What do you do?

McCheese_sl said:

I think I prefer hourly. At least then you get paid for the work you put in. I am salaried and I routinely work nights and weekends for no additional money.

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I can see that argument. But our busy time only happens in the spring for a very short period and the fall for another short period. Then you might get a disaster you have to fix and put in extra hours. You're paid salary basically to cover it all. Everything outside those periods might have anywhere from a few months to a few years lead up to get ready.

Also we get a bonus each year in the summer. They start off at 20% of your gross pay and can go up to 100% depending on what happend that year and your job. The GM might make 100%. I got 40% this year but I only moved to actually working for this company the 1st of Dec after doing contract work for them for almost 20 years. I also only worked from Dec. to May before I got sick and got paid leave till after the first of the year.

My dad retired from here and he got a salary, was allowed to work at home while running his own business as basically a retainer type deal. He typically got 30% for around 30 years.

It's unique but it works and is pretty much the standard in our little sector of the industry. When I owned my own business I did it the same way. I never wanted to hear someone in the office saying they needed overtime or whatever else. The shop may need it but they can't ask for it.

I enjoy salary. I'm technically supposed to work 8am-5pm. Sometimes I'm stuck here until 10pm if we have a sev 1 issue, sometimes I leave at 3 if I feel like it. Sometimes I work from home.

Our world is 7-3:30 and that's the norm for our industry and mostly that revolves us contacting the companies we service. I can come in at 8 and leave at 4 or pretty much come and go when I want as long as it's not a turnaround going on. We shift to start late if it's really cold due to the guys in the shop. We start 2 hours later or something but again it really doesn't affect me.

I mean they could pay per hour and it would work out money wise, but I can't imagine somewhere where the people that run the copmany clock in and out with the shop people. That would really be unheard of. Management gets huge leeway in most of them I have seen and I've seen quite a few doing contract work for 25 years.

I know how it sounds but there are really two classes of workers, shop and office. It's a big incentive to work your way up. The other guy that does what I do at work started in the shop as well as the 3rd guy in the engineering end of our business who was a pipe welder before he became a designer.

All that and I got punked. They company got bought out and/or merged with a company I had done work for in the past. A guy who I did a lot of work with there put him up to it. He knew I would turn down a per hour shop type job. I'm supposed to go out to lunch next week with the guy who knows me and the guy who took me out this week to talk about doing some side business with them.

I won't tell him but the price went up lol

They got a big laugh out of it in a conference call today.

I visited with a UK based company that is building pellet mills in the southeast and a shipping/storage facility on the MS river in LA. They take whole trees and chip them then pelletize them and ship them to the UK for use in their converted oil fueled power plant. There are other similar pellet mills in the country but I believe these are (2 now and 1 in construction) the only ones owned by the power plant company and designed to fuel that particular plant(s).

Interesting conversation anyway. Apparently thier represenative from the UK that is overseeing the project is having a difficult time getting things done in a timely manner due to a lack of communication for a better word. We talked for a good while and I liked the guy and we seemed to be on the same wavelength. I think a good portion of it may be he's trying to manage rednecks and coonasses and sticks out like a sore thumb. He was impressed I bootstrapped myself into what I do know with structural steel and construction and have a forestry degree.

They are building a new HQ in Atlanta but that's all I know of it.

Anyway, interesting hearing people show and tell their new stuff to you. He choked when I told him I turned down a project management posistion with a clean coal plant that at the time was $500 million over budget and is now $1 billion over budget. He thought I was joking but the other guy in the meeting knew about it since it's been in the news here a lot. He said I guess that wouldn't be a great resume builder and I told him that's exactly why I turned it down.

We talked for a long time but he really didn't elaborate in where he thought I might fit in. We're supposed to talk again next week.

I've been destroyed for this past 1.5 years of inconsistent scheduling and overall turmoil. Never get responses to resumes until the otherday. I'm roughly at 22k/yr. The first one is in a field that I'm interested in and pays 27k. Online reviews of the company say the work is rewarding but the pay isn't and there is a palpable disconnect between those that do the work and the bosses that make the real $. The second is Bojangles, lul, but they're offering 40k+bonus for a max of 70k the first year salaried at 50hrs a week every week (something I haven't done yet).
In this case, the money just seems too obvious. I could like farm and then switch away from Bo' later..

Cad_sl said:

People in my firm made over a million bucks last year and we all get paid by the hour.

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How does hourly work for lawyers anyways? You're clearly exempt so under federal law you're not required to be paid hourly, but most lawyers get it anyways. Is it just tradition?

Xequecal_sl said:

How does hourly work for lawyers anyways? You're clearly exempt so under federal law you're not required to be paid hourly, but most lawyers get it anyways. Is it just tradition?

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Kind of interested as well. When I did design on contract I charged them a per hour rate for revisions on top of the contract that was lump sum, per pound, or whatever else.

Curious how that works etc...I always just submitted them a bill and nobody ever questioned it. I have heard of overbilling for lawyers etc..

But my bills went to other companies that were familiar with the fact that if you charge X per hour that had cover your rate for the actual work, your equipment, the hassle of stopping one job and starting another and all that associated type stuff. Not sure if individuals are willing to accept that on face value.

I went to a specialist and he talked to me for an hour. I got a bill for $600 (that was the total submitted to insurance). He must have had to get other patients to make up the difference. No way a Dr. could charge $600/hour on a continuing basis with an office, an MRI on site in his office and all the other expenses he has. He must normally spend 10 minutes per patient to make it work out. I couldn't do what I do for $600/hour if I had to have the office and equipment he does.

Borzak_sl said:

Kind of interested as well. When I did design on contract I charged them a per hour rate for revisions on top of the contract that was lump sum, per pound, or whatever else.

Curious how that works etc...I always just submitted them a bill and nobody ever questioned it. I have heard of overbilling for lawyers etc..

But my bills went to other companies that were familiar with the fact that if you charge X per hour that had cover your rate for the actual work, your equipment, the hassle of stopping one job and starting another and all that associated type stuff. Not sure if individuals are willing to accept that on face value.

I went to a specialist and he talked to me for an hour. I got a bill for $600 (that was the total submitted to insurance). He must have had to get other patients to make up the difference. No way a Dr. could charge $600/hour on a continuing basis with an office, an MRI on site in his office and all the other expenses he has. He must normally spend 10 minutes per patient to make it work out. I couldn't do what I do for $600/hour if I had to have the office and equipment he does.

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Lawyers just rape you regardless.

Seriously, Cad is most likely a sex offender for the amount he charges.

Lawyers charge 400 an hour plus 10 cents a copy, bill 36 hours a day, and never settle a case until the client is out of money.

I used to add $10 per sheet for every sheet I had to plot. Now I just roll it into the charge for the job if I charge per sheet. $235 per sheet for a 24x36" sheet or $55 per sheet for 11x17" sheets.

Now if I could figure out a way to charge for 36 hours a day I would be in good shape.

Like I said in my field of work it separates the people who are "professional" and work mostly in the office (I do some of both) and the shop guys who are fabricating. It's not even a money issue as some of our shop guys make six figures. But the salary guys have more leeway in a lot of areas even tho we work similar amounts of hours and sometimes more.

Also at my shop the salary people get free lunch and the shop brings their own. We normally don't go out for lunch as we're crunched for time and the owner picks up our bill for take out or delivery. If I have to take hourly people to the field he pays for everyone.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

How the hell did this country get so divided between salary v hourly? Thats something ive always been curious about. I can see depending on the field and type of work you do one system being better than the other but its all over the damn place.

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Beats me, I kinda wish I was hourly.
Although, (250k/year compensation is nice)

I prefer salary because I work probably 35 hours a week but get paid for 40. Salary can work both ways. Though it often ends up as working extra time rather than less time if your company are slave drivers or you just aren't nearly as efficient as you should be.

ZyyzYzzy_sl said:

One reason I hate being a Govt. contractor. I work extremely efficiently but needed a minimum of 40 hours put in a week on projects. This usually means me sitting at my desk doing nothing for an entire day waiting for people on other parts of a project. I can't stay home because of dick higher ups wanting people in work no matter what and the fact that times are captured via badging into the building and lab/office spaces.

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When I worked as at a Gov Contractor I found they could never give me enough work.
Everything was slow as piss and the only thing contractors seem to do is seep Money from our government while producing nothing.

I left and joined a startup.

Some time I will tell you about when I got hired by an agency of the federal government to help a guy do his job. He couldn't do his job because he was part of a $400k theft from the US Forest Service and part of his plea was that he couldn't set foot on the National Forest. But the US Forest Service didn't care and just hired me to be his liason to go out to the National Forest since the office wasn't on the forest but adjacent to it. That pretty much killed my desire to ever work for a government agency.

I should go on paid leave more often. I had one interview, another I talked to the company to see where they were headed in a new direction for their subsidary. Now I have another interview scheduled.

Working in healthcare has made me fear the idea of salary. The past few weeks I've been making more than the physician assistants, because I get overtime and they don't.

Its fucking scary watching the PA arguing with a doctor and absolutely refusing to do any more cases, because its almost 1 AM and he's been there since 9 AM. 5 hours unpaid overtime in one day because he's on salary. The doctor is not a hypocrite either, he works even more hours. (Why anyone would voluntarily choose to go to school to be a doctor or lawyer is just beyond me with the state if these industries.)