The reason being, I tend to stick to smaller businesses. The agile ones instead of the corporate behemoths. I do contract to the larger corps occasionally but it's not a working environment I enjoy. My salary has increased every year I have been employed through three companies and various contracts. Moving up is about expanding your experience as well as your spectrum of abilities.
But it's not about being able to do everyone's job! It's about being able to understand what other departments are doing, knowing enough of their job so you can work with them efficiently. Not only is it important in a communication perspective, but it's priceless in the troubleshooting and design phases of product development.
Bottom line is, every employee of value--anywhere--needs to be able to step back and see the bigger picture of the corporation/foundation/office/whatever. Technical specialists that can't see beyond their single language, single router, server, whatever are a dime a dozen. It's great to have someone with extreme expertise, but they are also easily replaceable.
Aren't venture capitalists grand ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Some outlier who makes a bunch of money could skew the average.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
This should be posted under Technology.
I have written embedded code for medical devices. So 'Software Engineer' is on my resume. But I've also qualfied the designs of all discrete electronic circuits.
I bristle when a recruiter or HR person tries to bracket me as 'IT.'
IT are the clerks of the data world.
dude, would, you, please, learn, how, to, use, commas, correctly?
If you want to be just a commodity engineer with a job description then don't cry when your job goes to China/India/whatever. To stay competitive, you have to add value beyond working to a job description. Welcome to the new millenium. Get over it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Is this article talking about real engineering or does it simply accept that anything with the word engineering in the title falls under engineering (eg. Refuse Disposal Engineer)?
I have to disagree, although I grant you it's true that *some* people are incredibly irresponsible when it comes to their finances.
... working 2 jobs and struggling like mad to keep our heads above water without stooping to government assistance and subsidized housing - but to an outsider, we appear to be fairly "middle class".
In the cases of most people I know (and even in my own case), we're in that majority of Americans who are expected to do more work for less pay - and yet, we're striving to scrape together some kind of lifestyle we aren't ashamed to have around our friends and family.
EG. I could theoretically "put away" more of each paycheck in investments, rather than spending all of it, BUT I'm just about out of corners I can cut. My current salary is thousands less per year than I was paid to do a job involving LESS responsibility, 6 or 7 years ago - and that's after a long stint of unemployment/self-employment and heavy job hunting. Meanwhile, gasoline costs roughly 3x as much as it did back then, and even little things like going out to lunch are about double the cost. (I remember around 1997 or 98, it was quite possible to buy lunch for under $4.00. I used to go to Subway and get a 6-inch cold cut trio sandwich with chips and a drink for about $3.90. To do the same today is around $6.00-$6.50 depending on the store and local taxes.) I get paid bi-weekly and the check I receive at the end of each month is completely wiped out by just my house payment, car payment, and my choice of one smaller bill such as electric, gas, or telephone. The other check is well over half gone just paying for my other utility bills and car insurance. That leaves me with maybe $300-400 for everything else, including groceries, gasoline, car repairs and maintenance, home repairs or improvement, and so on. And I don't even live in a good neighborhood or a "big house" by any means!
I have 2 credit cards, but one has only a $500 balance and the other a $250 balance. Even maxxing those out and paying their outrageous interest rates - that's not going to bury me financially. (And for the record, I have a 0 balance on the $500 limit card and try to keep it that way 90% of the time.)
It just bothers me to get "the lecture" from people about not saving for a "rainy day" -- when doing what they suggest would involve something like going without electricity for a month, or running out of food for my kid. There are a growing number of people out there just like me
You can download the survey from here instead.
is a mechanical engineer who devotes his life to his job. He owns his own business now but he still will put in 18 hour work days (during a job he did for Honda he worked almost 50 hours straight) and the pay isn't worth it a lot of the time.
the Political Inquirer
I got my current job on the expectation that I'd be doing mostly non-engineering work. My main day to day function is being a research, to the extent that I introduce myself as one rather than give my actual title (because people wonder "Then WTF are you doing in front of the computer all day"). In any given workweek I might do PR presentations, translate documents, interpret for clients, hold an internal lecture about SEO, help the web team out a bit, or actually do some research/programming. And you know what? It doesn't matter to me. I'm still getting the same salary we agreed on and I'm still working the (absurdly low) number of hours they request from me. My thought is if they're paying me for my brain and my time then they can use both however they want to, within reason.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
It wasnt unusuall for a nobleman to have many job titles. They could have being a lawyer/doctor/politician for example.
Back then the reasons could be that theres was a need for a doctor and a lawyer and no one was educated but now is to stay competitive.
The more you know/do the less chance that you will become obsolete by the rapid changes on this field.
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
that given a choice whether to do a lot of things in mediocrity or 1 area very well, choose the specific thing. The old jack of all trades analogy. Rennaissance men like Leonardo Da Vinci are few and far in between, and even they had to concentrate at some point on one thing before moving onto the next.
When I hit college, I think I experienced this more keenly, as the first two years were broad classes (what I considered BS classes, public school was all BS but then I wasn't paying for it directly either) until it really narrowed down to niche. I was relieved about getting the BS out of the way.
Similiarly, after a while working, I'm choosing jobs that put my strengths to good used and where my employer doesn't make me do too many roles. Sometimes I have to the song and dance like everyone else, but most of the time I'm allowed to concentrate on what I needs to be done. I can't help but think I'm lucky (and conversely, more productive for my employer) that I am not daily encumbered with the drugderies that happy (or crappy) sounding buzzwords like multitasking seem to convey.
I guess it's the different mindset of management vs. engineer/computer types. Engineers like to solve problems and are more used to sitting there until the problem is solved. Management types are used to problems that can't be solved per se, but have to be dealt with on an ongoing basis, which means they are used to and expect to "multitask."
Both types are necessary, but I'm glad I mostly can stay out of the managing side of business.
I read this article quickly, but didnt see any notes on graduate degrees. I would guess that many of the people that feel like they are juggling different tasks in management/finance role have a graduate degree in management or business (versus an masters or doctorate in engineering). As a student an engineering intern this is something that I am still contemplating. I wonder how much difference a latter degree can make in the carrer path of a professional engineer.
I've found this to be true for almost any somewhat technical field, nowadays. If you have the skills, they will (ab)use you.
I work at a local paper - my primary job description is "Graphic Artist", but I also work with the page layout, do organizational tasks, web development, troubleshooting, sales on rare occasions, and even photography.
All this for only $10 an hour. I don't necessarily mind, but I get overwhelmed quite often, thanks to deadlines (we don't usually have deadlines of a week or so - more like a day, a few hours, or even minutes, on a number of occasions)
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
There's only so much you can do in a given day, and Americans are already the most overworked nation in the world.
This contributes seriously to health problems which libertarians like you would hope the worker pays for and not you.
Eventually this work ethic costs you your family and your marriage simply because you can't be home to see your wife and kids. Oh wait, in your universe, that doesn't happen. Ok, anyways.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
And we hit the point of debt. We are trained to live the correct life style we need things to show off status. Debt allows us to show this status to friends and family to make them feel like you did something with your life. If we realized our standard of living is not a G/god given right, then we may be able to stay out of debt. So lets assume you live in the North East US not NYC. What you need.
Shelter: Studio Apartment $300, Heat $100, a good working car $150 an average of 30 miles travel day at $4:00 a gallon $256, food $320, electricity $100, medical $200. So living comfortable and safely can be at $17,112 a year or about $9.00 and hour at full time. This is assuming you are living by yourself. And I tried to keep the estimates on the higher side. So most engineers make at least $15 an hour and most of them (at my area) make $25-$35 an hour). We as Americans need to learn to put their pride aside and learn to lower their standard of living, if we want to get out of debt.
At first I was wonder what I was doing wrong, other people who make as much as me seemed to have a higher quality of life, then I realized the average person is $30,000 in debt, so I know I am actually better off and I can live comfortably without worrying about debt.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
NLK Consultants as in Nystrom, Lee and Kobayashi?
"You know, developing some social graces, "
You mean, like referring to IT workers as the "clerks of the data industry"?
I've been on all sides of those train tracks and now I manage people like Bing Tsher every day. He's not as much as he thinks he is.
If my boss were like the dweebs that you guys work for, he could replace you engineers just as easily as any IT "clerk".
Next, you stuck up fools will be locked in an insult contest between Mechanical engineers and Civil Engineers. What a joke. All of you are just wage rats waiting to be eaten by the offshoring/redundancy monster, and all you can do is sit here yapping about who's the alpha rat and who's the beta rat.
Bite me, mods. You, too, work for someone who sees you as expendable as the next person. You can't mod that fact down, but it can mod you down to the unemployment line.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I'll grant I've only been an active engineer since about 1978, but I know a bunch of guys who've really been at it a long time, and none of them remember a time when a reasonably senior engineer wasn't expected to be a decent drafter (we called them draughtsmen and used pencils, but it's much the same), do his own computations, supervise junior engineers, make budgets, and do costing.
Other than another demonstration that people writing for magazines think "time immemorial" is anything before about 1994, I don't see much surprising here.
If I make $500,000 each year and spend the same, I have zero net worth. Meanwhile, if you make $20,000 but only spend $19,000, you gain $1000 in net worth each year. Yet who would you rather be?
The only relevant statistic is how much we earn per hour (ie, productivity), and yes, we beat Canada, Europe, Japan, etc. The fact that we choose to work more and spend more on average is not a public policy issue. If someone is using "net worth" in a political debate, they are probably full of it, and in almost all cases, looking at total earnings or earnings per hour will paint an entirely different picture.
I started in the '80's at a large Canadian aerospace company which a couple of years after I arrived got sold (er, given) to a family of the Canadian Establishment. They promply thereafter exported all the materials R&D work I was doing to Ireland. Then they started playing games trying to lock me into a pension plan, to which I replied screw this, I'll do my own. That didn't go down well.
When I left to become a (much better paid) contractor, my boss took me into his office and told me, "You know, I can't approve of this." Apparently, what bosses really mean when they say they want you to show initiative is "Do what I want even if I don't know what it is, oh and make my life easier and make me look good." Well I know thats true, I'm a boss now too.
The real issue as I have come to know it is not that people are being multitasked like crazy (they are), but that its not easy enough to take that kind of experience and translate it into a startup of your own. Companies want their people to act and think like entrepeneurs, but they don't actually want them to become one, and the governments IMHO help them out with that.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Hey man, STFU... I have a BS in EE (from a real college) and a MS in Physics (again, from a real college) and
I have been jobless for some time now. 15 years unix experience, analog design experience, worked in phyics
labs, particle accelerators, etc, etc, and I can not get a job anywhere.
Take your "waaahhh, mommy, mommy I am doing too much" article and stuff it. At least you are pulling a check.
.....Take a stand. I always hear everyone complain, sometimes including myself. We generally do as we are directed but there is a point where you just say no, hire someone else if you want that done!
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
I am an Engineering supervisor for a mid-sized Civil Engineering Firm. I have 4 junior engineers working for me. Three of them have BS, and one has a Master degree.
I can honestly say that most engineers that come out of schools today are pretty poorly prepared for the work environment. Of the 4 engineers I have working for me now, all of them came out of school not knowing how to write a report, or do autocad. It generally takes me at least one year for me and the office manager to take some one raw out of school, and make them billable.
During that first year I have to be an autocad instructor, an English teacher, and hope they don't move on during the year.
Right now at work I am dealing with an engineer whom has a master's degree specializing in water resources, and yet I took 2 hours trying to explain to her how to do basic rational method hydrology.
If I had one request for engineering school, it would be make the students take at least 2 autocad courses. The first course should be a basic course for all engineering disciplines, and then an advanced course dealing with the software that each discipline typically has to use. Teach civils Autodesk land development desktop, teach mechanicals autodesk inventor, ect... I hate the fact that most took a basic course their freshman year, and never even touched autocad during the rest of their time at school.
--C. Alan Whitten
California RCE 63332
Personally, for example, I am formally employed as a software engineer, but I read Slashdot far more than I did a few years back.
After the bubble broke and a lot of management thought they could save money by going over-shoring[1], management knew they still had to find some warm bodies locally. So they added water to the equation and all of the boats would rise. Added water as in effort poured into the body of water. You will generally find people who have director and VP in their titles (and not with seven or eight people in the company) doing hands-on. Directors generally have to be power users of Excel and Access. VPs aren't required to be quite as expensive, tool-wise.
The bottom line of this is the higher the leven of people a company has writing code, the smaller the number of people they have to hire, even if you have enough chimps sitting at enough keyboards.
____________________________________
[1] I've learned by experience, off-shoring is good if you aren't ever going to be managing the [source] code once you get it back. The quality code is generally illegable to anyone except to those who wrote it. It reminds me of the people who wrote code, then passed what they had thru file editors and changed COBOL variable names from "ADD CUSTOMER-WEEKLY-SALES TO CUSTOMER-CURRENT-TOTAL-SALES". to "ADD a3rafas TO awdfasdva-afws-Tasdffgas". i.e., obfuscated code guaranteeing job security. No, it's not apocryphal. I encountered this numerous times with my high school and college clients 20-25 years ago and writing the code to parse the variables proved to be quite a handy tool.
Studio Apartment : $300
You obviously don't like anywhere even close to DC.
Mod point free since 2001
It's not the workload, it's the monitary policy. Over the last 90 years the value of money has slowly been watered down putting a bigger and bigger squeese on middle income families. For example, in 1920 gold was about $25 per ounce, but today it is about $620. One would think that the price of gold would go down because it isn't even demanded or accepted in stores as a currency anymore, but the fact that it's gone up really means that over that amount of time the dollar has lost at least 95% of it's value. In fact, over the last 5 years almost all commodities have doubbled and trippled in price. Sorry, it's not some global corporate conspiracy, it is bad monitary policy - our paper dollars have been watered down in value - plain and simple.
Banks learned a long time ago that when you print up money and spend it - that causes hyperinflation, so most modern economies now print it up and loan it out. When people start to notice higher prices, then they raise the interest rates on the loans squeesing people to lower their prices and profit margins to keep hyperinflation under control. The unfortunate conesquence of this policy over time is high debt, low savings, and stock and housing market bubbles. Hmmm, look at the US now?!!!!
So why are we really starting to feel it just now? because of two forces - overseas economies, and technology deflation. In "normal" inflation, all that extra money floating around would eventually find it's way into peoples pay checks, but that's not happening this time because overseas workers can work for a fraction of what US workers make and because technology is causing things to be so much cheaper that it is driving down costs (and profit margins) on manufactured goods.
Moral: we need gold money. In a gold based economy there is a near fixed amount of money - that tends to encourage savings, keep prices in check, limits the amount of debt, and limits the amount of corruption and government interference (the US constitution says gold and silver for a reason). Also, in a gold based economy you need to be a savings earner before you become a savings loaner which leads to a certain wisdom and dicipline and tends to make it so that loans are used for productive activities like business and commerce and savings are used for other stuff like consumer purchases, cars, and homes. Imagine being able to save for 4 years and buy up a house ... well before the federal reserve act of 1913, that used to be the norm.
So what is going to happen? Thrid world economies will continue to come alive for several decades, and technology deflation will continue to happen for several decades as well. That will drive down prices in labor and profit margins for many more decades. For the long term, that is very good because goods will become cheaper and cheaper, for the short term that is an economic disaster because the whole US economy has way way more debt and obligations than is possible to pay off. The US is in check-mate because political forces will make it impossible for wall street to default on it's debts so they will print up money to pay them off causing price hyperinflation. The only problem is that will drive up prices, but not pay making it impossible for regular people to pay on their housing debts. So prices will skyrocket at just the same time when business activity collapses and mass unemployment follows, and everyone looses their houses.
So what do you need to do? Stay out of debt no matter what. Get gold and silver with every spare penny you can afford. And buy a gun and store food, because all freakin satanic hell is about to break loose. PS: This geopolitical tension in the middle east isn't a cooncidence, the pressures are everywhere and will probably cause WW3 to break out. Please be carefull, all freakin satanic hell really is about to break loose.
I'm an American. I want more than "enough." I'm willing to work hard for it.
Too bad the rest of the world doesn't have higher aspirations.
My "job" is to analyze the structural integrity of various components in an aircraft. In reality, in a given week, I will probably do the following:
-set up shortcuts for really old workers on their desktops so they can more easily get to the files they need
-document a drawing that's missing that is needed for the project, and what is missing
-write a tutorial for a new software package we're using, or explain to someone else how to use it
-set up the printers for someone's machine, and explain what each goes to.
-sort out what's different between two documents and briefly summarize it
-chase down a person in IT responsible for fixing some problem that has arisen with some software
-gripe to some tech support guy about why the software we bought doesn't do what they say it will
-and more I probably can't think of.
So, yeah, just thought I'd share my side. Like with you, none of that bothers me. If it got the point where my job is to vacuum all the offices, yeah, then it would start to bother me. But I don't consider doing any of those tasks to be "working harder"; it's just "working different".
You want to know what kind of job there is where you ONLY do your narrow, specific job function? A union shop. And while in theory, that's supposed to make your job better, in reality, you'll get written up for moving your computer or desks around, and you're employer will quickly tank as they spill money from having to hire a new person for every little task.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
You might have, thought you were clever, using Anonymous Coward, but your use of 15 commas, in a single paragraph, no less, gives the game away.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Nonsense, right now wages in the 3rd world are spiraling upwards - especially in these outsourced sectors. As their cost-advantage continues to decrease, these 3rd world companies are having to improve the quality of their work.
All that means is eventually there will be lots more higher-quality engineers on the playing field, churning out many more high-quality goods and services that the consumer will benefit from.
All mechanical, materials, structural, electrical, chemical engineers, etc., who work for BOEING are PART OF A UNION.
Look it up some time. When I graduated from WSU in Mechanical Engineering the first thing they asked was, "Can you program fluently in C and write software for us?" I went back to study Computer Science. I'm now trying to bring back my M.E. skills and marry them with my CS skills. Otherwise, I'll become even more obsolete.
we've had 50 years to become more efficient. We shouldn't be working anywhere near the same amount. If everybody gave their job a solid 6 hours of work, 5 days a week, and everyone pulled their weight, we'd only have to work 3 hours.
I am not criticizing your overall cutting of corners, because I don't know what you are already doing, but sometimes when you think that you can't cut anymore corners, you actually can. You gave the example of Subway, and what the price is now. I actually go to Subway as well, but I don't get a drink; I drink water. If I want chips, I buy my own chips in bulk at the supermarket instead. That saves more than you might guess. It gets the price down to about what you used to pay for the meal with the drink. Yes, you did originally get the drink for the same price, but that doesn't mean that you really ever needed to. We Americans "just get the drink" due to habit, and this applies to many other categories of our spending in our daily lives as well. And, back to the Subway example, it is true that most businesses really do get your money with the pricing of their drinks. Speaking of which, all of the fast food options have high fructose corn syrup in them, which isn't good for us anyway, and extra calories.
Obviously, the above is not a solution to all of your problems, and I am not meaning it to be, but instead I am simply reminding everyone that EVERYTHING adds up, not just the big purchases. Good Luck!
I totally agree with what you are getting at here, but don't forget to include taxes into the equation if you didn't.
I actually go to Subway as well, but I don't get a drink; I drink water. If I want chips, I buy my own chips in bulk at the supermarket instead.
I take that one step further - I almost always bring my lunch to work. The combination of a sandwich, chips, a soda, and a piece of fruit works out to be around a dollar or so.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Why buy gold and silver at all?
It's not going to be worth shit to John Q. Looter if/when everything goes to hell.
Spend that money on arms, munition, liquor and tobacco. The latter two being the much, much more likely future form of currency.
--- Do you believe in the day?
... or we don't know what we want, and just let it happen to us. Worse yet, some of us do know what we want but do nothing about it for fear of losing our precious jobs. Now, for those of you with kids or other serious obligations, there is a certain logic to this. For the rest of you, the simple fact is that you've let it become expected of you and your testicular fortitude is too weak to potentially risk your job over saying 'no.' Several years back it finally dawned on me - I was not born to serve my boss' every stupid whim. So I don't. And you know what? It works. Be good at what you do, but don't tolerate the situations where you are making up for someone else's (planning/financing/hiring/designing/etc.) shortcomings unless there is a significant reward for you for doing so - more than just keeping your job. Eventually, they will learn and stop repeating their mistakes (or rather, having you clean up after them) or they will fail and exit your life (by quitting, suiciding, taking the company down with them, etc.) On the other hand, if you enjoy watching others use your superior talents (read "gullability") to cover for them, by all means, continue to remind everyone how much they are working while failing to do anything to correct the problem.
Hey man, STFU... I have a BS in EE (from a real college) and a MS in Physics (again, from a real college) and I have been jobless for some time now. 15 years unix experience, analog design experience, worked in phyics labs, particle accelerators, etc, etc, and I can not get a job anywhere. Take your "waaahhh, mommy, mommy I am doing too much" article and stuff it. At least you are pulling a check.
A degree does not entitle you to a job, you also need marketable skills. You mention 15 years unix experience, do you have any Windows experience? Unix is technically superior but you do pigeon hole yourself if that is *all* you know. You mention particle accelerators, have you worked on things that are a bit more common? Particle accelerators and cool and are vital to the advancement of science, but we don't need that many. Again, you seem to have pigeon holed yourself. The problem is not the market, the problem *seems* to be that you chose to become a narrow specialist in an area without much demand.
I also suspect your work has been in academic environments. If so, you are underqualified with only a Master's. Are you working on a PhD? If I were a professor I would favor a PhD candidate over someone who decided a Master's was enough.(*)
I apologize for any bad guesses. If they are far off the mark you may want to consider if there are kernels of truth in there.
Nothing against Master's degrees, I'm working on a second one. I have near zero interest in a PhD.
P.H. Boss, Manager of [department]: [Insert some completely random, infeasable, unmarketable request here] ... ...
Joe Engineer, Engineer: That won't work, because [insert perfectly good analysis here]
PHB: (Irate.) Why are you always rejecting my ideas? You're such a nay-sayer! You could never do my job!
Joe P. Eng, Engineer:
Upper management: Hmm, that might not be a bad idea.
Joe P. Eng, Manager of [department]:
http://outcampaign.org/
... arguably because of religion.
-
2583d37cb22c6662184bbd06480f020b8cefa34e
http://outcampaign.org/
would be the choice between being the average American, who makes $40,000 and saves $500, and the average Canadian, who makes $35000 but only spends $33000. Note that again, the American is clearly richer, while the Canadian has more savings.
The low net worths of Americans indicates that we aren't saving enough, not that we are getting paid less than our fair share, which the OP tried to imply. Almost every time variations of this statistic are cited, this same illogical mistake is made.
Managers seem to be doing far less for their money recently. Having offloaded the project and financial management aspects of their jobs they are now free to golf more, visit strip clubs, give themselves raises and be evil.
At an average wage of $73k/yr, or about $36/hr you might have some added responsibility.
When you're making over $0.50/minute isn't it reasonable to expect some larger responsibility and decision making ability?
As a fellow Honeyweller, I am glad that I have the opportunity to seek out expanded roles and learn new things. If I were just expected to sit in my cube all the time doing the same damned thing for 30 years, I'd go out of my mind. Here, I have the opportunity to get involved in project/program management, test, architecture, system engineering, you name it. I find that it's actually a ton of fun to take on new stuff...
Although I wish HON were better about compensation, I have to admit the benefits are outstanding..
http://www.ccpe.ca/
Why gold and silver? They're just so...arbitrary. I'd rather have my money backed up by something that can actually do something, like energy.
Yeepee! And the horses! Yeeeehaaa!!!!
(Or a nice brig, with 40 cannons and sails like barmaidens breasts, har har... Yo ho ho, and the bottle of rum)...
Expecting the engineers to do more than design products ensures that the resulting products are lower quality. It helps to have some versatility, but work tends to be most efficient when everyone is able to do the job that they applied for (and thus, theoretically, have the most competence in).
For those numbers to have a chance of working you're going to have to expand "not NYC" to "Not within 50 miles of NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Baltimore, Long Island, or the entire state of New Jersey". Otherwise you're never going to have a chance to get that kind of rent payment, and the high price of auto insurance throws your working car calculation off.
Not that I disagree with the general idea of living cheaply, but some of the prices you've listed aren't really possible in some areas.
Also, that's $17000 after taxes, and doesn't leave *any* leeway for "Oh, shit!" kind of expenses, which seem to pop up from time to time.
You can have a paycheck if you don't mind working with VPM by DGSI and being more-or-less a wire harness engineer. You also would need to move to Little Rock. Look up Dassault Falcon. You will be overworked for mediocre pay, but I'm pretty sure you can get a job here.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
Then you really AREN'T getting fucked :)
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
You are so completely out of your mind.
Let's take some more accurate figures, defining the "Northeast" as all of New England, New York state, Pennsylvania and New Jersey:
Studio Apartment $300 Try much closer to $700, for anything that's within 15 miles of where you work. Much more if you live in any large city.
Heat $100 Assuming your heat isn't electric, this is pretty close, but $150 is more realistic based on fuel oil prices.
a good working car $150 At 7.5% interest with a $500 down payment over 48 months that works out to less than $6000 worth of car. There's a good chance that car won't outlast the payments, and there's also a very good chance that it'll need major maintenance (clutch/transmission/water pump/timing belt/what have you). Oh, and you're not taking into account car insurance; figure another $100 each month for that (plus or minus, based on where you live, what your driving record is like, what color your skin is, etc). (It's mandatory in most states up here.) This will be closer to $200, assuming you've got the $500 down payment (and not including insurance, see below.)
30 miles travel day at $4:00 a gallon $256 I have no idea where you're coming up with this figure. My figures look like this: 30 miles per day X 22 working days = 660 miles; 660 miles / (25miles/gallon) = 26.4 gallons; 26.4 gallons x $4/gallon = $105.6 per month. If you mean this number to include your gas AND insurance, it's a little closer. My commute is 70 miles a day, and that's probably about average for the Boston area. So if you double the fuel cost component of that, you're looking at closer to $350. Oh, and let's not forget people who have to pay for parking. If you park at a transit station outside the city, you'll pay $2 to $7 or so each day for parking. If you drive in to work and your employer doesn't pay for parking (as mine doesn't), how does $20 a day hit you.
food $320 Assuming you brown bag your lunch and never eat out (but maybe with the occasional pizza delivery), this is close.
electricity $100 Assuming you don't have electric heat, yes. If you do have electric heat, plan on this doubling in the winter.
medical $200 You're insane. Assuming you can even GET medical insurance, plan on this being at least $100 - $150 a week. My current employer pays 50% of my Blue Cross / Blue Shield HMO, and my contribution would be $150 twice a month. If you're on your own (or $deity forbid you have a family), this figure will be anywhere from $400 to $1000 (no joke.)
So let's do the numbers:
Car expenses (gas/tolls/insurance/possible parking) $400
Car payment $200
Rent (for a crappy studio in a lousy neighborhood) $700
Food $320
Electric $100
Heat $150
Medical $400 (if you can get medical insurance, more if you have dependents) or cross your fingers
So adding that all up, we get $2270 a month, or $27,240 a year, requiring a salary of $35,412 (minus taxes) just to break even. This comes out to more than $17/hour, nearly twice the $9/hour you quoted.
Oh, and by the way, someone making $9/hour will take home closer to $13k after taxes.
Also remember, these numbers assume that you do nothing but work, eat, and sleep. No cable tv, no movies, no dates, no computer, no Internet, no fun for you whatsoever. AND, no money to pay down debt or save. Also remember the $50k of student loans you've got to pay off eventually.
We as Americans need to learn to put their pride aside and learn to lower their standard of living Yeah, because who needs silly things like health insurance or a car. (And even if you are able to take public transit, you can probably count on that being at least $100 to $150 each month.)
I would agree that Americans need to be more financially responsible in general, but sometimes financial responsibility takes a back seat to not getting evicted.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I dont think it is overseas workers that is causing the non-reflection of higher incomes of companies to workers' paychecks.
We do not have such a situation, ie overseas workers, immigration, outsourcing etc in turkey, however extraordinary profits that companies make never get reflected to paychecks.
The reason for that is the 'economist' style of thinking. Its like a game - lower your costs, raise your prices as much as you can, dont care about the end result. This, what all economists, policy makers are taught in colleges. The result, comes up as it is now.
If you have higher income, and can make an engineer work twice as much, do it.
Read radical news here
This is also typically because the managers don't like taking any responsibility for anything (in their climb towards to the top) so delegate everything downwards. It isn't much fun being expected to clear your engineering duties, whilst having management and budgetry responsibilities too (for which you get no extra pay, or credit).
:)
I say we outsource all our upper managers to China or India to save some $$$'s
Energy and most other commodities will probably do well for similar reasons. But gold and silver are what is called natural money. They are malable, splitable, do not rot burn rust or fade away, are safe and non toxic, total circulation does not fluxuate by large amounts, and their rarity makes them valuable enough to hold a reasonable amount of value in your poket. Even though gold is not consumed very much accept for jewlery, silver is used for lots of industrial processes and there is a shortage at this time. The most important part is that you are able to have posession, so they are the ultimate form of insurance. You can't have posession of a barrel of oil, or store a ton of copper without great difficulty, do you really just want a certificate if all hell breaks loose? Paper backed assets are also more vulnerable to manipulation. Tthe risk in energy is that in the event of serious economic slowdown, it's demand will decreses just when you need it the most, the opposite is true with gold and silver.
I am a 33 year old engineer working in industry, and this seems like par for the course. Besides managing my own straight-up engineering projects, I do a myriad of things like safety training for technical staff, lots of my own CAD work, meeting with our customers for a wide range of issues, plant tours, mentoring, etc etc.
While sometimes it is easy to get frustrated with having to do what may seem like another person's job, the flip side is that it's very nice to HAVE a good paying job where your array of services are considered very important to the company's success. I guess there is a fine line between being the 'go to guy' versus being dumped on with unnecessary work, though if you are being compensated fairly, then what can you say?
While companies do conspire to keep down peoples pay when they can. The truth is that in countries where they control the companies less - pay (and the standard of living) tends to be higher, and where they control companies more it tends to be lower. IMHO, what most people fail to understand is that companies and governments aren't leaders, they are followers. When their power is reduced, and they stand out of the way, people tend to succede and innovate, but when companies have lots of regulations protesting them and there is lots of government interference on work and pay - then peoples chances tend to go down. Minimum wage is a great example, it tends to lock out the lower people from getting jobs keeping them from learning new skills and opportunities. Other companies do things like petition government to put in 'enviromental regulations' to make it more expensive for smaller competitors to break into the market.
This way you'll save more money by not having to buy these items, as well as not having to pay for dental and medical care.
Perhaps you'll also be able to cut the gym membership as well, since you won't be fattening up on the chips and soda
(funny conicidence -- the word I had to type to get the post through was "poisons"; how appropriate)
I'm not going to disagree with you, the small things can add up quickly. But, there's a philosophy of how you spend things. I view spending as two very distinct categories, there's spending cash and there's spending income.
Buying a TV for cash is spending money. Getting a car loan or an apartment is spending income - you are committing that amount for a long time. Have a kid and feed him for 20 years, etc.
You have to be ten times as careful spending your income than when spending your cash - $50 here, $50 there, and your income can be all gone. Spend all your income, and you'll have no cash left to spend. Worse, spending income can change after the fact: energy rates go up, kids go to college, card rates go up, etc. So you need to have some pad in there - running it right up to the wire is disaster waiting to happen.
Every year or so I take a look at the income that I'm spending, and see what can I do to improve it. Refinance some higher rate loans? Drop insurance coverage on and old car? Get a better cell or long-distance plan? It's amazing how $20 here and there can add up to a lot. But sometimes the answer could be a little more drastic, as in "replace my Mustang with a 40MPG 4 banger" or "move into an cheaper apartment".
If you are outwardly middle-class, but struggling to keep that, then typically it's a hint that your lifestyle exceeds your income. I like a lot of padding, and would rather underspend with security, than drive fashionable cars or wear cool clothes, or even get extended basic cable.
As for saving, no lecture, but an opinion: Savings is an acquired habit. If you can save $10 a month, then you've established the habit, which is the most important thing. Then, it's easy enough to increase that slowly over time. If you can't save $10 a month, then you are too close to the edge of danger. So many people seem to think "But I can't save $1200 a month to put into a 401K! I need that for (something)" What, you think everyone started at that amount? You start really low, just to acquire the discipline, and slowly ramp it up from there.
Good luck. I hope things improve for you.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
But companies control governments, hence the policies through the parties they 'donate' to.
Read radical news here
1. Only 46 hours a week? i was working more than that 14 years ago.
2. 40% have a bs in engineering? goodness, i had NO IDEA it was that LOW!
3. $73k a year sounds about right - although, it may seem high to folks in middle america and it may seem low to some folks where $600k gets you a matchbox house (american coasts). my guess is the average engineer age is about 40 - so if you are in your 20s, you may be looking up to that number.
4. one of the *main* rules i have in my work life (did i say *main* already?), is to not retain a job where i'm not learning new things. if i'm not doing more things this year than last - i'm going somewhere to where i can learn.
i'm a degreed manufacturing engineer. in the past few years i've leanred access, vb (forgive me!), database design, postgresql, php, apache, html, css, regex, sql, application design, linux, xml, dom and i'm probably missing some things.
yes, i create the quality database, i program the quality database and then i fill it up with work instructions to help production work more efficiently. i train employees to enter data into the quality database and then i program reports based on the database.
i'm now learning ruby and ruby on rails, in addition to OOP.
i love learning new things and if a job can't offer learning opportunities then i'm not too excited about the job.
if you want to be a drone and complain about having to learn new things... imho, you aren't an engineer. at least you don't think like one should think.
the responders said job security is their #1 priority, apparently failing to realize that a diversity of relevant skills *is* their job security. *sheesh*.
I get paid bi-weekly and the check I receive at the end of each month is completely wiped out by just my house payment, car payment,
How about switching to a used car for $1-2k and erase the car payments?
How about switching to minimum allowed insurance?
I live in MA and I pay $400 to insure my $1600 '93 Benz for the whole year. An additional benefit is that the excise extorti... tax is much lower too.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Sorry to come across with tough love, but I'm gonna have to go ahead and call bullshit. I've been there, done that, and couldn't afford the T-shirt. I used to think "man, I cut all the corners I can and my paycheck is still gone!" Then my wife was put on long term bed rest for pregnancy complications, and I shortly lost my job. No income, first kid on the way, and we'd just signed the paperwork for our nice new house to raise a family in. You know what I learned? All that crap I "had to have", I really didn't. That incredible financial hardship was the best thing that could have possibly happened to us financially because now years later back with two healthy incomes we're saving about 40% of our income and are on track for a very early retirement. We also live very full lives in the here and now to.
American culture is very good about teaching you all about what you "deserve". It's also great at teaching you to be ashamed if you can't project a lifestyle that keeps up with the Joneses (who are incidentally swimming in debt to keep up with you). Guess what, the fact that you think you "deserve" something doesn't mean you can have it. You can have it...pay attention here...if you can afford it.
Take an honest look at every one of your recurring monthly bills. If you're honest with yourself, I'm betting pretty much every on of them is partially or completely a luxury. Americans "need" a new car for each adult. We "need" cell phones, high speed internet, premium cable, nice big houses out in the suburbs. Lets not forget that we "deserve" to treat ourselves to $5 cups of coffee every morning, and eating out fairly often (heck I don't have time to pack a lunch!).
But hey, I'm not gonna "lecture" you about saving for a rainy day, its all about priorities. For me, achieving financial independence so I can work only on stuff I want to is a higher priority than driving a brand new car so Muffy and Buffy don't look down their noses at me. What bothers me though is people who whine about not earning enough to make ends meet, when those ends include "a lifestyle we aren't ashamed of". If you can't afford something, you can tell yourself how much you deserve it all day long and it won't change the fact that most Americans don't know how to handle their finances like adults.
What you need to do, my friend, is figure out what you can afford and allocate your resources appropriately. Approaching things from the "I want", "I deserve" and even "I need" angle is a sure recipe for long term disaster. Don't buy things because you deserve them, buy them because you can afford them.
The parent poster was clearly making a joke in reference to a statment used directly by the Grandfather poster... Troll is a mismoderation... maybe overrated, offtopic, or maybe *not funny* but not troll!...
In 1920 the average income was around $5/day. Today, given an average salary of $30,000, that equals $120/day. $600/$25 = 24 times increase in the price of gold. $120/$5 = 24 times increase in wages. It's almost like gold has the exact same value! Except that gold is overvalued a bit, and investments (either in stocks or real estate) gives an edge to those who invest versus saving cash or gold.
I cannot imagine you cars are that expensive. 6000$ would by a lot of car in Denmark (yeah used but still, less than 10 years old) and we have some of the highest taxes on car on this planet (properly the highest)
As for electric heating - well if you use electricity to heat you apartments you must be nuts.
Freedom or George Bush
Because some of us have to show up for work on time. Have too many problems with your car and you're fired. Oh, and I'd like to not frighten women away from me by the car I'm driving.
Americans "need" a new car for each adult.
Only adult in the house. 2000 Corrola, purchased used.
We "need" cell phones,
Pay as you go. 1000 minutes will last me the whole year.
high speed internet,
I'm in IT. Backups and restores need the high speed. Not only do I draw an extra paycheck a month for my IT work, but I also use this for VoIP. Great for cutting down on the phone bills.
premium cable,
My *one* vice. HD cable. I use the lowest package available to get this.
nice big houses out in the suburbs.
Condo. Bought on foreclosure.
Lets not forget that we "deserve" to treat ourselves to $5 cups of coffee every morning, and eating out fairly often (heck I don't have time to pack a lunch!).
I use instant. And I work a 12.5 hour shift, 13.5 if you include the commute. I don't have a wife to pack a lunch, clean, wash dishes or do clothes for me. This, combined with my special diet, means I don't have time to "Pack a lunch"
Frankly. You've been spoiled. I'm getting by on my income, but my paycheck has gone down 31% since I've started working here. And it's been pure hourly.
The good news is that if I can get a regular job making 45k a year, life will be roses and song.
And to everyone else who feels like one-upping me. Shut up, I don't care. I will not live off of white rice or bicycle 24 miles to work dressed in clothes I've made myself by weaving straw.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Sure, you can find a car for less than $6k here (less so in the northeast) but you're going to pay more one way or another on it; either it'll die on you unexpectedly, or require major repairs, or (usually) both. Also, the cheaper the used cars get, the sleazier the people you'll have to deal with (ask someone who bought a "gently used" car that actually was totalled in the Katrina flooding.)
Remember that people drive a lot more here in the States. It's not unusual for someone to put 20,000 miles (about 32,000 km) on their cars in 12 months. It's not the years, it's the mileage.
I bought a used Golf with 58k on it about a year ago for $9,000 and it was a fucking steal at that price. I'm still planning on having to do the clutch and the water pump/timing belt (known trouble spot on the 1.8t) sometime within 24 to 36 months.
Check Edmunds.com if you don't believe me about the pricing.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I struggle with this just about every day. Go have a nice lunch, get out of the office and spend ten to sixty dollars (I'm a big fan of fine dining), or bring something to work that doesn't require much preparation (there's no real kitchen, just a room with tables, a sink, microwaves and a fridge) and stay in the office all day. I try to limit myself to one really nice lunch a week, and otherwise stick to the cheap (non-greasy spoon) diners. Frankly, I don't know how some people can bring their lunch every day; I'd go mad from being in the office all day. I used to work in downtown Chicago, so we'd get to go walk around the city at lunchtime. I find that I really need that time out of the office to clear my head in the middle of the day.
I'm surprised that it took you until the last paragraph to mention that you're raising a child; how much does that cost? I don't have any kids myself and am not too comfortable alone around younger children (I'm sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with that one), so I know I'm not the norm, but I just don't understand why people in general take raising kids as a given despite their financial situation. This is not directed at you, but I know several people that are in their mid-twenties, living with their parents, working a minimum wage job and raising a child. I can't help but wonder why they decided to have (or decided to risk having) a child.
Umm...how about eating your brown bag lunch outside (nice day, regrettably few in Chicago)
or going to some public place that lets you eat a brownbag lunch inside on the crappy days.
Who said anything about straw?
You can buy jeans and other clothes for under a dollar (as well as all sorts of other things) at yard sales.
If you bike to the yard sales, you get exercise on saturday mornings. And, thrift shops are pretty cheap too.
Also, I don't know what your special diet is, but there is no need to live off of white rice.
How about whole grains,pulses and tofu? Buy bulk bags (20-50lbs at a time)--
super cheap per pound and really healthy (the basis of all Indian food). Can be prepared six days
ahead of time with 15 minutes in a pressure cooker.
Why not cut out coffee altogether and just drink water. Less stress on your body that way.
As for cell phones. Just say no. You already have VoIP. Imagine all the free time you'll have when people can't get you on the phone
whenever they feel like it. If they complain, tell them to pay you more.
This is assuming you are living by yourself.
Looks like you didn't really read the entire GP post.
Since you didn't, you probably should. Note that "cable tv," "broadband internet," "big house," and "fancy car" don't seem to be on the GP's list of expenses.
I'd also comment on the costs you listed, but it looks like that's been taken care of by a sibling post.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
Dang... I wanna shop at your grocery store. I can't even get prices that good at Wal-Mart.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
As far as scaring women away, I agree with you. But a 2000 Corolla???
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
No offense taken. I appreciate the comments, actually. If I wasn't able to deal with "critics", it would have been foolish to post my financial situation in public on Slashdot.
Let me clarify a few things though.
First off, no, I don't have cable or satellite TV at all. I've been doing without for months now - after realizing how little value for my dollar I was getting with them. I don't have much time to watch movies or TV anyway. When I do, I tend to find free codes to rent a new release at a McDonalds RedBox and watch one of those.
I do have a cellphone, but recently switched providers to U.S. Cellular from Verizon, because I realized that most of my minutes during peak hours are used when people call me. By comparison, I make very few outgoing calls. U.S. Cellular's free incoming call plan makes much more sense.
I do have a 6mbit DSL high-speed Internet connection, but as far as I'm concerned, it's 110% justifiable. Sure, I don't literally *need* it, but not only is it a tax-deductible expense since I have my own on-site computer service business I do as my 2nd. job, but it's also something that saves me precious time when I find out I need a large file at the last minute. (EG. Customer wants you to go fix their all-in-one printer, and you find out they lost their driver CD. These things are often over 100MB in size to download.) My child likes playing the learning games found on sites like Nick Jr. too - and that's cheaper than buying the games at the store for her.
Large house in the suburbs? Nope! New car? Nope. I drive a 2002 I bought used after doing a lot of shopping around, and it's a pretty fuel-efficient 4 cyl. and top rated for reliability.
Also, to the person talking about cost of living and suggesting a studio apartment vs. a house, I'm just not quite "with you" that housing is a viable place to "cut corners" like that. If you have a house that's larger than you need, or in an upscale neighborhood - then sure. You can move to something more affordable. But where I live, I *might* cut my $600 a month house payment down to about $450 by renting instead of buying my house. In the process, I'd lose any ability to build equity and I'd trade off some of my privacy, plus likely lose some square footage. I'd certainly lose the fenced-in back yard my kid can play in right now.
Many financial advisors I've heard speak in the past said your home is the single best place you can put your money, in most cases. Unlike almost every other tangible asset you can purchase, a home is likely to actually appreciate in value over the time you own and use it.