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Annual IT Salary Survey Finds Dissatisfaction
BobB writes "A storm seems to be brewing in the IT job market. Pay raises have continued to outpace inflation, and bonuses are downright impressive — 11.6% on average. Yet, as the 2007 Network World Salary Survey finds, dissatisfaction over salary packages is rampant."
They're really stinking up the place.
Is there anyone who is truly satisfied with his salary? Would you want his job?
Get the head hunters to contact IT geeks every 6 to 8 months and offer absolutely plumb jobs. When you get em on the phone, "refresh their job details" and then tell them that plumb job is gone, but you'll keep an eye out for them.. just what salary range are you looking for? Oh, well, with your skills you should be getting paid a lot more than that.. etc.
How we know is more important than what we know.
When i first commenced full time work i was making $300aud/week and i was able to live off that.
I now make $1200+ a week, and it's barely enough a reasonable cost of living, yet offical inflation is only a few %.
The other blindingly obvious problem with IT is it's a thankless job.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I blame it in part on your (USA) housing bubble. Wait 2-3 years for the housing market to drop 50% and you should all be very happy! (Assuming you didn't first go bankrupt on your ARM sub-prime mortgage! heh)
/Yr. Don't worry, our bubble will also be popping soon... then maybe we can all go down to Cuba an cry over our losses with cheap Tequilas & Cubans (cigars) in hand.
Up here in Canada, you're lucky to get 4% raise/Yr in IT. Wages in general have been quite stagnent in the past 3 or 4 years (except Alberta Oil cities), yet our housing prices are climbing in mutliple urban cities at double digit percentage rates
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
What amazes me is the difference between average IT salaries in Europe and the US. Here in Europe, an average 30-year-old IT worker could expect to be making about 3000 euros before taxes every month (i.e. 36,000 a year). Reading that article, I gather the average US IT salary is about $80,000, which is about 56,000.
Can anybody explain this huge difference? Is the cost of living in the US just so much higher than in Europe? Or does IT just pay a lot more in the US?
Coca-Cola, sometimes War.
I mean, who is going to answer yes?
Oh yeah, and I forgot to add that inflation calculations don't take into account the following:
:-/
1) Rising Energy costs (i.e. Oil @ $84 anyone?)
2) Higher Energy costs increase costs of most consumer goods due to higher cost to transport them
3) War in Afghanistan & Iraq costs a few billion per month that you pay through taxes
4) US dollar deflating for the past year against just about every other currency by 20%+
5) Crazy Tuition fees in your Universities
6) Even more insane Health Care costs
Time to buy Gold people, cuz your economy is going down the tube.
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
Are you sure about that? Here in Finland inflation calculations take into account the price of energy (oil, fuel, electricity ect), living (rents an house prices), food, electronics ect. Everything is given a certain weight in the calculation, and the details should be available to anyone who is interested.
Not the CPI? Perhaps the RPI? Or maybe it should be the money supply figures... which oops aren't being published in the USA any more (wonder why).
Deleted
What !
When did this happen ?
That's not funny !!!!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 2002, and have had awful trouble finding a well paid job. Most of the jobs advertised were web development, which were always badly paid (my first job out of university paid barely above minimum wage). These jobs usually ended before 6 months, once I'd completed a couple of projects for them and before they would be legally required to give me redundancy pay.
There were a couple of good job openings (I was once approached by a recruitment agency to apply for a job with Google in Dublin) but of course seeing as I was not the only desperate compsci grad in the West Midlands competition for them was pretty fierce and I didn't get them.
I was trapped in web development, but I was pretty good at it. I constantly taught myself new technologies as I developed sites, worked on projects in my spare time to expand my skills, and had a good eye for front end design from a job I had in the print industry. Despite this I was never paid more than £12k a year for web development. My current job is pays £14k, doing office admin work for the police, and that is the most I've ever been paid for anything.
Then it seemed to be looking up. I'd gone for a support job at a large US company, and at the interview they had been so impressed with my aptitude scores and my general IT knowledge they recommended me for a better paying job (£20k) with their programming department. Sadly, I fell foul of their Gestapo-like HR department, who decided not to give me the job because, during one of the interviews over the phone to a woman in Texas, I didn't sound 'positive enough'. I'm not sure how positive a man from Yorkshire is supposed to sound to a Texan over a transatlantic phone line, but there you go.
This is why I'm now starting a Physics degree. Fuck the IT industry, it's not worth it. I slaved away for cockle-picking money, and when my talents were finally recognised I was rejected because of some idiotic HR impression of me, rather than the evidence of my aptitude tests. Hopefully, physics is a field where people are rewarded for their knowledge and intelligence rather than whatever smarmy 'people skills' HR are after. Perhaps I'm being Naive, but it can't be much worse than being in the IT industry.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Do you know where money REALLY comes from? (no it's not the government or the mint)
What you mean by "money" is obviously different than mine. My "money" has the stamp of the location it was minted in.
Do you know what inflation REALLY is?
Eh... Inflation is where money becomes less valuable when compared to other commodities. Money is a commodity, and all commodities have relative worth based on their availability.
Do you know who benefits from inflation and who loses out?
Benefits == people who owe. Loses out == people with cash savings?
If you think you know something valuable, out with it. Don't be a pompous jackass. Free exchange of ideas, and all that.
But let me guess: Your answer involves [a] Illuminati [b] Jewish bankers [c] Fractional Reserve Banking [d] Federal Reserve conspiracies or [e] Trilatteral Commision / Council on Foreign Relations?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Actually boss, never mind that pay raise I wanted, just make my salary exactly $65535 and I'll forget about the whole thing. You are using excel 2007, right?
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
Yep.
The inflation index in the US is one of the most incredibly mucked about with numbers possible. The government has a tendency to exclude items that have high inflation (at one point milk was dropped when prices went up 10% over a few months), and they've replaced mortgage costs with "owner's equivalent rent", which seriously understates the cost of home ownership, since renting is almost always cheaper than buying.
It's pretty much an index of how much inflation the government thinks people are willing to accept at any point, and the real number is usually estimated at something like double the official one.
I wish I was getting paid any of the numbers in that article!
6 years in an ISP technical support callcenter position, with 2 or 3 raises, ended up at less than 27k/yr.
Last year and a half in a datacenter/NOC tech position at a largish dedicated hosting company, started at 26/yr now just a tad over 30k/yr.
Where do I sign up for 74k/yr?
Hahaha, let's compare this to the average Canadian who makes a little less than $500/week.
Electricity is $100/month to $150/month on average for a two bedroom appartment.
Phone is $45/month.
Gas is $1/litre.
Car insurance is $600/year to $900/year on a Honda Civic in my age range.
Rent is $900 to $1200/month depending on where you live and what the appartment looks like.
I'd say that in Finland a 30-yo programmer on the private side probably makes some 4000 euros, give or take. On the public side this could be more like 3000e. Then again, 6-7 ke can be earned by true experts. But you have to understand that after taxes: 3000e -> 2000e, 4000e -> 2500e and so forth. Then again, when you are paying your bank what you owe for your apartment, that 500e/month can make a bigger impact on the longer run than one might expect at first glance.
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne
(1) How many working hours per week is the median? Most IT jobs that I've come across only pay that well when you're working 60h+/week, or your at the top of the ladder with a fancy title.
(2) Where is this kind of compensation? $82,000 median base pay for my region (Great Lakes) seems very high for most positions. I recently received an offer for a Help Desk spot for a regional bank on a rotating shift schedule, $14/hr...$29,120an. No thanks. Except for sales, every core function of that industry has been replaced by a computer and bankers want to pay peanuts for the uptime.
As for their "Experiencing Difficulty In Hiring" rating, I'm certain if the company would offer "Fair Value - US Market Rate ($$$)" instead of "Fair Value - Global Market Rate ($)" to local candidates, i.e. Natural/Naturalized Citizens, they wouldn't have such a difficult time. Also HR 'requirements' for positions: "10+ years exp. in Java, HTML, PHP, Perl, Rails, XCode, VBStudio, JDE. Not essential, but helpful MCSE, MCSA, MCSD, CCNP, CCNA, A+. ...Insert additional marketing/HR buzzwords here... Ridiculous.
Perhaps its just me and my location, ...sigh...
...and who calls the 'Great Plains' states the 'Northwest'??
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
.... month left at the end of my salary.
Salary is similar to menstruation:
I really like my job and the people I work with but I need my salary doubled to even begin to be satisfied with it. I'm willing to give up a lot to have such a great job but I think I should still make enough to support me and my wife without my wife needing to work too. If my salary doesn't go up quite a bit in the next couple years I'll probably be forced to find another job which is really not what I want to do. The company I work for claims that wages it pays are lower than average because we are located in an area with a lower cost of living. That's great and all but I'd still like to make the median income in this state at least. Cost of living may be cheaper but that only represents around 1/4 of my monthly bills. The other bills are just as expensive as they were when I lived in California.
If I could support a family while sticking at my current job I'd probably stay for a long time. The schedule is flexible, the work is fun and just challenging enough to be interesting, there is nobody micro-managing me and I mostly manage myself, my co-workers are friendly, and upper management isn't retarded (they're intelligent, honest, and fun to be around). I'm trying to do my part to earn the company more money so that my position can pay for it's own raise in pay.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
A lot of people go to Wal-Mart, see the low prices, and think inflation is low. They forget about housing, college tuition, and healthcare, which have all been running at double-digit percentage increases annually for the past several years.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
If you work for Sun you are thankful to still have a job and constantly under the unproductive threat of layoffs while averaging a 3% raise every even year and getting layoffs instead of raises every odd year.
Yes. The US has been lying about inflation for a few years now. When the price of steak skyrocketed, for example they took it out of the equation and substituted ground beef.
Recently they took out the cost of energy because it it went up huge; their explanation was that they didn't want it to 'distort' the numbers. (despite the fact that everyone in the country still has to buy gas for their cars and heat their homes so it -should- be reflected.)
Even worse, they have a fucked up system of computing negative inflation. If you bought a single core 1ghz computer 3 years ago and it cost $1000, then today, because you could get a 2ghz quad-core for $1000, you are getting $8000 worth of value; so in the index, the cost of computers has dropped by 75% over the last couple years... despite the fact that the price hasn't really dropped... its not like that 1ghz 1core computer is sitting at walmart for $125, even if you wanted it.
Similiarly if this years model of your car has had standard side airbags, and an improved emissions control system and costs $1000 more, well again inflation is negative, even though the car costs more, becuase they factor in the new features as 'increasing its value more than its cost'; so in some warped bizarro world the cost of buying a new car is deemed to have gone down.
I agree. When you are paid what's the fair price for your skills, that's just fine. I have been happy w/my salary on many occasions, although - not at the moment. But that will change in the near future.
I think that companies often do a bad job in keeping their people paid according to their skills. Too often the salary isn't getting any better w/the same rate as your skills are. If I had a company and wanted to keep the best people, I would make sure every 6 months that they are being paid for what they're worth to not make them want to change jobs after a few years just to get to what they really should be paid for their current skills.
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne
you also do not consider a major expense in the us is health care
Nothing, unless a) you work different hours from another (one works days the other nights, even if its only part of the time)* or b) you have young children and leave them in childcare, there is nothing inherently wrong with that technically, but it isn't very nice for the parents nor the children.
*This could be a benefit as well though
The impressive bonuses and salary hikes are only enjoyed by top management and employees above VP or at least Project Manager designation. The engineers who actually slog are given peanuts. Just an aside: I once had a manager who used to ask me for the estimates and the schedule. All he used to do was put that in an Excel sheet. So why was the manager needed?
US engineers get (mostly) paid on merit and (mostly) get paid a heck of a lot more than regular old company workers with similar degrees and experience. Example: the average national starting salary for a liberal arts major working 9-5 is somewhere in the $30k range. The average starting salary for a graduate from my CS department is in the $55k range. A disproportionate number of our graduates go on to live in high, high cost areas (California, New York City), but you can still see the disparity (there are plenty of 22 year old graduates in NYC not making 55k a year or anything close to it).
So, back to Japan: my starting salary approximately $25k, with some perks that could scarcely be believed (by American standards) which probably contributed an effective $15k on top of that. That is on a low-stress 9-5 We Don't Crunch You job.
Three years later, I switched into a job at a different company, with work habits which are more typical of Japanese companies and American programmers. My pay package is now about $40k, exclusive of perks. Perks are decent but no longer jawdropping. Of note to American engineers, I get paid overtime, national health care, 100% subsidized transportation expenditures, and am statistically speaking impossible to fire. (Number of nonvoluntary separations in my company's history is about 5, we have 1,000 employees, you do the math.) $40k is adequate where I live, where the cost of living is generally comparable to a Midwestern state with Californian food and fuel prices.
Total tax burden (national income tax, local residence tax, 5% consumption tax) is in the general neighborhood of a generic US state. (For those folks unfamiliar with the US system, local and state taxes can vary drastically in the United States based on where you are. For example, Alaska doesn't charge individual income taxes at all, California's top rate is almost 10%. Sales taxes are a similar mixed bag.)
The brass ring which many of my Japanese coworkers are aiming for is a management position paying approximately $80k, which they would achieve in the 35-40 year old range. (There are, of course, numerous promotions between then and now.) That doesn't fit into my long term plans but, hey, to each their own.
I should point out that I am working at a software development house in a major Japanese city other than Tokyo. If I were working in Tokyo, as a bilingual engineer if I were inclined to work in the financial sector I could name my price. I'd also be expected to work the sort of hours that come with having a job where the top rung of the salary scale is "Let your imagination run wild a bit".
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
If you're not getting it, who is?
No idea what the US supply looks like. They decided you don't need to know that.
Deleted
I would like to know where they get these numbers from.... I am in New York and my highest paying job has been $39,000.00 to date and that is for doing desktop support. Which includes new installs, hardware/ software install, upgrades, inventory, drive imaging, movng equipment, troubleshooting, software integration, and network troubleshooting. I also have several Microsoft and CompTIA certifications... even checking monster.com for just an MCSE type job I only see 50 - 60k per year and that is with 5 - 10 years experience and a 4 year Bachelors in I.T. or Computer Science. From what I have seen on the support side of the house in terms of compensation is no where near those numbers for compensation. Even this is rediculous http://redmondmag.com/salarysurveys/ an MCDST for $57,000+ I would like to know where that job is in the U.S. .... California only ???
an MCP for $70,000.00 .... really ??? so an MCP on Windows XP should get me that ?
Can anyone please tell me where the heck they are getting this data from ?
I see this more as an indication of wide-spread management failure in the industry than of money per se.
Ironically, (unreasonably) high wage demands typically have more to do with the non-tangible compensation that a job offers than the actual amount of money employees make. That is, when people are happy with their job, when they enjoy the social contacts, when they get to work in a nice environment and, above all, when they have a sense of purpose, then they make reasonable wage demands. When the job sucks, they spend 8 hours a day thinking "I don't get paid enough for this shit." In that case, no wage will be high enough.
One of those things that management should be doing is ensuring that their employees have the intangibles to keep them happy and productive. That is something that our much derided PHBs learn to do in their MBA programs. However, I think that the IT industry is having issues in this arena because the skill set required to perform the job is so specialized that programmers who get promoted to managers never bother to acquire "managerial" skill sets (or they just don't put any value in managerial skill sets) and people who do have managerial skill sets are so wildly incompetent in IT that you would not dream of hiring them to manage coders or SAs.
just my $.02
-mat
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Maybe the salaries are raised by 11% *because of* the dissatisfaction - anyway, who can maintain a business in a long term with dissatisfied IT? ;)
No. Really!
Oil is denominated in US dollars. It means the whole world has to buy and hold USD reserves. This increases the demand for dollars more than other currencies and keeps it artificially strong. If you compare the salaries you'll see approximately where the dollar is heading if the oil link is broken.
Deleted
When the product managers and marketing people are getting 10% annual raises (closer to the real cost of living increases), it's no wonder. Most tech workers are grouped into very expensive areas, too. The fact that the median bay area home costs over $700,000 might have something to do with the dissatisfaction over salaries.
Finally it looks like some reporters are getting it! IT and Programming are two related but ultimately different jobs categories, it is bad form to lump them together.
I will continue to advise all people I meet to 1. do what ther really really love, 2. don't do anything technical like Engineering, Sci or IT!!! There is a world wide labour glut, and technical work can be performed anywhere without any local restrictions. Trades, doctors and other not easy to offshore jobs are the way to go. Everyone is a potential customer not just business and local laws, licenses etc make offshore competition harder. I think I have one of the best jobs here in Australia - but I now do more boring (paper shuffling) work than I would like. For some reason, everyone else expects IT/engineerinng people to do what they're told adn just make it work, take as little pay as possible - not like HR, law or other depts! Even though IT is the spine of many businesses now and the only reason mega corps can exist. If you don't want to be treated like that - work to change the industry perception - or do something else. Swingbyte
#include "std_employer_disclaimer.hpp" "Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast"-Ace Rimmer
Would you hire me? Am I chirpy enough for the personality-over-skills organization you run?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I came across one earlier, in one of America's largest cities, seeking an fulltime EXPERT JAVA developer for $30k-$40k depending on experience.
Yeah.. OHHkay.
Where do you get 11.6% salary increase per year? For most people here, that would mean you get every year between 300 and 800 bucks MORE. Every single year. Where does this (or anything coming remotely close to it) happen? It surely doesn't happen for me, that's something I definitly know.
And, are you hiring?
Could it MAYBE be that they're factoring in the "compensation raises" in the upper echelons, where increases of 30+ percent aren't unheard of? And that 30 percent of a 6 digit number does have quite a bit of impact on the statistic compared to the 1-2 percent (tops) on a lower end 5 digit number?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
UK != Europe either (UK is much higher than 3k euro a month)
Some basic reasons
1) Employers Tax. The US and UK don't penalize companies for employing people. The UK has a small employer tax and some US states have none. Most continental countries have a significant company tax burden for each employee.
2) Culture. The US and UK have pretty dynamic IT markets with people not remaining with one company for a long time, this means people pay more to attract talent knowing that this will help.
3) Cost of firing. The US (more than the UK, but the UK is less than the continent) has very little employee protection which means you can get rid of poor employees or during a down turn. In the continent this isn't the case so the wages are lower as employers have to employ good and crap people and have to factor in the cost of not getting rid of them.
The other thing that shouldn't be overlooked is the fact that English is the lingua franca of computing, this does tend to mean that top people from all countries move towards the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) and that everyone has to speak english thus meaning there is more international competition for jobs in the US and UK markets.
With the way that the dollar is at the moment the average UK IT salary could well be above our cousins over the pond.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slave
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Management leaves for a week, IT keeps the place running.
IT leaves for a week, the place falls apart.
I wonder why we're soo pissed off.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I couldn't disagree more. We've had some agency ringing around all the technical guys at our office recently, and the moron just won't go away despite the fact that we long ago realised he was just trying to get everyone's details and many of my colleagues have told him explicitly to **** off. His behaviour is now outright harassment, but unfortunately our legislation only lets you block nuisance calls to personal numbers, not business ones. This isn't doing the "industry" any favours at all.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"1) Rising Energy costs (i.e. Oil @ $84 anyone?)"
:-/"
Apparently high energy costs haven't destroyed Europe. They just adapted.
"3) War in Afghanistan & Iraq costs a few billion per month that you pay through taxes"
We pay "a few billion" for a great many things that you don't hear about here.
"5) Crazy Tuition fees in your Universities"
There are alternatives to the mainstream universities.
"6) Even more insane Health Care costs"
That's why it's todays topic for discussion. IMHO I think there will be a solution but it's going to be painful for everyone.
"4) US dollar deflating for the past year against just about every other currency by 20%+"
and
"Time to buy Gold people, cuz your economy is going down the tube.
I'm guessing High school doesn't teach economics let alone the intertwined nature of the world economies?
Here's a clue of what's happening, Mr Gloom and Doom. People and Companies are buying our goods because they're now cheaper. We on the other hand are going to spend more for imported goods. This means YOU.
---
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 16 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
I can see why this forum's popular. Anyone who can't critically analyze the above should feel right at home.
give them pay cuts.
You see how fast they get happy about wehat they were paid.
A spoiled child will always want more and always be unhappy with what they have.
My goodness you've just described the UK IT Job Market!
No, I do not jest.
Do we feel like kinda tech 'elites' of the working class, and expect too much ? Like it was in the late 70s and early 80s - when there were too little techies around and tech was something from outer space ? There are many people in the business now, naturally, just like any other business, and competition.
Read radical news here
"I'm trying to do my part to earn the company more money so that my position can pay for it's own raise in pay."
Are you documenting all this? Not just for the resume, but when you have your annual review.
I agree with the parent. I love having a job good enough that my wife can be a stay at home mom. She loves it, it's much better for our girls, and I don't ever have to worry about some wacko being around my kids. I'm willing to make some real sacrifices for this. For instance, I work a rotating shift schedule every two weeks I switch between days and nights. They're twelve hour shifts, but the nice thing with that is that I also only work 4 days one week and three the next. The work is fairly interesting (I don't have as much free reign to come up with solutions to some of the problems, but hey can't have everything) and I still have time to continue going to school. The tradeoff to all this being that we live a pretty mediocre lifestyle, no HDTV, no Xbox360, no PS3, no iPhone, no Mac Pro, no super frills. Guess what though, you don't need all that to be happy, nice house, kids that know and love their daddy, and actually leaving town to go see and do things (for cheap) leads to a pretty happy lifestyle and once I completely finish my degree I'll be able to have all that nice stuff.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
I don't know about the rest of you but after September 2001, IT took a dump in my area. I was laid off and other associates I know were laid off and then 3 days later offered their jobs back at half what they were making. It's like they used the opportunity to clean house.
I'm currently making a little more than half what I was in the '90s. So, when I mentally compare where I'm at now, I compare it to then. If I get a hefty raise (hasn't happened to me yet) it may be high compared to a sales clerk but in my head I'm still saying another 70% to go and we'll be even.
I'm looking at pay raises as if I'm in recovery and still have a way to go. Sure I'm going to be dissatisfied. What'd they expect? I wonder if those in the survey are in the same boat. It's all relative.
-[d]-
Dissatisfaction over the job done is raising too...
WHAT?! How it is not nice to leave your children to childcare? Are your childcare services so lousy or what? Children, like adults, learn social skills when communicating with each others. Basically more people or around, more skills your learn (unless you have some medical condition of course). Even "bad" situations where kids argue and even fight with each other is a learning experience for everyone. Of course adult supervision is needed so that things won't go out of hand. But if you start over-protecting your kids, what kind of people they make when they are adults?
Don't get me wrong. There's people who abuse this system. They leave their kids for 12 hours a day to childcare because they don't want to be with them for some reason. Those people should get some serious therapy, I think.
And yes, I have a 4 year old son.
You don't know what you don't know.
Overall I would agree the modern MBA program puts a lot of emphasys on Buisness Ethics and focusing on the intangibles because the accountants can deal with the tangables. Sometimes forces higher then them force them to be more stupid, Policies like fireing 10% of all underperfoming or middle perfroming employees every year to make sure we only have the top ones available. Seem to force a lot of stupidity in management because they have to show costs savings even though they are IT and normally the more money they have the better the cost savings is for rest of the corporation. But the MBA program and the Managers are normally not the problem, unless they have some sort of powertrip ego. But most conflects with Managers and Employees happends because the manager actually has to deal with more issues at once, many are really conflecting eg. Increased Demmand on IT Resources, Lower IT Budget. And all these other things that lead them to try to get the most out of everyone.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Deleted
I've been looking at the jobs market here for 10 years, or so...and, I havent seen much. It seams the west mids is a void, when it comes to IT jobs, compaired to the rest of the country...
I have to commute 110 miles daily, to my place of work (down the ultra fast M6 - UGH!) to somewhere where at least they pay me a decent wack.
My advice?...Move!!Get out now, if you're young/free/single!... Apparently, there's plenty of work down south/london way (so the agencies allways tell me!). I would, do so myself, except I have a wife who would rather not.
Hate to burst your bubble, but a few years ago the NSPCC in the UK published a report showing that 75% of all abuse of children in the UK is carried out by close relatives or close friends of the family. I'd be very surprised if the situation in other developed countries is much different. The vast majority of violence and murders of children are also carried out by family members and friends. The idea of crimes against children being mostly carried out by strangers is a myth - it is more rational to be worried about leaving your kids with family members or close friends than sending them off to daycare.
As for it being better for your kids in general, that's something that's definitively up for debate. It's pretty well accepted that kids in daycare tends to get better social skills from higher levels of interaction with other kids, for example.
I thought that jobs like software engineers were supposed to have a steep pay curve. An inexperienced engineer is not worth much, but once you have about five years experience, you are supposed to be much more valuable.
My job isn't represented on the chart. I am a software engineer at the architect level and I am on the low side of the 6 figure range + 12% bonus. I work for a $300M public company that has experienced excellent growth over the past few years. I have 12 years of experience in the general IT field, so I feel I am compensated fairly well. All that said, I am very satisfied with where I am at.
IT jobs are where college drop-outs and people lacking basic skills generally end up. There is no reason to pay them above a living wage. They generally have no real-world experience, and have very little knowledge of workplace law. Thats why they can be bullied into working long hours, for no overtime pay.
Wanna succeed in IT, and make decent or good pay? The IT CIO can tell joe cablepuller whatever he wants, and joe cablepuller does it. Now if Joe gets a better education (an engineering degree maybe), joe can eventually become the CIO, and tell other cablepullers what to do, or even better, encourage them to get a better education.
There is a very narrow carreer path in IT, and it's only available to the select few who go and better themselves through education. (and I mean 'real' school, not Windows Academy / Novell / Cisco Academy).
Wow, what backwards thinking.
So nowadays, the mere act of RAISING your own children is "overprotection?"
I agree, children should have social outlets. A morning pre-school for 3 and 4 year-olds is probably a good idea. But your notion that all day childcare is somehow > stay-at-home mom is a little silly to me.
There is no such thing as a raise and a bonus where I work, at least not like in the corporate world. I work in higher education, and although there are mandated cost of living increases each year (which are very small), merit increases are equally small. Plus, you'll never get both in the same year, unless you're just damn lucky. For example, I received a 4.5% merit increase this year, and because of that, I will not receive a cost of living increase. The economics of higher education is just alot different than the corporate world. I'm also about to finish my MBA, and as part of the program I've already taken and passed the CMBA. I've also finished several certifications this year, and will complete two more before the end of this year. All of this education IS appropriate for my job. And yet, I won't receive one red cent in a pay increase, nor can I expect a promotion. I'm a good worker, and way above the average I believe. When I received a 4.5% pay increase this year, 1.5% of that came from someone else's possible merit increase (3% across the board), so I know I've done better than most here. It's just not equitable. But, that is the tradeoff I made when I came here. A lot of stability, incredible benefits, nice retirement package, just not a pay scale that is equitable with a similar position in the corporate world. I could easily double my pay by moving north or south a couple of hours (I work at Texas A&M in College Station), but I like where I live. Again, a tradeoff.
Well age is definitely a factor. A 4 year old can benefit from group play much more than 2 year old or, obviously, a 6 month old baby. Even then, who said kids who stay at home have to be alone all day? I think there are groups for stay at home parents where they can get together and let their kids play for a few hours a day. That only makes sense, since who would want to be alone all day? So I really don't see any social advantage that daycare has over a situation like that.
Also, why do you assume that not putting your kid in daycare results in overprotection? I'm sure many parents are overprotective, just like many parents with their child in daycare will be constantly complaining to the teacher that their child is being made fun of, not played with, or bored. But when you have your child at home at least you have the potential to do cool non-overprotective things, whereas most daycares are probably too concerned about their legal liability to do much stuff other than babysitting.
Further, I don't think there's any doubt that kids in group daycare are sick more often. That's just much more likely when you're around 30-odd kids (maybe constantly rotating too) who *have* to go to daycare whether they're sick or not, whereas in the above situation, if your kid is sick you wouldn't take him to group play that day.
And I've always heard that kids in daycare are more likely to have Attention Deficit Disorder (a quick search found this report).
Something I put together myself.
http://it-careers.pbwiki.com/Informal_Denver_Area_Salary_Survey
Who's paying this guy to harass you? Find out what agency he works for and have your VP give his VP a call. Make sure they know in no uncertain terms that no only will your company not be hiring from them, no company who's Cxx people play golf with your VP will be hiring from them either.
When a VP left FedEx during the dotcom boom, he started calling around trying to hire FedEx people he had worked with. Fred Smith (President & CEO) told him to back off and he did.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Alternatively, have everyone start making outrageous salary demands. "I would love to come work for XYZ, let's talk $200,000/year"
This actually worked for a fried of my dad's. He was in government work, and when they came back with an offer that was 90% of outrageous, he jumped.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
It's not terrible for two adults in the same household to be working. It's terrible for two adults in the same household to be forced to work. If you've spent 17+ years of your life in school (including kindergarten and college), it certainly makes sense that you ought to be able to earn enough money to provide food and a place to live for your family. It's the lack of choice that is so terrible. Back in the mid-20th century, when women were unable to get the same jobs that men held, women wanted to be able to make the same choices as men. And there's absolutely no reason why they shouldn't have had those choices available to them. Today, women (and men) still want to be able to choose, and rightly so. But now they are frequently denied the option of staying home with their children, while at the same time experiencing discrimination in hiring and salaries (albeit not as bad as in the 50's). Progress? It doesn't seem like it to me.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I shouldn't reply, but this is insane....
Following your logic, we should send kids to daycare because 75% of abuse happens from relatives? Sorry, but If you truly believe that your kids are better off in the hands of someone "Not their parents", then you shouldn't have had children. Maybe the percent is high because they spend most of their time with close relatives?
Yeah, I heard that most car accidents happen within 10 miles of home, so I am moving.
Is IT system administration (in the broadest sense of these terms), or does it include software development, systems design, software engineering etc.
Because these are quite different things, sort of like a difference between car mechanic (making sure cars work) vs. race car driver (using the cars to achieve best times on a track).
IT is about making sure systems work, software development is about using those systems to do useful work.
Often times these things are bunched together even though they don't have much in common. So which is it? Their survey talks about Windows administrators and custom software development/DB design?
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
If management is good, then being gone for a week and everything functioning well during that time reflects well on their ability manage efficiently.
If your IT system is so fragile that being gone for a week leads to major failures, then you're not doing a very good job at...wait for it...managing your systems. You shouldn't have to be on your systems 24/7 just to make them work. If that's the case, then something wrong is going on.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Certainly that was a posting for a job in the US. The purpose of the HR weenies that was the topic of an earlier thread is to keep organizations from making mistakes like that. It is illegal in the US to have a job requirement age = 25.
Oh yeah I think it would also depend on the quality of daycare. There are places that are really amazing with one-on-one attention, structured play with excellent supervision, fun activities (not just "sit them in front of the TV"), and so on, that cost several thousand dollars a month. Then there are budget places where your kid is just in a room with kids of all different ages, with bad kids who are already getting in trouble, and with little supervision (teacher isn't watching until someone starts yelling, has no idea what happened, so puts everyone involved in time-out... that even happens at decent places).
We're on year 5 of no merit increases and only token bonus amounts. The rationale we get from HR (since outsourced, of course) is that we're ALL overpaid and there is this mysterious midpoint in the salary 'range' that has yet to catch up. So on and on the no increases will continue. On the upside my CEO got 37 million dollars last year while sending thousands of jobs to India. Here's a totebag, now make sure you attend that diversity seminar.
Bastards, all of them.
Is there any similar survey for salaries in SW development?
Preferably one that is recent, accurate (and, if that is not too much to ask, includes Canada).
I assume when you say "Maybe the percent is high because they spend most of their time with close relatives?" you mean "as opposed to their parents". However, the same NSPCC survey cited parents and siblings as by far the most frequent offenders, followed by other close relatives, followed by friends of the family. If that was not what you meant, and you meant "close relatives including their parents", then that makes my point for me, that leaving your kids in daycare is at least no more dangerous than leaving them with family or friends.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a parent staying at home to look after their kids (though, as I said, there is a lot of debate about whether it's the best alternative - kids in daycare on average develop better social skills earlier for example), but that using the risk of anything happening to the kid as an argument for it is completely bogus.
I feel I am paid well for what I do. And money isn't everything. The work is challenging and rewarding and I have good benefits that take care of me and my family (good health care, cafeteria plan, good matching for the 401(k), good number of vacation hours, money for educational expenses and conferences, financial incetives for publishing papers, etc.)
Studies have shown repeatedly that children who spend a significant amount of time in childcare (I forget what the number of hours involved was, but it was less than the amount of time that would be necessary if both parents work full time) are much more likely to be bullies and have other socially undesirable traits. Additionally, there have been several studies that indicate that children who are home schooled have significantly better social skills than those who went through the school system (considering that the researchers were expecting the opposite result, these latter studies are rather telling). Sorry, I no longer have the references for either of these studies, but I'm sure if you do a little research you can find them. My suspicion is that children are better socialized by being exposed to adults who have already learned how to be responsible than to other children who have not yet learned this.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
According to the US Dept of Labor the Consumer Price Index includes medical care, gasoline, fuel oil, housing, and education including college tuition. I think this covers your (1), (2), (5), and (6). Dollar deflation (4) is also covered to the extent that Americans buy imported goods which are now more expensive.
You are right that general income taxes (3) are not included in the CPI. To the extent the US government must raise taxes to cover the wars they are in, Americans' net incomes will be lower, but this will not count as inflation.
I think you are on to something. The problem partially stems from IT being a very young component in business. Consider that Accounting has been around for hundreds of years... there is an established relationship between various types of businesses and accounting professionals. Yet IT has only been around for a few decades. I don't think businesses nor the profession itself knows how to deal with the problems of succession and management of talent.
The most "fun" work environment for the worker is one of unstructured cooperation where there are no rules. This is not the ideal since that freedom can potentially lead to disaster in the wrong coworker's hands. Eventually management will get paranoid about waste.
The most "profitable" work environment is where nothing goes to waste and every key stroke leads to profit. This is not the ideal since that efficiency means a loss of adaptability and a high burn out rate for employees. It turns out that the highly profitable environment can only exist in sprints.
There should be a sustainable happy medium that works well as a company grows. I don't know what that is yet. I haven't seen it in my work history.
[signature]
From TFA - if you notice in the base pay by region chart - base pay gets higher in the areas where the cost of living is higher. So you can't really say you do better working in a region that has higher base sallary and higher raises. They need them that high to live in those areas. I live in the North Midwest area and am doing Ok at about $85K/year. Would I like to make more - heck yes who wouldn't. But when your company is working on outsourcing everything to India because they can pay them "$27/hr versus $58/hr" it gets tough to push for more $$ and a higher raise. I wish I was making $58/hr! I guess if I wanted to move to New York I could. But I don't want to move around anymore just to make a better living - I LOVE the area I live in now. If something was done about our cost of living (lowering it) then someone making $75k a year or more would be -really- well off in IT. If the cost of living could be cut by 1/4 would I take a job with a %25 pay cut - yes because it would even itself out.
We in IT just really have to be careful because if we get too greedy corporations will (and are) outsourcing our jobs overseas. Heck look at how much manufacturing and call center work has and is been shipped overseas for cheaper labor. They will keep doing the same with us if we are not careful.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
upgrade the skills and do software development and you should expect more. And then go into management and make even more.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
I did an informal survey a few months back, and here is what I found (based on job ads). From what I see, $90K is way over at the high end, no typical at all. Of course, I did not figure in the salries of CIOs, because I do not consider executives as I.T. workers.
1. DATABASE ADMIN : $35 - $62/hour
2. MANAGEMENT : $30 - $55/hour
3. SAP : $50 - $73/hour
4. SECURITY : $25 - $46/hour
5. TECH/HELPDESK : $15 - $19/hour
6. UNIX/LINUX ADMINS: $35 - $50/hour
7. UNSKILLED LABOR : $8 - $16/hour
8. WEB DEVELOPMENT : $20 - $40/hour
9. WINDOWS ADMINS: $20 - $40/hour
http://it-careers.pbwiki.com/Informal_Denver_Area_Salary_Survey#DATABASEADMIN$35$62/hour
Denver is a fair sized city (two million people) and not an especially cheap place to live.
From what I can see, an average I.T. salary is more like $60K, not $90K. That is probably still better than Europe. It may be because it's even easier to outsource jobs in Europe than in the USA. In the long run, the I.T. field is screwed for everybody, except 3rd world countries.
in slashdot, crashing slashdot into oblivion.
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
I live in eastern Canada (New Brunswick) where the cost of living is decent, and the population here is very low, but we have a booming IT/support sector happening out here.
I have been working in IT now for more than 10 years and my first contract job was in 1994 and I got paid $12/hr for break-fix work. That equates to about 25k/yr. I have been a break fix guy, Y2k person (yes I know, horribly lame), programmer, analyst, IT instructor, sysadmin, and consultant. Each position I have held has seen my salary go up somewhat or stay relatively the same. From 1998 to 2006, I saw my salary go from 25k - 39k per year. I only had one situation where my salary actually decreased and that was by choice. I never however broke 40k/year until my most recent position.
In the area where I live, we have some costs of living that are high, but generally, it's a pretty decent place to live. Someone who earns 40k/year as a sysadmin, or a programmer, is doing VERY well. In fact, my 39K/yr as a sysadmin was unheard of by most of the people I knew in the IT sector around here. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was in fact being paid VERY well.
Now, my salary is exceptionally well, and although I don't get a bonus, we do get substantial increases based on certain situations. Those increases are 10-15% of our annual.
Regardless, the point I am trying to make is that it depends vastly on where you live, the field you are in, and the company you work for. The company I work for is widely known as being one of the best places to work in our city, and pay is part of it. But I didn't just get handed this job. I had to go through all of the other shitty jobs I've had before, and gradually work my way up to the pay scale I am at now. It wasn't just handed to me on a silver platter.
I used to work as an instructor at an IT school and it amazed me the amount of students who would come in with only the knowledge they got in school or on their own, expect to take their course, and get a job paying 50k a year. Completely and totally unrealistic. You need to start somewhere, do the shitty work, pay your dues, and if you work hard at it, it pays off down the road.
If you find that every company you work for is paying crap wages, then maybe you need to re-evaluate what you consider crap. Maybe you have the wrong expectations for the field you are in and need to examine what it is you are expecting. Too many people put the blame on others when in fact it's your own perceptions that are flawed.
Five years ago, I would have said I was horribly underpaid and had a crap job. Looking back now, I had a crap job, but the pay was awesome and it lead me to where I am now.
No matter how fast computers get, you'll always be waiting - Matt Klem
In what industry will you find workers who are overall content with their salaries and work loads?
You should train for years, work like a slave, get shit pay, and like it! You should smile, and sing praises to your employer - especially while he has you train the offshore workers who will replace your ungrateful ass.
Also, can anyone find a source also that energy has been taken out of the consumer price index? Both the US government and wikipedia say energy is part of the Consumer Price Index.
I have well over a decade in IT. I am working as a BASIS admin right now and hate it. 25x8x367 WORK, not just support, but WORK, is no way to live. And the salaries are nowhere what they claim they are.
I want to return to programming. I know COBOL/DB2 and some ABAP. But I have not touched either in 3 years or so and do not have experience in the few very specific roles being looked for.
I am willing to work even entry level programming jobs to get back in. I have that posted IN my resume.
Yet I can not even get a phone interview.
Because I do not have that 5 year check-box marked off no recruiter of HR person will call me, very few will even return my calls.
It seems that employers would rather go with empty positions than hire someone the only mets 85-90% of the req.
Hot job market?
Not for me it isn't
Maybe being truthful on my resume is the wrong thing to do.
After 90 days, I will get between a 5 and 8% raise at my new job, then another raise at the end of the year, so I can make the 11.6% mark. Course I work for a forbes top 100 company, and to balance it out, I'm salary, so no OT, and they started me out about as low as you can go for the position. I think the big thing TFA missed is that many get a high percentage raise, but the jobs are so low paying to begin with that it doesn't put them where they need / want to be anyway. Just last year I was making 30k a year as the systems / network / security / phone admin for a bank. I got a 9% raise, or about a dollar an hour, still didn't put me near what should be paid for that type of skillset.
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
I answer only to this since I got to go in couple of minutes.
First of all, my english isn't so good so sorry if there was some rude or offending language :)
Second, I wasn't aware that childcare and family life is so different in USA (I assume that's where you live?). We have socially funded childcare system here in Finland. We pay something like 120 euros a month to local community and goverment pays the rest. We don't have nannies who come by to care the children or anything like that or at least it is not a custom. It is also not a custom to mothers get together with their children on dialy basis. It is considered almost rude. Something like every once a week is OK though :)
But my totally uneducated personal opinion on the matter from what I've seen is that kids who do not go to daycare tend to be not so socially skilled. But now when I come to think about it, those kids are at home with their mother almost 24/7 so they don't get much social contacts besides their mother and father. And if their parents are raised the same way I don't think they have very extensive social skills either.
And after all the yada-yada I don't and won't consider that taking my kid to daycare is a bad thing. I wasn't at daycare when I was a child and I had huge difficulties to learn social stuff at the later age. But now I'm almost "normal" though I don't like to meet strange people very often :) Hopefully my son come up better than I ...
You don't know what you don't know.
Education has very little to with IT work. It's all about experience. Take a look at the job ads if you don't believe me.
BTW: a CCIE usually earn over $100K, which is more than college educated professionals earn.
You think an education in engineering is going to get you a CIO job? Pfft. CIOs know less about technology than the average helpdesk drone. CIOs usually have an MBA. CIOs need to know finance.
Aside from neglecting to mention these numbers were retroactively trended down in the direction you say they should be - Michael J. Boskin was the head economist for the Reagan White House. Revising these numbers down allowed for less government spending on Social Security. In fact it is a neat trick - the spending is cut, yet they could say they were not cutting anything, as prices were supposedly not going up quickly and Social Security was supposedly keeping pace. The AFL-CIO put out a paper that criticized the findings at the time. Of course, the AFL-CIO has a certain interest on this, but on the other hand, it was not like Reagan and Boskin had no interest in reducing government spending and were politically neutral on this. Boskin's main work going back to the 1970's was concerned not with inflation but finding a way to hit Social Security. Saying inflation was over-stated was the answer then, now they talk about privatization.
As far as technical innovation, some things are neglected. For example, in the initial years that VCRs came out, they were well-made, after a number of years of being mass-produced, they began using cheaper junk parts. Before the DVD took over completely, it was better to repair your old VCR than to buy a new one. And this is a trend in many things - it is true some things may get cheaper, but often they go from well-made, artisan like things to cheap junk. Look how professionals go to Chipotle rather than Taco Bell, Trader Joe's over Wal-Mart, organic food over non-organic etc. The mass-produced junk is not the same as the older often better but more expensive artisan like stuff. Of course some things fall in line with the inflation-head ideas - TV sets are certainly better-for-the-same-inflation-adjusted-price than they were 10, 20, 30 years ago. But there is also a lot of stuff where there is not a quality improvement handed for free to the consumer - a lot of time it is cheaper because it becomes more like junk.
As far as the substitution effect, it does not have a direct effect on CPI because it is done as a basket. If inflation was tied to one item, the substitution effect could shift CPI, since CPI is with a basket of goods, the substitution effect does not effect things. I should also point out that the substitution effect goes both ways, if CPI was tied to one product (which it isn't), CPI could be understated due to the substitution effect.
You also neglect to point out how housing costs have skyrocketed relative to CPI. It is much, much more expensive to buy or rent somewhere than it was a few decades ago. Even in the same old buildings which were around in the 1960s. Of course you mention iPods and other frivolous things, whereas the real hit to people's wallets has been in necessities like a roof over ones head. I know I am paying a larger percentage of my income to rent than I was back in the 1990s, and there certainly not has been a quality improvement in my living. In fact, my landlord spends little money on renovating his building, things are only repaired after they have completely fallen apart. Even the housing bust that is happening will not have as much of an impact as people might think.
I do not disagree, however the stats do not backup your statement.
75% of abuse.............on average a kid is more likely to be at risk around relatives and close friends of the family
That means 25% of abuse happens at the hands of strangers. If your wife can eliminate much of this 25%, you have reduced their risk. Unless your wife is more likely to abuse your children than the stranger.
Another example. I would assume kids spend 95%+ of their time with those considered to be "close to them" because this is who we surround ourselves with. Yet abuse is 75%? Kids spend very little time with "strangers" yet they account for 25% of the abuse?
I guess I do have issue with the "better social skills". From my experience, this could be true, depending on how you define "better". Yes, they talk more, and are more vocal. The children with stay-home parents however would be considered by myself to be more honest, polite, less prone to crime, less likely to be involved in drugs, and much better off academically.
I realize however, the above is probably the result of a caring parent rather than the difference between daycare or not.
Disclaimer: This is a generalization, there are exceptions. Any parent who is basing decisions on what they feel is best for their child is correct. It is those who base their decision on what is easiest for them that I have issue with.
Pesonally, I don't consider an "C" level exective to be an "I.T. worker."
I have read through all of the comments in here so I may be repeating things.
A lot of studies show that most people that are not happy with their jobs, a pay increase is only a bandaid. After the excitement of the pay increase wears off, you are back to the same job and the same reasons why you did not like the job in the first place. Some places will not provide counter offers for this exact reason or if they do provide a counter offer, it is typically understood that you will not be around long term and the counter offer is mainly to keep you around long enough to finish a project or some loose ends. Based on your comments about your current job, you would be right in line with the person that would not be happy in six months with or without the pay raise.
That being said...
If you need to double your salary to make ends meet, you are living too far above your income level. Sad as that seems, it is true. This may work short term but if the wind blows in a different direction, your house of cards will come crashing down. I have no idea what you situation is like and I doubt this applies to you but it really does apply to many others.
Get a used car and maybe rent out a room, and tell your wife no more manicures. Yes it sucks but so does loosing your job and not being able to pay your mortgage/rent and have no money in the bank. With that situation, you most likely have no money for higher education for your kids and the amount of your saving you set aside for a rainy day or retirement is probably next to nothing. Small sacrifices now lead to big payoffs later in life.
I wouldn't consider it appropriate to voluntarily place anything from a 1-2 year old baby top a 5 year old child into childcare for the periods I am at work, assuming my partner worked at the same time, that would be from 0800 until 1830-1900 ish I would certainly have no problem with a a few three hour sessions, any more and you are leaving it to someone else to bring up your children. Its not just for the child's benefit either, I have 4 kids, and I missed so much time with the first one that I decided I would not repeat that mistake, so I set up my own company and make time. You don't realise until you have done both, just how much you miss out on if you don't spend a decent amount of time with your children, plus, my relationship with my first son is totally different and less complete than with my other children, to him daddy was someone he never saw except at night when he was going to bed, oh and my partner was at home the entire time, so the issue of appropriate childcare doesn't come into it.
Sure first and foremost you ned to provide for your family, but after that you need to make sure you are there for them too.
I remember warnings about the sub-prime problem from over two years ago.
Is it possible you just weren't listening to the right people?
F-you money is where you have enough to live the way you want to live without EVER having to go back to work. Until you reach that point, you still have a long road ahead. It's where you are financially independent enough that you can tell your employer "Fuck You". You might have "piles" of money right now but if you are smart, you are investing those dollars so you can reach F-you money as quickly as possible. After that, you can do whatever you want to do.
I used to be just like you. I'd look at my paycheck and wonder, "how the hell am I going to spend this?". But, from experience, as you get old into your 30's and 40's -- you quickly realize that, unless you are sitting on $2-$3mil US minimum, you are still going to have to go to work. Maybe you can delay it for 20 years and live off your savings in the meantime. But what happens when the money runs out? You'll have to work. You'll work not because you want to...but because you have to in order to pay the bills. And the bills get bigger as you go on. House, cars, kids, wives, new businesses, insurance, repairs, vacations, etc.
In America, this is one of the reasons you see people work so hard and put so much into it. They are all after the F-you money because they know, once they get it....everything else from that point on is optional (except death and paying taxes). And I am talking about normal people who work because they have to work. If you work (truly) because you enjoy it, then good for you. But you must realize you are in the vast minority.
Imagine having such a large "pile" that you could pay yourself $100K, $200K, $300K, or whatever per year -- just from the interest your pile generates. That's F-you money. And, no offense, but I doubt you are there yet.
I have similar trouble. Then I started my own company. Worked like a dog and managed to find enough work to get by. After about 8 months I am to find a job with fair pay. I just made sure the company I created and ran was doing the things I wanted to do for a living. That 8 months gave me the experience I need to get into the field (and job) that I really wanted.
My advice to any graduating computer person is if you can not find a job with-in 4 month of graduating start your own company and hit the bricks to find work. If your lucky your company will take off and you can make some really good money, the other side is you find virtually no work but you gain valuable work experience that can be used to get in the doors at a regular IT job for some company. I wish I would have started a computer company right when I got to university - I would have had 4 years of running a company experience (and IT experience) and had the education to back it up.
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
Did you know that the average income for women is actually higher than for men in some parts of the country? I laugh at the thought of you sitting home all day watching The View while your wife works.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
In other news:
Archeological dig finds dirt
Scuba diver finds water
and this just in, Shocking report: Cancel will kill you
Yeah, I.T. sucks. We were the fastest growing market, and now we're the fastest dying market. Easy come, easy go. All of my friends have found more money and job security in more traditional careers and trades, so all us genius computer guys (who suck at anything else) are stuck in our underpaid overstressed jobs.
Even my drunk neighbour knows that
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Who's paying this guy to harass you? Find out what agency he works for and have your VP give his VP a call.
If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, I'm in the UK, and neither the agencies nor the company I work for are big enough here for that sort of executive-level backroom chat. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
At least in Canada, the pay equity gap has almost been closed based on latest figures. Only the most senior levels of management remain unavailable to women, and this probably is a reflection of experience (e.g. it takes ~30 years to get to be an executive in a fortune 500 company)thank anything else.
I think the hidden story is the real $ household incomes have been shrinking over the past few decades. This has been masked by a) rapid advances in technology/production that allow us to buy more crap, and b) most households are now 1.5 to 2 incomes instead of a solitary breadwinner.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
--- these days, what with business and stuff, you gotta get your emails...
I also read a study that there are no homosexuals in Iran. I can't provide a link to the study, but I'm sure you can find it if you look hard enough.
As well, I also read a study that the earth was once flat. Try your googling for this one too.
I once saw a pig fly. I can't provide evidence, but you'll just have to take my word for it.
a plumb job ?
... is this job on the straight and narrow?
Don't leave us hanging
Sox reduced my actual time to develop from 32 hours a week to about 60 hours per 2 months over the space of 3 years. I was getting so few "aha I found it" hits debugging and coding any more that I went into project management (more money and I could get Sox out of the way of my people- plus the wrists are not what they used to be either).
Offshoring has moved a lot of the fun work too- now they give "tickets" to our guys who use canned solutions-- giving all the longer analysis over to cheaper labor. We've lost people over the ticket issue.
You become a coder because you *love* coding and then they make you do paperwork (up to 10 pages for a 1 line change).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
There are many executives and marketing and sales people and they most of them make two or more times what IT people make. They contribute little and take them most. We contribute the most and get little.
And, it is going to stay that way until we rise up and take them down. Until we unite and shut down a few businesses, they will continue to take advantage of us.
Until we have our own lobbying group to counter the outsourcing and H1B agencies.
Until you are willing to fight for what is right, you will continue to be treated like shit.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
There was a time that I was an MS-certified network admin. And then the "tech bubble" burst, and layoffs were rampant. And suddendly there basically was no IT job market unless you lived in one of the big cities like Chicago or NYC. And I have never in my life met somebody making $80,000+ in an IT position unless it was something like a district VP of IT for a large corporation... where they get these "averages" from continues to astound me. I didn't even make half of that when I was an admin. Add to that how the market has gotten to be such an employer's market that they basically try to hire IT Gods and pay them $12/hr to do it, while at the same time expecting them to invest huge amounts of time and money into training... Sorry, it's not worth it. If you managed to get one of the very, very few IT jobs that still pays well without running you ragged, consider yourself very lucky.
If I was at a place that fired people like that, I would start looking immediately.
Heck, we had one layoff two years ago and have lost a couple dozen quality people since then who were prompted to look elsewhere by the event.
I guess if you pay top dollar you can get away with more firings. If your pay is average, you will lose your best people if you fire their buds.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The risk itself is so low that you are better off teaching good habits and living your life than trying to prevent incidents. Seriously, it's not a credible threat - it's just hype.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I am still contracting, and in a pretty secure position - but in the contracting world, that can end very suddenly if there is "restructuring". Although I like the money, the contracting company that I go through pays for my health insurance. Sounds great, right? Well, we recently had a baby, and the insurance sucks. It only covers 70% of most things, and if something is out of network (like the anesthesiologist for the delivery) it is only 60%. So I am probably making more per year than I did when I was salaried, but there is no raise, no bonus, no advancement, job instability, and we have thousands in medical bills to pay for our childbirth.
I like my job, and where I am working, and things are OK. I can't really complain. But if given a survey, there are enough things about my situation that I don't like that I would probably come up on the dissatisfied end of the spectrum. It isn't about being greedy, it's about having a company that looks out for its employees. I don't think that I am naive in thinking that something like that should be possible. To be honest, I haven't seen it all that much in my 15 year career.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I'm happy with my salary.
What I'm not happy with is the lack of vacation time.
http://www.timeday.org/
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The most "fun" work environment for the worker is one of unstructured cooperation where there are no rules.
That sounds like it ought to be true, but IMHO it isn't. I think IT mainly attracts three kinds of people, and if you look at what drives them, it's never really that.
Firstly, you have those who are only in it for the money. They probably took some university course just so they could work in IT, and they probably aren't very good at their job. Most of them don't get very far, because their attitude is entirely selfish, and the only motivator they have is making as much money as possible from doing as little real work as possible. In their minds, they'll have fun later, when they're rich.
Then you have the "journeyman" developers and sysadmins: those who are happy to work in a well-paid industry, but basically see it as just another job. These people represent the largest proportion of the industry, IME. They are typically competent but unexceptional in their skill and aptitude, and approach their jobs with a reasonably professional attitude. The best motivator for these people, IME, is simply to let them get on with their job: give them clear instructions about what needs to be done, and some relevant background information if they're the kind of person who likes to see how they fit into the bigger picture, and then just get out of the way and let them do their work. These people typically recognise the value of good organisation, and respect strong but flexible leadership. They don't go to work to have fun, but they will find their work environment most pleasant this way and rarely demand more.
Finally, you have the guru types. Often, these are the guys who got into IT because they enjoy the field. If they took a university course they enjoyed or they get paid well, that's almost incidental, and just a bonus on top of having a job where they enjoy the work. These guys know their subjects inside out. The big variable — and the thing that separates the gurus who are great people to have in your group from the gurus who are liabilities — is how well these guys do things outside their own development or administration work.
Those who develop people skills, understand the business context for their work, cooperate with management, and give constructive input to these areas from the point of view of the IT guy, tend to go far, though they tend to stick to a technical path rather than moving into management. Motivation for these guys often comes from seeing a good result from their work, and they will work in whatever way seems best to achieve that goal. Again, this isn't usually unstructured cooperation; on the contrary, IME these guys are the ones most likely to want good processes in place, and to appreciate readily whether existing processes are helping or getting in the way. Often, these guys also value honest recognition when they produce good work, and like to know that when they make constructive suggestions they are being listened to.
Of course, you also get the gurus who want to have everything their own way. These are the guys who want their own office and to work in their own style. They want full-time ownership of the code they write (not that it matters since no-one else can understand it anyway) or the final say over any changes to their networks. These guys probably are motivated by unstructured work, but cooperation is a word that doesn't enter their vocabulary. Frankly, you're better off hiring a couple of less egotistical, less demanding, and far more pleasant and constructive journeyman types anyway than you would be getting stuck with one of these guys, who seem to be known as "rock star programmers" in trendy blogs.
So I don't think unstructured cooperation is really fun for any of the major types of IT guy. The good ones tend to appreciate enough structure to do an effective job, while the bad ones will cooperate only as far as is necessary to get what they want anyway, and often would prefer to stay under the radar and just do things their own way. Constructive anarchy doesn't really work for either group.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
> I want to return to programming. I know COBOL/DB2 and some ABAP.
Is that a really obscure Java API?
> Yet I can not even get a phone interview.
The IT markets are very nichie (is that a word?) and recruters only know
a subset of acronyms. Get a linux box, submit a few bug fixes to a major
open source project(s). Then, "Yes I know c/c++/Java/perl, my code is running
on thousands of enterprise datacenter systems."
Contact development managers DIRECTLY. No HeadHunters.
You revealed your bias when you mentioned home schooling.
As with all issues related to children, how they turn out is a function of innate personality, environment, and parenting effectiveness.
And just to toss out some useless anecdotes:
- I've met some home schooled kids who are headed for therapy later in life (kooky parents = kooky kids) - you see my bias.
- both my kids, who were in childcare since infancy (now teen and preteen) are smart, kind, respectful and have no socially undesireable traits.
Self awareness - try it!
Nobody is denying you the choice to have a partner stay home. Do so if you want. But it's kind of a weak argument to say that it somehow becomes the responsibility of your employer to pay you enough to do so. I want the choice of a second home in Hokkaido; that doesn't mean I can rightfully expect to get enough of a salary that I can have it.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
How is it freeloading? Don't women's groups like to calculate the value of being a stay at home mom? I don't agree with the numbers the come up with and publish, but they have a point, what a woman does at home has real value, even economic value even if it isn't counted as part of the GNP. Are we just living to work? Does life have no value without a paycheck? Are we going to start preventing people from retiring because they are "freeloading"? If a woman wants to choose to live at home and can afford it, why should you consider it offensive? The two most precious things we as people have are our time and our relationships. If a woman chooses to invest her time in relationships instead of having a career, and all the stress and anguish that comes with having to go to work to bring home a paycheck, and can stay home to develop better relationships with her children, the value is far above what she'd make at her work. I get all kinds of value from my wife staying home. She'll call me at work to tell me what cute things my daughter is doing today, that and the piece of mind of knowing my daughter is in better care than we can afford otherwise, makes me feel a whole lot better about going to work.
In 2002, my annual salary was $110,000, today it is $74,000 and I have had to move four times to keep up. I had started in Houston, now I am in Cleveland. Inflation has killed the value of my money and "benefits" are a joke as well high deductible PPO and a sorry 401k/severance package savings plan.
Now I will never go back to Houston again since there is NO IT industry to speak of, but all I do is keep ahead of the outsourcers now. IT sucks fucking ass and what sucks is I am good at it.
Do you think you could manage to keep your nose in your own shit? Let's not perpetuate this kind of backward thinking--it has no place in a free society with a modern economy. You are quite right. We should put behind us the ways of living that have been practiced for thousands of years and proved to be a workable social model and, instead, thrust our children into the care of others and both work hard to make money because that's what matters the most. I laugh at the thought of you sitting home all day watching The View while your wife works. Oh, I see. You think that just because of the "social inequity" of women in the past that men should switch roles with women. That's basically affirmative action, which is a greater bigotry than doing things traditionally.
My wife is happy being at home. Please, enlighten us, why should we change our ways and join your "free society" where the choices we would like to make are the wrong ones?
Let the wife go to work, let the husband telecommute and take care of the children while working >:)
I mean, come on, regular "daycare" centers aren't even that careful with the kids they supposedly take care of.
I wouldn't mind being a "stay at home dad", actually, I think I'd enjoy it.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
I blame it in part on your (USA) housing bubble. Wait 2-3 years for the housing market to drop 50% and you should all be very happy! (Assuming you didn't first go bankrupt on your ARM sub-prime mortgage! heh)
/Yr. Don't worry, our bubble will also be popping soon... then maybe we can all go down to Cuba an cry over our losses with cheap Tequilas & Cubans (cigars) in hand.
Up here in Canada, you're lucky to get 4% raise/Yr in IT. Wages in general have been quite stagnent in the past 3 or 4 years (except Alberta Oil cities), yet our housing prices are climbing in mutliple urban cities at double digit percentage rates
Adeptus
In Edmonton the average wage of the union job I had increased at ~5% per year. In the last 5 years the housing market doubled the value of homes. Gas went up by around 60%. Utilities also went up about 30%. Everything but computers went up in price by about 5% so depending on where you are in life you may be only slightly behind or vastly behind inflation. And inflation is extreme here due to the economic boom.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
You are making a logical error in this thread. You are assuming that just because 75% of child abuse happens at the hands of a relative that EACH child runs a 75% risk of being abused at home.
blah blah blah
internet is global. if any country ever dares go ban any kind of trade, leave aside 'outsourcing' etc, other countries would put internet sanctions on that country, effectively crippling internet trade in that country.
trade is a 2 way street. you give and you take. you cant ban taking and just give, and make profit. just like usa cant ban imports from china, and continue exporting to china.
we gotta find other ways to be competitive.
Read radical news here
On top of that the cost of childcare can easily wipe out half a salary.
Dead on.
Particularly in non-IT industries you will see a LOT of journeymen. The last time I worked
at an oil & gas company, less than 10% of the IT department had degrees in computer science
or an equivalent course of study that emphasized computer science. Everyone else had degrees
in hard sciences or math. So they were well educated and competent, but rarely did they
pass on to guru status: IT wasn't exciting, it was just a job. You can tell those guys
easily, they usually say something like "Oh I don't use a computer once I get home,
I've have enough of that after a day in the office."
Prima donna gurus are the second worst people in IT. The worst people in IT are those
"in it for the money" and journeyman types who think they are gurus. They usually view
any criticism of their proposed architectures / solutions / whatever as ad hominem attacks.
Those are the people you fire when it is "who are our bottom 10%?" time of the year.
If you want the3 wife stays home life you either need to reduce your "lifestyle" expenses or you need to get good as BS'ing people and go into business management. The fact of life is that the only way to survive below the $50,000.00 a year mark is your spouse must go to work as well.
BTW: look for a job in a part of the country that has sane living expense costs. If you live in California then you choose to be poor making only $70,000.00 a year. I can live on $35,000 a year in the upper midwest and live better than most friends in San Fransisco making more than 2X my wages. Yet they all say " but I love it here", I say, "then love your $6.95 loaf of bread and your $3900.00 a month house payment on that 980sq foot bungalo"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I just heard that from an infomercial... Thus it must be true!
Facts are useless, they can be used to prove anything.
When people are happy with their job, when they enjoy the social contacts, when they get to work in a nice environment and, above all, when they have a sense of purpose, then they make reasonable wage demands. When the job sucks, they spend 8 hours a day thinking "I don't get paid enough for this shit." In that case, no wage will be high enough.
That's the smartest thing that's been said all month here...
Re: you can't buy the single core 1ghz computer at walmart for $125... no you get them for less on ebay.
I may have revealed my bias, but those studies do in fact exist and are a major reason for my bias. I, also, know some very strange people who were home schooled by some very strange parents. However, I did not come across either the studies of child care or the studies of home schooling in a news site that had any sympathy for home schooling (as far as I can remember it wasn't particularly biased against it either). My best recollection is that both stories were listed on Yahoo or some similar news aggregator.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
well 'adapting' isn't quite as easy when the public transportation system stinks. Best I can do is catch a bus downtown, then a bus out to the suburb where I work, then take a circular (or walk 3 miles) for a grand total of 3 1/2 hours (one way, mostly waiting for buses) vs 15 minutes by car. There is a decent bike route, but at 17 miles (about 4 more than driving since the road and paths aren't straight like the freeway) it's a bit long to do daily (and not an option in winter).
So that leaves me with traveling little and wearing sweaters in the winter and opening the windows more often in summer, which I do anyway.
so does Canada, and their economy is doing great while ours is foundering. There is little doubt in my mind that the war in Iraq is destroying the value of the dollar.
you mean flipping burgers at McDonalds?
So what you're saying, in a nutshell, is congratulations on becoming a third world country. Life may stink in the US because it's filled with a bunch of educated cheap labor with no buying power, but in France (or insert country of choice here) it's wine and caviar every day!
Oh, and no, high schools in the US are not required to teach econ (it is required in most colleges, however).
I am not quite sure which side you are taking in the discussion, but...
"It's not terrible for two adults in the same household to be working."
True, it's not terrible, but it's not necessarily advantageous, either.
If you have two people working, you:
1) must pay for child care
2) must do all household chores, shopping, and cooking after hours
3) have both people working (assuming both work at roughly the same times) during the only hours when some businesses, stores, etc are open
4) less time together, since after hours you have to do housework
5) usually require two cars, since both people have to get to work
6) live a more hectic life
7) have more money, but *typically* not much more savings (instead you just buy a bigger house, etc). If you don't believe that, then consider that the US has more two-income families than ever, and also more credit card debt than ever. Cause and effect or effect and cause? I don't know.
8) both mates have the satisfaction (or maybe dissatisfaction) of working
If you have one income and one person at home, you:
1) make material sacrifices, less creature comforts, maybe just one new car or two old ones
2) have someone at home watching children and taking care of the house, which is HARD WORK. I'd know. My wife does this and she does a LOT.
3) have more time together
4) spend less money
5) have a less hectic life
6) in case of financial trouble, you have someone else who could conceivably get a job. Or in other words, you're income isn't always pegged out at full capacity.
7) children are typically better cared for, assuming the person staying home is a decent parent (and by decent I mean simple things like reading to the children, taking them fun places, spending a reasonable amount of time with them, etc)
I have been on both sides of the coin here. In my experience, it is definitely much better to have someone stay home with small children and, if needed, work part-time.
blah blah blah
Exactly. you can easily tell the difference between a shitty manager and a good one.
Good manager, out of his own pocket brings in donuts for the IT office every friday. Shitty manager does not or bitches, "I would, but the company wont reimburse me".
Good manager makes sure the department has a "outing day" once or twice a year to the company's expensive sports box at the local ball park or whatever. dont have a luxury box at a stadium? then do a It cookout. the manager can get his arse behind the grill and cook up burgers and weenies for the IT guys. Shitty manager will say," we cant do that on company time!, that's for clients!, get back to work!" and yes your company and operate without IT there for 1/2 of one day. if they cant then you need to place yourself in the incompetent manager box until you fix things so that it can operate for 4 hours without the IT department there.
basically a good manager, one that is competent is there to serve his employees. a idiot manager believes he is the boss and everything he says must happen.
Honestly, there are far more idiot managers than good ones out there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I started doing contract jobs with $10/hour, now im running my own little shop from $40/hour and getting good business.
it takes time and effort to get there, but, if you are good at what you do, people tell each other.
dont forget this - if there wasnt outsourcing, h1b and such, employers would find other ways to screw you over, like they do for employees in other fields.
but whereas employees in other fields have limited options, i.t. people have numerous. anyone in the business can set up their own shop, be it programming, be it consulting, be it a hardware store.
DONT trust your fate at the hands of any employer, company etc. this is like being sheep. instead, act yourself and create.
Read radical news here
Fuck the cigars man. I'd rather have the *Cubans* in hand!
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Overall, I agree with you. However...
cooperation is a word that doesn't enter their vocabulary. Frankly, you're better off hiring a couple of less egotistical, less demanding, and far more pleasant and constructive journeyman types anyway than you would be getting stuck with one of these guys, who seem to be known as "rock star programmers" in trendy blogs.
Despite the feel-good BS, "cooperation" does not usually result in an optimal solution. If a single person can handle the task, you'll get a much better final product than giving it to a team.
Even the old fallback excuse of "more eyes catch more bugs" doesn't hold true... Yes, you need to have someone other than the programmer doing your testing, but serious bugs don't usually occur within a routine; They occur in the interfaces, when one person's code calls another's. No amount of detail in a spec will ever make up for simply "knowing" the exact behavior of the called code because you wrote it yourself.
Even your use of "rock star", or the more negative "prima donna", betrays the reality of ths situation... A dozen decent studio musicians/singers don't replace one Jimi Hendrix or Sarah Brightman.
Hmmm, I agree, however........Fulcrum of Evil.........
I always thought I was one of the good guys.
Actually, I hate to go off topic like this, but the key isn't the amount of time spent with relatives or close friends. It's trust. Time is only a factor. But if a child sees a parent in a good relationship with a stranger, even if for only a few times, the child is automatically going to trust that person a little more. The inverse is also true.
And unfortunately, there's very little to be done about that.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
... for sticking their collective heads in the oven, repeatedly.
... ... we would see a situation where clueless managers move all the work offshore, where they get cheaper competent labor that understands the problem space much less, but is willing to continue to follow idiotic direction merely for a continued paycheck. Oh, wait ...
This is the divergent point in IT -- one gets paid well for having a substantial capacity for problem solving, and then using that capacity to put oneself into miserable no-win situations.
Or not.
Sometimes (more often than not), one gets paid poorly for having a substantial capacity for problem solving and not using it -- which is how it should be, when you think about it.
If all those who could think did so, and got up and left,
So IT goes.
I think this has an awful lot to do with it. Granted, I'd love to be getting paid more than $23,000 a year, but the real reason I complain is because I'm not really getting paid for the hours I work. I'm paid for 40 hours a week... But I routinely work 9+ hour days and frequently get called in for evening or weekend emergencies. Realistically, I'm working more like 50 hours a week. Plus, we're busy enough and understaffed enough that I have a hard time actually taking the one week of vacation I'm allowed every year.
The end result is that I always feel overworked, stressed, tired - and underpaid.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Fire them all and replace them with illegal immigrants.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
That does depend heavily on where you are and what sort of support you get, looking at our local area its between £153 and £220 per week for full time day nurseries, (so anyone under 5 at which point there is school) , somewhere between you can claim 70% of child care costs (up to £135) back from the government in the way of child tax credit, and that is on top of the tax benefits you get if you have kids in the first place, so as long as you are earning at least the minimum wage and working full time (so getting about £12000 with other benefits as well as you are not earning a lot) you are fine, if you are earning a normal full time wage in a skilled job of some type, it would do even less damage (I am assuming a decent wage at £20-25k). It gets harder over the age of five, as schools here seem to charge between £8-12 per hour for after school clubs (so assume 3 hours a day at £10, 5 days a week) £150 a week, and I am not sure if you can claim that back.
Still I wouldn't like to do it.
Because that is exactly how it has been around here. IT jobs are very scarce, and Ohio's economy has continually been suffering since the late 90s, ever since the last tech companies, like CompuServe went under. I have been struggling going from one layoff to the next roughly every other year. I'd like to think it can only go uphill at some point....
I can't resist. Its ironic that people keep crying over not enough money/boredom/underappreciation, when employers like Hyperic, a booming open source systems management vendor, consistently struggles to find good people. We pay well, we're growing like crazy, and are always hunting for good people. If you're really that good and worth more than you are getting now - please check out our jobs at http://www.hyperic.com/about/careers.html.
:)
We can't save all of you with employment - but who knows, maybe if more of you used our software you'd have more time and less work.
I know that I would prefer to make enough money so that my wife could work for her enjoyment rather than needing the money - or not work at all.
--- these days, what with business and stuff, you gotta get your emails...
Lots of companies have the "bottom 10%" policy. It's pretty much the only way to stop deadwood from building up. Managers hate firing, and have an instinct to keep the useless employee around. This is bad for the company; besides the direct financial loss, the deadwood employee demoralizes others.
Are you saying an employer should keep deadwood around to be your buddies?
1) The sciences aren't all that great. At least from what I've seen, I get way more compensation and respect as a software engineer than I would have ever gotten with my degree in chemistry. Of course, I'm comparing positions in industry here, academia drove me insane so I never wanted to stick around and make a career of it. I'm also in the US, maybe the employment dynamic is totally different there.
2) Considered moving? Everything I've researched about the UK indicates that there's just not much in the way of IT work outside of the City, so you may just not be in the right place being up in the Midlands to find any respect for your skills. I realize you may be permanently burned out on IT by now, but if you do have talent for it, don't give up hope just because you're in a sucky area for that sort of work. By the same logic I'd have a hard time being a cattle rancher here in NYC, and I suspect an ibanker might be pretty SOL in the ass end of east Texas where I grew up.
Just prepare a nice neat site with your experience, portfolio and start putting it in web design / dev directory links. you fool.
you have been working in the MOST mobile field of work that ever existed in the world, yet you didnt make use of that.
yes, you will be paid trash if you go slaving for petty work at companies. yes, human resources bitches will be drawing people like you off because of their own field's pathetic nonexistence and their insecurities. its not just it people that suffer those.
set up a software shop. youll be making your living. and if you are as good as you say, you might be making more than a living. but the latter requires a bit of enterpreneurship.
Read radical news here
Up here in Canada, you're lucky to get 4% raise/Yr in IT.
Go virtually or physically to the US. Seriously. It is true, wages up and taxes low. I went down there for a few years on a TN-1. Had a gas. US I/T makes a lot more money than anywhere in Canada. The Canadian I/T market is apathetic and stagnant. Part of this is due to American companies are 50% of the market, and I/T is sourced to the US to scale.
Me, I do it virtually every working day. VPN in and do stuff. US paying customer of course. That is, you don't have to work for a Canadian company wage rate if you make your skills 100% virtual and keep your clients impressed.
If virtual, deduct your expenses too. And you can cut/have that Cuban cigar in the back yard 1 minute after work and spend no money on gas or patience on traffic. Me, I spend the traffic time I save on learning the next hot new skill my customers will want.
I'd put it more simply - IT guys are a dime-a-fuckin'-dozen. There are too many of us competing for jobs that aren't really that hard in the first place.
They get laid off instead, while their jobs go to Indians working for $5/hour. I have eight years of college, degrees in math, comp sci, and business, half a dozen certs, 28 years of professional experience, have held a top-secret clearance; and I'm doing crappy contract work.
Thanks for twisting my words. Let me try to make it clear for you. You asked what was so bad about two people working. I assumed you meant that the parent poster thought it was a bad thing for both partners to work, so I told you that nothing was wrong with both partners working. On the chance that you somehow thought that there was nothing wrong with a situation where both partners _had_ to work to support the family, I pointed out that whereas historically families typically were able to live just fine on one salary in the past, today they aren't, and that I didn't consider that to be forward progress. Then you made a ridiculous comparison between the ability for a partner to stay at home (taking care of the kids and domestic affairs) and your desire for an extravagant second home. This would be like me saying that nobody was denying you the ability to have electricity at your house. I want a BMW SUV, but that doesn't mean I can expect my salary to be high enough to afford it.
The point is this -- it's (arguably) better for children to be taken care of by one of their parents. But if you don't buy that, it's definitely the case that, with the exception of a small overachieving amount of the population, two adults who work full time (particularly in a profession with mandatory unpaid overtime) and then come home to all the household chores and also have to take care of the kids eventually become exhausted. This situation is a far cry from your suffering over the lack of a second home.
You also made it sound like I blamed "somebody" for this situation. I don't blame anybody. But nevertheless, contrary to to your opinion, that choice is denied (by circumstances) for your average American. It is not an option for them. Your callously telling them to go ahead and make that choice doesn't make it possible for them.
Just for the record, I have chosen for my family to live on a single income, but I'm one of the fortunate few who is in a position to do so. Anecdotally, most of my friends and acquaintances do not have a sufficiently high single income to pay the bills. Their income is considered to be at a middle class level. The travesty is that sixty years ago, a middle class income would have been more than sufficient to pay the bills. Which ties us back to the main topic. This is just one of the reasons why IT workers are not satisfied with their salaries. Many of them grew up in families that lived on a single income, and they are disillusioned when unable to do the same.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
That you are one of the problem people.
A team that works well together will always outperform a cowboy coder hacking away exclusively. No matter how well a single person can handle a non-trivial task, they can always do it better with support from others.
The middle class is who gets screwed on child care (and everything else for that matter!). When you make just enough not to get subsidies from the government, the cost can be a huge chunk of your salary. Add to the fact that in some areas decent child care is not even avaiable if you are not poor. In my area, there is only one accredited (the only one we trust) child care center and they are full all year. They have a waiting list to get in, and you automatically get put at the bottom of the waiting list if you make too much money. For my wife and I, it means that we cannot get child care where we live. We are looking to move right now.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Yeah, I know it was unclear based on the way that I worded my response.
Agreed. I was actually interpreting the previous poster to be thinking that we were saying that it was bad for two parents in the family to both have careers, and was instead pointing out that we were instead saying that it was bad for two parents in the family to be compelled to have a dual-income. Regarding everything else you said, I totally agree. I'm of the opinion that, while nobody should be forced to choose one way or the other, it's far better for one of the parents to stay home and take care of domestic affairs (including the children). The whole argument about children in daycare having superior social development is a load of hogwash. While they may develop basic social skills at an earlier age, they certainly don't have superior social skills later on. In fact, many home-schooled kids who never go to institutionalized schooling have social skills far superior to their institutionalized counterparts. The truth is that your ability to interact with society is a product of many factors, and where you learn those skills is not nearly as important as what you learn. It's hard for someone to convince me that a daycare teacher, who typically is responsible for 10 children, is able to care for them better than a parent who is only responsible for two or three, and who has a vested interest in their development. Here's the scary picture. Most children require 11 or 12 hours of sleep a day. If your child is in daycare and you work full time, they will be there for at least 10 hours. That means you get 2 or 3 hours a day (during the week) with your child, most of which is spent on meals and getting ready for bed. Not the best of situations, I would guess.
Thank, BTW, for your well thought out response. Hopefully it will put the two sides of the coin in perspective for others.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Average salary in the $80K range?
I am 25 And I am already making $55k a year. In a year that will go up to $60k a year. I am working for a public library on Long ISland. Here on Long Island they are stating how IT will be one of the fields that will be in deperate need. We have a problem of all the people my age moving off the island. So people with my skills are hard to find. It allso helps that I am in civil service and I am in a union. I think its all a matter of who you work for and where you live. Also if you are very good at your job you might work yourself out a job. I have done that already.If you fix things TOO fast then they will think they dont need you anymore and lay you off.
7 years in one company... three seperate jobs, pay hasn't varied omre than a $1000 in a year. dissastifaction? yup. burn out? yup. ready for a new career
oh yeah
If anything, I'm not surprised. Stick around someone long enough and you start to get sick of each other real fast. The fact that the adults have to care for the children and can't walk away makes it that much worse. People are people, I don't care what relationship they have. Some adults are real assholes too and can exploit familial connections in order to get their way at the expense of another. Just because some people are family don't mean that some of your family isn't psycho either (or can't be driven to that point).
I think the GP is telling us not to be afraid of childcare. Like he says it builds social skills, and is no more risky than giving them to relatives. He's not saying that parents should send their child away on the possibility that they themselves might be abusive.
Sorry to parrot the GP, but it needs clarifying.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Lies, bloody lies, and stastics :-(
:-(
"In a recent survey, it was found that 25% of fatal car accidents involved drunk drivers".
So let's apply your logic - that means that the other 75% of fatal car accidents involved people who were perfectly sober !
So I'm safer hanging around oustide a pub carpark at 11pm than outside a supermarket carpark at 3pm because statistically speaking I'm less likely to die at the first establishment than the second ???
Logic and numbers are no substitute for common sense
In the big companies, the cost of rehiring are much higher than smaller companies'. This is why Google, MS, etc has salaries that are considerably higher than the average. The labor market isn't perfect, but its there. The good workers will land the jobs at the bigger companies and will thus get paid more.
The big companies who don't hire good workers (due to some stupid HR person calling the shots) will lose the good workers to their competition, and hopefully go under or go thru a management restructuring.
The good workers who don't land those jobs needs to work on marketing their skills AND ride out the bumpy road and idiots who don't know how to hire.
GreyPoopon put it so well, there's not much I can add, except maybe this:
Maybe some IT types who need to brought down a peg or two think they are entitled to a luxurious lifestyle, but I don't think that's the general mentality. Working nights for code changes, on call duties, plus just plain working extra due to unreasonable deadlines imposed by upper management, all of these things are a tough pill to swallow and yet you cannot support your family on one income. Plus, all of these things tend to dilute a salary. After all, who wants to make 60K a year and work 60+ hours a week? That's like working two jobs. There was a story here just yesterday talking about this very thing. I don't think anyone reasonable expects an employer to pay enough to afford a second home or a fancy car on one income. I do think that it is reasonable to expect that someone who is halfway competent and who deals with all the CRAP that comes along with a job in IT should make enough to have at least a *modest* existence on one income. Working in IT requires that you are highly trained and keep abreast of ever-changing technology. And yet the guy in sales or marketing often makes more money?
blah blah blah
Wow. Seeing that you even have a BS in CS your salary and vacations make me feel really good about those of mine. Thanks, I'm all motivated again.
There is a difference between firing 1 person (and everyone agrees there was likely cause) and firing 15 people.
I'm observed that firing the "dead wood" in the second fashion resulted in losing about 50% of our highest quality employees over the next 18 months. Many of them had been here for 10 or more years. Prior to this the company was strongly against mass firings or layoffs. So people who valued that stayed despite lower pay.
If you are good- and you can make $120k, then why the hell would you stay at a company for $106k unless there is some non-financial incentive? That is exactly what happened here.
The result is a lot of canceled projects- failed projects- etc. when a key resource for the project suddenly disappears into tech consulting or the oil field.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Now you have heard of a sysadmin that makes over $80k, because I make $100k at my day job for 50hr/wk. Granted what I do is far more complex than a typical sysadmin would be expected to do. I do all sorts of high availability and disaster recovery, and I know all the pieces in between everything and how it works. I am also in finance. Believe it or not, I am a little underpaid for what I do, but I stay because I am growing my side business, and at the rate things are going I will leave in about a year making double what I do now. I am well on my way to achieving that goal.
How am I doing so well you ask (in comparison to everyone here apprarently)? Simple: I know what I am doing (I have good experience) and I have the business contacts to get work. I have met lots of people that think they are hot shit when in reality they don't know squat! I have met people who don't even know their one little piece (like VPN admins that have no idea how a VPN works and don't know how to troubleshoot). I'm not that old (under 30) but I do live near a major city. To top it off, I don't have a college degree.
So the secret to earning more from what I can tell is WHO you know and WHAT you know, as well as being able to SELL yourself on an interview. I have always met my goals, even when my employer sets unrealistic ones. I hope some of this helps.
I did this for a time when my first son was between 3 and 9 months, and only for the afternoons. It's much more difficult than you might think to get work done while watching kids. I ended up working into the evenings until my wife quit working to stay at home. I think it would be even more difficult now with two of them scampering about. Watching over kids is a full-time job, and I'm glad my wife is able to do it. (Though we'd be happy to switch if she could earn as much as me and/or we could reduce expenses. Hopefully after we pay off the house...)
At my age I find coming up with a witty signature too exhausting.
"much more likely to be bullies and have other socially undesirable traits"
This shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone. In the daycare business, the ratio of children to caretakers are high. They can only do so much. Personal attention and nurturing is secondary. Making sure the children don't choke on a toy is primary.
I used to be happy with my pay until I read that my CEO got $37 million last year. The difference between workers' pay and that of upper management is so great that it demoralizes us.
And to increase his pay he gets a bonus for reducing the US workforce and outsourcing. So, yeah, I aint happy.
I haven't read that particular study, but from similar studies that I have seen I wouldn't be surprised to find out that "step" family members (and possibly even live-in boyfriends) were counted as family. Research has shown that children are as much as 33 times more likely to be abused in homes where a stepfather or live-in boyfriend are present.
If you include stepfathers and live-in boyfriends as family, then yes, children are more in danger from their family. If you factor out broken homes, however, then you get a different picture entirely.
If you are suggesting that someone on £10k should not receive a tax credit to assist with childcare or that someone on 60k should, then you need to look at the whole situation.
For example, if I am earning £10k a year, and childcare costs £800 a month then there is no point in me going to work, so then not only am I a burden on society but your child care costs increase (fewer people can afford it = less take up = higher fees). If I am earning 25K a year, I don't need as much support if any, but if I don't get any then I may well decide that going to work is not worth it, after all working full time and only getting (realistically) 12k for a 25k job is if not pointless then at least demoralising, especially as the childcare costs are related directly to employment.
If I earn 50k a year, then paying for child care is no longer a huge chunk of my pay, and there is no social benefit of me receiving additional support, not to mention that every time I have looked at a position above about 45k it has included private healthcare (which I always turn down), childcare and other benefits (some of which are truly bizarre).
After all the idea of benefits is not cash to voters its to ensure that basic services are available, a certain minimum acceptable level of subsistence exists and that people who can work are able to, and to generally do as much good for society and the economy at the least cost to the public purse. (this is why we should be building extra public housing, investing in rather than bailing out utilities and transport companies and not taking on any more PFI type schemes but I digress).
As for the thing about child care and area I think its variable, before I moved house I lived in an extremely affluent area, the area had a large number of childcare providers (more expensive then where I am now but not by too much), they were of all types, from traditional, through Steiner and Montessori.
My son went to one up until he started school, and frankly it was excellent, now I have moved to a bigger properly in an 'up and coming' area of the same city, interestingly there is a huge amount more in the way of social and community support, but much less in the way of choice. There is childcare, but it is about ensuring that the kids are looked after well enough that the parents can work, not about development or education, there is more and cheaper childcare but it is not of the same standard. Oh and of course there isn't enough of it, and of course a single parent has priority, the idea is to get people back to work and for house holds to have a decent income, not that a family with two earners can take those extra holidays in the Algarve.
Despite the feel-good BS, "cooperation" does not usually result in an optimal solution. If a single person can handle the task, you'll get a much better final product than giving it to a team.
Sure, that can be true, but then I have to ask you two questions. I'm talking specifically about people on the software development path here, but I suspect analogous arguments hold for sysadmins too.
Firstly, for how many real projects does any approach truly give an optimal solution? How would we know what the optimal solution was ahead of time, anyway?
Secondly, how many real projects can be fully completed by a single person, within a realistic business time frame, and including all the related work that doesn't involve direct design and coding?
I don't for an instant dispute that a single great developer can be far more effective at the design and coding than a group of several average developers. Indeed there is plenty of research that supports this position. But — and this is where my distinction between helpful gurus and liabilities comes in — the work usually isn't going to be worth anything either way if no-one else can understand it, maintain the code later, write the accompanying user manuals and technical documentation, devise and run suitable higher-level tests, and so on. A good developer who can also communicate effectively with colleagues to achieve these things is a great asset, to be sure, but a rock star who can do the same technical things as the good developer but can't work with others is often a liability in the real world regardless of their technical expertise.
Even your use of "rock star", or the more negative "prima donna", betrays the reality of ths situation... A dozen decent studio musicians/singers don't replace one Jimi Hendrix or Sarah Brightman.
Perhaps. That's why I don't really like the term "rock star" in this context. Still, consider this: for most truly great musical performances, the lead is but one part of a whole cast and crew that create the overall effect. They have the name you remember, but if they couldn't sing or play with an orchestra or backing group, they didn't have good people on the lighting, the musical director was incompetent, or any other link in the chain broke, the great performance wouldn't happen no matter who the star was.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
All the single vs. dual income arguments always bring this point up:
"5) usually require two cars, since both people have to get to work"
If you have 2 adults in the household you need two cars, regardless if only one person works... What Daddy drives 30 miles to his job while Mommy sits on her ass and cannot run errands until Daddy gets home, or she has to run him round trip to his job and come home so she can go shopping then drive again to pick him up?
Unless using public transport (Western US, forget about it) or living in an urban setting two adults need two cars in order to function. However single income families can save money over dual income for the fact that the second car is not used for commuting (cheaper gas, insurance, wear and tear, etc)
Are you kidding me? The average annual salary increase in our many-billions-of-dollars-revenue company over the past 5 years is 1% per year. Last I checked, inflation was a lot higher than that. Keep in mind that our stock is soaring, and the company makes money hand over fist.
I use public transport to get to and from work. I know that doesn't work well everywhere. And having one car does require sacrifices, like coordinating weekend schedules. But not having to pay extra insurance, taxes, car payments, having to do maintenance on another car, etc, makes up for it. I will have two cars someday, I am sure of it. I just so happen to live near the bus line that takes me to work. If that changes, then I'll most likely buy an old (mid 90's) Honda or Toyota.
blah blah blah
Children, like adults, learn social skills when communicating with each others.
And like adults, they will pick up the social skills of those they come into contact with most. Are you raising your child to be a child, or an adult?
The 30 to 1 ratio of child to adult in the childcare center would indicate that the children may be learning, but not how to grow up.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
"well 'adapting' isn't quite as easy when the public transportation system stinks."
Adapting as in driving small, fuel-efficient vehicles.
"So what you're saying, in a nutshell, is congratulations on becoming a third world country. "
Apparently you need better shells. We're not even close to being a third-world country. We may go through some pains just like Japan did, but neither them or us will turn into third-world countries. Anyway you missed the "they're buying our stuff" and the "imported goods will cost more" part of my post. That's not third world. That's the economy doing what it's suppose to.
Schnapple
Your calculation reminds me of the adage "it's not what you make, it's what you keep" . You make less than US standards. But you clearly keep a higher percentage due to lower taxes, less health care expenses, and other savings.
100% agree with balance. But it's bigger than that.
You say you don't want or need to be completely financially independent. You say you'd be happy if your dividends lasted a few years before running out...
No argument. You can do what you want to do, of course. But don't you see that you will still be forced to make money later in life in order to support yourself??? By definition, that's not freedom. Don't get me wrong, it's not slavery either. Hopefully, you'll be good enough to adapt your skillset so you can make money and get by doing something you like. But I don't think like you do.
See, you assume that the REST of your life, you'll be able to "do what you need to do to get by" (at whatever income level you need). I don't assume that. I want to make sure I don't have to do ANYTHING at that point -- unless I want to. F-you money insures that, which is why I took the time to explain it.
I feel like Mick Jaggar in the song "(I Can't Get No)Satisfaction!" However I wish I had grand-daddy Mick's money and I will get some satisfaction. If you read the lyrics to "(I Can't Get No)Satisfaction!" it feels like my life: http://www.lyrics007.com/The%20Rolling%20Stones%20Lyrics/(I%20Can't%20Get%20No)%20Satisfaction%20Lyrics.html
You're one of the problem ones. You don't work on very large projects, do you?
http://www.education.umn.edu/nceo/TopicAreas/Graduation/StatesGrad.htm
Q.
I'm not sure there is one correct piece of information in this post.. The CPI basket of goods is determined by ~30,000 consumer surveys every 2 years. The weight of each specific item within the item category (i.e. steak's weight in the beef category) is initially set by the survey, and then is adjusted throughout the survey period using geometric weighting. If the price of steak goes up, steak will receive a lower weight, and vice-versa. The assumption is that if steak gets more expensive, people will buy more hamburger. There is a debate on whether this method is proper (see my previous post). There is also another method of substitution that only occurs in an supplemental index, C-CPI, which seeks to capture changes in buying patterns across product categories.. say steak gets expensive and instead of buying hamburger, people start buying pork.
The price of energy was not taken out. It is still captured in the CPI. However, some people argued that the CPI less food and energy ("Core" CPI) was a better indicator, which I don't really agree with, but the fact is that the numbers are still published by BLS and the mainstream media simply ignores them. Also it wasn't recent, it was 1978.
BLS is aware of the shortcomings in quality adjustments for technology items, and it is an area of current research. However your example is not correct, the BLS analysts are knowledgeable enough to know that a quad 2GHz != 8 x 1GHz.. and furthermore the weighting that computers get in the overall CPI is small (0.5% for all IT goods/services in December 2006 CPI-W).
*Includes base pay, bonuses, stock/stock options and other extra pay
All figures are mean averages; 1,789 respondents
I would hardly call less than 2K respondents a good pool to grab said statistics from.
... we have a 13 month old, and there WAS a study (again, lacking a cite) that said that kids who were in day care for 20 or fewer hours per week showed no differences from kids who were kept at home. After that, there was again no differences between the kids, so there wer really two groups: One in day care for 20 or fewer, one not.
That said, I have no idea where one would go for an unbiased study of these things. A couple of links for your viewing pleasure:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE2D6143CF935A25754C0A9659C8B63
I suspect the parent's study is the one by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. I didn't see that the article attaches NICHHD to a university. Although I'm not sure how that would alter my opinion of the study, now that I think about it.
Same link, another study from UMinn stating that kid's stress levels tend to rise during the day while in day care, but fall during the day while at home.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051101/news_1n1earlyed.html
A study showing that negative social effects are most pronounced when the kids are in day care for more than 45 hours a week, which seems pretty extreme.
In short, I dunno either. Go Buddhist. There's a middle path here somewhere.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Yes.
Agreed.
I left my former employer - got a 15% raise, and a $5k signon bonus; and I'm *still* struggling.
I keep hearing that it's because I'm too materialist - "the things you own end up owning you" - etc.
That's bullshit. No, it's true, actually, but I am most definitely *NOT* materialist; maybe compared to most people I know - whom ARE very materialist - compared to say, an Uzbeki goat herder, I suppose my iPod nano is quite bourgeois. But no, I haven't bought any of the big-ticket toys that many of my neighbors and acquaintances have; the boats, the motorcycles, the trucks, I wasn't in line the other night to get Halo3, I don't have an xBox, I don't have a BMW, all I really have is my house, my wife, and my kids. I work hard, I'm good at what I do, and employers still want to give us the shaft.
I look at this IT salary report, and I think; OMG! I'm way underpaid! Then I look at job ads around here for likely positions I could fill, and they're around 2/3 what I'm making now. I just don't get it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
There's something wrong with that, but I'm not sure what it is.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
I agree strongly that one parent should stay home when kids are under the age of about 5-8. It really makes a big difference. But after that age; not so much. It took many years of mounting debt and living paycheck to paycheck, and financial emergencies - but my wife was finally convinced to go back to work after our youngest turned 11. Hallelujah!
I mean - what the hell is she supposed to do with her time for the rest of her life? What if I died? Or got sick and couldn't work? She'd have zero job experience if she had to start again - it's just common sense. There's no damn reason to be a housewife if the husband helps with the housework (come on guys!) and if the kids are old enough to be a little independent. My wife is starting a business - and if it succeeds, we'll have a much nicer lifestyle. We even may be secure enough where I could risk trying to start a business. And if her business fails? Oh well. Try again? Or go work for someone else? sure. Whatever.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
if you studied your floyd properly, you'd know that pigs could fly.
[rant]
I thought that I would NEVER see a subject like this. How dare ANYONE even think of questioning the cultural norms of money-grabbing and dream-chasing!
[/rant]
'Socially retarded' is defined as one whose interactions with others have been contaminated by disgusting concepts such as right and wrong. Remember, home schooling is a sign of extremeism.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
I keep a high percentage compared to comparably situated American engineers largely as a result of lifestyle choices, but if I were personally living in America and earning say $55k instead of $25k to start out I would have been able to save more than the $10k a year that I did end up saving. $40k is adequate to the cost of living here, where $40k would be inadequate to maintain a comparable standard of living in some locations in America, but I have a feeling that even including the cost-of-living-adjustment I'd be keeping more money at the end of the month if I were paid as an American engineer.
But, eh, I enjoy my life and don't particularly need more money, so there is little incentive to go hop on a boat and find myself a job in the Valley. (Or hop on a train and find a job in Tokyo, for that matter.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Mostly because my wife wants to be a stay at home mother. Since that is what she wants and I think it's healthiest for the children that is what I want to provide. In her spare time she wants to go back and finish her degree and work on running her own business. Not quite sitting on the ass.
:)
My goal for income, in the next couple years, is only about $40000/yr. That is hardly big bucks especially since I am doing all our programming, db work, web design, sysadmin work, I fill in as helper for our network/windows admin (and am somewhat teaching since I know the stuff better), and I manage the Internet/Intranet/eCom needs and staff. We currently have four websites and an Intranet site, we're about to open another website, and have several more planned over the next couple months. Three of the websites are eCom sites and the Intranet site has replaced many of the old enterprise apps we were using. Eventually, I want to spin off a couple of my jobs onto other hands, when I find someone that will do a good enough job, but I still think it's a job role worthy of making a decent income.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
My wife is probably a bigger distraction than kids. She always wants to talk to me while I'm working, or just sit and watch me, which makes it so I can't concentrate on what I'm coding. Luckily my job is such that I can work frequently from home and take the kids to the office with me when I need to but I have to be careful about getting distracted. It's all to easy to let the wife talk me into watching tv with her or going somewhere. I'm sure kids will be distracting too but at least I don't want to go clean peanut butter off the floor or see who is teaching the cat to swim whereas I do want to hang out with my wife.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
How would comparing the new prices of something 3 years ago to the used prices of something today work for an inflation index? It makes no sense at all.
Do you remember your childcare professions from when you were a young child? I don't know about you but I got stuck with a lot of weirdos. If kids spending all their time with kooky parents is damaging what does it do to be exposed frequently to kooky care givers?
Off the top of my head I remember one lady who decided I was her dead son, one that would handcuff the children to a bedpost and leave them there until either her husband, a cop, came home and smacked them, or their parents came and unknowingly rescued them, and one who fed us nothing but mayonnaise and made us stay in the walk-in closet with ancient nasty toys while she watched MTV. I've seen some pretty bad childcare places in recent years too - my sister-in-law quit one a few months ago because the owners were so psycho. A co-worker that was leaving her kids there a few months ago stopped because they managed to let one of her kids leave with someone elses parent.
Not to say all childcare is bad but I think it's difficult for parents to know which is which. How things look and reviews from other parents don't always mean much. I don't think I'd risk leaving my children with strangers. But then I have enough family and friends I can trust that I wouldn't need to use childcare. I would like to have childcare offered by my employer though - if I could walk in at any time throughout the day and see how things were and watch over web cams I'd feel much better about it.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I think that is explained by the fact that a lot of freaks decide to homeschool their kids. It's the freaks in any group that stick out. I know a lot of geeks that are socially retarded but that doesn't mean that I think all geeks are. Or it could mean that you have a skewed sense of what is healthy and are just misjudging people as social retards when they are perfectly normal. ;)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I know my family and know who I can and can't trust. I have extended family I wouldn't trust because they are demented criminals. My family I'd trust for a short while but not for extended periods because they aren't that responsible. My wife's family I'd trust completely. As with any situation it's a matter of being able to know who to trust. You should know your family and friends better than you know a stranger but some people just keep blinders on when it comes to people they want to trust.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I probably agree with your statement but I think it doesn't matter as offshoring of jobs is probably a bigger issue. Even if only one person in every couple was holding a job so the workforce was more scarce and wages would go up it'd not really matter because we'd offshore more jobs to places that are cheaper. If they didn't then prices would probably go up and consumers would complain. It's all a nasty cycle.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
With IT professionals there is another possiblity. Often we can work from home so we still only need one car per household. I can cheat further because I live close enough to walk to work easily. I would like a nice bicycle but sadly I can't even afford that. ;)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
There are no homosexuals in Iran. The Government has already killed them all.
I'm not sure there is one correct piece of information in this post.
I readily concede the examples were more to underline the issues with CPI calculations than exact dollar values.
The assumption is that if steak gets more expensive, people will buy more hamburger. There is a debate on whether this method is proper
There are multiple issues with it, both for and against. If an epidemic of mad cow disease skyrockets the price of beef and people substitute salmon and pork tenderloin, then its a fair substition. The cost of living didn't really go up; the price of beef went nuts, and normal people just stopped buying it.
But the idea of substituting steak for hamburger is absurd. That represents making a sacrifice to ones standard of living in order to stay ahead of the rising cost of groceries, and it shouldn't be masked.
Secondly by tweaking whats in the basket from year to year, it becomes even harder to compare the numbers. If 10 years ago we're dining on steak and salmon, and this year we're dining on hamburgers and fish sticks, and 10 years from now we're gagging back beans and seaweed, and the CPI numbers are telling us things are just fine, then it isn't doing its job.
The price of energy was not taken out. It is still captured in the CPI. However, some people argued that the CPI less food and energy ("Core" CPI) was a better indicator, which I don't really agree with, but the fact is that the numbers are still published by BLS and the mainstream media simply ignores them.
When your wage increases are contractually linked to core-cpi and governments congratulate themselves on low inflation its more than a problem with 'mainstream media'. I realize the numbers are there, but if they aren't being used to make policy decisions because they are politically inconvenient, hiding them under the rug while using a cpi number that is at odds with reality is dishonest. That's not BLS' fault per se, but they should take ownership of it and shout from the rooftops, "hey! core-cpi doesn't reflect what the american's are actually experiencing at all right now, and only an idiot would use it to judge the state of the economy right now."
Also it wasn't recent, it was 1978.
Its only recently that it diverged from core-cpi badly. It didn't really matter that it was excluded when it was rising at the same rate.
BLS is aware of the shortcomings in quality adjustments for technology items, and it is an area of current research. However your example is not correct, the BLS analysts are knowledgeable enough to know that a quad 2GHz != 8 x 1GHz.. and furthermore the weighting that computers get in the overall CPI is small (0.5% for all IT goods/services in December 2006 CPI-W).
As for my example with hedonics, yes I know the BLS isn't that incompetent, but it is a fair example of what hedonics *is*. And pointing out that that computer weighting in the cpi is small is misleading. Hedonics is applied to more than just computers. TV's, Kitchen appliances, Home theatres, alarm clocks, power tools, cars, fishing rods, sports equipment, etc.
Worse the inverse of hedonics isn't applied. When the quality of something is lowered over time, we don't see that loss of quality reflected as a higher cost the same way we see the increase of quality reflected as a lower cost. Consider, for example, ikea furniture which is mostly plastic and particle board.
Thanks for the civics lesson, but I never said I wanted government subsidies, nor did I mean to imply that I think poor people shouldn't get them. I am just a bit miffed at the way benefits are doled out. For example, around here if you have one child and you make $2500 a month, they can go to preschool for free. If you make $2600 a month, you pay full price which can be from $500 to $1000 a month. Those hard cut-off lines are idiotic.
My issue is that I am prepared to PAY for quality day care, but it is simply not available in my area. The one quality daycare provider here specialized in poor kids, and as a result, you can't send your kid there unless you are poor. The others are fly-by-night operations that we simple don't trust.
And no, we don't want daycare so my wife can work so we can go on vacation in Aruba. I just want get her a break once in awhile.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I'll take your word for it that the firings you saw were suboptimal. But I have to insist that part of professional management is the ability to separate employees, whether the separation is driven by the employee leaving, by a disciplinary firing, or by cost-cutting.
I skimmed a book by a business professor about the problems of small business and how to fix them. Most of the problems come down to lack of professional management. Over the decades, a successful small business may become filled with timid, insular employees whose main qualification is loyalty. They rightly suspect that they're unemployable elsewhere, so they're terrified to challenge the boss, even if they had the background to do so.
I am sensing a faint echo of this idea in your description of employees who stick around at low salaries for "stability".
I agree about the social skills. When I say stay at home mom I don't mean that all she does is stay at home, she just doesn't work at a job. She's very active with the community, has a group of other stay at home moms who get together at least once a week to let their kids play together, and has a couple of friends that also have children the same age as ours.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
While I agree with the social skills aspect, you're assuming that all they do is stay home. I would never ask my wife to just be at home all the time, she has friends with small children and often (2 or more times a week) spend time with them so the kids can play. She also has a moms club that she is a member of and at least once a week spends time with them where the mothers all hang out and gossip while the kids run around a park or whatever under the watch of all their eyes. Problems like what you're talking about arise when stay at home moms don't take any steps to have interaction themselves (foolish), a lack of sense of community, and helicopter parenting. For instance, the helicopter mom in her group. That lady's son is a little bastard, he's not very social, hits a lot, bites and generally is a little fucker. Most of the other parents expect swift punishment from whichever parent sees someone do something wrong except for her. She cannot stand to have her precious snowflake punished for being a little bastard by anyone but her and it's usually just a stern talking to, no time in the corner, no being taken away from the other kids for a while, no paddling his ass when necessary. She like so many parents doesn't understand that you're not your kid's friend, you're a parent and it's key to teach them right from wrong when they're younger.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
Yes that is true.
I'm saying that unless you pay top dollar, you can't have instability and retain the cream of the crop.
So the business has a choice of keeping everyone and saving 20-30% on salaries or being ruthless and being faced with equally ruthless behavior by its employees.
And when the good people leave- you are *stuck* with the worst. You cannot afford to fire anyone when the two sub performers are the only two people left.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Let me explain what I mean (also remember that I did include the caveat, "on some level")
Suppose I need to pay for a babysitter, and have two choices.
1- I can hire a 15-year old girl from down the road for $3/hour that doesn't really like young kids, but is reasonably competent.
2- I can hire a team that will have constand video footage sent to the laptop they provide me with, so I can observe the care of my child. One of the team is an experienced bodyguard, and the other is a child education PhD with 30 years experience, and knows (and loves) my child. They come in an ambulance and bring along a paramedic, just in case of a medical emergency. They charge $1500/hour.
I used a lot of exaggeration here, enough to kind of break the example, but I wanted to make sure the point is visible.
When people look for day care, do they spend more time researching the price and convenience, or the background of the people that will be caring for the child? It's just a guess, but my guess is that many people don't even know the names of all the people at the day care before they take their child there.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
I didn't mean to say that states themselves don't require it, I meant it is not a federal requirement for graduation. Federal requirements only specified Social Studies/History, English, and Science through all years of HS, if I recall correctly (math was only required through Algebra).
exaggeration and sarcasm seem to be missed on the young-uns these days...
I was trying to stress a point - the US economy is tanking at a fairly rapid rate. If you look at trends any currency vs the US dollar, it almost always shows an upward trend - the Euro has gained 45 cents in 5 years and the Canadian Dollar about 35 cents in the same period. If that trend continues for a long time, US citizens will have no buying power, but will draw jobs and tourism money. This benefits BUSINESSES - they are essentially paying their employees less (since they are paid essentially the same and losing buying power) and making more profit on foreigners. Mexico is a prime example of this sort of economy - booming businesses and a lot of poverty.
OK seeing what you are describing I've got to agree that it doesn't make sense, to be honest I hadn't considered that any government would be quite so short sighted as to impose hard limits at specific points rather than a sliding scale. On the childcare element, surely the organisations that can provide childcare are regulated and policed? I have seen some poor nurseries, but I have never considered them fly by night!
If you're only making $40,000 a year for all that stuff then you are WAAAAAY under paid, even if your in a low income area. I assume this is for a small business as no medium or large company has one person that does all that stuff. If you are at least proficient in all those areas you should be making at least $60,000 min. in a low income area, or at least $80,000 in a high income area.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
You didn't specify what you do. But if you do anything other than low level help desk then you are severely underpaid. I hope you're hourly at that low of a wage because if you are coming in evenings and weekends for emergencies then you better be getting paid for that.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Clearly, your problem is that your wife does not have a job, or you are taking on far to much of the responsibilities at home. If a wife, or husband, in a household with at least two small children (I am assuming there are at least two, since you used the plural, and that they are young because I can't see you taking fifteen year olds to work with you) has time to sit around watching you write code (an activity considerably less exciting than watching paint dry) they are blessed with much more free time than any of the parents of young children that I know. Actually, if you are a parent and have that kind of free time, good for you. Just don't waste it like that. You're going to piss off the majority of parents who use their free time to do things like catching up on their sleep, or getting a haircut, or watching a movie, or changing the oil in their car.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
BTW, another nice thing about us all moving to Cuba is that the healthcare is free like we're used to, only the quality is a little higher and the waiting lists are much lower.
When I say "fly by night" I just mean that they are not accredited by organizations like NAEYC. One is particular in my area that had room available is run by people that we know for a fact are former meth addicts. It's a church-based daycare, but still....
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
You sound just like I did not to long ago (almost the same exact same things I was doing), so I'll give you some more advice.
//Sorry for the long post but I thought it would do you good to hear it.
You are being used by your employer. I was being used at the time too but I was making $43,000 (at least $10,000 less than I should have been making). If your employer is charging people for the time your out fixing their stuff then you should be getting a good percentage of that (i.e. an hourly wage at two different rates, a billing rate and an in-house rate). In my case, we were charging $125 an hour but since I was salaried it didn't matter if I was at the office working on a server project or out billing at a customer. Obviously since I had no incentive to be out at a customer's location my preference was to stay in the office and not deal with the hassle of driving all over town. You may not feel the same way but for me it negative impacted my dealing with these customers because I didn't want to be out in the field because I would rather have been back at the office working on a cool new project (I always had 10 different projects I was working on).
The only reason to stay at a place like this is if they are willing to train you up. That was my original incentive to taking this job because I wanted to get into servers more (I've been doing desktop stuff forever and I was tired of it). I saw this as a stepping stone because they were willing to give me time to work on certifications and server projects that would greatly expand my knowledge. Unfortunately, this didn't really materialize. The original agreement was that I would get to spend approximately 5-10 hours a week working on my various certs and do some work on my own time. But what ended up happing is in the first couple of months I was able to get about 30 hours of on the clock cert time done and that was it. We were too busy with other projects after that (it never slowed down). Finally after just over a year (when I finally started to have time again to look at the certs) I was laid-off because they didn't need me to work on their server projects anymore (the thing they really wanted from me). So while I did learn some important server stuff they really screwed me on the other half of the stuff I wanted (the free certs).
The really funny thing is all the time I would get questions from my boss as to why I hadn't finished those certs. I told him it was because he didn't give me the time we had agreed to in my acceptance letter. He of course just brushed this aside and and said, "well you should still be doing it". And as much as that pissed me off, he was right I should have done it because he wasn't willing to help me out and he never would!
Finally back to you. In some areas people working at McDonald's make as much as you do. Think about that for a minute. While I was certainly underpaid by a fair amount, you are letting them walk all over you in the salary department. If by chance you are in a really cheap area to live then you aren't getting as bad of a deal but most people on entry level help desk positions make more than you do (regardless of the area, I doubt you'll find one that makes less than you).
I would really recommend poking around with some of your customers or do whatever you can to build up a good network of people so that you can get better job in the very near future.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
A top notch programmer works well in a team setting by definition. Someone who cannot or will not work in a team is not a top notch programmer.
I think, then that my problem with your post is that everything, pretty much, turns out to be a trade-off.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.