Hehe, I work for the government too, and believe me, I only wish I could make $30 an hour. I'm currently around $22.5. That being said, I'm also the highest paid non-director level position at my location, so that's 15 people being paid more than me, and ~600 being paid less, and some significantly less. On the other hand, I have a 35 hour work week, 13 days vacation (until next year, then it jumps to 19), When I go home, I'm home. If I work more than 40 in a week, I get overtime. I've gotten a raise every year I've been there, we have a phenomenal retirement system, full medical, dental, vision, etc. There are LOTS of more important things than just plain salary. My wife can retire in 3 years if she wants to. She won't, but she could. My department has 3 people in it. Me, my wife, and the new guy. The nice thing about that last bit is that they'd be in a world of hurt if they got rid of me, and they all know it. I have exclusive knowledge of too many site-specific systems that nobody else ever touches. Not that they couldn't train somebody, but it would be a painful transition for them. Actually, the new guy/girl would just have to figure it out as he/she went along since there would be nobody left to train them. Our newest employee has been in the field for 5 months now, all at the city, and he knows just enough to be dangerous. The good thing is that everyone knows this. He currently can't handle much more than installing printers and new computers, and sometimes he can't even do that, so I'm pretty secure there. He gets to chase all the "my mouse quit working" calls while I am busy maintaining our servers and handling the more important/difficult (i.e. fun) calls.

In short, I like my job. I've been offered almost double by private firms, but I've been there, done that, and don't plan on doing it again. Oh, the other nice thing is, if I feel like calling in and telling them I won't be in till 1, it's no problem, as long as I have the comp time built up, and believe me, I do.

Yeah, it'd be one thing if I was a real government employee, but, as a contractor I get squat for benefits. Obviously no government pension (which I know is quite nice with the State, as my mom's a NC employee), I get paid hourly, which means no paid vacations, I don't get paid for holidays, the insurance I get is not paid for in any way, though I do get the lower rates involved in a group plan, etc., etc.

And as to Doug's comment, the first thing I'd do if I won the lottery is quit my job and never work again, regardless of how good my job is. I hate reporting to other people, I hate being on their schedule, and I've got enough stuff to do on my own that I'd never get bored. In other words, a bad day at home is still better than a good day at work.

Bitt, that's not right. I'm a lousy intern at my father's office, and I'm the same type of emplyee as you. Not to give an ego boost or anything, but you should be getting more than that. I'm a copier/mailer/data entry monkey, and you're a Unix admin. There seems to be something wrong there.

I don't get any of those perks either (no paid leave whatsoever), and I am also benefiting from the company health plan but only in a similar manner to yours.

I load boxes of crap in FedEx trucks during the early morning hours and only get paid $7.50 per hour. No benefits, but I do get to break all the fragile packages.



I laugh when I see "DO NOT DROP" stuck on some sucker's box. Does that mean it's ok if I throw it? My all-time favorite was: "An additional $5.00 fee has been paid on this package to ensure careful handling. Absolutely no conveyor belts!" And of course this box comes down the conveyor belt like every other box. The silly sheep don't realize that it's not the conveyor belts that are breaking their shit. HAHAHA

Surprisingly, I've gotten pretty good service out of FedEx. Nothing has been damaged at all.

It's DHL that I've had problems with. We sent a casing which was made out of 5mm steel and was very well packaged as well. Somehow they managed to bend and dent the casing without destroying the outer packaging. Luckily DHL paid up as it was insured. Even the guy that came out to check the damage for the insurance claim was impressed.

a bad day at home is still better than a good day at work.

Preach it brother.

There is something wrong. Working for the private sector will always pay better than the public sector. However, the other benefits usually outweigh the pay difference. Bitt, however, is getting screwed because he is doing work for the government, but he doesn't work for the government. So, he gets the crap pay without all the good benefits.

Bitt, that's not right. I'm a lousy intern at my father's office, and I'm the same type of emplyee as you. Not to give an ego boost or anything, but you should be getting more than that.

I second that. There's absolutely no logical reason you should be making less than college interns.

Maybe try some of the services like Monster.com?

The way the ecomony is anymore especially in the tech sector, be glad you have a job reguardless of what you make. I make $15 an hour which isn't great, but it's better than what I have made in the past trying to keep my house afloat. I have spent too many months out of work living on credit cards that I am just thankful to have a job. But i know what you mean about contract work, you pretty much get nothing and work hard for it and the places I have been will get rid of you if you make the least little mistake. They know there are plenty of people out there to take your place.

They know there are plenty of people out there to take your place.

It is truly unfortunate that employers take this view (and they do), because it simply isn't correct. Well not in the case of someone like Bitt anyway (unless I am completly underestimating his level of talent). The truth is that while there are a ton of people out there with the qualifications to do the work, there aren't a lot of people out there who are going to be as good at it. I am truly suprised how many programmers my company has hired that looked good on paper and have basically been useless to do real tasks. I once heard someone say that only 10% of any profession is any good at what they do. This may not quite be true, but the idea is. Turnover is very expensive for companies, so a smart company who finds a employee who knows what he or she is doing should do everything possible to hold on to that person. Unfortunatly it doesn't work out that way, which is very sad, both for the company and the talented, underpaid employee.

I'm not disagreeing with you, Laura. You are entirely correct, and it is a great thing to have a job in this market. I just get frustrated when a company doesn't pay what they should for an employee. It isn't good for the employee, and ultimatly it isn't good for the company either. Right nows probably not the best time to bail, but I'm certain Bitt will keep his options open and keep looking, and sooner or later he's bound to find something more worthwile than what he's doing.

Ok, rant's over.

Since someone else brought it back up....

try some of the services like Monster.com

I've had my resume on there and a couple of others since shortly after I got laid off over two years ago. In that time, I think I got one or two people contact me from them. It was mostly useful in coming up with the requisite two applications a week for my unemployment insurance.

Thanks for the reassurance that I'm not making enough.

The way the ecomony is anymore especially in the tech sector, be glad you have a job reguardless of what you make.

I am glad, and I'd be happy to be making what I am if I thought that I wasn't one of the more highly skilled and least paid people here. People answering phones at the help desk are making more money than I am. And they mostly reset passwords and enter problems in a ticketing system. They rarely solve problems. They're a lot like an answering service most of the time as far as I can figure. (I rarely if ever use that ticketing system, but I was sent down there to learn what they do for a week. Pure torture.)

They know there are plenty of people out there to take your place.

It is truly unfortunate that employers take this view (and they do), because it simply isn't correct. Well not in the case of someone like Bitt anyway (unless I am completly underestimating his level of talent).

Thanks!

While I think that I'm one of the more technically compentent Unix admins around (definitely not ``most'', though), my work ethic can leave a little something to be desired. Regardless, my work gets done and the end result is usually as correct as possible.

And to expand on

only 10% of any profession is any good

it amazes me the random incompetence of people around here. There's a new guy they hired who I think mostly understands Unix, even if he's not that ... agile ... with it, but I asked him to create an SSH key pair (if you don't know what it is, it doesn't matter). His workstation happens to be Windows (at least right now), and I suggested he use PuTTY. He didn't know how to use PuTTY's keygen utility, so I helped him out with it. When the time came to enter a passphrase, I was amazed at how slow he typed. I also noticed that he had difficulty figuring out how to press key chords (Ctrl-A, etc.). Since then, I've been paying attention to other folks, and they have similar problems. Some go so far as to have problems understanding the basics of graphical UIs. It's amazing the level of incompetence that exists.

The truth is that while there are a ton of people out there with the qualifications to do the work, there aren't a lot of people out there who are going to be as good at it. I am truly suprised how many programmers my company has hired that looked good on paper and have basically been useless to do real tasks. I once heard someone say that only 10% of any profession is any good at what they do. This may not quite be true, but the idea is.

Having just been through a recruiting exercise for a Windows developer I would say this is absolutely correct. The problem seems to be the number of people with lots of experience who genuinely believe they are experts in any given field, but in fact are not. It is very difficult to pick out the people who really are good, but one thing I've learned is not to take salary expectation as any indication of someone's true skill level.

Luckily we were able to find a good chap to take over from Roger next month.

Rob

Another followup, if anyone cares:

It's now five days until my current contract expires. I have yet to sign a new one. But things look like they're going well, if in a remarkably dilatory manner.

I told my contracting agency that I'd like to get resubmitted at about $30/hr, maybe a little more. (I have a friend who makes $65k/yr doing what I do, more or less, who has less experience, and that comes out to about $32.50/hr, plus he gets benefits.) They argued with me about that amount. They thought it was too high. They finally grdgingly submitted me at that rate.

Yesterday, my DOT manager showed me the applications for the position. (Apparently, the state is required to publically repost all expiring contracts, so everyone gets a chance to apply for it, but there's little chance they wouldn't rehire the same person.) My contracting agency submitted me at $50/hr (so they're making two-fifths of that). There were about ten applications. Most had a rate significantly higher than mine, anywhere from $60-$85/hr, as per my memory. There were two that submitted at $48/hr. So my application was still amongst the lowest. Which, I think, means I probably could have gotten a decent amount more. (Not that I'm complaining. I'm still now going to get paid a reasonable amount, I think.)

Of course, the state still hasn't accepted any of those applications. So, with less than a week to go, I still don't really know that I'll have a job when my contract expires. My manger talks like it's a done deal, but I'm paranoid about it.

I'm also considering telling my contracting agency that they still probably slightly underbid me. Of course, they always get angry when I imply that I know how much they're making off of me. Maybe I'll just tell them that my manager showed me the other applications, and tell them that I assume they and all the other agencies are making 75%-100% of what I'm making, and that means that most of the applications, even at the low employee-rate side of those percentages, would be making more than I will be.

But maybe I should just leave it alone.

40% is taking the piss. Even litigation-happy lawyers generally only take 33% of the gross.

Well, you mentioned before that Sapphire are money-grubbing bastards. I've found that they'd prefer to make something than nothing, but that seems to be about as far as they're willing to go to not screw me.

It really tipped me off when I was compaining about all of this and the phrases ``appreciate you as an employee'' and ``want to keep you happy'' kept popping up.

But are the other employees that you mention, contract workers or government workers. You have to take into account what they pay the agency for you, not what you make an hour. Most agencies make about 50% off contract employees, that's what keeps them in business. After doing contract work for 3 years, I am very bitter to-wards it and would rather flip burgers than go through an agency again. Also they had to pay the agency an upfront fee for your services.

I hope you get your higher hourly wages, I never meant to imply that you aren't worth it

90% of the other employees I'm talking about are also contract workers. The NC gov't seems to prefer contracting IT workers. I think it's because they can't begin to pay them enough without their pay grades being management-class.

They can't withdraw from an offer once made. Equally, you should be entitled to pay parity with co-workers from the same agency.

If this is the agency's style of personnel management, then I would suggest that you search for a new agency, sort out another job, and resign. Vote with your feet.

If you feel that the place you are actually working at is a good place to work, why don't you approach the boss informally and lay out your cards. Sound him out to see if he'd be willing to take you on full time, and pay off the agency. It's pointless to piss them off, especially if they are happy with the standard of your work. Try it, you might be surprised. But don't stay with an agency who does that to you.

They can't withdraw from an offer once made.

Which was almost equally as bad as the offer they retracted it for. So it's kinda pointless to play that card. I'm actually glad that they did retract it, as I guess, at least initially, I was inclined to take it in the ass rather than speak out about it. As it is, my raise went from 20% to 15% to 50%.

Vote with your feet.

1. I really don't want to pay them money.
2. I really don't want to deal with changing insurance companies
3. The final outcome was reasonable.

That being said, I fully agree with your sentiment, but I have little enough free time as it is, and I don't want to spend even more of it being petty. I will (and do), however, tell everyone I know not to use them.

I am considering sending them an email detailing the fact that I did the majority of their job and that I'm generally unhappy with them. My manager's manager came to me yesterday to verify that they gave me most of the raise he gave them. He said that he gave them a $12 raise, and they gave $10 of that to me. So that in itself is a good percentage, but they're still making 40% of the total. I might talk to him about that.

I do need to let them know that I'm, at best, unimpressed with their service.

Oh, and I was to have gotten my first higher paycheck yesterday, but they screwed it up and I got paid at my former rate. They say they'll make it up in next week's check, but we'll see.

When I was contracting I felt I was pretty good at playing the game and I could squeeze them down to about 20%. My experience was that 40% was a typical margin but they would be willing to go down to around 20% before they'd refused to give up any more. This was, however, in the mid/late 90's when the market was so hot and it didn't include any benefits.

-Dylan

A 40% agency margin is utterly unacceptable. Even at the worst margins I have faced it has never been more than 28% which is also outrageous. They should be taking no more than between 10 and 20% max depending on what they do for the money.

You should leave them. It's worth the hassle. They screw you once, it WILL happen again. I've been contracting for upwards of 16 years now and they never get better: all agencies try it on at some time or other.

Did you talk to the boss about taking you on?

Ignoring the 40% thing, I don't think they've done anything that can really be called ``screw'' (despite my use of the term in the subject). It's really more ``gross incompetence''.

I've not talked to my boss about taking me on, but it's not going to happen. Of the 17 people in my group, two are not contractors, both are senior in time, one in seniority (bad use of words; sorry), and I have it on good authority that they make amongst the least in the group.

I could conceivably go to a different contracting agency. I'll at least talk to them first and see what they'll do. That way, even if I do get rid of them, they'll at least know why, which is much better than just dropping them like a hot potato. (I suppose I'm technically into my new contract now, despite the fact that I haven't signed anything, something that could work to my advantage, conceivably.)

In reply to:

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I do get to break all the fragile packages.

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That was you that broke the display in one of the Empegs I shipped through FedEx wasn't it?! I know a certain BBS member that would love to meet up with you.

Stu