How is your career going?

[tjg_marantz]

Watch Fucking Hosers?

Assuming that you are seriously asking, WFH = Working From Home.

I think he was and thanks for clarifying

[Jaymann]

Watch Fucking Hosers?

Assuming that you are seriously asking, WFH = Working From Home.

I think he was and thanks for clarifying

I should have gotten it from context, but it stumped me.

[Jeff V]

Ever since my company divested itself of its print and mail logistics unit, my boss has been hinting at reorganization within our region. After expansions and consolidations over the past couple of years, my peer now has twice the locations (41 vs. 21) and staff (15 v. 7). As a result, I'm always done with my projects early while he is constantly waiting until the last second.

A couple of options were discussed during a meeting the other day. One simply transfers the state of Michigan (6 locations, 2 techs) to me and all of Indiana (a couple of additional locations including a plant in the middle of nowhere, no additional techs). The other, which my boss is favoring, is far more dramatic. In addition to the above changes, this plan reallocates northern Illinois (net gain of 8 locations and 2 techs) but has me and a peer essentially trade places when it comes to our primary location. I work out of a building that is the IT headquarters plus houses a number of C-level execs, including the CEO. I would be moving to a printing plant. The commute difference would be on average 5 minutes (2 miles) longer, but my peer says I could probably WFH a lot. While the drastic change of environment would be akin to starting a new job, the stress would be mitigated somewhat by not being in the same office with my boss every day. My peer, OTOH, would get that bit of stress, plus inherit the two most problematic techs in our group plus see his commute increase 25 minutes each way. In a private discussion, he told me he'd like to keep his best tech (one of the best, if not the best, in the company) so I suggested a further change where I would keep one of my current techs as well as a pre-media location that he supports.

We'll see what happens. The plan, once finalized, needs to be approved by the director and senior director, but this is the sort of thing they'd get all excited about.

[Grifman]

Mine is over and I'm pretty happy, happy, happy!

[Jeff V]

Mine is over and I'm pretty happy, happy, happy!

Wife is still trying to convince me this could be us some day. Last week, she asks, "can we move to the Philippines?" I told her that to match our current salaries, we would need to make about 750,000 pesos per year. To put things in perspective, she told me once a bank president makes about 360,000. Cheaper cost of living doesn't count as long as we have debts incurred with USD. She then clarified and said "when we retire." I'm pretty sure I'll be dead first, and as long as I'm still actively employed, she ought to get enough of an insurance payout to do whatever she wants.

[Tao]

I am three years from eligibility, one second... . My plan is to stick around for another 10 years, my boss keeps saying he is leaving in 2022 and that he is laying the groundwork for me to step in to his position, that would potentially give me about 7 or 8 years as a 15. My wife, on the other hand, continually tells everyone, myself included and with complete sincerity, that she fully expects I should remain healthy enough to continue working until I am 72. Of course that is all contingent upon the government re-opening at some point.

[RMC]

My boss plans to retire in two years, and I am the Heir apparent for his position. But two years is a long time, and I am sure some new bright and shiny manager will show up and give me a run for my money for the director's position. Only 2 directors spots in my current chain of command, and I only qualify for one of them, as you have to be a clinician for the other one. I could make a jump to other areas for those director jobs, I guess, and I keep myself involved with.

So if I got his position, then I can see myself finishing my career at that level and with the same hospital system until I retire, about 20 years or so...

[Kraken]

Assuming that I pass a tryout next week, I will have finally lined up a regular client for a very reliable 10 hours per week. The worst thing about freelance has been its irregular nature -- I might get a smattering of small jobs one month, then go a month with no work at all, then get a big project the next month, and so on. Workload and income are both highly unpredictable. This job would change that. And they didn't balk at my $50/hr quote, so I'll be making more money than I've made in years.

[Isgrimnur]

[stessier]

Hopefully that is a reaction to Kraken and not something bad for you.

Or maybe you just got the promoted big?

[Isgrimnur]

It was a reaction to his hourly rate.

[Jeff V]

It was a reaction to his hourly rate.

Yeah, it is kind of low, that's about what I averaged writing part time for computer game mags 15 years ago. But if it's an easy enough gig, why not. It's something to do besides watching Oprah and you still don't need to put pants on.

[dfs]

Not to make kraken blush, but yes that's a low rate and in this day and age folks may still undercut it.

Nasty world for freelancers out there.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Kraken]

I go as low as $25/hr for simple proofreads, like the one I'm doing for Wife's current project. I charge $75 when someone asks for higher-level judgment calls (document organization, extensive rewriting, etc).

I haven't edited since I got out of college, and I never did it professionally. My skills are still good, but my credentials are nonexistent. I intend to raise my rates after I build a stable of regular clients and get more references and referrals. I need to become their go-to guy before I can raise my prices. This new job will be a great foundation for that.

Curio City only ever paid me around $5/hr, so making 10x as much feels like Easy Street.

[tjg_marantz]

Congrats !

[Isgrimnur]

Assistant Vice President, Programming and Analysis.

Age 42, in my 11th year as a professional programmer, four months from earning a Master's degree.

Which moves me into the rarefied levels of bonus territory. 10% salary bonus is going to pay for my bathroom renovation. And a PS4 Pro.

[Isgrimnur]

It was a reaction to his hourly rate.

Yeah, it is kind of low, that's about what I averaged writing part time for computer game mags 15 years ago. But if it's an easy enough gig, why not. It's something to do besides watching Oprah and you still don't need to put pants on.

For me, it seemed high. But then, I didn't factor in the complete lack of compensatory benefits such as paid time off, retirement plan, health benefits, etc.

[Kraken]

After a lengthy onboarding process I'm finally working daily for my new client, and halfway through a 30-day tryout. My pay is capped (for now) at $500/wk, which means two hours per day if I want to meet my benchmark rate. That's working out okay as long as they only assign me one story per day. The stories are short, and I'm not expected to fact-check, so an hour per story would be plenty if it weren't for all the damned meta data fields that have to be filled out.

After I get through the 30 days they're either going to have to stay with one story per day or lift the pay cap. If I do the two stories that I agreed to, I'll be working for half price (or giving them half of my time free).

But hey, I get to submit my first invoice tomorrow, and I hope that will continue indefinitely. If it does, Blue Hills Editorial will be a success that I can carry with me right into retirement.

Meanwhile, I'm editing the nomination letters for the Boston Globe's Salute to Nurses again this year. I was going to ask them to raise their payment (this is a one-price package deal), as last year I worked way more than the 60 hours I was paid for. But this year they agreed to take fact-checking off my plate, so I can work a lot faster.

Between those two clients, plus an odd job or two from a third, I'll make more money in March than I made in six months last year. I'm not thrilled to be working this many hours, but I have found money to be useful, and I would like to have some.

[coopasonic]

But this year they agreed to take fact-checking off my plate, so I can work a lot faster.

Facts really are a thing of the past.

[Kraken]

But this year they agreed to take fact-checking off my plate, so I can work a lot faster.

Facts really are a thing of the past.

The facts I check as a copy editor are job titles, business unit names, and similar dull stuff. I hope my client will duly check that stuff, but how many people care if a nurse works on 5E-7 or E5-7 or Building 5 East Floor 7, or if the ICU is technically named something else? I sure don't, yet I spent hours getting all of those details right last year because that's part of copy editing. This year, I'm just highlighting unchecked details for somebody else to run down. (I still have to fact-check the small institutions but they are doing the major hospitals.)

[Paingod]

Of all the things to keep getting checked for at work, on-boarding procedures seems painfully weak. I've had two of the owners get in my bid'ness about this, and it's just too damn easy to overlook a step here and there. As a one-man team, I typically just "DO IT" and don't have a slew of procedures I have to work with because there's no one else to inform.

There's some kind of push going on behind the scenes to get the business "In Shape" and put everything to lists, documentation, and procedures. Two other managers are burdened with massive SOP and training projects they've been chewing on for months. I've largely been immune to this as my job being the IT Department means "Documenting" changes - but not "How To Do Everything I Do" because you'd have to be me and have a degree and years of experience to be able to do it. This onboarding/termination thing keeps swatting me in the face and I'm feeling embarrassed by it. It's not that hard to keep things up to date... but I'm human, too.

We re-hire someone and I re-activate her account - but because she was just a re-activation, she didn't trigger my "New Hire" list so I missed her on the Org Chart. We fire a doctor and I clean him out of phone trees and programs - but didn't remove his medical license info from a different column (though I took him out of the phone list in the same document) because I'm not involved in maintaining their medical info at all so it never even occurred to me to look for it. My boss sends me a paragraph about how this should all be on my checklists... the same boss who says maybe 6 words to be every 6 months. Made me feel like I had been slapped to get such a long email from him over something so minor.

It's small time stuff, but annoying me that I'm dropping the ball on it. I'm better than that. I've been having wicked nasty bouts of "Not Giving A Shit" at work; everything has become too routine and too easy, and nothing is challenging me. I'm looking for new employment to refresh the challenge, but it's not fast enough. The "Not Giving A Shit" feeling has me even questioning if I want to stay in IT - thinking that maybe a decade+ of fixing the same problems in different shades has worn me down. Maybe it's just winter dragging on and getting to me. Maybe there's some other personal reason I'm not grasping yet.

[Moliere]

Texas Man Says He Plans To Spend Retirement Living At Holiday Inn

No nursing home for us. We'll be checking into a Holiday Inn!
With the average cost for a nursing home care costing $188.00 per day, there is a better way when we get old and too feeble.
I've already checked on reservations at the Holiday Inn. For a combined long term stay discount and senior discount, it's $59.23 per night.
Breakfast is included, and some have happy hours in the afternoon.
That leaves $128.77 a day for lunch and dinner in any restaurant we want, or room service, laundry, gratuities and special TV movies.
Plus, they provide a spa, swimming pool, a workout room, a lounge and washer-dryer, etc.
Most have free toothpaste and razors, and all have free shampoo and soap.
$5-worth of tips a day and you'll have the entire staff scrambling to help you.
They treat you like a customer, not a patient.
There's a city bus stop out front, and seniors ride free.
The handicap bus will also pick you up (if you fake a decent limp).
To meet other nice people, call a church bus on Sundays.
For a change of scenery, take the airport shuttle bus and eat at one of the nice restaurants there.
While you're at the airport, fly somewhere. Otherwise, the cash keeps building up.
It takes months to get into decent nursing homes. Holiday Inn will take your reservation today .

I like his thinking.

[Isgrimnur]

Rookie...

In terms of what you’ll spend, it all comes down to how you book and which lines you’re cruising with. Princess Cruise Lines, for example, offers last-minute deals from $79 a day per person. For a 15-day cruise, that works out to a base rate of $1,185. Book back-to-back cruises at that rate and you’d pay $2,370 for the month. If you can keep your fares that low on a consistent basis, you’re looking at spending less than $30,000 a year – and, of course, that means food as well as housing and no need for your own furniture or car.
...
The national monthly median cost of assisted living is $3,628 or $43,536 annually, according to Genworth Financial. That’s approximately $119 and change on a daily basis.

Living on a cruise ship could let you hang on to more of your savings. To keep the cost of cruising lower than the cost of assisted living, you’d just need your average daily spending to be below that $119 cutoff.
...
How much money would you need to make that work? Let’s say you’ve reached full retirement age and you’re receiving Social Security benefits. As of August 2017, the average monthly benefit was $1,360, according to the Social Security Administration. That’s $16,320 for the year, so you still need another $27,216 to make up the difference.

That means you need a big enough portfolio to be able to withdraw at least $2,300 a month. If you anticipate spending 20 years in retirement and adhere to a conservative investment strategy, you could make cruise-ship living work with savings of $600,000. You’d be able to withdraw $2,400 a month the first year in retirement, with subsequent withdrawals adjusted for inflation. That income, together with your Social Security benefits, could be enough to keep you afloat. In fact, you're unlikely to spend that whole 20 years at sea. In advanced old age, you will likely need to make other plans.

[Kasey Chang]

Still doing the delivery job. Don't see a way out of it. Being a "team captain" (the 60 drivers are organized into 6 teams of 10, with the captain being the roamer) garners no extra pay and just extra responsibilities, not going for that. The only way up seems to be as a manager or at dispatch. Our "director of deliveries" just quit when apparently he didn't get the Sacramento move he wanted, but that's managing the entire 60 driver team plus interface with corporate AND warehouse, and that's not something I look forward to, nor do I have the experience. They brought someone else over from another branch, and it's sorta working, but right now it's top light for sure.

With that said, apparently some guys are amazed that my 48 year old body can keep up with people half my age. But then, I've optimized my delivery process by getting the right equipment and all that. Hahaha. Works smarter not harder and all that.

[LordMortis]

Of all the things to keep getting checked for at work, on-boarding procedures seems painfully weak. I've had two of the owners get in my bid'ness about this, and it's just too damn easy to overlook a step here and there. As a one-man team, I typically just "DO IT" and don't have a slew of procedures I have to work with because there's no one else to inform.

Heh, I'm the other way. 1) have procedure. 2) follow it. No one does this for onboarding. Management/HR don't communicate with each other and communicate with me or the other people who need to prep and we have drop everything to patch something together for new person so they can actually do work and that effort has to come together a second time to what really needs to be done. And then there's these little things like following CSRs and CTPAT and IATF/ISO we need to do.

[ImLawBoy]

Being a "team captain" (the 60 drivers are organized into 6 teams of 10, with the captain being the roamer) garners no extra pay and just extra responsibilities, not going for that.

I took one of those team lead type of jobs once. I didn't get any extra pay for it, but it gave me a higher profile that led to promotions and more money down the line.

[Isgrimnur]

So you're saying that, at times, getting paid in exposure actually is a good thing.

[ImLawBoy]

That is, in fact, what I'm saying.

[Kraken]

Our "director of deliveries" just quit when apparently he didn't get the Sacramento move he wanted, but that's managing the entire 60 driver team plus interface with corporate AND warehouse, and that's not something I look forward to, nor do I have the experience.

Being a manager can be a thankless position. I was the pivot between the public, the company, and my staff. It was impossible to consistently please all three groups. When I finally got out of management I vowed "never again."

[Smoove_B]

My time in the public sector was filled with people that took on management roles for the money and/or title and that's it. They had no interest in actually managing work or subordinates but were happy to get the pay raise. It was always an awful experience to interact with them because they were miserable people.

[ImLawBoy]

It happens in the private sector, too. I've also known people who have turned down management promotions because they were happy where they were and they didn't want to deal with being management. I can see that - being management can suck big time. If you're going to take that management position, you need to invest in it, even if you don't enjoy the management aspects of it.

[coopasonic]

It happens in the private sector, too. I've also known people who have turned down management promotions because they were happy where they were and they didn't want to deal with being management. I can see that - being management can suck big time.

That's me! Don't you dare promote me or move me into management. I'll quit I swear!

[Isgrimnur]

I moved into management so I would have better control over the work that I was assigned.

[pr0ner]

My time in the public sector was filled with people that took on management roles for the money and/or title and that's it. They had no interest in actually managing work or subordinates but were happy to get the pay raise. It was always an awful experience to interact with them because they were miserable people.

This is an issue where I work.

[LordMortis]

The no promotion, no management thing may not have panned out for me. The expectation of more with less remains, even if the position is the same. I'm just hoping it doesn't come to a head before I'm prepared to not have a job.

Just keep swimming
Just keep swimming
Just keep swimming

[Jeff V]

Meeting today to discuss realignment of our department effective Apr 1. The punchline is more extensive than what was discussed a couple of months ago due to the impending retirement of a peer they have no intention on replacing (suggestion to distribute his salary among the rest of us was met with laughter and derision).

The punchline is I will be relocating to a manufacturing plant (fish, meet desert). My domain will expand to encompass parts of IL, all of IN, MI, IA and NE (in the process, losing KY). But I'll be out from under the ever-present thumb of my boss...that'll cut down on pressure. My peer whom I'm partially exchanging places with will get to experience that fun. He's also told me that the techs in the plants have things firmly under control and I could likely WFH several times per week, so there's that.

Another good thing is the redistribution of minions. I'll be losing one who is usually a good performer but always contentious. Not sad about that at all (she loves my peer who is taking over, so win-win I guess). Also losing two that each had more absences last year than the rest of the region combined (they both have the same first name, which I suspect translates to "sickly" in Arabic). I'm also keeping my protege, who will be getting a promotion this year. I'll be gaining the best infrastructure guy in the company, so in terms of staff, I also come out ahead.

[Kraken]

I just edited my 200th nurse nomination letter. Just 5-600 more to go in the next two weeks.

Every nurse is an incredibly compassionate guardian angel who goes above and beyond. And can we please retire the word "amazing"?

Honestly, about 1/40 letters is well written and interesting. About the same percentage are incomprehensible and have to be discarded. In between lies a vast realm of poorly told inspirational stories about death and disease.

I guess I'm glad to have this annual gig, but the flat fee they're paying me is going to come in WAY below my hourly rate. I had thought to ameliorate that this year by offloading the fact-checking for major hospitals so that I could work faster. But I still have to fact-check for the smaller employers, and I'm still spending 6 minutes apiece. I should have asked for a raise.

[paulbaxter]

I feel like I got a late start on the whole "career" thing, but things have been going pretty well for me. I'm one year into my current position now. I got contacted recently about getting started training the nOObs at my same job position, which would be cool and a nominal pay raise, and my boss says I'll get a raise at my annual review when they get it done.

The person who trained me at my job just recently became my boss. I have slightly mixed feelings about that. She's a terrific person, and she's been a great work friend. She fully deserves the promotion. My mixed feelings are just that I don't think I can pal around with her in quite the same way now that she's actually my boss. But in any event, I generally like my work. It's steady, it doesn't stress me out, I can take as much or as little OT as I like if I want extra money. The only downsides are that the benefits aren't great. My insurance costs are much higher than my previous job, and they give us precious little PTO. But overall I'm pretty happy with how it's going.

[gilraen]

I just edited my 200th nurse nomination letter. Just 5-600 more to go in the next two weeks.

Every nurse is an incredibly compassionate guardian angel who goes above and beyond. And can we please retire the word "amazing"?

Honestly, about 1/40 letters is well written and interesting. About the same percentage are incomprehensible and have to be discarded. In between lies a vast realm of poorly told inspirational stories about death and disease.

I had to check the date on this post, because I remember you saying something very similar last year when you were doing this gig

[Kraken]

I just edited my 200th nurse nomination letter. Just 5-600 more to go in the next two weeks.

Every nurse is an incredibly compassionate guardian angel who goes above and beyond. And can we please retire the word "amazing"?

Honestly, about 1/40 letters is well written and interesting. About the same percentage are incomprehensible and have to be discarded. In between lies a vast realm of poorly told inspirational stories about death and disease.

I had to check the date on this post, because I remember you saying something very similar last year when you were doing this gig

And with any luck I'll complain about it next year, too. It's kind of depressing, but at least it's fairly short and only turns into a crunch for the last week.

I will also appreciate having some money. I find money useful. I wouldn't be running out of it right now if Wife's department had paid me on time for the work I did last month. I gave her 20 hours at half price. First she put off submitting my invoice because she's afraid of the accountant. Then some new guy lost it, so she's got to resubmit it...when the accountant is in a good mood. I will not be working for her department again. Or, if I do, they will pay full price.

But the nurse project pays on publication, so I won't see that until late May. I have a few small checks coming at unpredictable times between now and then. I miss Curio City's regular tiny paychecks, but hey -- people are paying me to sit at home in my underwear and type. #Livingthedream