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Law Firm Fighting For White Collar (IT) Overtime
Maximum Prophet writes "Programmers and System Administrators typically don't get overtime. A law firm based in Nevada is looking to stand up for white-collar workers around the country, trying to reverse decades-old (and incorrect) thinking about what it means to work in an office. 'Computer workers of various stripes, for example, have commonly not been paid for their extra hours ... But under California law, the exemption applies only for workers whose primary function involves "the exercise of discretion and independent judgment." In numerous lawsuits, Thierman and other plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged that legions of systems engineers, help desk staff, and customer service personnel do no such thing. Of programmers, Thierman says, "Yes, they get to pick whatever code they want to write, but they don't tell you what the program does ... All they do is implement someone else's desires.'"
Ummm....can't RTFA, but does this refer to salaried or per-hour employees? Because there is - and always has been - a distinct difference.
Overtime is one of those things both the company and the employee has to consider when taking a job and the salary is based around those terms.
If companies suddenly had to start paying overtime, salaries would have to be adjusted.
Personally, I'd prefer to stick with the deal I have.
If you agreed to the contract you really dont have a right to bitch about it, in my experience there are just as many who pay overtime as there are that dont. My contract actually gives me time and a half for working overtime/weekends though I dont take advantage of it as much as I could. The only person in my department who gets no overtime is my manager, who at a 130 grand salary, and with nearly a months worth of vacation, I dont think he really gives a rats ass.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
It sounds like they are only doing this in California, which has ad the IT exemption for decades. For the rest of the country, IT workers were getting overtime until the so-called Fair Pay Act of 2004, which exempts IT workers (and other fields as well) from overtime, in exchange for guaranteeing overtime pay for anyone making less than about $23,000 a year. Of course, there are no IT workers making such a low wage (except in India), so that means all IT workers became affected.
I, myself was getting overtime pay until 2005.
My blog
Why shouldn't people get paid for the hours they work? I've never understood why IT workers just "have to work overtime" without compenstation, to me it's just stupid.
Ok, I'm a salaried network admin/systems technician. When I applied for my job as a systems tech, I was assured it would be an 8-5 job. Well, about 2 weeks in I am asked to handle a week of after hours calls. This is fine, except my company is in the Medical/PACS industry. If radiologists can't get their images, people could die. Some nights I will get 10+ calls. Do I get comped? No. Do I get anything for this? No. I applied to build servers and be a backup for fielding calls and was assured a certain set of hours. I did my time on helpdesk and would like to think I'd finally graduated past it. I would just like to see some sort of gratuity from the company for me having to literally go 2-3 days without sleep sometimes because of late night calls. Its bad enough when I work from 8 until 10 at night, but then to get calls most of the night after, I think I deserve something.
Hey atleast you don't get accents coming through in code,, I can't bear to imagine my Pc communicating as badly as the guy I was talking to from Bt last night.
They fitted George Orwell's coffin with rollers so he could turn over more easily years ago.
From a sysadmin point of view, the time spent on Service Packs, Patches and Antivirus (handling issues arising from above software) has to be the most unrewarding, thankless and useless in their careers. ... the sysadmins are just doing a job!
ZERO value addition - nothing useful learnt... except to understand how MS has found another way to screw up.
ZERO appreciation from management or users
ZERO information / guidance to complete... everything is learnt in the field - support from MS or Symantec is close to useless.
I guess if we had such items on the paycheck, the beancounters will finally notice what shitty software they are using in their Enterprise.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
If the la says overtime must be paid, contracts who say otherwise are null and void.
It's not for nothing that there are laws, because companies cannot be relied to do the right thing.
for a few years, I think companies have made out like bandits. Companies have always towed the "your a professional" line when expecting overtime from employees. While that may be true, try telling that to your plumber or mechanic. I'm wondering what the impact on general salary would be if some sort of legislation was put into place.
Sig it.
The problem is that IT are the only workers, non-professionals in the traditional sense, that are singled out as exempt from overtime, whether straight time or time and a half.
State laws, like Californias, are all based off the Federal law.
This exemption was written into the law way back in the 1970'or 80's at the behest of big corporate consulting firms based in NYC. Priot to that, IT folks were paid hourly just like most other office staff.
This is a matter of basic fairness. Why should IT be singled out for different treatment from all other technical trades?
I have been biatching about this for years. Equal treatment under the law is a Constitutional requirement in the US, and just plain ethical everywhere else.
This is also the reason why most IT offices are 40 hour weeks on paper, but 50-60 hour weeks in actuality.
All they do is implement someone else's desires -- I love this. i am no longer a programmer, bit pusher, or code grunt! I am an implementer of someone else's desires.
Please note for future reference
Yeah, man. The only people who deserve a pay increase are CEO's. God, everyone knows that.
Really, do you mean to suggest that fewer domestic people entering the business will result in a different outcome (regarding the number of Indian programmers) than current employees getting overtime pay?
I think more jobs will be lost overseas while salaries will be cut or held stagnate over time to normalize programming/worker costs. That's one of the realities in our global economy. Rarely in our recent recent history have salaries simply and truly gone up across the board (accounting for true inflation).
I mean, I can the other side - companies will not hire enough people in some cases and work their salaried ones to the bone in some cases, until they are exhausted and not of any immediate use anymore.
But I think it would be better to strive to go to work for a better business that treats you better than have the government indiscrimantly burden everyone because of the sins of a few - this will definitely hamper small businesses if it goes through.
I used to work in a company that used to put a lot of pressure on the programmers to work long hours. One old guy there came at 9am and left at 5pm every day, and refused to work any later. They didn't get rid of him because he was good and reliable. In retrospect I realise all of us ambitious youngsters were being taken for a ride and the old guy just wasn't having it.
Not all IT jobs require massive (or any) amounts of overtime. I may work the occasional 50 hour week because of deadline concerns, sure, but I'll never be a permanent 50+ hour employee.
My dad worked in a union for 30 years (small steel finishing plant), topped out at about 50K per year. He had to work a lot for what he got paid (I worked there for a summer, sometimes it's real hard work, sometimes it's easy, but it's always long hours). I make twice as much as he did and I sit all day.
I realize how good I have it.
If you don't like your job, there really are plenty of jobs in IT that don't require overtime, just go find one. One place I worked at pretty much dictated 8:00-4:30 (or 8:30-5 but everyone did 8:00) every day and everyone leaves (medium insurance company IT dept). I didn't like getting there at 8am, but I sure did enjoy a 37.5 hour work week (after lunch).
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
You are free to make any arrangement you like with your employer.
You're not even in the same argument.
The OP's point was that we don't want to make a change that will push *more* jobs to India and China. If you don't like straight salary, then become a consultant. If you're good (or can pass yourself off as good and get away before they figure out you're not), you can make plenty of money, and you can bill for the hours you work.
Having government dictate the terms of my employment doesn't sound like a great plan to me. It's not as if they know what my time's worth. I have plenty of choices...I can go for stability in a straight salary job with employer-paid insurance, or I can go it alone, and try to make some more money, if I believe I stand a chance.
What, exactly, is the big problem that's just waiting to be fixed?
Why am I replying to yet another AC?
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
I get overtime as a coder. And I have no compunction about saying "Sorry, I'm busy this weekend, I can't do any overtime." when asked (not that I turn it down all the time, but I like to have my time off...off).
You crazy Americans with your 5 days holiday a year, 80 hour working weeks and complete lack of overtime.
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I agree that if you are offered a salary, then that's it. The job is estimated at a standard work week, you work until the job is done, and you can only expect a certain constant paycheck in return. If you have to work longer hours, suck it up, that's part of being a professional.
I also think that if the staff are hired as "contractors" for per-hour fees that are above the usual salary pay ladder, then that per-hour fee can't go into the stratosphere if the contractor works more than the standard work week. It's just a sign of a bad contract if the contractor can double-charge at whim.
What I don't agree with is the way companies will hire long-term "contract labor" for an hourly rate that matches the ambient salary (with fewer guarantees of job security or benefits), and then avoid the time-and-a-half /double-time structure for overtime pay. If the company wants me to work more than the healthy forty hours a week, rather than hire yet another IT staffer, then there should be something in it for me, and a disincentive for the company. If they really have that much extra work to do, I'd rather have them hire some help to assist me.
[
Any company led by half a brain ought to be keeping track of exactly what that paycheck is buying them, as in how much time you spend on what.
You should consider keeping track yourself and making it available to your immediate superior. Worst case it's a CYA when someone further up the line complains.
Simple solution. Contracting. Since I changed, I never looked back. I will NEVER work for free. I will work as long as the job requires, I will bust my ass to get things working, but, I will not do it for free.
It is a plain and simple thing that took ME awhile to realize.
If salary were a two way street ("sure you can leave early this week, since all your work is done") it might be ok, but I find for today, especially in admin jobs, where you are on call and carry a pager (some people actually do this for free??)...salary is just a way to squeeze time away from you for free.
They'd have to pay me a LOT of salary to go back to it.
IMHO, in this day in age, there is no such thing anymore as job loyalty (from either party), nor job security. If that is the case, then the two main things that would draw a person to a direct, salaried job are gone. That being the case, you might as well contract. YOu can find long term contracts....possibly be a contract employee of a company which is kind of a hybrid thing (benefits, and hourly compensation), so it isn't always a hit and miss occupation. If you are really good at what you do, you can do the complete indie thing....make great bill rates, and enjoy more time off.
Sure it takes a bit more paperwork, but, you can incorporate yourself, get tax breaks, write things off.....and you don't have to work for free any more.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
the problem is not whether the law allows the bosses to pay or not pay for extra hours, its all about availability of workers willing to not demand for extra hours to be paid.
I mean if I start to insist on getting paid for every hour over 42h/week I work, my boss will fire me and replace me with someone that wont ask for overtime.
This is why I like being a contractor, we get paid by the hour. If you are salaried and have a non substantial share of the company, you are getting screwed by the people making a ton of money from your labor. I think it is fair to at least be compensated for the (often tremendous) over time worked by IT and Programmers.
...is that IT departments are simply not hiring enough people to do all the work, even when the outsource overseas. We hear all the time how productivity in the United States keeps going up -- it has to! One person is expected to the work of three now, and nowhere is that more evident than in IT. Companies don't seem to realize that for a modest investment in extra staff up front, they can save the cost of projects running late and over budget, keep downtime to a minimum by having enough technical staff available to handle outages, and more importantly allow workers to have some quality of life that will make them more productive. My last job was killing me, only because for all the work that they wanted done, there were not enough resources and my having to bounce from one thing to another constantly caused me to constantly be behind, and as a result, the quality of my work suffered. Want to know why code is so buggy? Programmers working 60 hours a week when they don't have to and are not getting paid for the effort is a good place to start looking.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Sysadmin type work is NEVER simply a 9-5 type job. Why? Because so much maint has to be done during off hours. That's the way it has always been. If you have an incompetent jerk boss that decides that you need to work 9-5 everyday PLUS do off hours maint with no comp. time or anything, then that's YOUR problem. My "night maint" guys start late the day of maint, get free dinner, and only work a half-day the next day (frequently resulting in a less-than 40 hour week.)
An employer has a limited amount of money with which to compensate employees. The exact structure of counting the labor doesn't affect the pay in the long term. Long herre is about a year.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Ha. I'm "The Man". ha. funnee.
Actually AC, your problem is basic human competition. If you do not produce better/faster/cheaper than your competitors, you lose. You lose. I say again: You lose.
You lose customers, you lose deals, and your employees lose jobs. No amount of socialist hand-wringing changes that basic equation.
Guess who gets blamed (and rightfully so) if a company fails?
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
I don't know why people wait until it's too late to bitch. My former IT job I got comp time in lue of money. It was great because I ended up getting days off. I know I actually worked those days ahead of time, but getting a couple of 3 day weekends every month really boosted my moral. When they switched me and my co-workers to hourly, I still worked those hours, but instead got to bank the money. I didn't end up missing the 3 day weekends because i still had a fairly easy schedule, and the extra money went to buying another car. Now my first IT job, oh-boy was that a mess. I thought that working hard long hours would get me ahead. HA! But I figured I felt better when the company went under and I gave myself an additional severance package with the 'extra' hardware that they didn't need anymore.
Before the government started dictating terms of employment, working 12 hours per day, 6 days per week was the norm. Maybe you want to go back to that plan.
Now you are on a time clock. You must account for *all* time worked. You clock in. You clock out. They watch that clock as closely as you do. You lose time when you leave early or take a long lunch.
I've done the clock. I prefer salary. I may not get overtime, but being off the *%$#&^%$* clock is just nice.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
If you read the article carefully, it actually states that:
-The law says that people must be paid for overtime
-The law says that people can sign a contract excempting them from being paid for overtime (implying, they would look at what the job demands from them as a whole, day and night, and measure the annual salary up against that). This however ONLY if they have jobs that require creative and original thought. You cannot by law sign up as a burger flipper for $20,000 per annum and be on standby days and nights with no overtime comp.
- The law firm says that IT does not require creative and original thought, and hence IT people should not be given contracts (which they almost always are) that exclude overtime
I mean, getting the argument through would be a radical shift in the salary structure of IT people - you would get paid by hour instead - but you might struggle to find people here to agree that IT support is as uncreative as burger flipping.
In New York, HR came to IT and requested job descriptions of all the IT employees; which would ultimately decide who was and was not exempt from Overtime due to the Fairpay Act. IT Mgmt complied, and must not have been told the reasons for the request, because after which 85% of IT employees, HR deemed eligible for Overtime. Not only that, we were eligible for retroactive Overtime for time work since Jan. This was in April. I earned Overtime for a full year at Sys Admin hours, all the time knowing this was never going to last. At my next review, Mgmt gave me glowing reviews and "promoted" me. They gave me a new title, which then exempt me from Overtime pay - however my job duties and hours remained the same. My base salary increased by 3%, which is standard at my company. No matter what the law says and how it is written, Mgmt will always find ways around it. But you knew that going in. No one ever went into IT for the long lunches and 35 hour work weeks. Oh, and just to put this in perspective, my brother-in-law served in the US NAVY for 12 years, has held many jobs outside of the military, has multiple degrees in engineering, currently flies passenger jets for an international airline...and he makes less than I do. For what we do, it's not that bad pay.
Well, trouble is, it didn't use to always be this way. Back in the day (as my Dad was telling me), "professional" people like Engineers, and Programmers, used to get paid time and a half for OT. However, the Govt. didn't want to pay that anymore on their contracts, and came up with that little fun exempt situation for us.....and found a way out of paying.
That being said...with contract now, you 'can' get straight time, but, not 1.5 time.
So, some of this argument isn't so much about the govt. meddling...they always have, it could be viewed as just a push to get back what we used to have.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
... so instead of doing something useful you troll IT forums anonymously? did you recently lose your job as a TV repairman?
I make twice as much as he did and I sit all day. ... I realize how good I have it.
That is what I thought myself once upon a time. However, you may have a different opinion after you sat all day for decades (unless you compensate for this hidden torture properly — which I did not).
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
As far as people who don't want government involvement - there are a host of laws limiting what we can do. The Taft-Hartley law allows the government to call off any strike. States are allowed to prevent certain agreements between workers and management (a "closed shop"). Overtime, at least below a certain salary level, is one of the things countering this. If you don't care about the ITAA etc. pushing the salary level for overtime down, down, down until it disappears, all that will exist are laws that give weight to the employer, and have the government take away your freedom in contract-making with the employer (Taft-Hartley, so-called right-to-work laws etc.) Even if you want to do away with all such laws, from our perspective it makes sense to keep these laws until the ones hurting us are done away with first, as in the meantime these just balance things on our side against the laws against us.
I'm a medical student who will be graduating soon and entering residency. I hope any progress from this affects us, too - currently the AAMC (which regulates the medical residency programs) limits interns and residents to an 80 hour work week. Yes, these are the people charged with learning to save lives WHILE saving lives. 80 hours per week. Most of us will sign some utterly unfair, incomprehensible, thick as a dictionary employment agreement with our hospital that basically signs our life over to them for the next 3 to 7 years. Choice tidbits of "policy" included in these contracts mention that we may be expected to be on call for anywhere from 18 to 36 hours - on hospital grounds - multiple times per week. The 80 hours limit, while "technically" weekly is only calculated on a monthly basis. Fun times.
It's great that such important people as those who maintain our information technology infrastructure are about to get a financial boost... what about those of us earning $55,000 a year or less with 8 years+ of college and post-graduate education and charged with taking care of you and your family? Everyone envisions doctors as Corvette-driving, boat-owning, million-dollar mansion homestead people. I assure you that in today's marketplace, NOBODY goes into medicine for the money - unless they're making drugs for a big-pharm company or doing boob jobs.
...In a given week I do 15 hours of REAL actual work...? Let's be honest with ourselves. We work overtime because a LOT of what we have to do must be done during non production hours. There are some days where we're in support mode and just read websites all day...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Not everyone is willing to go through the crap that having a corporation entails.
In addition, most employer companies will not contract directly, you have to go through another shop, that takes a cut. Nowdays, being independant is far less of an option than it used to be.
The attitude that if you are not willing to jump through all the hoops that the big-business/government coalition puts in your way, you do not deserve to earn a decent wage is just Nietzscheian nonsense.
Everyone should be covered by the same rules. Anything else is just a way for some to cheat others.
Hmm, I tend to agree that we have to be competitive in the global marketplace. However, we do have a certain amount of socialism (that we as a society have deemed important) that gets neglected when jobs are outsourced. If the standard of living falls, then the tax dollars that support the socialist institutions dry up and then everyone loses.
The problem with Capitalism (as I see it), is that it seeks the most efficient level of production to maximize profit. However, human beings and societies (that have certain standards of living) are not efficient. You can only maximize one at the expense of the other.
It is my preference (rightly or wrongly) to maintain my standard of living -- even if it's at the expense of an Indian or Chinaman.
How do I attempt to achieve my goal? I work hard, pay taxes, and I vote.
....but for all your MS patching needs (Windows, Office, etc), use WSUS + appropriate group-policies and delay on deploying patches to production machines until at least a week after release (sites like slashdot never seem to fail to inform when MS has screwed up a patch-batch, so there's your warning source). WSUS is a gem for seeing/testing the state of patch-deployment.
Failing that, just don't run anyone as admin and you won't have an issue anyway. Windows only really needs 100% patches guaranteed when admin rights are the norm.
throw new NoSignatureException();
As a contultant the rule of thumb (or really the joke) is all you have to know is more then the person your invoicing.
Push for this change.
Seriously, just the uncertainty associated with this alone is enough to alter an employer's hiring patterns.
You make twice as much as he made?
Did you figure inflation on that?
I'll bet you make the same or less than he did if you figure that out.
50 grand now is probably worth about 30 grand 20 years ago.
...if you take a job, and don't know what you're getting into, one of two things has happened.
a.) You didn't do your homework
b.) The company actively conned you.
If you're taking a job in a role that involves support, or large projects, if you're not asking whether occasional overtime is required, you're an idiot. Ask about what's typical. But most importantly, ask if you can speak to one of your prospective peers--if you don't see them in the interview, that's a bad sign. If they won't let you talk to them on request, it's a worse one. These are things you SHOULD FIND OUT. If you didn't ask, and are suddenly surprised by overtime, you get no sympathy from me.
Think about what you're willing to put up with, and how much it's worth to you. Use that in salary discussions. If the company says "Well, you're asking for $80,000, but I see your last job only paid $68,000. I'm not sure we're willing to fund such a significant jump in salary," then you have a counter of "Well, my last company had 'follow the sun' support in Australia, the UK, and US, so there was no overtime. Your company seems to average 5 hours of off-hours time per week, which includes an average of 2 weekend callouts per month." Hey, rational business discussion! Get your money. If they want you to do more work for the same salary, say "thanks for your time."
Now, I'll admit some companies pull con jobs. They will lie to people "Oh, we call people out occasionally, but it's very rare--maybe once a month" when they're calling out three times a week. If that's the case, do you really want to be working for a boss that lied to your face? I don't. But if you want to stay (need the job or whatnot), well, pull your boss aside and say "Look. When I interviewed here and negotiated a salary, I took you at your word that callouts averaged one a month. In my three months here, that's clearly not been the case. I've been called 15 times, for an average length of 3 hours. So the work I'm doing is significantly more extensive than what you agreed to pay me for. I think it's appropriate for us to re-negotiate." If they won't offer more money, they might be convinced on a comp time policy as a reasonable fair solution. Don't be judgemental about "hey, you suck, you goddamn liar!" Present facts and reasonable arguments. A fair boss can be convinced. An unfair boss? Well....no one's chained you to your oar.
People vote with their feet. If your company can't keep people, they'll pay the price for being cheap with employees. There actually are good people in the software industry who will be fair to you. The problem is that too many people are willing to put up with working for lying jerks. Or, alternatively, don't take advantage of the opportunity to find out what they're getting into and/or reasonably resolve disputes.
The idea that more jobs are going to go overseas because companies are being sued for not complying with the law is a little silly at best. Companies will try to outsource where it makes sense to their bottom line, and if they haven't outsourced it already, it probably doesn't make sense to. The article says that these laws were designed to create more jobs so that employers wouldn't work a few poor bastards to death and instead divide out the same work load to a larger number of people. I like this, and I hope companies respond to this threat with a better compensated work force. You should get paid for what you do and companies should have to comply with the law.
No, you are not.
The law prevents certain employee's from willingly working uncompensated overtime.
You can not agree to certain "services" being provided in exchange for employment. (think bill clinton, tip oneill, etc).
Plus, the employer usually has the upper hand in any negotiation. Not always, but more than not. I have been in IT for a while. Unfortunately it is all I know that can earn me more than being a retail clerk will.
Corporations will rape IT orkers for all they can until the law changes.
If you think outsourceing to India is bad, so is never seeing your family.
I am close to going to truck driving scholl. Those guys earn close to what I do per hour, and then get overtime on top. A union truck driver can earn 6 figures for over the road tractor trailer driving.
How many IT folks can say that, outside of the hottest current tech?
My g/f is entitled to overtime pay through her company as a salaried
chemical engineer working for a fortune 500 company (straight time, but still). Is that not a respectable profession? Trauma nurses get O/T pay - now there's a job a bit more draining and complicated than filling trucks with boxes, with the added benefits of swing shifting and catching bullshit from patients all day. OT pay isn't just for simple braindead drone jobs.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For scientists and doctors that's the current reality... alongside with dropping salaries.
The post-docs in my laboratory, make about $40'000 a year... after a PhD. A clerk in the subway booth makes $55'000 after 5 years with benefits that dwarf any academic institution... with a GED and a demeanor of a world-class asshole. When translated into per-hour payment, the booth clerk makes $27.5/hour, and the post-doc makes $13/hour.
That's the kind of society we live in. Want more unions?
I'll agree..it takes a bit to learn at first, especially if you're like me, and not a real organized, paperwork type person. But, it is easily learned. I got a CPA to show me how and what to fill out. A few hours every month is not that big a price to pay if you want to make and KEEP more of your hard earned money. You pay bills don't you? This is pretty much just like adding a few more bills to the pile as far as time and paperwork go. I'd argue the benefits outweigh extra time consumed.
"In addition, most employer companies will not contract directly, you have to go through another shop, that takes a cut. Nowdays, being independant is far less of an option than it used to be."
To a great extent yes....but, one side benefit of this, it does take a bit of the risk of having to look for all the jobs yourself...which keeps a lot of people out of this type gig. No, you often don't get the full bill rate, but, getting $55-$70/hr isn't that hard, and it can make for a great living if you don't spend a ton, and wisely invest. One thing that companies WON'T do...is generally hire you 1099 directly...too much a risk to them from the IRS or you claiming to really be an employee later in life.
Incorporate yourself (I went the "S" corp route)...and when you do a direct contract gig....you can do it corp2corp which shields everyone from the "employee" entrapment possibilities that can happen.
"The attitude that if you are not willing to jump through all the hoops that the big-business/government coalition puts in your way, you do not deserve to earn a decent wage is just Nietzscheian nonsense."
Well, I don't know about the attitude comment. I take the attitude that I have to be willing to do what it takes or do that bit extra to excel in the current work environment. As I wrote before, I perceive that jobs and employment have changed a great deal....especially since my parents' time. Since I do not perceive a direct job to have the benefits of old (job security, loyalty to employees, room to grow) I see a new paradigm for working if you want to make and keep money.
And also, I guess it depends on what you think a 'decent' wage is. If you are willing to settle for what they'll pay you direct...and the unpaid OT...more power to you. But, in this day in age and the current market and where I think I forsee it going....I think the only way to have a positive employment future is to go more on your own, and take charge more of your own HR needs. YMMV of course.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
...only the lawyers will get anything out of this. Good luck IT guys and welcome to your own corrupt mafia controlled union.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
IT Managers have no way of knowing if an IT person is productive or not. The only way they know when they are being ridiculous is when you fail.
Fail earlier and they will not push so hard.
You can make the same money working 40 hours a week as you do working 60 hours a week (6 figures +).
Oh-- and those indian programmers got 10% more expensive last week in one day because of currency changes. And we have at least two more interest cuts on the way that will damage the currency but save a lot of homeowners so further currency depreciation is likely. I recently saw a burn rate for Infosys personnel from a project estimate. For onshore resources they are now more expensive ($65/hr + $1k a month housing allowance) than US resources including our benefits.
I think the great offshoring wave is going to stop quickly now... and maybe our wages will start recovering.
The fact is good trained experienced programmers are worth $100k regardless of the nation they are sitting in. As a result of that fact, labor costs in india and china have been going up 40% a year before you take into account the dollar dropping and their currencies rising.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
It looks like your PhD lab rats are getting screwed... perhaps you need a union?
i find it funny.. you say this.. cause the current IT job i have now.. when they called and offered it i was on my way to get my CDL to be a bus driver - which at the time paid about the same..
i would rather work in IT then drive a bus - although having a CDL would have been cool...
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
It's really necessary for something to be done about the current environment for IT people. I've been hit by this at several jobs and it really sucked. The worst are integration companies, where you are paid a salary but billed to the client hourly. Deadlines and workloads are setup such that the "engineer" is expected to work 60 - 80 hour weeks for a flat rate salary while the company is being paid for the service, often at an "overtime" rate.
And woe be the guy who isn't back in the office again at 8 AM sharp after working on a project until 1:00 am the day before. I've been threatened with losing pay and even possible termination for just that very thing.
A lot of that also had to do with system efficiency. Industrialization and not computerization allows more work to get done in less time. In the early 1900s people had a choice work all day in the field or work all day in a factory. Both were hard work but many people choose the factory. As factories became more and more modernized less physical work was required. At the same time the government was passing laws restricting the amount of work you could be required to do. In reality its hard to know which came first really. Chicken meet Egg.
Or, you know, they found it more efficient to increase their investment in technology rather than just people, which you could derive from simple labor economics. I'm getting a little tired of union shills claiming that they alone were what gave us a 40-hour work week. It's almost certainly not true.
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I know this is Slashdot, and people like to pretend only sysadmins post here. But I have to ask, why just IT? I'm a graphic designer for a firm. I'm paid a decent salary and I like my work -- I don't have anything to complain about. But I do work weekends and late nights, all the freaking time. Much like the description of the programmer, I slog long hours implementing other people's whims.
Yes, of course I could freelance, and maybe someday I will. But, like many -- MANY -- salaried white collar workers, I put in absurd hours doing work for people who are paid 10 times as much as me and work one tenth as hard. All I want is some kind of acknowledgment for the hours I put in beyond 40.
I know people who work for aerospace who ( and this may not be normal ) get paid overtime. These people are programmers, engineers -- well educated. But if they work one minute past 40 hours, they get paid extra on top of salary. This is *great*. The employee is rewarded, and the company is punished. The company, if it sees a lot of overtime has an incentive to hire. This way, employees -- who are in fact human beings with friends and family -- get to live their lives.
My company, on the other hand, is rewarded when I have to work overtime. They get to charge the client for all my hours of work, and best of all, they get to keep that money, since I'm paid strictly as if I worked 40 per week.
But now, the slashdot conservative free market horde is going to scream that I'm a commie pinko, etc etc. I don't care, I think quality of life matters.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
ARGG ^^ that should read Industrializations and NOW Computerization. :( Preview..
If this were true then the PhD should quit his job and work as a clerk. No one is forcing him to work as a postdoc.
Note that the clerk cannot do the PhD's job while the PhD, I assume, can do the clerk's job. Thus, there is probably a good reason why the PhD stays in his job.
But when one starts to push it a bit farther and point out to the so-called intelligensia that they are wilfully lying down and getting screwed by The Man, then everyone gets all touchy and pissy and the mods start in with Troll or Overrated or Flamebait ratings because the point hits close to home. And this happens in "the Real World" as well as this little nest of geeks here at Slashdot.
People were litereally shot dead for the right to a weekend. This is all extremely well documented, even wikipedia documents a few examples.
So, when people cheerfully surrender to the Boss to do unpaid overtime, they are completely disrespecting the sacrifice of countless millions of people who have struggled to turn our society into something other than cheap wage slavery and a race to the bottom to benefit the few.
So, it's about fucking time IT professionals grew a spine and started demanding their rights. And if the jobs get offshored, then organise the offshore workers as well. No one deserves to be exploited, and we can, by co-operative direct action, invent a better world for ourselves and our descendants. It just takes the ability to see oneself as a responsible citizen in an active democracy, instead of a mindless taxpayer/consumer who pays for services.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
He retired 4 years ago, so no real inflation to take into account. When I was growing up (20 years ago) he made about 35K and my mom was a waitress.
Now my wife doesn't have to work (she's free to do what makes her happy) if she doesn't want to and still I'm way better off than my parents were as children.
Again, I realize how good I have it. I won't ever be a millionaire, but then again I wouldn't be one if I got 10 hours of overtime per week either.
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
That's funny. You are actually complaining about other people defending their rights and best interests while you and your class does not have the slightest intention to mobilize and stand up for yourselves. Do you actually believe that the problem lies in the fact that others fought and, as a consequence, are earning more and having a better life than you? Didn't it ever crossed your brilliant mind that the real problem lied with you and your class never fighting for your own best interests and therefore being forced to earn less and having a crappy life?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Tariffs can be set. Labor laws can be enforced with handcuffs for violating employers. The private sector can be outlawed as speculation and replaced with state-run entities which don't need to worry about competition. Don't underestimate the power of socialist hand-wringing. The free market is powerful only because the law makes it so.
Having to hire 3 shifts instead of 2 *is* investing more in people. This is true regardless of how much technology is used in production.
I agree, after 9 years in IT, a few car accidents and *a lot* of poor personal behavior and I do have the standard "I sit all day" ailments.
I'd stress personal choice (I choose not to do back and neck exercise yet I know them all, as well as I choose to sit in a very poor manner for hours without getting up) and happenstance (a car accident seemed to set this all in motion) more than "it happens to everyone who sits all day".
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
IMHO, in this day in age, there is no such thing anymore as job loyalty (from either party), nor job security. If that is the case, then the two main things that would draw a person to a direct, salaried job are gone. That being the case, you might as well contract.
But that would involve taking responsibility for my own welfare and treating my labor and their money like it's some sort of 'thing' to be 'traded'!
No, I'm afraid a much simpler, 'fairer', and efficient solution is to get some fancy-pants lawyer to sue the crap out of the employer I hate so much and yet am unwilling to leave. In the process, the lawyer will make tons of money, the company will have to cut a few jobs to pay for the legal fees on both sides, but at least I'll get half of what I asked for and they'll get their comeupance!
Seriously though, you point out that 'in this day and age' there is no loyalty on either side. I'd say that's partially a reflection of the unwillingness of workers to ask for (demand?) what they're worth. Labor is a business transaction, you shouldn't hate your business partners or let them treat you 'unfairly'. Get a good idea if what you should be paid, ask for it, and leave if you don't get it.
I read an article a few years ago comparing jobs now as opposed to 20 years prior. It said that fewer employees are asking for raises but theft by employees is way up. It quantified the two and estimated that the employers are probably coming out ahead. People are less willing to play by the rules and just play hard; they have this impression that the only way to get ahead is to bend or break them.
Latewire
<br>
Sorry, we were too busy fighting for everyone else's interests, so we didn't pad our nests.
<br>
<blockquote>Do you actually believe that the problem lies in the fact that others fought and, as a consequence, are earning more and having a better life than you?</blockquote>
Extorting money from the society, that is vastly disproportional to the provided service, does not qualify one as having a better life, as far as I am concerned.
And by the way - that's a retarded argument.
That is the logical conclusion if you keep pushing for the same 'rights' that regular hourly workers have. Then god help the industry as it will collapse under its own weight.
Note: I'm not against unions in the right situations as they do have their place. The IT field just isn't one of those situations.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I hate to say this (actually no I don't), but when you have a skill that thousands upon thousands of others have ("general IT staff"), as well as anyone who's just "good with computers" you will never make any money.
Also, you aren't really in IT. You are in "plug PC components together"-T. If you want to make money and be shielded from issues in any industry:
1. Be naturally gifted in the area
2. Learn as many general skills in the area you can
3. Learn and be great at at least one high demand skill, that is difficult to learn (yes, being good at programming is difficult to learn; no, setting up simple networks at a 30 person company is not difficult to learn)
4. Continue to learn and develop all skills
Everyone who performs those 4 steps doesn't have to complain about pay, overtime or getting their job outsourced. It's all the rest, who really are just "resources" or "bodies in the workplace" who are going to ruin it for those of us performing the 4 steps above.
This law puts IT workers back with blue collar workers. Your g/f (right!) is not required to get OT pay. Period. Engineers are universally considered exempt employees. Nurses may or may not be specifically exempt, but the market is such that they can walk at any moment and get a job somewhere else.
Make IT workers really hard to find (like nurses), and you'll see a shift. There are too many hacks out there, though, and no real state-regulated certification process (like nurses, accountants, engineers, doctors, etc.), so there will always be a glut of IT hacks available that you'll need to compete with.
You'll probably also notice that the best and brightest in just about every field will find a job where overtime is compensated. Those who have the wherewithal to compete will get the better benefits. If you're just taking what's available, you may not get your best compensation package.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Staying late when the project is due if you are behind, is part of the job description. At 33, I work 9 to 5, and I've gotten very good at not letting this happen.
I can understand creating a law to protect IT workers, but honestly, we would all be better off protecting ourselves by managing our time and expectations of the business properly.
treating my labor and their money like it's some sort of 'thing' to be 'traded'!
Judging from how long companies have been whining about how the labor market is so tight compared to how recently the salaries they offered began to increase to reflect that disparity in supply, I'd say you'd be one of the first to do so.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Sorry, I think there's a simpler answer to the question, "Why shouldn't people get paid for the hours they work?" It's because the hours you work aren't valuable, it's only the result of that labor that's valuable. We [should] get paid because we're doing something valuable, NOT because we spent a certain amount of time doing it. Historically, time spent has been used as a way to measure value, because it's an easy way to measure the amount of work done. When the work being done is so standardized that there's no way for one person to do more than another in the same amount of time, hours provides a good measurement. However, it has only ever been an approximation.
I'm totally against any govenment intervention in how I get paid because I know that I am more productive than almost anyone I work with. And while my greater productivity doesn't always result in my getting paid as much as I think I should get, the fact that my pay is more based on my getting the work done than on spending a certain amount of time doing means that there is a possible upside, and at least it means I have some flexibility. I can read slashdot during the day, for example, because I know I'll still be able to get my work done.
"We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
Sounds good to me and according to my calculations most 10 year IT vets should be getting between 250,000 and 750,000 in back pay.
Got Code?
The notion down in the US seems to favour the company far more than the worker as opposed to where I am (Manitoba Canada). Here in Manitoba, the only exemptions to paying overtime involve management, which is specifically defined as having the power to hire and fire, control your own work and discipline others as well as control your own hours. For everyone else, including salaried employees, the exemption where you don't get paid occurs only if you make more than 2-1/2 times the industrial average in the jurisdiction.
The introduction of these laws came after a worker successfully sued their employer over unpaid overtime and the terms under which she was hired. The terms being vague, essentially meant that because she was salaried, she could be compelled theoretically to work 24/7 with no compensation for the extra hours. The court found this unacceptable. Further review by the province found that the number of people in similar situations was huge and this was remedied this spring through legislation.
I find it interesting that in the US, there is not even a legal requirement to pay vacation for full time workers. I find it more interesting that many individuals in these replies seem to support the work until you drop mentality. I also find it interesting that apparently down in the US, your employer can walk up to a desk clerk and force them to pee in a bottle for them. Talk about intrusive. Weird, people don't seem to care about that, but are wound up over google taking picures of people in the street who no one will ever likely recognize or know.
I would think there should be some fairness in how companies treat workers.
No, this will force IT management to be more efficient. Human resources are the most precious of resources. For too long, IT management has resorted to forcing workers to work longer to compensate for poor IT decisions. I'm reminded of why the Egyptians didn't use the steam engine when they invented it; slave labor was cheaper and more adaptable.
This sort of technique get used in agribusiness; a choice between investing in better productivity tools vs. hiring migrant farm workers. I recently was in Kauai where the Kauai coffee plantation invested in productivity methods to compensate for the rising cost of labor. Only when it's more painful not to adapt will IT management adapt.
Best regards.
There's not a spit of difference between guys selling the Union or the guys selling USA PATRIOT ACT. Both depend on this idea that we are completely powerless, so we need to get some goons to protect us, and furthermore, we should just give these jerks, in the form of dues or taxes, protection money. You know what a union is? It's a steward who just got a nice deck for his house, a president's kid's baseball team that got new uniforms, and any manner of theft.
The simple matter of the truth is, unions don't work. Unions don't work because, every time you give them what they claim to get, they either drive the parent company bankrupt, like GM and a cast of thousands, or the work goes overseas. The promise is a lie, and all a union really does is just place a tax based on a fear. Unions don't work because the customer doesn't care what happens to the people that produce a product.
How many of you, Americans, out there, lamenting the death of the Union, have bought an American car in the last decade? I bet a dang view... bunch of uber geeks saying how your Japanese or German car is better. Well, good for you, but don't be sitting their trying to square your social treason on the rest with your guilt trips about capitalism and unions. If you want American companies to succeed, then buy American products. It's that simple.
Today, all of these "workers" advocates are just in the business of helping themselves. They work by frightening people into giving them money for promises that they can't keep, and have no intention of keeping. It's just like the "people's lawyer", the guy that sues some company for a billion dollars - he gets millions, while his plaintiffs get coupons. Workers rights is a slogan for an industry based on extortion, and fear.
I am not afraid.
This is my sig.
A bit of a chip on the shoulder, but the bottom half is right on. They simply can't teach all of the sacrifices made by the labor movement. It's too great a lesson in organization and fighting for change from the bottom up.
To show you how the badly the american worker has screwed themselves, Ken Burns couldn't get the financing for an hours worth of his blockbuster documentaries on the Labor movement, much less find anyone but a few Communists to watch it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
So do Construction workers, but they get overtime.
Well, I think a lot of this mentality can be attributed to our schooling systems, and teaching theologies. In recent decades, it seems that we teach our kids to all play nice, and discourage true competition, and how not to be confrontational.....basically, the 'sheeple' mentality. In the past, people weren't scared to stand up for themselves and their own welfare. That independent streak of our forefathers has been weakened, that you have to go out there and compete and win. Somehow also, we've given kids the idea that they're also still somehow entitled to the nicer things in life. This is confusing, they're not competitive and confrontational as in the past, but, they're entitled to the nicer things in life. I guess they rectify this by taking/stealing things.
I'll admit...even at my age, those feelings of competitiveness and confrontation were things I had to generate inside....to overcome my lack of willingness to go for it. I'm a much better person, and working better and making more than ever because of it.
But, that's just my opinion....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yeah, man. The only people who deserve a pay increase are CEO's. God, everyone knows that
Did I say that? No, if you want more money, do something with some value to it. Don't be sitting there pretending that all you have to do is fork over some crap and get a ton of money because breathe. Be more entreprenuial, and don't blame your failings on someone else's success. It's a CEO's fault you're a loser.
This is my sig.
We [should] get paid because we're doing something valuable
That's very short-term thinking that is harmful.
If I'm the mightiest tech employer in the U.S. and I say I'm paying too much for you and you are earning $30k/yr, now what? Corporations typically exploit your thinking by doing just that.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
FTFY.
I don't view this as a good thing. I've had jobs where I punched a clock. Yes, I got paid for every hour and part there of I was clocked in. Yes, I could punch out at the same time every day. But I also had to punch in by the same time every day--1 minute late is as good as an hour. Same goes for getting back from lunch.
In my current sallaried position, I don't sweat the evenings I stay late as long my boss doesn't hassle me about the mornings I'm a little late or the days I need a long lunch to take care of an errand or two.
And like the parent poster says, you won't start with your current sallary as a 40-hour base and add overtime to that. If you routinely work 60-hr weeks (and the bosses know this) more likely your base will be 2/3 of your current sallary. You'll need to keep up those 60-hr weeks to keep your pay at the same level (not even considering that paid holidays and vacation will be based on an 8-hr day so you'll either lose the overtime you might have worked those days or have to make the time up to keep your pay at the same level.)
If you spend too much time at the office, getting paid overtime isn't going to help you. If your bosses make unrealisitic demands making long overtime necessary, getting paid overtime isn't going to help you. It'll just give you one more thing to complain about. "Man, I wish I was on sallary so I didn't have to punch that clock."
Or perhaps public employees + unions + (elected mayors and Congress and presidents as bosses) are an unholy triumvirate of sloth.
The elected officials know (or believe, anyway) they will lose more union votes harassing their millions of government employees than they would ever gain standing up to them (not true, Reagan did quite well, but there you go.)
So government employee unions get a rate of success that private sector unions cannot and never will.
There is nothing good about this situation. It's not even something to be proud of. Woo hoo, our jobs cannot be lost to other countries. No pressure whatsoever to reign it in.
It's no wonder nobody likes unions anymore -- except people in those very unions.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Attention angry, money-hungry lawyers promoting this lawsuit: Please do not "help" me. Thanks!
That is all.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Contracting through your own corporation can be easy. I have two organizations that help me with it. A CPA firm obviously, and a PEO. PEO stands for Professional Employment Orgainization. I love my PEO, which is why people don't use them. Imagine that on a t-shirt.
PEO's are a good deal. They take you, your corporation and your contracting money and make you legally into a W2 employee. You pay them a fee per pay cycle to do it. They administrate your health plan (sorry, no volume disounts, at least in my US state), retirement, withholdings, and if you do end up hiring another person later, they make sure you do everything just so, so you stay out of accidental legal trouble.
Furthermore, you get to design your own pay cycle, I have a two week one (not bi-monthly mind you, two weeks). It's nice. You get to set up everything the way you want so it's favorable to you. I just have to tell the payroll guy how much to run every two weeks and the direct deposits happen. There's a little bit of bookkeeping you need to do once a year for the CPA, but that's really tiny.
Between your PEO and your CPA you'll have a couple of meetings up front and then you're good to go.
I'm a little surprised more contractors don't use a PEO now. Maybe because PEO is a horrendous acronym.
Indeed.
I think the snarky remark at the end of the GP post implied that we need less unionization.
Perhaps this is the case. But, as long as we have the system we have in the world
today (we aren't anywhere near the utopia Star Trek presented...) then we need something
in place as the tendency of most human beings is to screw the other people around them
over to at least some extent.
I'm not sure what needs to be done- but something DOES need to be done there.
In the end, the situation the GP poster presented is upside down and cockeyed from what really
needs to be happening. The current situation results in a tendency to NOT get education, etc.
and could be considered to be a cause of some of the malaise that people keep bemoaning about
in this and other countries. Without that education, etc. this and any other country ends
up eventually becoming a third world player. In the end, Rome didn't fall because of the
"barbarians", that was just the final blow to that empire. It was apathy and the very things
you're seeing happening in the GP post that brought it down.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Or perhaps they aren't doing anything worth more than $40k per year? Why do you automatically assume that they are worth more than the subway clerk?
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Perhaps if you had actually driven a bus for a while, you might not say that. I worked my way through school as a bus drive in Seattle. I loved driving a bus. My quality of life was better driving a bus than working in IT/tech.
I am considering leaving the IT/tech field and moving back to Seattle and getting another bus driving job with Metro.
Again, quality of life.
FYI, the city of Seattle has the highest educated bus driving workforce in the country. Many students work their way through a degree at the UW by driving a bus. When they graduate they often realize that finding work in their field doesn't pay as much as driving a bus. Top scale is $25 or so, and overtime is paid time and a half. Next time you work a 60 hour week, think about the fact that bus drives are getting paid the same if they work that much. With a degree, bus drivers can move into management, which pays more.
And there's that quality of life thing again. If you don't want the overtime, if you want to do something with your free time, like flip houses, you have that choice. (I knew two bus drivers who owned apartment building together.) In IT/tech, you're forced to work 50-60 hour weeks.
I blame my generation (baby boomers) for the expectation of 50-60 hour weeks in IT. Screw that.
Best regards.
The problem with Capitalism (as I see it), is that it seeks the most efficient level of production to maximize profit. However, human beings and societies (that have certain standards of living) are not efficient. You can only maximize one at the expense of the other.
You're confusing production, savings, and consumption. In a free market, you can consume whatever resources you control, and other people are free to lend you more money if you want to consume more. The key is, in the long term in a free market, you can consume as much as you produce, which is often a lot.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
And while they're at it, they should get law-guaranteed overtime for my wife (who is an accountant), too. Otherwise there's just too much leeway for shitty management.
"Sure we can make a few mistakes here and there, we'll just force the peons to work weekends for a month before a major deadline while we kick back with a beer at home. Oh, and we'll book them at 130% capacity, so that they work 10-12 hour days during "non crunch" time, too. Ourselves, we'll work 9 to 5, of course, most of the time 10 to 4, actually."
In the lawyerly search for black-and-white distinguishing criteria for who is doing creative or managerial work vs. who is a mere crank-turning technician, government apparently looks to its own qualification criteria: immigration preference, and "qualified personnel" clauses from government contracting (a field where one finds that great exception, unionized engineers).
It could be argued that this has an effect of age discrimination, in that years ago it was much more common than now to be able to enter the computing field without having a CS degree, or any degree at all. It could be further argued that companies are quite willing to go along with this, because it provides a path to displace older and higher-priced IT workers (by reclassifying them to lower-paid status), while maintaining some defense against age discrimination claims.
At my former employer (Fortune 500 technology company), I was at the second-highest step on the technical career ladder (yes, we all know that ladder is built of smoke, supported by mirrors). After whatever lawyering fad resulted in the new spin on FLSA, the company issued HR policy that said in effect that I could not have been hired for any engineering position. Their interpretation of the computer-related-fields exemption included only management information systems and networks, and not product design and development engineering.
As might be expected, this company is a leader in H1B visa use, and in moving work offshore.
I worked for a medical device manufacturer in the 90's and they had a small NOC of about 4 people (2 sysadmins and 2 techs). As fate would have it the 2 sysadmins both found alternate employment about the same time so they offered one of the techs a "promotion" to sysadmin. During the meeting to discuss the promotion the tech was given the terms of his role as the new sysadmin. He looked it over, started laughing and handed the proposal back to them. When they asked why he was laughing he replied "I make more than that now!". Techs were Salaried Non-Exempt and eligible for overtime whereas sysadmins were straight salary.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You speak on and on about fear mongering but all you do not give a single rational argument against unions. All you do is try to associate a simple, healthy, life improving initiative that aims to protect worker's rights with evil, oppressive initiatives like the US's patriot act. If that wasn't enough to satisfy your trolling needs, you go on associating unions with organized crime and corruption.
The thing is, whenever a group of people join themselves to fight for their rights, their lives improve and society improves. History is packed with landmark victories accomplished by people associating themselves and fighting for their rights. You absolutely cannot state that a bunch of IT workers organizing themselves to fight to get their a fair pay earned by their honest work is some sort of evil, oppressive, criminal, abusive act.
You may have been brainwashed against the evils of communism and you may have lost the ability to understand the concept of worker's rights but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or evil.
Oh I see. That must be why there is absolutely no european company. They simply cannot survive under that harsh climate. Damn those european unions, with their minimum wage, their 35 hour work weeks, their paid overtime, their 30 day paid vacations, their Christmas bonus and paid leaves, their national health services and their unemployment benefits. They simply destroyed their lives and reverted back to the stoneage! No small company can possibly survive that, let alone a multinational. Poor bastards.
Yes, you seem to be the smart one here. You completely avoid all unions or worker's association and nonetheless you still got that 35 hour work week and paid overtime. Oh you don't have that? Tough. Keep on bitching about how unions are evil, then.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
So, you want to be subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (rather than "exempt")? Then be prepared to be at your desk for an actual 8 hours (minus two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute lunch break). Be prepared to punch in and account for every minute of your time. Be prepared to be a glorified custodial worker...
Don't bitch about what you've got, until you realize what you COULD have.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
There is no payment scheme which cannot be abused by both the employer and the employee, so forcing employers to use a different scheme will not make those who have abused their employees stop; it will just change the way they abuse.
Just to make up a relevent example, a software company who has previously been forcing 80 hour weeks on programmers during crunch time might, in the face of this law, hire twice as many programmers, but give them all very few hours except during crunch time. So now instead of being over worked, they are under paid.
This assumes that it's OK for the government to insert itself in a private agreement between employer and employee in the first place, which is blatantly false.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
If you are really good at what you do, you can do the complete indie thing....make great bill rates, and enjoy more time off.
Yes.
And no.
I was an indie sysadmin for 7 years, liked the first 3, not so much the rest. Being indie is no picnic, you don't know what tomorrow will be made of, which is great when you're a free-thinker who hates routine, but you soon have to pay the price for all this freedom, excitement and novelty. Not knowing what tomorrow will be like means you can kiss goodbye to any long-term plans you may have. Forget about going on holidays for more than a weekend, your clients need you. Forget about buying a house, your income isn't stable enough. And hope nothing happens to you that could keep you from working or else lose all your clients - I wasn't so lucky (bad road accident).
So I'm telling you, after awhile all you'll dream about is a nice nine-to-five job, with paid holidays (prolly more than you'd be able to take if you happen to be an indie sysadmin), benefits and the certainty you won't have to spend your evenings going through the accounting and the knowledge you'll get a paycheck at the end of the month, rather than hoping your clients will remember to pay you and not just disappear leaving you with nothing.
And being indie in IT also means you have to pay for your own training, software licenses, etc. Ha, more time off you were saying??? Let me chuckle at the thought.
Wanna be indie? Do something like being a lawyer, plumber, gardener or electrician... not in IT.
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
I agree with the original poster. Completely.
If you want to see the IT profession go down the crapper, just start handing out overtime.... and start a union.
IT is one of the only fields left where a person can advance based on how good they are. This whole "overtime for the junior SE who can't tie their shoelaces" is just crap. A junior engineer is just that, junior, and those extra hours struggling with DNS topology are simply the internship for a future.
Attempts to turn a professional skill into a commodity, eventually result in unionization, and we become like the US manufacturing sector.
Give me my professional latitude- or nothing at all.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
That's great to a point--I'm also a contractor and prefer it for precisely the same reasons.
HOWEVER, there are circumstances of our current economy that make it simply not an option for many people. Namely, if you have any sort of medical condition, especially of the chronic and/or cardiac variety, and you don't want to die an early death or live in poverty conditions despite making $100k+ per year, getting individual or small group health insurance is a near impossibility and you're pretty much forced to work for a company with decent large group coverage.
Despite the FUD about "HillaryCare," it is essentially just attacking the primary root problem of that: eligibility. For most of the population, it's not a monetary entitlement, it's just an eligibility entitlement. Essentially, the entire country is the "group" and you are entitled membership in that group, which is as it should be. You still pay for it, sometimes through the nose, but at least you can GET IT.
Should that go through and that major risk is effectively removed, I imagine you'll find a lot more people leaving the ranks of th W2's into the promised land of independent contracting.
I actually agree strongly with your last point, but this is not really about being independent, if you mean being a corporation all by yourself and handling all the tasks it entails to be one. The problem with that sort of independence is the same as trying to be your own lawyer, civil engineer and dentist, all at once.
You don't even have to incorporate (in the US at least). You certainly don't have to incorporate just to level the playing field. You can set yourself up as a sole proprietorship, (or if there's more than one involved, a partnership), and you don't have to incorporate at all. You can enter a sole proprietorship pretty much at will (in some states this has the caveat - if you're not a convicted felon), and you can style a partnership any of many ways so that you are getting paid fairly for what you bring to it. You can even limit your liability in a partnership so you can't be left holding the whole bag, without having to create a LLC or S-corp to do it.
Here's all working for yourself really, absolutely requires.
1. When you are employed, someone else withholds taxes (both income and social security/medicare). To be self employed, you have to hold these out yourself. If you start making a real lot of money, you have to make advance payments once a quarter, but until you are getting some serious income, you can usually just keep the money in an account and keep the interest for yourself until around April 15th. If you're making more money than will allow that, you can definitely afford someone like me to advise you and file your forms for you. I have clients who can afford my services entirely on the interest they are getting on money they would have never seen at all as employees. What you can't do is expect to keep all the money you wold have been paid as an employee, plus all the extra you should be able to make being your own boss, plus all the taxes you would have paid one way or the other as an employee, plus any money (or time) it costs to learn the basics of record keeping and legal compliance for your particular business.
2. you need to learn what counts as a business related expense, and what doesn't, what you can claim on an IRS schedule and what you can't. For most people in IT, this means learning a 2 page form (Schedule C), and probably the 1 page form to cover your driving expenses, and maybe the 1 page form for having a home office. The government both prints and PDFs complete instructions for all these and gives them away free on the IRS's website. There's about 40 pages of support manuals for all this, but once you learn the basics, those are not something you have to memorize or even read cover to cover. There are all sorts of additional sections explaining what to do if you are a lobster fisherman or a non-citizen, or both, but if you can't figure out pretty quick that this area doesn't apply to you, then you should be working for somebody else, as a burger flipper (and I've known some burger flippers who picked up on these pretty damned quickly). Most people have to get over their fear that government has hidden something vitally important in a tiny footnote in that section that only applies to commercial fishermen - that really seems to be the biggest obstacle, not intelligence.
You just may need to learn how to amortize computer related hardware and software, but probably your beginning business model is simpler than that and you can usually forget about doing any amortization - i.e. you can't claim a personal laptop if you use it for various things besides business, and a cheap old one sufficient for most IT needs is small enough you can just claim the whole thing as a straight out expense in a year. Most admin and diagnostic software is free these days unless you are specializing in certain parts of Windows. Starting out in business doesn't have to be very complex, and if it is you probably need to refine your business model.
Again, this is what I'd claim for a beginning IT, tec
Who is John Cabal?
Because then, the poor impoverished CEO would have to settle for a 90 foot yacht over a 120 foot one, and the corporate jet fleet (that the geeks will never get within a mile of) would only have three new jets instead of five.
Working in Alberta's IT industry seems pretty much the same as the US. All of coders and administrators in our shop are exempt and completed a drug test to get the job. Only diff is the number of holiday and vacation days a year. The day my employment starts looking like a union gig, I'm moving on.
Issues and attitudes like this only speed the decline of North America's leadership in the world. Both countries were founded on innovation and hard work. Canada's so-called "progressive" labour laws (and a crappy healthcare system) are leading the way down the tubes, they cause business to find other sources.
Employment is a privilege not a right. If you don't like your job get another one.....or like my lazy ass cousin just live off the taxpayers.....oh man don't get me started.
aarrghh!
I worked for years doing the salary and 80 hrs/wk thing like many here seem to be doing. Recently I moved to Ak where there is a state law that requires I.T. people to be hourly. I'm a net admin and my boss the I.T. manager is also hourly. Guess what... there are very few "emergencies" after 5pm. Huh, imagine that! I'm off at 5pm and my weekends are mine. Don't let em fool ya! Unless you make well over 100k they are sucking the life out of you.
I am a senior engineer for my company, I travel frequently to meet with resellers and customers. I work partly from home, sometimes in the office, and a lot of time in the field. As a salaried consultant, I put between 45 and 55 hours per week "on the clock" not including my lunch and other personal breaks. If you factor in time I spend in hotels, at dinner with customers or resellers, and other time I spend "tinkering," I'm averaging about 60 hours per week. Some weeks I work closer to 30 real labor hours and do a lot of tinkering, reading up on new stuff, or sitting in a plane or airport for the rest, other weeks I'm nose to the grindstone for the whole 60 hours. Sometimes I get calls at 3 or 4AM and have to wake myself up and handle an isse.
I not only make a fair salary, but I have averaged over 10% annual raises to that salary based on experience and seniority. This is a LOT faster than I'd probably get as an hourly employee. We're a small company (fewer than 100 employees) and to staff enough people, at reasonable rates, to avoid massive overtime pay would add 3-5 people to my team. With overtime in the picture, they'd prefer to call on others to do extended labor when I'm close to 40 hours. I'd also have to deal with explaining WHY I'm in overtime if I did. Most importantly, it's simpler for me to simply get a salary at a point that "expects" a limited amount of overtime, and a predictable weekly paycheck. It's also easier for the finace guy since he doesn't have to worry about overtime when planning the budget month by month and quarter by quarter.
Big sales mean big commissions for some associates, but more money in means there's more in the budget. Us support consultants don't necessarily generate the same return as a lot of our labor is customer and reseller satisfaction or hardware support, and makes no revenue. If we had a bad month, how would finance predict that?
Besides, if they convert me to hourly wage, they'd just take my current salray, divide it by 50 hours, and give me that rate. Then they'd start using metrics to control my overtime use as some employees would likely abuse it to get more money. In the end, I've been down the road before, both overtime and salary. I FAR prefer salary. It's less hassle, more predictable, and I'm still paid fair wage for my time either way. Sure, one or two weeks a year I might put in 70+ hours. There are other weeks they simply overlook my PTO and I only work 30 hours. If I find myself working too much overtime, or they abuse my salary position, I push back and get a raise, more time off, or other compensations.
Salary makes it easy to keep company budgets in line, makes my life easier (on many levels) and I'm paid well either way. If I wasn't paid well, there and 5000 companies I could apply to (and many of my clients have already made me offers that I've politely turned down) that would take my experience at the same or higher pay rate and my company would no longer have me on staff, then I'd probably end up consulting back to them at twice my current pay rate until they hired someone to replace me and spent 6 months training him, as I've already seen happen. In fact, the company knows well that my highly trained position is hard to fill, expensive to train, and giving me a 10-15% raise annually costs less than replacing me. They abuse me, and I just up the ante...
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
As someone who's not particularly energized by my current job[1], I've been giving some thought to going the contracting route. The problem is, I can't seem to determine if it's right for me or not. It seems to be almost polarizing, as I've seen opinions vary from making it sound anywhere from a euphoric, semi-retired state, to a hellish flip-ya-over-and-do-ya-dry brothel.
How does one get started in the contracting world? How do you make sure you're getting a good contract? Do you get vacation days, sick days, personal time off? Basically, how would I know if contracting is right for me? It seems like an awful big risk to take if I don't have some confidence that it will work out for me. I'm an INTP that likes to experiment and do proof-of-concept work; be the first to get a general understanding of something new, and then move on. I don't like wrote work or filling in function bodies in an architecture that someone else wrote.
[1] I'm now working for a startup trading company. The company is doing very well. With my bonus, I'll probably make 2x what I made at my previous job. But I'm here 10 hours/day, every day (all my colleagues work 12 hour days), plus I have an hour commute on either side. For some reason, the work doesn't interest me too much. I spend entirely too much time slacking (like right now).
I will take that over being at my desk for 8-10 hours a day with barely a lunch break and then being on call and/or having to work from home because management can get away with it. After all, they can always outsource to India or bring in an H1B who is willing to work like that because they plan on going back to India in a couple of years.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
"...I know people who work for aerospace who ( and this may not be normal ) get paid overtime..."
I am an engineer in aerospace. I'm classified salaried OT exempt, but still get paid overtime because of union contract agreements. It isn't 1.5 time, OT is billed as straight hourly plus an additional pittance, but at least it is extra pay. When on call, I get to bill any received phone calls as logged OT. Pretty good huh?
Down sides you say? Of course there are. As part of a negotiated union contract, I have zero merit based pay raises or bonuses and no control over my future salary. I am locked into a formulaic pay raise schedule and even if my boss wanted to pay me more for doing a kick-ass job (or pay the lazy desk-nappers less), the union contract wouldn't allow it.
Of course I could always flip to independent contractor, but then I have to manage all of my health benefits, insurance, etc which may or may not end up equitable in the long run.
*shrug* I get to work on cool stuff though, and get paid average-to-decent, so all things considered I can't really complain.
----- And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks, with one word...UNLESS.
Personally I don't want to wait until I'm a used up has-been to enjoy my money.
Money isn't an end in and of itself, you know, it's just a way of facilitating other things, like quality of life.
With a 37 hour week and 30 days (plus public holidays), I prefer my way to yours.
The OP's point was that we don't want to make a change that will push *more* jobs to India and China.
I'm sick of this fatalism - every time someone tries to shift the balance towards employees, the employers are just going to shift everything to some low wage country. Sure, it'll happen to some extent, but don't fool yourself - they'll do it regardless of whether we ask for a fair shake.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I'm sorry you can't find a job in your field. I live in Miami. There are plenty of jobs here. Of Course, the cost of living is exceptionally high. The sheer number of immigrants here keep driving wages down. Linux admin positions here want to pay you $40k a year. If I lived up north or out west, I could get double that.
The real problem isn't government in these situations. It's corporate mentality.
Corporate managers just don't respect what we do. They think that we should be producing something. They think that we're expendable.
So, they want us to work on salary, which in Miami is low, and put out fires all hours of the night for free.
The real problem for us is that we can't really do much on production boxes during work hours.
Some firms are smart enough to have two shifts to cover all hours. Others just want you to fix it on your time.
The salary model works great if you're an accountant. It doesn't work that well for IT.
Ignoring the problem isn't going to fix it, for any of us. If there were sane rules for IT workers, it would benefit us all. Including you.
Unionization is their greatest fear. This looks bad on those of us who are trying to shed that "shift worker" stigma. We're fighting hard to be seen as professionals. Our working hours are just longer than that of most other professionals.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Seriously though, you point out that 'in this day and age' there is no loyalty on either side. I'd say that's partially a reflection of the unwillingness of workers to ask for (demand?) what they're worth. Labor is a business transaction, you shouldn't hate your business partners or let them treat you 'unfairly'. Get a good idea if what you should be paid, ask for it, and leave if you don't get it.
You know where workers are getting it from? They just look at the executives of the companies and see them getting paid BIG bucks - way more than they probably should. And see them stealing peoples money (Enron, Worldcom etc...) and bascially getting away with it. How many executives are doing it and NOT getting caught? Probably A lot more than you think! So if the executives are doing it why shouldn't the employees - think about it. You have the RIAA/MPAA stealing from "artists" and US the people who actually buy their crap!
Think about it we have a double standard. The big rich executives get paid WAY too much steal from others and it's ok. But it's not ok for use to get paid well for our hard work and it's not ok for us to steal from them. Companies would rather outsource to some other country whos workers are willing to work for dimes on the dollar than to pay people decently. To me let those FUCKING companies move their business overseas, take the jobs with them and then let the rest of the U.S. QUIT using their products and services. Some other company will just come up and take their place. Maybe learning from the previous companies mistakes.
If the cost of living in the U.S. wasn't so high I bet people wouldn't need such higher salaries. What is the cost of living in India? A LOT lower than it is here, hence they can get away with needing less pay. Corporations don't get this AT ALL. If they would help bring the cost of living DOWN in the U.S. I would bet people would be willing to work for less. how can we compete in a "GLobal Economy" if everywhere companies are sending jobs has far lower costs of living than we do.
But I think corporate EXECUTIVES need to get a pay cut! NO! they would rather "lay off" hundreds or thousands of employees just so they can keep their cushy job, getting paid millions of dollars and getting millions of dollars in stock options. That's utter CRAP! They say "oh we need to pay them well to keep them." BULLSHIT! If you get rid of one executive there is ALWAYS another wiating in line for his job! MBA's are a DIME A FUCKING DOZEN! Engineers are NOT! If anything Engineers and scientist should be making more than MBA exeuctives!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
How much does it cost to fully replace each?
The research assistant isn't being paid what he's worth, he's
being paid what meek academics in general are willing to accept.
That's like saying a car is worth more because the customer was
too meek too take a pound of flesh out of the car salesman and
his sales manager.
The prices here only reflect the negotiated transaction.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No, the free market pretty much always exists. If it's not legal it's called the black market or bribery or government corruption or organized crime.
That's of course assuming that the only thing that matters is the price of the product and that little things like the actual characteristics of the product don't mean anything.
OTOH, people still buy crappy american cars...
The problem with a company that needs a Union in order to treat it's employees well is no the Union but the fact that the company is prone to abuse people in general. They will treat you in the same manner as their employees.
That is why they need some sort of "price advantage".
They don't have another one.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Bang the pool boy for 50+ hours a week?
Hahahaha. You know, it is the federal law that makes sure you get paid more than $3.00 per hour to mop those floors.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You seem to be under the misconception that the world is fair.
Yes, everyone deserves more pay. But any economist will tell you that legislating who gets more pay can potentially lead to people getting no pay at all.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
They tried all kinds of things (where things are defined as 'things that don't involve spending money or anyone working less) to increase employee morale as people began to leave the company like a sinking ship, so I can honestly say that we did have a Hawaiian shirt day. I don't think it was Friday, though. Last Tuesday of the month or something ridiculous like that.
A good friend of mine used to always say that no experience in that life was that bad if you got a good story to tell out of it. From that perspective, even the worst parts of my career haven't been that bad.
Extorting money from the society, that is vastly disproportional to the provided service, does not qualify one as having a better life, as far as I am concerned.
Whatever you call it, not looking out for your own best interests will get you stepped on.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Zing
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
Because you're a SALARIED employee.
And really, I don't want someone telling me that I as a salaried tech industry employee must be paid overtime. As if there aren't enough excuses to justify offshoring and outsourcing, all they really need is one more massive expense to move everything overseas.
I work a salaried job. I was not happy with my compensation at all. So, I went job hunting. I found another company that was willing to pay me $20k more than what I was getting. So, I took this offer and went to my current company. I told them, "This isn't a personal thing and I like working here (which is a lie, but I've hated working for every company I've been at, so...), but this is a lot of money and I would be stupid to walk away from this offer."
I was given a counter offer. My current company matched the salary AND I get to work from home three days a week. Amazingly, I get more done now than I did before - when I'm not at the office I have far fewer interruptions.
Of course, this won't work for all people. I'm good at what I do and I am valuable to the company. Be honest with yourself - about your performance, your rapport with co-workers, everything - before you ask for anything significant. I've seen other people try this and they end up getting fired. Be careful; YMMV.
Love sees no species.
Sorry, but human resources are NOT precious anymore. There is a huge movement towards using freelance or part-time employees here in the USA to avoid paying healthcare and other benefits. And many companies offshore to foreign countries for the same reason.
Don't be naive here: IT management will be more efficient, but they won't do that the way you expect them to. In the real world, laws like this do not necessarily result in benefits for the employees!
Well, if it is just you (and then, maybe one other) it really is easy enough to handle you own paperwork. I had a friend and CPA to show me the ropes of what forms to fill, etc. But really, once you get over the learning hump, why pay someone else to do it...save those dollars. Get a CPA, and maybe pay them to do a payroll for you a couple of times...and just buy Quickbooks (but, don't use their pay payroll svc)....it really is no more than filling out a few forms every quarter....and just send your records to the CPA at the end of the year.
I DO pay for that luxury....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I just don't find it as interesting as the rest of my life. If you do then you're in a tiny, tiny minority of people, even in the US.
Would you do your job by choice if you didn't have to? If you didn't need the money?
I'd probably write open source software as a hobby, sure, but I wouldn't do it 37 hours a week, let alone however many the folks complaining about unpaid overtime here
"As for vacations, well I plan to take a many month long vacation in a couple years"
Again, tiny minority, how many folks are EVER in a position to give up their employment to do that? When they have families to support? Very very few. If you can do that then well done, but don't pretend for a second that that's representative.
BS. This only applies if you are living above your means. Like with anything else, you learn very quickly that $60/hr. isn't $60/hr * 5 days * 52 weeks, and you adjust your spending and saving habits to emphasize savings. This is only tough the first year; after that, you simply live on what you saved the year before; as business picks up, the reward is delayed but very real. As business slumps, you have time to adjust your finances to survive it, and you can easily plan to save enough for your long-term goals.
Pansy. You explain to your clients when you'll be gone for a few weeks, and you do a good job networking so that you can pay another indep. worker to cover support while you're gone. You know, just like an employer would.
Heh, tell that to my wife; I bought my house on contracting income. They don't care nearly as much about "stable" if your payment is going to be less than 20% of your average income over the past 5 years. Besides, if you're a corp, you pay yourself a salary (that's plenty "stable"). You then get bonuses when the company does well. Have you actually tried any of this?
Dude, it's called insurance. And no, not just health and car insurance. If you actually bother to incorporate yourself, you can (and should!) have liability insurance and some form of loss/temporary disability insurance that would allow you to collect a salary and even pay someone to keep running your business for you while you're out of commission.
I've been fortunate enough not to need mine, but have had business associates that were able to keep their org. running after things like spinal injuries that made them unable to work for nearly a year.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Well, of course I'd advise anyone to do their homework and see which one fits them the best. I went for an S corp, for one big reason, SAVING money not having to pay as much SE taxes (FICA, MEDICARE, etc). I pay myself a 'reasonable salary'...and the rest of the company earnings fall through to me at EOY as personal income. I only have to pay SS and medicare on the 'reasonable salary' I pay myself...the rest is not subject to that taxation, and therefore saves me a significant amount of money. All perfectly legal.
I'd also say having a real 'corporation' helps when wanting to do c2c arrangements, as I have described in other posts. I think that shields the prospective client againts you or the IRS from claiming to be an employee.
The liabilty thing is a big factor, but, the tax set ups for each vary greatly....I found the "S" corp to be best in that you don't get double taxed like with the normal "C" corp...and other benefits as I listed above. hehehe...the $0.485 cents per mile I get to write off driving to/from work each day adds up as nice tax free income too...adds up after a short while.
Bottom line..yes, a bit of paperwork, and research mostly at the start, but, is worth it in the end.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I am close to going to truck driving scholl. Those guys earn close to what I do per hour, and then get overtime on top. A union truck driver can earn 6 figures for over the road tractor trailer driving.
Not for long.
Mexico trucks to roll on U.S. highways
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Got any companies you could recommend for this type insurance? URL's?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If he really wanted it, he could be doing the work he want's to be doing.
It's the internet. I have done work on the other side of the world.
He's just a whiner
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
However, the Govt. didn't want to pay that anymore on their contracts, and came up with that little fun exempt situation for us.
As an interesting side note to weird exemptions, I was recently reviewing labor regulations in NC, and discovered something I thought was interesting. All of the regulations concerning overtime, vacation, and compensation have the same two exclusions: doctors and teachers. A pretty obvious example of the state having a nice little double standard for itself.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
*which are just plain stupid, really, since the cost of those benefits could be part of your salary instead and YOU could decide what do do with it. There's a reason benefits exist, and it doesn't have anything to do with workers rights. It has to do with a worker shortage during a period where salaries were capped.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I think the should make 350K a year salary, the rest on a bonus.
I have no problem paying someone 75 million dollars if they make me a Billion dollars.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why must I suffer as an IT professional because your lack of management forethought. If we are a 24x7x365 company, act like one. Spread the work to multiple shifts. I volunteered to work a night/later shift. I was denied because we are an 8 to 5 company. Well then why am I putting in 8 hours during the day just so I can schedule my real work for a 3am maintenance window that night, and then they would really like you to be back to work at 8am. Companies don't change unless it's painful for them not to change, or the government tells them to. Your forgetting that we are the little guy and the company is the big guy we have no power. my 2 cents
Well, like most things that will pay off big...there is a certain bit of risk you must figure if you are up to dealing with.
You migth try to start off as a contract employee...kind of half and half of both worlds...you get bennie's...and a taste of the contract world.
Also take a look at this ...and look around. I just notice they've updated this...I read the old site and it got me started in many ways.
One way to look into if it is right for you...is research, research, research. Also, take a good look inside. Are you good at dealing with people? Do you have contacts at other businesses around you in your field? Could you ask at this time, someone if they'd hire you? You need to be able to network and have people skills for this. Again...it is easier to start off as a contract employee...I did it at a company (not with them anymore) called Diamond Data Systems....they're in the New Orleans area. But, there are tons of companies like that all over.
If you are a US citizen...and especially if you can get a clearance...look into one of these type places that has contract with the US Govt. Lots of work there...and often, quite long term.
But just talk to people that do it...and research....and read. It isn't rocket science, it isn't that difficult, but, it IS a different lifestyle than the normal 9-to-5 job...you do take on your own HR responsibilities, but, the pay off is more freedom, more choices, tax savings...and more money.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
there are a list of, I believe, 10 rules the IRS and the courts use as a guidline to determine if you are contract, or an employee. Regardless of any agreement.
The reason for that is many corporations abused their position, and started making employees be contracts at a sub standard rate, avoid benefits and taxes.
Basically the rules are that is you are told when to show up, where to sit, what computer to use, are not given specific task to COMPLETE, you are an employee.
The biggest determining factor is that as a contractor, you are allowed to sub contract your work.
They are guidelines, but if you are a contractor I highly recommend you familiarize your self with them.
OT would be great. It would start putting real numbers on projects, and that is how you get correct staffing, and budget. That will actually improve a corporations mentality on projects, deadlines, and bonuses.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It is my preference (rightly or wrongly) to maintain my standard of living -- even if it's at the expense of an Indian or Chinaman.
I don't think that's the preferred nomenclature, Dude. Asian-American, please.
--saint
Did anyone read TFA? Apparently IBM *really* doesn't want to pay overtime . . .
"Already the settlements are rolling in. Siebel Systems has agreed to pay $27.5 million to about 800 software engineers, and IBM is fucking over $65 million to technical and customer support workers."
It might be interesting to watch.
Did you know that gullible is not in the dictionary?
What subway booth clerks makes 55K? sheesh, got any other number you want to pull out your ass?
What you fail to realize is that a degree does not equal money.
Your lab situation has NOTHING at all to do with unions. Not a GOD DAMN thing.
Nice of you to try and blame someone else for your problems.
Jees, after reading your post I can only imagine the kind of logical fallacies your apply when trying to interpret data.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's of course assuming that the only thing that matters is the price of the product and that little things like the actual characteristics of the product don't mean anything.
OTOH, people still buy crappy american cars...
It all goes together. If you are in favor of unions so much, then you should accept a potentially lower quality product you are getting in exchange for a greater social world, in your eyes. If you have to have the Japanese car, because they are "so much better", and really, they aren't, then, you really don't have any right to lament the death of the union, because you are the cause of their death. How somebody votes does not matter nearly so much to the UAW as what kind of car you buy.
This is my sig.
I know a lot of people that don't branch out specifically because the cost of health care for the family prevent it.
I could go work for a small start up, one that I believe will be very successful, right now. But the risk is to high. If we get decent nation wide health care, I will start my own business within a month. Even at a higher tax. I know many people in the same situation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One of the unique things about the labor market today is the fact that it's become global, especially in computer-related jobs (and particularly so in those that don't require a direct physical presence in the US). Employees have to factor in a lot of things when deciding whether to outsource, from cost, to skillset, to ability to communicate, to availability, to quality of work...
The fact that someone in China, India, or Costa Rica costs a fraction of his American counterpart in terms of salary (a statistic that's becoming less true in India these days), is only part of the equation. If you're talking about a monolithic corporation with tons of money to throw at QA before release, they might do some outsourcing. If you're talking about a tiny company that makes a niche product, QA may not be that important (but then, they probably can't afford you). Most of the companies we're talking about are in the middle of those two, and can't afford to have issues with timing, quality, communication, or anything else cause problems for the people that purchase their software.
Back to my earlier point about government interference, raise your hand if you've heard on the news about the "critical shortage of IT workers in the US". Who would correct such a problem? The US government. How? By increasing the number of H1-B visas so that companies can hire more foreign workers, bring them to the US, and get around most of the problems associated with an offshore workforce.
Without the government interfering in this way (the flip side of mandatory overtime), things are better for *me*, because I have more opportunity. Without the government dictating my ability to negotiate compensation, things are better for *me* because I have more leverage.
Yes, for the unmotivated, the prospect of getting paid more than the average just because of a long day or three sounds good. For *me*, the prospect of being commoditized and having someone who plays Quake III for an extra 2 hours a day sucking up money I might have seen in my paycheck for managing to get my job done within normal working hours is highly irritating.
The reason people in computer professions (ones with decent skill) make a decent salary is that they are motivated and do a good job. That translates into a good salary. At some amount above 50k/year, you have to learn what you are worth and negotiate with your employer if you think you're putting in more than you're getting back. That's not the government's responsibility, that's *your* responsibility.
I'm far from being fatalistic, I just want to be able to make what I'm worth without everybody in the world trying to decide on that for me.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
About a year ago, there was a finding that the institution I work for had misclassified about 300 positions, including mine, and we should be eligible for overtime pay. I'm a sysadmin, DBA and a few other things. We are also now eligible for membership in the union. I did, in fact, decide to join the union, mainly because of one particularly bad manager, who is going to become my direct supervisor starting in a few months. Most of the people who I work with are fine people but this manager is well known to have had problems with many employees.
It is also interesting to note that salaries do seem to be being passively adjusted because of the change. June is the time that we typically get pay raises and every year, up until this one, there were both general pay raises (which essentially adjust for market conditions, inflation and cost of living) and merit pay raises. This year, after the overtime decision, there were only merit pay raises.
The fact that someone in China, India, or Costa Rica costs a fraction of his American counterpart in terms of salary (a statistic that's becoming less true in India these days), is only part of the equation.
There's also the quantity of cheap workers available. They're lots of people available in China, but most of them can't write code. Many of them aren't what we'd call literate.
raise your hand if you've heard on the news about the "critical shortage of IT workers in the US".
Yeah, the whole H1B scam - I'll buy it when people offer more money or cut back on what they plan to do.
Without the government interfering in this way (the flip side of mandatory overtime), things are better for *me*, because I have more opportunity.
This is true until you aren't in demand. Then they have all the power and dictate what you will make.
I'm far from being fatalistic, I just want to be able to make what I'm worth without everybody in the world trying to decide on that for me.
You have no worth - you make what you can negotiate.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You have to be careful when you become independent. I was an independent for about 5 years, and after 9/11, my client ended the contract early, and I wasn't able to find any other contracts available. Not only that, but the corporate jobs were few and far between, and all of the job requirements said "corporates only". In other words, no ex-consultants need apply. Their view is that consultants need to be punished for standing up for their right to get paid for the hours the worked, and for not being a good sheep and taking their lumps like the rest of the corporate workers. Also, they reasoned that a consultant would be more likely to walk out as soon as the economy improved. Of course, we know that an employee would NEVER consider trying his luck elsewhere when the headhunters are calling nonstop.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If you don't like the hours, don't get into the business.
Close, but not exactly right. The credo goes: "show me an IT guy consistently working more than 40-42 hours a week and I'll show you an incompetent boob that needs to be flipping burgers." IT is a field whose simple purpose is to increase the efficiencies of our organizations. If we're so inefficient at our jobs that it takes us more than 40 hours to regularly do it, then we're doing it wrong. Now, that's not to say you don't chip in and do what needs to be done when things need fixing, but that's true in any job. But, if you're working 70 hours/week in IT, you're a twit who has no idea what he's doing and need to be fired. Period. As a PART of my job, I maintain a set of (Windows) servers that process approximately $25 trillion/year worth of payroll transactions for over a million individuals...and I RARELY work more than 40 hours/week.
However, that being said, there's nothing wrong with companies not paying their employees overtime. If they want someone to work 70 hours/week for a 40/hour a week salary...well, that's their perogative, but employees need the abilty to not work there. Your basic premise is that if you work in IT, you work overtime, right? Do you negotiate salaries based on that? For example, one potential employer I interviewed with while unemployed asked if I had a problem with working 70/hours a week and I told him no, if he's willing to pay for it (as soon as he asked that question, I decided I didn't want to work there. I know where it leads). He said they didn't pay overtime and I told him flat out..."the salary we've discussed is for a 40 hour work week. If you want me to work almost twice that, you're going to have to pay me almost twice that. I don't give up my time for free." He quickly concluded the interview and I never heard from him again. I did, however, notice the ad in the paper week after week. So, to be a prick, I'd write him every week "I noticed you hadn't filled the position yet. If you can't find someone to fill the position at the salary you want to pay, I'd like to discuss further the possibility of my employment at a proper salary level."
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
...and fortunately I just turned 40, so I can actually half-sort-of claim to be old, too.
I took a job at a small business consultancy and found myself IMMEDIATELY pressured to work for free after hours (returning emails, looking over proposals, as well as some miscellaneous work that had to be done after hours like reboots). Most of the pressure of course came from the principals, who have the most to gain from "extra" work.
I pushed back immediately, not answering phone calls or email after 5, when asked when I would look at something not related to on-site client work, I'd schedule time during the day to do it vs. doing it at home after hours.
Strangely enough, the only place where one of the principals complained was about daycare pickups when my wife was out of town! He actually had the gall to ask me what I would do if a client site was down or having problems and I had to pickup my kid -- I told him "Easy question -- I don't even have to think about it. My son comes first, every time." He kept it up, suggesting I should have a "backup" plan with friends or neighbors in case I had to work, and I just told him to "Put any further suggestions about my child's welfare in writing along with any repercussions should I fail to follow them."
I'm not sure such a written letter would have done much for me, but I can only imagine how it might have gone over should a situation have ever reached court or had I filed for unemployment claiming I had been terminated without cause.
But since then, nothings happened and both principals have been pretty conscientious about work/life balance. In fact in my last performance review, I made the point explicitly that the job lacked the compensation or advancement to merit becoming a 60 hour a week job and they pretty much agreed with me.
I just think it pays to work hard during the day and then ignore them after hours.
Sounds like heaven compared to sitting down at my desk at 7:00 am. Then working until noon, taking 5 mins to get my lunch from the refrigerator and heating it up, then eating it at my desk. Followed by working straight through until 6:00 PM or so. Only to be on call if anything 'comes up' that evening.
$70,000 a year is based on a 40 hour work week. If your working 60 hour weeks or more, you are probably worse off THAN a custodial worker. With more stress, and less family face time.
Do not try to make us think 'exempt' is better until you have not seen your kid for three days due to 'crunch' time.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Your arrangement can be nice, especially where there aren't a lot of physical assets to control compared to the bottom line.
Just for people who are reading this thread, and now think S-corps are always a great idea, remember any basic corporation can dissolve itself and reform as a S-corp if it meets certain common tests, such as not having more than 100 stockholders, and not having non-citizen stockholders (except for certain trusts and international funds). Since there are many medium sized firms (and a few large ones), that don't issue common stock at all, there are quite a few corps that could convert to s-corps if they found their taxes onerous.(What cayenne8 is calling double taxation - that phrase is a frequent shortcut to describe something more complex, so don't take it without a grain of salt). That they don't switch says they generally like their existing incorporation better than the alternatives, usually (but not always) because of the liability limits.
Also, where you see the phrase 'reasonable salary' in cayenne8's post, that's not some tax-cheater's code for "whatever I damned well choose" - he's phrasing it just as the IRS does. The government actually looks at these to see if they fall in the range an employee doing that sort of work could normally expect. For executive work, that's pretty broad, and you can low-ball it somewhat, but you can't pay anyone the equivalent of 5 cents/hour just to reduce FICA responsibility.
One last problem with S-corps - if you start as a partnership or LLC, and convert to an s-corp, what happens if you no longer meet the tests to stay an s-corp? You don't revert back to your old status, but instead you become a regular corporation. This can hit people with a real tax burden if the IRS rules the s-corp became invalid at a prior date, like the date it gained it's 101'st stockholder.
Who is John Cabal?
Why not? I'm a salaried employee (in the IT industry, no less!) who also gets paid for any overtime I put in. If I didn't get paid for OT, less would get done. Simple as that.
That sounds like agreement, then. Like I said, cost is only part of the equation.
Again...we agree...
Okay, but demand is a function of the market. If I'm worth hiring at a certain salary, then I'm worth hiring. If I'm not, then I'm not. If the wal-mart is selling apples for 2 bucks a pound, and kroger is selling them for 5 bucks a pound, Kroger doesn't complain to the government that the public should *have* to pay 5 bucks a pound for apples. We'd think it was ludicrous. For some reason, people fail to transfer that logic to the job market.
In the job market, employers shop for employees. They may have very specific requirements, or they may not. Those requirements dictate how much they are willing to spend on employees to fill those jobs. If demand is low, there will be more supply and the cost to fill that job will go down. If demand is high, it goes up.
In any other market, low demand leads to a decrease in supply until the market equalizes. With jobs, we look at a specific industry, say "hey, it should be worth MORE than that", and try and get the government involved. The rational thing would be to try and build up supply in other under-served areas of the market, but I guess being rational is beside the point.
They *don't* have all the power. The only way that's possible is with government dictating the terms, because business has much more ability to influence government policy than individuals do.
I do have a worth, in terms of money, that's a function of what someone is willing to pay for me to do something and what I want to be paid for doing something. Saying that I make what I can negotiate is a way of rephrasing that. I *like* making what I can negotiate. It means that the effort I have put forth gets rewarded on terms that are acceptable to me.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
It was Heron of Alexandria, a Greek, who invented the steam engine.
I'd like to emphasize a point suggested by the parent: "the employer usually has the upper hand in any negotiation"
The subject of unpaid overtime / legal protection / unions has come up many times on slashdot. The most frequent responses I read to this subject are along the lines of "it's your responsibility to look out for yourself. Negotiate a fair wage and fair conditions for yourself at the time of hiring. If your employer screws you, quit and find a new job." I think that the people who post those responses are hardworking, ethical, probably libertarian, believe in the free market economy. I have a lot of respect for them.
However, I think there is a flaw in this thinking. Within this paradigm, the only time that the employee has the capability to affect their working conditions is at the bargaining table at the time of hiring. But the power relationship between the 2 parties at the bargaining table is not equal. It hurts the potential employee more to walk out than it hurts the employer to look for a replacement. The same relationship applies if conditions become abusive during employment. It hurts the employee more to be out of a job than it hurts the employer to be temporarily short-staffed. As long as the balance of power is heavily in favor of the employer, they are in a position to make excessive demands.
I don't think you can rely on market forces to fix this problem when there is such an imbalance of power between the employer & the employee.
friends don't let friends teleport drunk
And let's pay our CEO $billions while we're at it and call it a day.
There's a balance here somewhere but some days I fear we've tipped the scale too far. Does a 50 hour work week and another 10-20 commuting really equal out with the "better" life we all live now compared with 20 years ago? I work, live, and breath technology. I often wonder if I'd be happier with the white picked and a simpler life in the 60s or 70s.
Hell, at least there wouldn't be as many rules to protect stupid people from themselves. Oh, and a bit of honesty and integrity in people too. I remember seeing a bit of that when i was younger.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I'm a developer and I think the definition that most programmers get to exercise independent judgment. Especially for higher levels of staff/senior and principle engineers.
Now the poor people who have to work help desk 10 hours a day and not get paid for it, that's a total rip off. The biggest thing is when you work help desk you don't get to choose your hours (unlike most programmers) or what you work on (sometimes it's tough for help desk to take breaks). Same goes for all support oriented IT fields, you're often stuck on the phone or running from building to building to put out various fires. And the first thing a company does when it is short on funds is cut these groups and make everyone work overtime, while the job market is good it is not so bad. But when the economy slumps I see these people getting hit hard with overtime.
QA/Testing should also get paid overtime, but I don't think it should be legally enforced. it's in a company's best interest to minimize the wild fluctuations that the testing group has. And to put them on a more even keel with proper scheduling and planing of a project. Most shops the QA guys are feast or famine, not much work or way way too much work to do. Continuous integration and many small internal releases improves software quality and it lets QA build up their tests and have less work to do at the end of the release cycle. (because tests that pass are a magnitude less work than tests that fail). Lots and lots of good/complete tests that pass at the end of the final release is a good thing.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Quack quack AFLAC.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
I'm sure they do, actually. In fact, in NY our LIRR "Ticket Takers" (they call them 'conductors') make somewhere in the neighborhood of 75-100k. Yes, for punching freaking tickets on a train. With fancy custom punch-shapes that change weekly. No. I'm not kidding.
I could train a monkey to do their job. Hell, you could easily build an AUTOMATED system that would totally do away with their jobs and maybe save us yet another transit fare hike we're facing. But no. 100% union.
When I was in college a friend DROPPED OUT OF COLLEGE because his daddy worked at the railroad and scored him a nice cushy job (they all are FYI). Why bother with a college degree when you can start around 40-50k and be guaranteed comfy raises, overtime, and so on for life?
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Give it a few more years and robots and computers will do the entire job of a business.
There will be the CEO, his robots and racks of computer of equipment...and a bank vault to keep his goldz safe from the starving unemployed mobs. Oh, and maybe a few menial jobs so he can get those tax breaks.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
You're missing part of the equation - the power imbalance allows the employer to gang up on each employee individually. That's why collective bargaining tends to improve things. Not that I'm supporting the Teamsters, but a number of unions make things better without screwing the employer.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
The GP may have made horrible points trying to attack unions, but that doesn't make them paragons of virtue and light. A friend told me an excellent story about his firm. He works at a financial company, and they were doing some major renovation on their building. They went out and asked for bids, and the union of carpenters in the area refused to submit a bid. So, they went with non-union work, and now the union is picketing them for not hiring union labor. Now, it isn't the actual workers, or union leaders who are picketing: they hired homeless people to picket for them (probably for well below minimum wage, too). Meanwhile, their representatives aren't getting the paid work (the company would have been willing to pay more for union work), but the union leaders are still collecting their union dues. Nice how that works, isn't it?
Unions serve a very important purpose, but we need to make sure we don't defend them for using the same sort of jerk tactics their employers used to. You hear a lot about how unions make employers less likely to hire people, because of all the crap they have to put up with (like tons of red tape about firing people, wages higher than the worth of the work, etc), and we should remember this sort of thing before praising them unilaterally. There should be a balance of power between unions and employers for things to be good.
Thats really the fault of the employees. You can live below your means with most jobs if you try hard enough, especially if your single. You will have to make sacrifices. You will have to rent, live in a not nice neighborhood, and you will have to cook your own meals. If you can live with your parents you have a leg up.
The hardest part of living below your means is having the willpower not to spend all your money. I'm doing it with student loans, a car payment, a 43.6 mile each way commute, and a girlfriend. I make tough choices. Have part of your direct deposit sent to a savings account that you don't have ATM access too. Through that money into an investment that you will think twice about selling.
Basically, once you move a big chunk of your money into savings each month, you can live "paycheck to paycheck" with the rest. So your still a wage slave at the start of things, but as your wealth grows, you become more empowered to "walk away."
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
You make it sound like Unions ruined the American Auto industry.
They were wankers from the very beginning starting with Ford.
Unionization just kept management from getting too far out of hand.
It would make far more sense to cut off the corporate welfare and just let the old Dinosaurs die.
Ultimately, the Union is irrelevant. The idiocy starts at the top and always has.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> If you have to have the Japanese car, because they are "so much better", and really, they aren't
And another thing...
I can as a matter of routine expect any Japanese car or a German or Scandinavian one to easily
last me 200 thousand miles. I will be fortunate to get 70 thousand out of the American equivalent.
There was a time when people pined for 25 year old Benz'es so they could fix them up and have a
cheap Benz.
Benz being associated with Chrysler pretty much killed that.
Much like Microsoft, it isn't so much that one particular set of alternate vendors from a particular
nation are better but that ALL OF THEM ARE.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
As a conservative I tend to think the subway clerk is more important than the PHD and society is rewarding him more for providing a better service.
I know its a tough pill to swallow but unions only make things worse and cause high unemployment and distort the supply and demand curve with labor.
People need to follow the money and do what the invisible hand prefers. If one was to invest in an MBA instead of a degree in science then society would reward you more by a better job.
http://saveie6.com/
GM has not declared bankruptcy. They are doing a good job of pretending to be bankrupt to win concessions from the Unions though.
"no work without pay and a fair hourly rate for any kind of work"
Sounds good but what if your work is something creative? Or what if you are in a job that pays by value, say sales. Paying hourly only makes sense at the lowest levels where the employee is paid just to do a well defined job. As soon as your boss starts giving you directions like. "Make up a schedule and see where in the world we are going to find people to get this done..." You don't pay a guy doing work like that by the hour. You pay him based on the value he creates.
Many people are hired not by the hour but by the job. Actors are that way. Many busness ececutives and real estate people too.
Engineers are a middle ground. Some get to lead projects and think up the products the company will sell. Some are given great creative freedom some less senior ones are given more defined jobs. I think you have to look case by case here. Certainly most "IT" people are in a sopport role and hourly is the way to go. But the IT guy who is given the asignent "We need a new call center -- can you put together a few options for us" is doing an hourly job.
I do believe they make standing desks nowadays if you want a more permanent solution.
Bullish Machine Tzar
Without the 2nd Amendment, the others are just suggestions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2037200,00.html
I dont read
When you are the rare person on /. with a wife & 2 small children, this is not *always* possible. I rent a crappy apartment, we have 1 car, haven't eaten out since at least February, no cell phone, only borrowed (read neighbour's unsecured) wifi, you name it & we are doing it. I'm the kinda guy that pokes fun at tree-huggers, but I'm probably greener than a lot of them - electricity/gas/whatever costs money!
I currently make just under 30 in DFW, if not for side work, we wouldn't make it. Your advice would be well taken by many here, I am sure, just remember not everyone *can* live under their means if their means are small and their needs are great (I could live very comfortably as a bachelor on 30,000 but not with kids). Yes, a wife and kids were my choice, but I shouldn't have to chose between a family and the ability to have a decent job.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
That's like saying a car is worth more because the customer was too meek too take a pound of flesh out of the car salesman and his sales manager.
Even a meek person is capable of price shopping.
And you still didn't address the fact that there's absolutely no basis for saying that someone is producing more for society merely by possessing a Ph.D.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
I'd like to add an item to your otherwise fine list:
Having such an esoteric skill can mean making even more money because people having such a skill are very difficult to find, and can improve your overall retention as you can be difficult to replace (so long as an organization needs that skill, so don't get pigeonholed by it). Being irreplaceable gives you some advantage in dictating your work-life balance with your employer.
Yaz
Apologies for both replying to my own post and how amusing my sig looked on that last post :)
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
"Before the government started dictating terms of employment, working 12 hours per day, 6 days per week was the norm. Maybe you want to go back to that plan."
That's what you fear, isn't it? So you have to prohibit him from doing so.
A few years ago, California amended its overtime law - it was to give nurses overtime pay but also encompassed IT contractors the way it was worded - companies had to pay time and a half and double time if over 40 hrs. A senate bill was then introduced to take IT contractors out (or limit it to lower paid IT workers but while that bill was making its way thru the CA legislature, contractors had to be paid for overtime.
What my company did - a major auto company - was mandate that there would be no overtime for any contractors - you COULD NOT work more than 40 hrs ever, under any circumstances. This was an edict from executive management.
What this meant is that if you were close to 40 hrs and there was the possibility that you might get called on a problem at night or on the weekend, you had to go home early so the contractors affected worked more like 30 hrs a week instead of 40 on the fear that they might go over 40 if they got called. One guy who had worked on a problem the night before, came into work and was told he had to go home. Now this guy lived 60+ miles away and carpooled every day to work. He had to leave work, go call his wife (who also worked a long way away) to come pick him up because his carpool partners at work weren't sent home. The couple of months this chaos lasted caused huge confusion, you couldn't carpool with contractors because they might get sent home early and the contractors losing money due to not being able to work 40 hrs.
It is a HUGE CAN OF WORMS!
NO NO NO.
I thought this was already common in IT. 3 of the last 4 companies I worked with expected you to log your time, usually in 15 minute increments, so that the appropriate customer or business unit could be billed. And there is no charge center for "downtime".
Pansy. You explain to your clients when you'll be gone for a few weeks, and you do a good job networking so that you can pay another indep. worker to cover support while you're gone. You know, just like an employer would.
;)
Ha, did that twice. First guy ended up screwing the systems and infuriating the client, second double-crossed me and stole the client from me. I don't know where you live, but here unless you got a contract with a public service (they tend to be more honorable than regular businesses) you're likely to be screwed by the first person you encounter, with no compensation. Indie workers here are the last in line to get paid in case of bankruptcy for instance, meaning if your client folds up owing you a month of work (usually more), you're SOL. When that happens several times in the course of a year, your reserves melt like butter very quickly.
Heh, tell that to my wife; I bought my house on contracting income. They don't care nearly as much about "stable" if your payment is going to be less than 20% of your average income over the past 5 years. Besides, if you're a corp, you pay yourself a salary (that's plenty "stable"). You then get bonuses when the company does well. Have you actually tried any of this?
Thought about it, but alas laws and regs are different here. Incorporating a company means you have to put down at least $20.000 in hard cash on the table and you must use (and pay) a separate accountant, etc. At my level of business/income, it was a financial no-go. It is my understanding this kind of procedure is cheap and straightforward in the USA, had it been the case here I would have certainly gone through it and would perhaps still have my business today. Add to this a tax system that's hitting indies real hard, with monthly tax based on the previous year (on which you have already paid tax) so if you don't earn anyting, you still have to pay a substantial sum, which you can't recover since that part goes to the national, mandatory pension fund (rejoice, you'll have access to it when you're 65!).
Dude, it's called insurance. And no, not just health and car insurance. If you actually bother to incorporate yourself, you can (and should!) have liability insurance and some form of loss/temporary disability insurance that would allow you to collect a salary and even pay someone to keep running your business for you while you're out of commission.
Then again, as I said I got screwed over majorly on this. Since then I have all my insurance contracts checked by a lawyer friend (and there's a lot to be discussed). Given the circumstances, there was simply no way I could handle hiring anyone to take over and had no other choice but to fold up. Not being able to use your hands for 9 months doesn't help, I'm telling you. Not in a country in which you don't get awarded *any* damages after a non-responsible accident from which you dare recover in less than 2 years. And certainly not when you're hit with a $35.000 hospital bill when the insurance says "sorry but we'll pay you back when we're done disagreeing with the opposite insurance, it may take in excess of one year". Yeah, I lost my business and 2 years of my life, but I'm not in a wheelchair and can use both my hands pretty much normally today, so I'm not complaining. Failing your own enterprise, losing the fruit of your labor and a big chunk of your lifestyle is hard but it's not the end of the world and I'm grateful to be alive today. Rather that than the opposite. It was my first business, which I did with no training whatsoever except in IT (and even that's not much), did many mistakes and have learnt a lot from it. Experience is always a good thing.
I'm not dissing going indie, actually I might just get back to it (maybe not in IT this time though) once I've moved away from this stupid place to one that has a system actually encouraging individual businesses. Now that I got a lawyer GF, I might just manage to do things right this time
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Yes, doing contract work can be a major boon for your bottom line. I've done quite a bit of it in the past and always faired well come tax day. You can declare all kinds of expenses if you know what they are. I never depreciated any of it. I took it all lump sum that year. It worked well for me. I even did the home office thing the year that I worked from home. That worked out well too. Keep good records though. An audit will hurt no matter what but not being prepared with a basic amount of paperwork housekeeping will be a real bummer when the IRS comes knocking.
It's also important for non-contract employees to know what they can deduct as non-reimbursed employer expenses. My employer creatively reinterpreted the company mileage policy to exclude my 52mi/day to my customer's site as non-reimbursable even though it still qualified under the IRS's rules. I ended up declaring almost $7000 in mileage last year. I also declared my professional journals, professional memberships, professional development items (books, lab gear, tests, etc) which amounted to another whopping sum. In total I declared almost $17,000 in expenses last year and I'm not a contract employee. Oh if only I was...
I worked for a private Seattle based investment management company. I started as a Help Desk tech that was hourly plus OT, then changed jobs to an Executive Level Support technician and they changed me back to Salary. I said fine, and they paid me close to my current combined wages plus OT and I took it. After several years in that roll the HR dept realized how much they were breaking the law when I kept documenting my hours worked, that sometimes reached 120 hrs per week on occasion. I would total my hours on the yearly performance reviews so that it was recorded. Needless to say out of the blue they payed me out a 60K bonus and changed me back to Salery plus OT. Some times it takes the fear of getting sued to change their ways. I have had several other jobs since then and will not take an IT job that doesn't pay for my OT.
Typically, an IT degree (required by corporations for the job) costs about $50,000 (not counting the lost income for 4 years) to $80,000 (2 to 4 more years).
Corporations complain they cannot find fully trained labor, refuse to train, and then won't pay enough to cover the cost of education for the position.
One key advantage indians currently have is attending schools with lower costs (because their professors make 1/10th what a US professor does and the cost of living is 1/10th of the US).
These advantages are *very* temporary. Cost of living is screaming up in the entire world. Wages remain stagnant here but the "good stuff" keeps going up because now wealthy people from the entire world are competing for those few Aspen chalet's and California beach front properties.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Unionization just kept management from getting too far out of hand.
Well, no. Unions blocked management from altering work rules from a taylor process into a lean process until it was way too late for most American manufacturing companies. Basically, in a classic union shop, you have a certain tool guy, and that is HIS job, and no one else can do it, and he can't be made to do something else. That's what was thought was efficient in 1930, but it turned out to be terrible in 1980, when the Japanese came up with work teams and a more holistic view of assembly. Those American companies that could adopt that technique survived and prospered, and those that couldn't died. Programmers, for example, operate under a management model, in a good shop, that was essentially how the japanese make cars. So we're the beneficiaries of a new understanding of flexible labor.
That's not to say management didn't make bad decisions. They made some doozies. GM's CEO of the late 1980s and early 1990s was a total disaster. But GM, even today, was always guided more about trying to fit existing plants into a production puzzle, rather than, looking at, what do they really need.
This is my sig.
Much like Microsoft, it isn't so much that one particular set of alternate vendors from a particular nation are better but that ALL OF THEM ARE.
.. having to ape Netbios... I still wonder why Novell won't bundle Netware with Linux and open source it.
I wouldn't be so quick to say that. Linux is not better than Windows, it simply is an ok, and incomplete, alternative that is attractive because of its price and its ideology appeals to those with a leftist bent. But, from a technology perspective, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 remain on par with Linux for web development, lead, if you have Monad, even for scripting, exceeds it significantly for gaming (not from OpenGL versus DX, but for sound, joystick, etc). Linux has a better networking stack than Windows does..but I believe Vista fixed that, although some reports suggest that they broke sound to do it. Linux, gasp, has no native file sharing and network printing protocol
Visual Studio, when working in C#, remains the premier development environment on any platform. Office is better than OpenOffice... Access remains the best desktop database, and SQL Server is really only answered by Oracle, which is, incidentally, another American company.
Screw the Japanese, XBOX360 is better than PS3 and iPod is better than walkman. I'm with Bill Gates and Microsoft and Steve Jobs and Apple over Sony ALL THE WAY. You see, I used to work for RCA, and Sony kicked our Ass, and I gleefully hope for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to plant the red white and blue back into consumer electronics.
Now, that's not to say that the USA is automatically the best in IT. It's not. Europeans are damned good programmers... I used to play French games on my Atari 800, and I still remember when I first played Beast on the Amiga, with its obviously intimate knowledge of hardware, thinking, oh christ, the Germans are coming. And so they have came. They are very good, and I would more worry about the Europeans blowing us away in the low level O/S type of stuff, than I would about Indians filling out forms.
This is my sig.
Besides, being non-exempt won't get you any more face time with your kid. It just means he'll have a nicer video game console and more games that you give him when you feel guilty about your absentee parenting.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
50 grand now is probably worth about 30 grand 20 years ago.
Not necessarily. The period from the 1980s through 2000 was called the "Commodities Depression", where, in real dollars, all the prices of all the commodities fell dramatically over time. Right now, obviously, things are a bit different, with rising world demand driving all the basics higher.
But, even today, real interest rates are actually lower.. back in 1980, specifically, inflation and interest rates were in double digits. Although, right now, there's some bad fundamentals... the USA seemed to think it could have a trade policy where it could buy everything the world makes, and well, it can't. So, we have a mountain of debt we have to deal with.
This is my sig.
Dear $manager-
Please accept my two-week notice of resignation dated $today. My last day at the firm will be $today+14.
I also want to thank you for the opportunity to work at $company, and I wish both you and the firm much success in the future.
Sincerely,
maz2331
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Is that, its important to note that Americans are actually manufacturing more than they ever have in their national history. It's just that, with the acceptance and refinement of more Japanese management methods, coupled with automation and customer driven product development, there's not as much of a need for workers.
The one thing that sucks, though, in the country, is the lack of work for low skilled workers getting decent jobs. Sure, it may be more efficient to send that work overseas to China, but, it also removes a leg in the ladder from poverty to the middle class and is ultimately what's helping to drive the growing gap between rich and poor and also shrink the middle class.
You see, Henry Ford got his start on a factory floor, and today's young Henry Ford, would have no job at all.
This is my sig.
I work for the Australian federal government as a Oracle DBA, on about Aus$60k pre-tax. 40 hour weeks and I get paid overtime for coming in to work out side business hours. Also get 4 weeks paid rec leave and 4 weeks sick leave per year.
I know that I could get probably double the pay if I was a contractor or in a private company, but i'd be trading a lot of benefits for that money. But my heart is not in IT, so while I am competent at what I do, I dont shine compared to others in my team, except when doing diagrams of infrastructure/computers systems. I'm trying to figure out how to transition to a career as an artist because I love creating pictures.
The funny/amusing thing is there are many IT jobs going in Australia both at the federal level and state level, plus I've heard that New Zealand HR firms look here to poach skill people to work there.
Whilst the conditions of employment are good where I work, there have been moves/changes being implemented by the current government to reduce employement conditions in trade-offs for increasing pay at similar rates to the national inflation. If we get a change of government with the next impending election things might swing back the other way.
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
"As a PART of my job, I maintain a set of (Windows) servers that process approximately $25 trillion/year worth of payroll transactions for over a million individuals..."
Jeez, Who do you work for dude? Gross Domestic Product of the United States of America is barely half that amount ($13.2 trillion in 2006). $25 trillion / 1 million employees is $25 million a year average salary! Wow. Where do I send my resume?
Amen to that.
I own a business and I can testify to that condition. When I hit a revenue limitation, sometimes there simply is no way to jump to the next level without everybody sacrificing something. Although I forced my employees to work harder, I had also cut my own salary.. hard. Just to impress how large I cut my own compensation, my employees often nudged me to buy a better cellphone because at that time their cellphones were more expensive than mine. (At that time, I sold my old cellphone and bought used Ericsson T39M for around US$25).
But did all of my employees accept my reasonable demand to sacrifice by working harder? Nooo! There were some who declined to work harder and make many fusses about it. Of course once everything had settled down, I know to whom I give better compensations.
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
I currently make just under 30 in DFW, if not for side work, we wouldn't make it. Your advice would be well taken by many here, I am sure, just remember not everyone *can* live under their means if their means are small and their needs are great (I could live very comfortably as a bachelor on 30,000 but not with kids). Yes, a wife and kids were my choice, but I shouldn't have to chose between a family and the ability to have a decent job.
What the hell are you doing for a living making so little money? I've been there, dropped out of college and worked at burger king for a bit. Did security for a bit and my salaray at my first tech job was under 30k.
Your in a rare situation though. All the people I know making under 30k at your age lack a proper command of the English language. Unless DFW (Dallas Fort Worth?) is really that depressed, I don't see you not being able to eventually find better employment than what you have now. Regardless, your kids will reach school age and your wife will be able to work part time.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Learn and be very proficient in one (or more) esoteric skill(s), even if the demand for it is very low.
Amen to that. I was laid off in '02 with just such a skillset. Was hired by a larger firm 12 weeks later. This was at the peak of the tech worker bust.
Now I'm pretty much the only person who can help with our current project which involves my skillset quite heavily. I figure I'm good for about 3 more years minimum here, and then I start getting ready.
But the bottom line is to never, ever become complacent. If they decided to can me tomorrow, I would still be able to get work somewhere.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
I had previously worked as a WAN admin/Security for a international software company. All of the "upper" IT staff carried mobile phones (ie. expected to be on call 24/7). We all worked 50-60 hours/week minimum and often came in on the weekends. This was a few years ago when the job market was down. I got so frustrated coming in at 4am and not being compensated (not even lieu time). I decided that if someone was going to call me at 4am it should be for a damn good reason. Since making a horizontal move is difficult when the job market is down, I did what seemed to be the only sensible thing and decided to change careers completely. I am almost finished medical school now. My life is currently a financial mess and it has been a massive effort. However, when I think about how stagnant things would have been if I had stayed in my previous work environment I have no regrets. I read a few of the comments regarding this story. Many people mentioned that you have to stand up for yourself, change jobs etc when being used by your company. However if you have less than 3 years under your belt, quitting and finding another job in a fair company is difficult. Another individual implied that successful companies don't have dead weight executives. I would totally disagree. Where I used to work there were several people on the corporate welfare package. (Essentially sitting on their butts all day and getting a six figure salary). Working in such an environment is frustrating. There are a lot of decent companies that treat their employees fairly and in times of need even more will provide good conditions in order to recruit talent. However for every honest and fair employer how many poor ones are there out there? That is why there are people pushing for this law. Technology was supposed to make it easier for people to live. It was supposed to give us more free time. It is somewhat ironic that those of us who build and support this infrastructure are not living with that lifestyle at all. The culture of corporate America has changed other fields outside IT as well. Perhaps I have a different perspective since I think that time becomes a more important commodity as you get older.
I went to your homepage. I hope you don't have aspirations of making a living as a professional photographer unless you plan on getting a job with Getty, or photographing weddings. Stock is destroying your industry. Although, you can make easy side money with a stock agency.
I'm sorry, I know a professional photographer pushing 50 in NYC. He says no ones making money any more.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Even contracting through an agency can be enough to live very well. My wife only works part time doing pet sitting and occupies most of the rest of her time doing volunteer work for a parrot rescue organization while I do contract work for the larger banks in the Charlotte area. We have cable, a mortgage, a car payment, and other bills and still go out to eat at least once a week. Sure my agency gets a cut but that also makes sure they work hard to keep me employed. I'm only on my second gig after two years here and both gigs were only supposed to be short term (three months or less). I keep getting extended because the managers find that my versatility and broad experience lets them keep me on to move from project to project as they come up. For the most part I work a 40 hour week and when there is OT (rarely) I get time and a half. No on call rotations, no weekends, no middle of the night phone calls, and no real responsibility stresses. The only down side I've seen so far is that if I want to take a vacation, I don't get paid.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Yeah, photography is a different animal now that everything is digital.
:)
I did the wedding scene very briefly, I'd rather shoot just for fun (although once and a while someone will talk me into doing a shoot for them or want to buy a print or two - the occasional 'surprise money' is nice). Trying to shoot pro would be among the best ways for my family to actually be less poor than we are now
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
look at the executives of the companies and see them getting paid BIG bucks - way more than they probably should.
Who's to say?
And see them stealing peoples money (Enron, Worldcom etc...) and bascially getting away with it.
Actually, they went to jail.
How many executives are doing it and NOT getting caught? Probably A lot more than you think!
Actually, probably not. They're rich, why risk it?
You have the RIAA/MPAA stealing from "artists" and US the people who actually buy their crap!
I don't believe offering contracts to 'nobody' artists who think they have a shot at making a name for themselves is 'stealing'. Both sides weigh their options. Most of the legendary bands started out not owning their own songs--they had to give them to the record companies in exchange for their investment.
The big rich executives get paid WAY too much steal from others and it's ok.
Oh so now 'a lot' has turned into basically 'all'... now 'they steal'. Alright then.
Again, who's to say they get paid too much? Executives have to have connections and friends in high places. Stockholders can't just 'buy' that unless it comes in the form of a person. They pay the CEO figure head to keep their company politically and socially connected, which is probably worth more than what they're paid.
Companies would rather outsource to some other country whos workers are willing to work for dimes on the dollar than to pay people decently.
Define 'decent' wages in the global sense. If you're not an idiot, you'll say "impossible"
To me let those ******* companies move their business overseas, take the jobs with them and then let the rest of the U.S. QUIT using their products and services.
You boycott every product with a foreign manufacturer. Try it.
If the cost of living in the U.S. wasn't so high I bet people wouldn't need such higher salaries. What is the cost of living in India? A LOT lower than it is here, hence they can get away with needing less pay.
Yeah, higher standard of living = higher cost of living. They also have maybe a tenth the per capita government we do and no labor laws and NO FREAKIN LAWYERS like in the TFA.
It sucks to live in India. That's why it costs nothing.
Corporations don't get this AT ALL. If they would help bring the cost of living DOWN in the U.S.
Ever heard of Wal*Mart?
how can we compete in a "GLobal Economy" if everywhere companies are sending jobs has far lower costs of living than we do.
By owning and managing the companies that do those jobs. Oh, and by inventing the products they're peddling/building.
But I think corporate EXECUTIVES need to get a pay cut! NO! they would rather "lay off" hundreds or thousands of employees just so they can keep their cushy job, getting paid millions of dollars and getting millions of dollars in stock options.
What percentage of a company's money actually goes to executives? Do you even know?
Companies with corrupt executives usually go down, or the stockholders boot them out. It's actually a hell of a lot more democratic than our government is.
If anything Engineers and scientist should be making more than MBA exeuctives!
Most engineers are a dime a dozen too... In India.
If you don't like it, get an MBA yourself. What's keeping you?
by stealing your time, the solution is to let him fuck you as hard as he wants?
Oh, that's what those "antiquated" and "outmoded" unions made progress on. If it wasn't for the labour movement, we'd still be working in sweatshops for scrip redeemable at the company store.
...is invariably gonna lead to a culture of workaholics.
Wait a minute..did the article say IT workers? Heck then it makes no diff coz they're already workaholics. Barring a few like me, though.
Actually, at the engineering company I last worked at, there was an employee in software testing who DID stand all day. He had no chair in his cubicle, and you would often find him wandering around the office holding some random hardware, fiddling with it. I see the parent as far more informative than funny.
Lukstr
You're pretty darn ignorant about what "blue collar" folks actually do.
I could point you to more than a couple "blue collar" instrument mechanics who are probably better coders than you are.
It's been a long time.
Missing the point... in order for that to happen peoples retirement funds which are tied up in stocks would have to stagnate which means the fund goes under, or they pull the money out and the company becomes worth nothing.
Mean while we have outrageous home loans because people feel they are entitled to make money off their house in a very short period of time, and if they don't will sell driving prices down and/or not vote for the politicians who want to keep their careers (note this, important, the career politician is a BAD thing as far as all this is concerned) and so people keep doing things to drive home prices up, again to make money.
Those executives get paid by stock holders more or less who are the cause of problem #1, and also #2. The fact people expect to not have to save and instead "invest" a smaller amount and that doing so entitles them to make wads of cash off it is silly. Companies are expected to be worth billions within a year instead of building up over decades as they used to. Everyone wants a Google with $550 stock price after five years.
Mean while these same people pay 1/4 their income in interest to the banks via credit cards, home loans, car loans etc because they couldn't wait another year to buy that big screen TV or buy the house with wood countertops instead of granite. Another large portion goes to pay off the governments debt (100% of your federal income tax in the US goes to pay interest in debt, not provide service).
A debt based economy is doomed to implode if people stop spending for even a week.
After Sept 11th what did the government ask people to do? Serve in the military? Volunteer in their community? No... keep spending. That should tell you something.
Sorry, but stop trying to force your ideas of what a work week should be on me. I've worked for some of the best paying companies in the bay area -- companies that provide incredible benefits. I can come in whenever I want and leave whenever I want. All anyone really cares about is that I get my work done on time. Making employees punch time clocks just results in all of us being stuck working 9-5, slaves to some magical goal that simply CAN'T exist in an industry like this. We have deadlines, not quotas. Yes, some weeks I put in 50 or 60 hours. Other weeks I put in less than 30. I'm not terribly concerned about the extra time I occasionally put in because I know I've got plenty of leeway when I need more time off later; aside from that, I actually enjoy what I do for a living. Everyone who thinks overtime is a good idea for this industry has no idea what they're really asking for. They think they'll just be earning more money, but in reality they'll be further reducing themselves to hourly factory slaves with no real ability to advance or do anything meaningful with their careers.
Oh, I did one better and simply incorporated a new company. I now have a patent app pending in an unrelated field, kept my historical clients (as I have stated in other posts: never ever under any circumstances even consider thinking about signing NDAs) and...
The former employer is a client. They need my skill set, and it works out well for both of us.
The beauty of at-will jobs is that one phone call and it was over. Final straw was the second time in 2 weeks I had to pull a 24-hour day, and then got complaints about timeliness. Kept it friendly, but still left. They are a client of mine now and things work out better for both of us.
> "show me an IT guy consistently working more than 40-42 hours a week and I'll show you an incompetent boob that needs to be flipping burgers."
I'll show you a guy who used to have an assistant, but he was fired to cut costs leaving only this guy to do two people's work.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Badly defined mission statements are a nice way to extract work without pay, yes, especially from middle management and creative types. Everyone should be paid based on the value they create - but of course for some "knowledge workers" the value gets so big so fast that business owners prefer to go with "targets" and "bonuses" and other such types of bull instead of paying fair wages. Getting hired by the job is the smart thing to do when you're faced with such practices but you have some leverage - as top-shelf execs and a few other types of highly-specialized pros have found out. Even when you're in such a position, compensation is still a matter of time/effort invested vs returns.
As for salesmen... don't get me started. Really.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Another reason to not be a conservative...
I said work harder, not work longer. While still within the agreed working hours, it is my right to tighten the working hours. Less short break and less conversation while still within working hours.
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
You have several good options for health insurance which include, but are not limited to:
The biggest problem with getting health insurance on your own is that there are so many choices and so many variables that it is difficult to evaluate them all.
I haven't had a "job" in years, but I had zero difficulty finding health coverage that meets my family's needs. And that is with my wife having an expensive, chronic, and incurable health problem.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Sorry, that $25 trillion was a typo, it should've been $75 trillion. Payroll transactions aren't limited to simply depositing money into person's bank account. There's paying taxes, health care, managing retirement/401k plans, etc. Monies are counted multiple times for multiple transactions, but that doesn't diminish the value of each transaction.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
I'll show you a guy who used to have an assistant, but he was fired to cut costs leaving only this guy to do two people's work.
An IT guy that needs an assistant would be the same thing as one that works too many hours. Beyond that, how would they be doing two people's work? If there was actually enough work that it required 80 man-hours to do, either management wouldn't have fired the assistant or they made a mistake. If they didn't make a mistake, then that person is now just doing one person's work, they've just been used to slacking off half the time. If the manager made a mistake, it's their mistake to live with. I only work 40 hours, if I can't get the workload done in that time, it doesn't get done. I only get a certain number of hours to live, and I charge for that time appropriately. If I have to work more hours, I get paid more...a LOT more. Just because a manager screwed up is not my concern. Did the remaining fellow make it clear to management that if they fired the assistant a lot of work would go undone? If not, then the mistake wasn't management's, it was the fellow with the assistant not providing them with enough information to make a proper decision.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
For disability, check out IEEE's association disability policy. Individual disability policies are insultingly expensive, but they are probably worth checking out as well (better coverage, but man do you ever pay for it).
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
All I can say is, "Wow." I would have expected better from a country whose financial systems are the envy of the entire world. Yikes.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Guess what happens to employees who can complete all their tasks in 35 hours per week.
:)
/me imagines getting paid by productivity instead of time
They spend part of the remaining 5 hours making fun of people on Slashdot who work more than that?
They get more work to do.
No, they don't. They make it clear to their managers when it comes time to dole out projects that their plate is full. They don't take a project that requires 35 hours/week when they've already got that much in projects. And, if it turns out their involvement is much higher once the full requirements/details of the project have been unconvered, they go back to their manager and work out a solution. Of course, a good manager has already assigned more than one resource from her team to ensure the information that comes out of the projects doesn't get siloed, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Makes contracting look pretty tempting.
I think you're confused. First of all, contracting's not tempting. If you think you're being screwed as an employee, you have no idea what you're in for as a contractor. And, as for being paid for productivity instead of time, that's the exact opposite of the definition of a contractor. Contractors are typically the lowest form of IT person: they're the people that know how to double-click on setup.exe and install stuff, but not what to do when things go wrong.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
Here's an old piece of business advice: spend your time doing whatever makes you money. The corollary to that is: outsource every task that does not make you money. Does filing tax forms and reports and whatnot make you money? No, it does not, so don't do it. Pay some bean counter to count the beans. In addition, most employer companies will not contract directly, Well, that's somewhat true. The history on that is that employers are sick of getting burned by fly-by-night freelancers. They want to work with a company that they trust to properly vet their candidates. After they know you, they will generally be willing to work with you directly in the future.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Whatever your core competency is (what yer sellin'), do that. Everything else, you outsource.
I am not a lawyer. I am not an accountant. When I need one, however, I call one.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
A lot of the time management just get rid of people to save money. It is a mistake, but they expect the remaining people to pick up the slack anyway. It happens all the time in the UK. The management just blame the staff, push them harder. Of course we get paid overtime so it tends to be pressure/stress rather than overtime, but that's generally the way it works.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I think the law firm should fight against wage slavery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
Slashdot = Sarcasm
I fully understand that. But, two problems: 1) any company that needs to lay off workers is a poorly run company that has no idea where their real problems and hemmorrages are 2) So what? It's my responsibility to let management know when they do something like this that something's going to give. It's either things aren't going to get done, or they're going to get done late. The thing that gives will NOT be MY free time. If it means I end up unemployed, so be it...I've lived on Ramen (pot noodles to you :) for months at a time before, I can do it again. My expectant wife fully appreciates my position, too, which helps. :)
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
I wouldn't argue with 1 but 2 is not an option for a lot of people. If you can afford to be laid off, somehow survive off Japanese instant food and not upset your wife you are a lucky man. So do they make ramen flavoured babyfood?
BTW I don't do overtime either, at least not unless it's on tripple time. Then again I don't have a mortgage around my neck, or a family to look after.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
While I didn't speak to that specifically, I did talk about not wanting my job to be commoditized. When that's the case (a particular type of job becomes a commodity), then yes, a power imbalance can develop. If we're talking white-collar IT jobs (decent salary, knowledgeable workers required), then it's very difficult for that type of imbalance to develop. There have been attempts to push us there (ala H1-B hokey-pokey), but unless the level of professional skill and talent required to be an effective programmer/analyst/technician goes down for some reason, white collar IT is not in the same situation as other job fields that have unionized.
I just don't see how a union or regulation would improve things for me, or make it possible for me to be better compensated than I can do for myself.
Collective bargaining tends to improve things for employees who have limited options or few skills that they can use as leverage in salary negotiations, but that ain't me, and I don't think that's the situation of most white-collar IT workers.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
He must mean billion. I think the UK calls billions trillions or something.
Of programmers, Thierman says, "Yes, they get to pick whatever code they want to write, but they don't tell you what the program does ... All they do is implement someone else's desires.'"
Of surgeons, I say, "All they do is implement some else's desires." Overtime for surgeons!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
'You can always quit, you know' is a b.s. and cop out answer. No, most people can't just quit. Especially not if you have a family that depends on you. 'Sorry kids, we can not have lunch today, because dad couldn't stand work anymore.'
.. if you work someone 60 hours a week, IE. not changing their time in the office one bit, you are almost doubling the salary annually. If someone earns 70k a year for a 40 hour week, and you have to pay them time and 1/2 for 20 hours a week, you are paying them an additional 52k a year. so your paying 3/4 the cost of an additional employee, but only getting 1/2 the hours.
.. your back to 40 hours a week, with 3 extra folks in your dept to pick up the slack, and yeah .. you get to see your kids again. [Or your salary doubles overnight .. and things stay the same, but your kid's college education is payed off by the time they are 6.]
.. AFTER they leave .. you must have done something right :P
Actually, I'm going to have to correct you on this. Being non-exempt WOULD give you more face time with your kids. When your employer has to pay you overtime, IE: anything *OVER* 40 hours a week, they have to pay you your hourly rate + 50%. So
Effectively, you are nearly doubling your salary expenses for your business. If the majority of a day's overtime occur after 11:00pm, they are forced to pay 2X the employees hourly rate for *ALL* overtime that day. So, lets say you work 2 hours at the office, then get a 2:10 phone call that lasts for two hours and five mins. thats all at 2X rate.
They only thing an employer might save on is duplication on health insurance benefits. Otherwise, they are effectively paying a full employees salary to someone, and getting 1/2 the hours of of them. [20 hours overtime instead of 40 hours normal]
So, long story, as soon as accounting figures that out
The funny thing is, I never picked up on this when I was a slave to the keyboard. It wasn't until I moved to management that it all became apparent. Its basic, basic math. And thats before you factor in that people who don't work 20 hours overtime a week are generally better motivated, happier, and hate coming to work less. So they are on average, more productive.
In management, of course, i'm exempt again - but I get to hold my own hours, and my job is judged on my achievements, not by my hours. I try to keep my guys on a 40 hour schedule, so they don't burn out. If there is a crunch and they stay more, I try to let them off early when its NOT crunch and they are caught up. As an example of how well that works, just last week, I had a guy who left for a better paying job, send me a [gift], thanking me and the other management staff for not only teaching him a boat load of stuff, but for being good folks to work for. [He learned more here in a year straight out of college, than most of the kids he graduated with will learn over the next three years.]
When your x-employees send you gifts
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I see the parent as far more informative than funny.
So do I, and obviously some more as there is height-adjustable furniture.
Besides, I find Tai Chi very helpful.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
'You can always quit, you know' is a b.s. and cop out answer.
You know what? You're wrong. Not only is that answer not a cop out, it is an essential part of a free-market society. You need to provide feedback to the system; if you don't, then you are screwing up the labor market.
most people can't just quit. Especially not if you have a family that depends on you.
A situation such as this is the result of poor financial planning. I think that this is the biggest failing of US secondary education--that no personal finance courses are required or even available. If you don't have 6 months' living expenses in a liquid account somewhere, what is your plan for an involuntary job separation?
This isn't the 60s anymore. The days of lifetime employment at a single firm were over decades ago. You must plan for this! It is not optional.
Actually, I'm going to have to correct you on this. Being non-exempt WOULD give you more face time with your kids.
Wake me when you own your own business. Until then, don't try to "correct" me on how employers behave.
I'm going to tell you why you're wrong from two different angles. Finance and economics. Depending on your background, at least one ought to resonate.
First, the financial:
They only thing an employer might save on is duplication on health insurance benefits.
First, substitute "might" with "will". Secondly, realize that the savings you are so quick to trivialize amounts to over $10,000.00 per year.
But that isn't even the half of it. Off the top of my head, here are the expenses companies incur with hiring a new white-collar employee:
Weigh all of those expenses against "just asking one of your current employees to 'get it done', even if it means a little overtime," starts to sound awfully appealing, no?
This does not yet even factor in the "Mythical Man Month" effect. Just because one person can complete a job in X hours doesn't mean that two people can complete the same job in X/2 hours. The classic illustration: Can 9 women make a baby in 1 month? Of course not. Can 30 developers do the work of 15 in half the time? Well, what has your experience taught you? Mine has taught me, "nofsckin'way".
So, long story, as soon as accounting figures that out .. your[sic] back to 40 hours a week, with 3 extra folks in your dept to pick up the slack
Well, I think we've already debunked that math, but let's debunk it even further.
Employers are not stupid. Let's say I was to convert my employees from exempt to non-exempt hourly (this is a little bit of an academic exercise, since all of my employees already are non-exempt hourly, but let's stick with it). Am I going to take an employee who earns $50k/yr, divide by 2000 hours (typical work year), and set his hourly wages at $25/hr? Even if I know that that employee works a fair amount of overtime? Hah hah. No. Nice try.
Instead, what I'm goi
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
A situation such as this is the result of poor financial planning. I think that this is the biggest failing of US secondary education--that no personal finance courses are required or even available. If you don't have 6 months' living expenses in a liquid account somewhere, what is your plan for an involuntary job separation?
.. So .. let me 'wake you' now. My first business I started at 20 years of age, and sold it .. at a significant profit after two years. I actually financed the sale to the buyers myself, for additional profit. I am in the process of selling the second business now (just waiting on the lawyers), its currently valuation is at roughly $3000000 - and the purchasing company has already obtained VC funding for growth based on the development of the company.
.. ignoring computers, have you ever hung drywall for 14 hours straight ? Hows that last sheet look compared to the first one ? just as perfect ? I doubt it. People
Wake me when you own your own business. Until then, don't try to "correct" me on how employers behave.
I certainly have more than 6 months cash on hand, I think you are confusing the issue. I am not saying *I* need to do this, I am saying most employees do not live this way. I can identify, because I have a child. Kids are expensive. Something I don't see you mention. You see, what you fail to notice is that a two year old doesn't *WANT* a new video game console, they want mom or dad to hug them. What your also forgetting is that the highest factor of work related stress is actually stress from the home - significantly - not being there enough.
What I will go so far to say is that employers, like myself, and yourself - know that most people live like this, and take advantage of it. Employers LOVE the idiots that live from paycheck to paycheck, because they can never quit. What you also forget, is that if a person never earns a high enough income, they will live like this for decades. Not everyone HAS the option of having six months cash on hand. I know people making over $130k-$150k a year who certainly do not. [of course, law school and medical school are quite expensive.] So yes, i give you the point that people should live like this. Although, I will counter that point with the idea that if you actually keep six months of living expenses liquid, then your dumb with your money - better to have it in short term investments that you can borrow against, than to have it sit there NOT working for you. Cash in hand is a suckers game with the interest rates over the last four years.
Now, for some reason, you seem to want to direct these questions at me personally, so let me respond.
I am moving on to my *THIRD* business
What your missing in your 'plumbing' example above is economy of scale. Yeah, when you have three guys working for you, its a lot easier to ask one to work a little more. What you are also forgetting is things like office furniture, computers etc. are considered assets of the company, and depreciate annually. Asset depreciation can be directly deducted from the bottom line. Additionally, assets don't get sick - or get fired (although they sometimes break I suppose - but then they become a write off.) Also, it sounds like your talking about two to three extra hours a week, not the average 10-20 that your typical IT worker does. No one is going to complain about a little extra money a few hours a week, but have them do that extra 80 hours a month, for free, for six or nine months and see how they feel about it.
So what's the point? The point is, when an hourly employee works hour #1, he's making his employer money. When he works hour #40, he's still making his employer money. Assuming that the employer is behaving rationally, the same will hold true for hour #50, and hour #60.
This leads into a continuation of my last sentence. And your reasoning is flawed. Have you ever sat in front of a computer and programmed for 14 hours straight ? Or
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I can identify, because I have a child. Kids are expensive. Something I don't see you mention.
Don't tell me about expensive kids you have more than one kid, and in private school. College is cheap.
You see, what you fail to notice is that a two year old doesn't *WANT* a new video game console
No, you just didn't get my drift. Of course a two year old (and older children, though they won't dare admit it) want to be with you more than they want a new video game. That was exactly my original point: for workers who are now salaried, they are not going to be working any less if they go hourly. They'll just potentially earn more money, which they will spend on their kids out of guilt for absentee parenting.
What I will go so far to say is that employers, like myself, and yourself - know that most people live like this, and take advantage of it.
I think that you are attributing an awful lot of malice to me, and to employees in general. When I set my compensation, I do so based on the labor market. I do not think, "Heh. Joe. I can treat him like dirt because I know he doesn't have 6 months' expenses in the bank." Employers do whatever the labor market tells us to do.
Not everyone HAS the option of having six months cash on hand. I know people making over $130k-$150k a year who certainly do not.
Not everyone has the "option"? It's not an option, it's a requirement. It's just something you do--like wiping your ass. I suppose wiping your ass is technically optional (no one is holding a gun to your head), but just like having 6 months' expenses saved up, it's something you really have to do.
And what about people making $150k/yr? Why do you say that those people "certainly do not"? I said 6 months' expenses, not income. I don't have 6 months of my income in a liquid account, either. That would be stupid, since I make more than I spend. But you can be damn sure that I have 6 months of expenses in an FDIC-insured account, just waiting for an emergency to happen.
Although, I will counter that point with the idea that if you actually keep six months of living expenses liquid, then your dumb with your money - better to have it in short term investments that you can borrow against
And what would these short-term investments be? How safe are they? What is their rate of return?
My liquid savings is an an FDIC-insured money market account earning a 5.2% APY (Capital One/Costco MMA). Use that as a point of reference. For you, what happens if the economy takes a nosedive, your employer has to lay you off because of the economy, but the value of your "short-term investments" takes a nosedive as well due to said economic downturn? What are you going to borrow against now? How will you make your payments on this new debt?
Now, for some reason, you seem to want to direct these questions at me personally, so let me respond.
I was using "you" more in the general sense, but whatever.
What you are also forgetting is things like office furniture, computers etc. are considered assets of the company, and depreciate annually.
Who cares? Those were 3 of the 20-some-odd additional expenses that I named that you conveniently ignore. Plus, what comfort is a depreciation to me when I have to spend from my current cashflow just to depreciate an asset?
I don't know what business you're in, but in my businesses, we go to great pains NOT to depreciate assets. We rent. We take advantage of deductions for trucks and computer equipment.
And anyway, that depreciation/deduction point is totally moot. Why? You're weighing depreciating assets against employee compensation, which is, of course, a deduction. So your expense on depreciable assets vs. overtime wages, from a tax perspective, actually advantageous to paying the additional wages, since you don't have to depreciate wages over years.
But more impor
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
After 12 seconds of sleuthing, my best guess is that you are talking about Switzerland.
:P
/rant
All I can say is, "Wow." I would have expected better from a country whose financial systems are the envy of the entire world. Yikes.
You're good... Switzerland it is. How did you know? Not for long though, leaving in 2 months (after 11 years here...) and moving to Canada. And my fiancée is a labour lawyer, this time I should be safe from fine print
The Swiss system is heavily geared towards high incomes whilst the shrinking middle and lower classes get hit the hardest by tax, medical insurance premiums (all private AND mandatory) and contempt. Gains on capital (stock, etc.) aren't taxed, making it very attractive to big financial investors, adding to the legendary bank secrecy (assets in Swiss banks can't really get seized easily, let alone investigated). As beautiful as it is (I'll miss the landscape for sure), the atmosphere isn't really friendly to people who, like me, aren't rich or even interested in profit. And I'm not even talking about the stupid, xenophobic/racist/intolerant/downright nazi-like stance of the present political landscape.
As to be an indie here, it can perfectly be done... given you hire a lawyer to read and write everything, from insurance contracts to the spelling of your invoices (which should be handled by a separate company if you wanna cover your ass). Tax deductions aplenty, lots of high-income ppl ready to pay $140/hour minimum for whatever they want. Bring your car to get fixed and it's easily over $100/hour for labour. You're an IT specialist with lots of certifications? Get a contract with a local public administration, the UN or some bigass company and charge them $250/hour minimum. At $100/hour you'll live OK, given you work a lot and don't take too many holidays and don't try to buy a house (only 30% of the Swiss own their homes), which is reserved to the elite (gotta make at leat $15K/month to afford anything here, a tiny 2-rooms (kitchen included) apt cost about $1 million.
If you're not Swiss and have a lot of money... there's some Swiss states that will be happy to charge you a minimal flat-rate tax in exchange of a residence permit. A Swiss citizen earning the same amount would get taxed regularly though... nice, eh?
Switzerland is a country which would have morally gained from having its collective arse kicked during WW2, it would have forced the Swiss to go through a collective consciousness self-examination ; they'd perhaps not tolerate certain public opinions (if you know Switzerland, you know who/what I'm talking about) and inequities. Despite the recent historical reports clearly demonstrating how this country enriched itself actively collaborating with the Third Reich (they delivered ammo and weapons to the nazi until april of 1945!), the very same rhetoric is being used today as an election platform by the majority party, it makes me puke.
opps
Cheers
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Wow. I didn't know there were so many people getting paid $25M a year. I think maybe you meant $25 billion a year, not trillion. :)
No, I meant trillion, and I actually meant $75 trillion. See the other post. Wow, does everyone feel the need to prove my point for me?
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
Without the 2nd Amendment, the others are just suggestions.