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Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #3360 on: February 23, 2018, 07:51:36 PM

I'll add state pension to the medical coverage, since it's the thing keeping me in my low-paying position.

But my plan is to teach classical art when I retire, make some gin money with the pension taking care of the bills. Probably in an atelier since I don't (and won't ever) have an MFA. It will very likely not be in the USA because of the cost of healthcare.

So if I could do it now, I'd attend an atelier full-time for a couple years and then teach there.
HaemishM
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Reply #3361 on: February 23, 2018, 08:29:11 PM

For some reason all of my "where I'll work when I'm ready to take it easier for a while" fantasies involve either bars or bookstores.

It ain't a bookstore. Besides the discount on books and "strip paperbacks" there are no benefits. It can also be some physically demanding work as boxes of books are fucking heavy.

Abagadro
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Reply #3362 on: February 23, 2018, 10:57:48 PM

Everything I would want to do that is divorced from the monetary aspect of living are things that require talents that I don't have.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

-H.L. Mencken
schild
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Reply #3363 on: February 23, 2018, 11:18:15 PM

So here's a job-related question for the board: suppose you were no longer motivated by salary and thinking about a career change, as in you could be pretty comfortable indefinitely on minimum wage as long as there were medical benefits (sadly the largest obstacle to early retirement in this godforsaken country).  What would your ideal job be?  

For some reason all of my "where I'll work when I'm ready to take it easier for a while" fantasies involve either bars or bookstores.

Painting.

Running a software house that makes whatever tickles our fancy.

Restaurant owner of a restaurant with only two menu items on it and they're labeled hot and cold and the customer isn't allowed to make decisions or changes or any requests.

Own a contemporary art gallery that isn't reliant on sales.

Edit: healthcare is the ONLY thing stopping me from three of these.

Edit: like for real, I'm on the hunt for healthcare now. $20-24k a year looks like my only options. This country is a fucking disaster. Tempted to get a job I'm massively overqualified for but negotiate nearly zero salary just for the healthcare and only work one or two days a week on it.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2018, 11:22:21 PM by schild »
Chimpy
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Reply #3364 on: February 24, 2018, 08:08:43 AM

I would do something that let me live in a ski town and hit the slopes for an hour or two any day I want. Maybe own a small ski shop that is the kind of place the locals prefer.


'Reality' is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
Samwise
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Reply #3365 on: February 24, 2018, 08:44:31 AM

Painting.

Running a software house that makes whatever tickles our fancy.

Restaurant owner of a restaurant with only two menu items on it and they're labeled hot and cold and the customer isn't allowed to make decisions or changes or any requests.

Own a contemporary art gallery that isn't reliant on sales.

Edit: healthcare is the ONLY thing stopping me from three of these.

Edit: like for real, I'm on the hunt for healthcare now. $20-24k a year looks like my only options. This country is a fucking disaster. Tempted to get a job I'm massively overqualified for but negotiate nearly zero salary just for the healthcare and only work one or two days a week on it.

Those all sound like pretty great options to me BUT like you say, fucking healthcare.  Really, most of what I'm looking for in my next job is something that gives me time to make art and/or write code on the side; I'd make "artist" or "indie game dev" my full time job in a heartbeat if I could *completely* ignore the money issue.  

"A job I'm massively overqualified for" is basically what I'm looking for.  The last time I had that was when I was in tech support and I fucking loved it -- I got all my core responsibilities done in about 20 hours a week (I was lucky enough to have a really high-tier tech support job where being a good troubleshooter had a huge multiplier on productivity, as opposed to a call center where you're just grinding through flowcharts) and spent the rest of the time I was at the office just coding fun shit that customers gave me ideas for.  Then I'd get home with energy to spare and I'd work on art projects.  

My current job is objectively fantastic as far as challenging me and paying well and all the stuff you're supposed to want out of a career, but I'm starting to miss being an underachiever.   awesome, for real
« Last Edit: February 24, 2018, 08:47:20 AM by Samwise »

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Strazos
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Reply #3366 on: February 24, 2018, 02:35:26 PM

I would do something that let me live in a ski town and hit the slopes for an hour or two any day I want. Maybe own a small ski shop that is the kind of place the locals prefer.

This, but I probably don't have the business sense for it. I definitely don't have the start-up capital, or even the base-line knowledge.

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Cheddar
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Reply #3367 on: February 24, 2018, 03:17:47 PM

Re-org, transformation, and bears oh my!

Fuck this week.  Burning meat and having some beers. 

I still have a job, but these things never get easier.

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
lamaros
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Reply #3368 on: February 24, 2018, 03:35:58 PM

I would do something that let me live in a ski town and hit the slopes for an hour or two any day I want. Maybe own a small ski shop that is the kind of place the locals prefer.

This, but I probably don't have the business sense for it. I definitely don't have the start-up capital, or even the base-line knowledge.

Debt, decent math, and (un)common sense.

Oh, and: more time than you have, and certainly more than allows you time off to ski.
Viin
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Reply #3369 on: February 25, 2018, 01:41:27 PM

I would do something that let me live in a ski town and hit the slopes for an hour or two any day I want. Maybe own a small ski shop that is the kind of place the locals prefer.

This, but I probably don't have the business sense for it. I definitely don't have the start-up capital, or even the base-line knowledge.

Ski patrol? Heck you can be a lift operator and work 20hrs a week to get free lift tickets.

- Viin
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Reply #3370 on: February 26, 2018, 07:46:06 AM

I think just the fact that I could walk away from a job would be enough to make almost anything fun.  The worst thing is really that I MUST show up and do stuff EVERY DAY.

Why am I homeless?  Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question.
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Reply #3371 on: February 26, 2018, 10:44:31 AM

I think just the fact that I could walk away from a job would be enough to make almost anything fun.

its not enough
Samwise
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Reply #3372 on: February 26, 2018, 10:50:09 AM

I was going to say that not being in survival mode helps, but thinking about it I'm actually not sure if that's true, because when I was in college I loved my job even though I was living paycheck to paycheck, eating canned beans, and couldn't afford to take any time off.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
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Reply #3373 on: February 26, 2018, 01:14:41 PM

Not just the ephemeral possibility, because I'd eventually just use the option and not show up.  I would probably call and let them know that I felt like going karting that day instead of attending the sprint planning meeting. If they decided to let me go, I'd like to not care.

Why am I homeless?  Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question.
They called it The Prayer, its answer was law
Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
schild
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Reply #3374 on: February 26, 2018, 06:58:14 PM

i'm telling you flat out

it's not nearly as rewarding or relaxing as you'd think

i'd kill for something i could throw myself into but instead i'm just a suicide meme (so to speak)
Khaldun
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Reply #3375 on: February 27, 2018, 09:04:34 AM

I have loved my work my whole life, but because my work infiltrates almost every part of my life, on those days when I don't love it--this week is one of the worst episodes of not loving it--it's impossible to get away from. Hating something that the people are work are doing ends up compelling me to self-loathing on some level despite my desperate attempts to stop them from doing it.
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #3376 on: February 27, 2018, 09:51:39 AM

I love what I do most days, but the pay sucks. I'd rather live frugally and be happy and fulfilled, though.
Gimfain
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Reply #3377 on: February 27, 2018, 12:36:36 PM

I really enjoy my job, except when I fix paychecks for everyone. During that time I seriously feel like pummeling people.

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Reply #3378 on: March 04, 2018, 06:51:46 AM

I'd love to take up wood working and furniture building. But on my own schedule.
Samwise
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Reply #3379 on: March 04, 2018, 08:01:30 AM

I'd love to take up wood working and furniture building. But on my own schedule.

This sounds consistent with the furniture builders that I have known and hired over the years.  Being a stoner is also part of the job description.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Khaldun
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Reply #3380 on: March 04, 2018, 10:00:44 AM

My folks had these two carpenters work on a modest remodeling project at their house in southern California when I was a teenager, many moons ago. I got apprenticed to them for the summer. So I got a pretty good idea of their lifestyle. Basically, it was do contract work on one major project at fairly high hourly wages--they were genuinely skilled and efficient. They owned a teeny, ancient bungalow somewhere about a quarter mile in from the beach in the South Bay that I think was all paid off. As soon as they were done on a project, they'd pay the property tax for the year, then buy a bunch of weed, keep enough for relatively minimal groceries, and go surfing seven days a week. When the grocery money started to run out, they'd let the guys running remodels and construction know they were available again. They'd usually have a gig within the week. Repeat as necessary.

That probably worked better back then than it might now with healthcare and other sundries. Plus obviously it stops working when you get into genuine old-folk territory or get seriously injured.
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #3381 on: March 07, 2018, 06:49:11 AM

That probably worked better back then than it might now with healthcare and other sundries. Plus obviously it stops working when you get into genuine old-folk territory or get seriously injured.

It's how we kept things together in the band years. We didn't make a ton of money on gigs, since it's a shitty business and we had a penchant for playing for beer or just for fun. So we'd hire out to some crew for a project or two. Even when the band broke up, I was in the same mindset, work a while until you get a decent bankroll, then quit and enjoy life for a few months.

But I saw the writing on the wall, which is why I am here...mostly the benefits of health care and pension. So I can return to the way I was living in my late teens and twenties :D
Draegan
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Reply #3382 on: March 16, 2018, 04:59:28 PM

Interview tomorrow, on a Saturday. I've been told by the recruiter thats on retainer that he's found 3 people for this position including me and they've been interviewed this week. The VP of this group has flown in from Paris for the interview hence why I'm here on a Saturday after travelling all week for my current job.

Should be fun and I'm looking forward to it. I'm curious to see how a Saturday interview effects the dynamic if at all. Especially after a long week of snow that hit this area of the country and probably flying back home this weekend.
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Reply #3383 on: March 22, 2018, 06:39:36 AM

The guy who calls it "Kupernetes".

Why am I homeless?  Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question.
They called it The Prayer, its answer was law
Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
Samwise
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Reply #3384 on: March 25, 2018, 11:20:50 AM

Just realized that I'm almost two decades into my career and this is the first time I've worked for a publicly traded company. 

Hangover aside, so far it seems all right.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Trippy
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Reply #3385 on: March 25, 2018, 01:59:30 PM

Just wait till your options are underwater awesome, for real
Khaldun
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Reply #3386 on: March 25, 2018, 04:15:28 PM

On Schild's list, I have to say that the idea of operating a 3 or 4 nights a week boutique dinner place--maybe six tables, reservation-only, prix fixe out in the countryside somewhere, with a little log cabin out in the woods behind the place as my house? That has some serious appeal. I think I could actually cook to the standard that requires. Obviously there's a pretty tight limit on places you can actually get away with this as a break-even operation--got to have some well-heeled people around.

We went to a joint up in the Adirondacks that was kind of like that--a bit bigger, a bit more raucous, but the woman operating it had had a restaurant in NYC for 15 years that was successful, decided that she'd had it with trying to stay ahead of the wave, and went upstate. It was a town with a bit of a ski business in winter and then summer hikers, bikers, campers, etc., but not fancy. They served wine nearly at cost--like the markup was maybe $5 on a $15 bottle, it was kind of crazy. The food was fantastic. I could have crawled inside the place and eaten there every night, and not just because after five days in a tent cooking for my family on the camp grill or the propane stove I was a bit sick of it. That would be kind of a good life.
RhyssaFireheart
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Reply #3387 on: April 06, 2018, 06:12:15 AM

Current job place has floated the possibility of converting me from a contractor to an employee.  This was initially raised to me back in January as a "we're asking to see if there's any interest."  Well duh!  Anyways, I know corporations move slowly, but it wasn't until early March then I got the "yes, we'd like to move ahead on this" with me.  Fine, was asked for a vague salary requirement ("at least what I'm making now from my actual employer" because I can't make less than that) and that was it.  Manager stopped by to talk salary in more details and the range was ~20K less than what I'm making now.  I said that's not going to work, my current hourly rate is $X which equals $Y per year, that's what I need to make.  He seemed a bit taken back, but honestly?  You're already paying my company more than that for me, I just happen to actually make a pretty high percentage of that amount.  Manager tried saying that there are benefits, to which I said I do get them through my employer already (not as good or as many, but still some) and they are taken out of my check post-tax at that.  He also mentioned that they still haven't figured out what my job title would be which is... odd.  I mean, in the system I'm listed as a financial analyst.  Is there some reason I can't be brought in as that, or is that employee role specifically tied to Finance and can't be part of IT? 

Anyways, was kind of ranting about it to the husband and he brought up the fact that they were basically asking me to do the same job for much less pay, which isn't going to fly.  If I'm worth the amount you're paying for me as a contractor, then I'm worth that amount.  And I'd previously applied for a Financial Analyst position with the company, and know what the pay grade was and what that pay range translated to (well within what I said I needed to make).  So it'll be interesting to see what he comes back with and how long it takes. 

HaemishM
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Reply #3388 on: April 06, 2018, 08:21:51 AM

Yes, that's a situation where the manager is having to justify their budget with pressure being put on them to reduce said budget. Hey! Let's hire this person who already works here as a contractor and instead of having to pay outside costs, I can lowball her and cut my budget. Why wouldn't she want to work here?

Fuck a bunch of that. If that asshole can't understand that a contractor isn't going to want to become an employee so badly that they will reduce their take home pay, fuck them.

Paelos
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Reply #3389 on: April 06, 2018, 08:25:46 AM

Anyways, was kind of ranting about it to the husband and he brought up the fact that they were basically asking me to do the same job for much less pay, which isn't going to fly.  If I'm worth the amount you're paying for me as a contractor, then I'm worth that amount.  And I'd previously applied for a Financial Analyst position with the company, and know what the pay grade was and what that pay range translated to (well within what I said I needed to make).  So it'll be interesting to see what he comes back with and how long it takes. 

Sort of true, sort of not. In corporate structure the advantage of moving a contractor to employment has to outweigh the cost associated with your benefit, and then get reduced by a percentage which is usually 10-20% to make it worth doing. Basically making the move at a straight break-even makes no sense for corporate management than the status quo.

Let's say I'm paying a contractor hourly, and they are getting 40 hours a week on average and I'm paying the company $45 an hour. Let's say you keep $35 of it.

Now take into account the costs. Assuming you take the standard two weeks a year off I'm paying $90k to a company for your services, and nothing else.

Now in the other scenario, I'm paying full PTO as well at benefits. Fifty weeks plus two weeks paid vacation puts you at $72800, with employment tax you're now around $78,000 and then on top of that you're going to pay medical, so let's say that's about $250 a month, for another $3000. Oh and you do a 401k match at let's say 2% you're doing another roughly $1500. Total all in would be around $82,500. So you're saving around $7500 maybe, depending on benefit packages, but you're also having to put a number on the HR factors and overhead associated with hiring each employee as well.

Now the spread is $5 an hour instead of $10? It makes zero sense. If it's $15, it makes more sense. It just depends on the spread and the associated HR headaches.

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RhyssaFireheart
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Reply #3390 on: April 06, 2018, 10:08:25 AM

Paelos - your hypothetical numbers are actually very, very close to reality.  awesome, for real   

The only caveat is that I don't very, very, VERY rarely take any vacation time (because no pay) and I have my required furlough coming up this July (every two years, contractors are required to take 30 days off unpaid to reset their contracts), and last time that happened, my partner had issues covering my duties.  I guess I'm in a slightly advantageous situation because I know what the company is paying my actual employer for me and I know what I'm getting paid.  Plus, I do the project recovery each month for our group, and my time is tracked as part of that recovery, so I know how much my overhead cost is for them (I'm not recovered because of the nature of my work).  AND I can easily figure out how many hours I tracked via straight-time and overtime (I average 43 hours in a full work week) so I know that what I made last year is still less (by about $15K) than what they paid.

I realize that I'll now be getting vacation and other PTO days, plus a full benefits package and 401(k) matching, but I seriously can't afford to make less than what I currently am.  There is a slight bit of wiggle room, but only about $3K worth.

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Reply #3391 on: April 11, 2018, 06:07:02 PM

We switched over to Slack at work for communications since as a University we get a huge discount on it. We all like Slack just fine but a small group of my coworkers and I already had a private Slack (like lots of people working in IT do anymore- and I'm talking a whole separate Slack instance, not hosted by our work) which was basically dedicated to shitposting, gaming, and complaining about work naturally.

My bosses and team leads had the notion that we had a private Slack because well, everyone does that, but they knew which people probably grouped up for it. They apparently are annoyed that the group I get along with...get along with eachother and hang out outside of work and have a private chat and all that and refer to us as a "clique". We had performance evaluations here over the last couple of months. Mine was above average and the meeting was fine really. One of my co-workers in said group whom I think is pretty damn good at their job got a poor rating in the "teamwork" department and they specifically namedropped the "clique" and mentioned the group chat. He didn't say anything about it but secondhand I hear he might have gotten a smaller raise from the raise pool over it.

I only found this out because the group chat immediately went absolutely dead and I noticed this person was gone- presumably because they didn't want to get in trouble. Amazing. I almost wonder if this is some sort of HR violation.

"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
Samwise
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Reply #3392 on: April 11, 2018, 06:49:02 PM

First rule of private chat club is you do not talk about private chat club.

I'm in a couple of different private shitposting channels at work, and at my last job before Slack was a thing I ran my own XMPP server to get the same effect.  But the whole point of a secret chat clique is that nobody else knows it exists.  Letting your bosses know something existed that they weren't invited to was a blunder.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Fabricated
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Reply #3393 on: April 11, 2018, 07:30:32 PM

I never said anything, I dunno if anyone else did. I think they just guessed at it and were right really because we all hang out.

"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
Trippy
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Reply #3394 on: April 11, 2018, 07:46:07 PM

First rule of private chat club is you do not talk about private chat club.

I'm in a couple of different private shitposting channels at work, and at my last job before Slack was a thing I ran my own XMPP server to get the same effect.  But the whole point of a secret chat clique is that nobody else knows it exists.  Letting your bosses know something existed that they weren't invited to was a blunder.
Be careful — those channels are no longer really private if your company has the Plus plan.
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