How is your career going?

[dbt1949]

My dad worked for the railroad and got Railroad Retirement instead of SS. Had to retire for health reasons so he got it at 50. Same amount as SS. Good thing too. He died at 60. Which is one reason I recommend getting it early.

[LordMortis]

My dad worked for the railroad and got Railroad Retirement instead of SS. Had to retire for health reasons so he got it at 50. Same amount as SS. Good thing too. He died at 60. Which is one reason I recommend getting it early.

62 for me and I plan to start drawing on my 401k at 59.5.

[RunningMn9]

My father gets a pension. But it’s like 400 dollars a month or something. I’m always surprised when I hear about pensions. To me, they’re like beasts from mythology.

For n00bs in the federal govt, you get access to the revamped (ie worse) FERS pension. They take the average of your highest three years of earning, and the pension is 1% of that per year of service. If you make it to 20 years, it’s 1.1%.

It’s in addition to SS, and their version of a 401k. It’s not the old pension which was nuts (and not sustainable), but it’s not nothin’.

If I get to 68, that will be full retirement age for SS, 22% of my salary in pension, and another 20 years of 401k/TSP.

[RunningMn9]

Well, here was an eye opener. I have to cover 17 days of health insurance from my last day at current job to when next benefits kick in. I currently pay $0 per paycheck for health insurance, as my current boss pays the whole premium.

He will keep my insurance going at the same rate he pays, but I have to pay it. 17 days.

The bill came to a bit over $2700. Which is how I found out that my current boss is paying $58000 per year in health insurance premiums just for my family.

Why is anyone accepting that health insurance is costing anyone $160 *per day*?! That’s insane.

[hepcat]

Our health industry is intrinsically broken in this country.

[LordMortis]

Well, here was an eye opener. I have to cover 17 days of health insurance from my last day at current job to when next benefits kick in. I currently pay $0 per paycheck for health insurance, as my current boss pays the whole premium.

He will keep my insurance going at the same rate he pays, but I have to pay it. 17 days.

The bill came to a bit over $2700. Which is how I found out that my current boss is paying $58000 per year in health insurance premiums just for my family.

Why is anyone accepting that health insurance is costing anyone $160 *per day*?! That’s insane.

That's some crazy good health insurance. My one person is about $8,400 a year, making two $16,800, and family $33,600. Which is also crazy. I always thought I was getting underpaid based on the cost of those premiums and that most others were getting 4x my benefit.

Bear in mind companies are tax incentivized to provide health care, so there is some sort of subsidy going on there, but I know not for how much.

ACA plans can get crazy expensive in Michigan, up to the tune of $17,200 per year per person. I'll be looking at around $7,200 with a $6,000 deductible, I think.

[Exodor]

Why is anyone accepting that health insurance is costing anyone $160 *per day*?! That’s insane.

Because the companies benefiting from the insanely high costs will spend whatever is necessary to prevent serious changes to the system

[pr0ner]

My father gets a pension. But it’s like 400 dollars a month or something. I’m always surprised when I hear about pensions. To me, they’re like beasts from mythology.

For n00bs in the federal govt, you get access to the revamped (ie worse) FERS pension. They take the average of your highest three years of earning, and the pension is 1% of that per year of service. If you make it to 20 years, it’s 1.1%.

It’s in addition to SS, and their version of a 401k. It’s not the old pension which was nuts (and not sustainable), but it’s not nothin’.

If I get to 68, that will be full retirement age for SS, 22% of my salary in pension, and another 20 years of 401k/TSP.

You also have to retire at 62 or older to get the 1.1% of the high three for FERS.

By the time I get there my pension will be at least 44% of my high three. Plus I'm in the good version of FERS so I only pay 0.8% into it.

[RunningMn9]

I was actually referring to the CSRA plan the came before FERS. Although as FERS goes, you’re definitely winning.

[dbt1949]

I'm glad I retired years ago so I wouldn't have to learn all those acronyms.

[Default]

I was actually referring to the CSRA plan the came before FERS. Although as FERS goes, you’re definitely winning.

Civil service pensions are non-existant at my station. There is only one guy left, and he started at 18.

FERS 1.1 multiplier kicks for the PO ( and I assume for most of the gub'ment) at 62. There is a "Social Security Supplement" that you get if you retire before that age, but you are income limited, job-wise, if you choose that option.
I've got 12 months to go. By the end of next July, I will be 62, and should.have enough sick leave to take the month off. It's a struggle to get to work, and I won't miss it at all.

[hepcat]

I'm glad I retired years ago so I wouldn't have to learn all those acronyms.

[RunningMn9]

I work for the Army, it’s wall to wall acronyms.

[Isgrimnur]

So you know what a TLA is?

[RunningMn9]

I know what a TLA means for the Army.

[dbt1949]

I had to look that up too.

[Isgrimnur]

Mine is three-letter acronym. It's a setup to ask what a four-letter acronym is called.

[geezer]

Well, here was an eye opener. I have to cover 17 days of health insurance from my last day at current job to when next benefits kick in. I currently pay $0 per paycheck for health insurance, as my current boss pays the whole premium.

He will keep my insurance going at the same rate he pays, but I have to pay it. 17 days.

The bill came to a bit over $2700. Which is how I found out that my current boss is paying $58000 per year in health insurance premiums just for my family.

Why is anyone accepting that health insurance is costing anyone $160 *per day*?! That’s insane.

It's absolutely brutal. I really, really wonder what the average American citizen would think about single payer if they were ever educated on the realities of the cost of health insurance.

[geezer]

Well, here was an eye opener. I have to cover 17 days of health insurance from my last day at current job to when next benefits kick in. I currently pay $0 per paycheck for health insurance, as my current boss pays the whole premium.

He will keep my insurance going at the same rate he pays, but I have to pay it. 17 days.

The bill came to a bit over $2700. Which is how I found out that my current boss is paying $58000 per year in health insurance premiums just for my family.

Why is anyone accepting that health insurance is costing anyone $160 *per day*?! That’s insane.

That's some crazy good health insurance. My one person is about $8,400 a year, making two $16,800, and family $33,600. Which is also crazy. I always thought I was getting underpaid based on the cost of those premiums and that most others were getting 4x my benefit.

Bear in mind companies are tax incentivized to provide health care, so there is some sort of subsidy going on there, but I know not for how much.

ACA plans can get crazy expensive in Michigan, up to the tune of $17,200 per year per person. I'll be looking at around $7,200 with a $6,000 deductible, I think.

The only "incentive" is that you can write it off against income. Some group plans may have a discount as membership goes up, but AFAIK (and in my experience providing insurance for small companies (under 50 employees) there's no special tax credit or anything.

[RunningMn9]

It’s not that it’s a special credit, it’s that the amount paid for premiums is tax deductible for my employer. Companies pay taxes on profits, not revenue. Paying health insurance reduces profits (and thus taxes).

Of course it would be cheaper to pay taxes on $58k of profits than to pay the health insurance company.

The reality of course is this is a direct consequence of the stupidity of employer provided health insurance, especially when most employers are small businesses with incredibly small risk pools.

As always, the only way insurance can truly work is to make two key changes:

1) Get as many people as possible into the same giant risk pool.

2) Make insurance companies compete directly for my business (rather than competing indirectly for my employers business, who is not selecting insurance products based on my needs).

[pr0ner]

I was actually referring to the CSRA plan the came before FERS. Although as FERS goes, you’re definitely winning.

Oh yeah, CSRS would have been great. There are a small handful of people at my agency who are CSRS and are still working. One is 85! Why not just take the massive pension unless work is the only thing that gives his life meaning (and the work he does is awful anyway).

But at least I'm in the 0.8% FERS and not the 4.4% that is FERS-FRAE.

[RunningMn9]

But at least I'm in the 0.8% FERS and not the 4.4% that is FERS-FRAE.

No need to rub my face in my misfortune.

[pr0ner]

But at least I'm in the 0.8% FERS and not the 4.4% that is FERS-FRAE.

No need to rub my face in my misfortune.

I got lucky hooking up with the feds right out of college, what can I say.

[Skinypupy]

I've been thinking about all of this a lot lately. Like...a lot.

<snip> Long rant about being completely overwhelmed with work and thinking about quitting or finding a new job <snip>

Quick update on my situation. Had a couple of good things happen between last Friday and this morning.

First, I had the "big talk" last Friday with my boss, and he fully supports my desire to offload some of my clients to other salespeople to ease some of my insane workload. I'm not sure exactly what it's going to look like, but I'll likely be getting rid of a big chunk of my client base and maybe - just maybe - get a little closer to a 40-hour week (instead of the 55-60 hours I've been working).

Second, I just closed the single biggest deal of my entire career this morning. It will represent just under half of my entire sales goal for next fiscal year (starts in September).

Between these two developments, I think I'll be sticking around for a couple more years. I'll shoot for a full 20 years here, then figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.

[Brian]

Probably going to be quite a few job openings soon where I work.

They just announced the return to the office plan and it was met with quite the, fully expected, uproar.
The VP running the meeting offered up the usual "community" and "togetherness" talking points mixed in with a lot of "we feel" and "we think" and "our hopes" sprinkled in for good measure. No hard evidence on why this will be a good idea.

Naturally, the Teams chat exploded with a lot of upset folks.

Personally, this changes nothing for me as i work in the office anyway (kinda hard to do desktop support and asset deployments from home) but I'm not looking forward to our mostly empty floor suddenly being elbows and assholes full of people.

[msteelers]

I’m in the process of looking for a new job. The gig I have now is great, but I need to make more and the company isn’t able to pay me what I need. At least in the short term. I’m also looking to escape florida here soon, and while I’m 98% remote I do end up needing to be in the office once or twice a month. So there’s no real way I could move away and still do this job.

I’ve been interviewing with a company based out of New York. The conversations have been great and they announced today they are going to be extending a formal job offer. We meet on Tuesday to discuss it further. I’m excited, but slightly skeptical for two reasons:

1. The pay. Because of NY taxes and the lack of health care, I need a big bump in pay in order to make this worth it. They have my pay range, but I’m still expecting them to come in too low and I have to negotiate them up.
2. The job they offered me might be a bit outside my wheelhouse. It seems very technical, while I have more creative experience. But it’s for a Project Management position, so it’s possible I don’t need to know the tech side and just have to make sure the people that do are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

The good news is that the skills I have line up nicely with where they want the company to go. It’s possible that I’ll be in a position to help grow this part of their business, which is pretty exciting.

We’ll see. I think at this point it’s still a coin flip over whether the pay and job responsibilities will line up.

[Jeff V]

If they think you can do the job and you've produced an honest CV, then go with it. When I was in position to hire people, I always had a preference for people who would need to level up (and be motivated) over those who could do the job in their sleep, and ostensibly be sleepy.

[Kraken]

2. The job they offered me might be a bit outside my wheelhouse. It seems very technical, while I have more creative experience. But it’s for a Project Management position, so it’s possible I don’t need to know the tech side and just have to make sure the people that do are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

You need to understand it well enough to have the technicians' respect -- at a minimum, you have to speak their language. Otherwise they will avoid telling you anything you don't want to hear and will make up untruths that you do. You don't have to impress them individually but you need their supervisor on your side, and s/he won't be if the code monkeys think you're an idiot. Take it from a former project manager who got in over his head for a couple of miserable years.

[msteelers]

If they think you can do the job and you've produced an honest CV, then go with it. When I was in position to hire people, I always had a preference for people who would need to level up (and be motivated) over those who could do the job in their sleep, and ostensibly be sleepy.

Thanks! I wasn't trying to mislead on my resume or during the interviews. I just wasn't expecting it to be completely focused on the technical side, and spent the entire time hyping up my other skills.

You need to understand it well enough to have the technicians' respect -- at a minimum, you have to speak their language. Otherwise they will avoid telling you anything you don't want to hear and will make up untruths that you do. You don't have to impress them individually but you need their supervisor on your side, and s/he won't be if the code monkeys think you're an idiot. Take it from a former project manager who got in over his head for a couple of miserable years.

Yeah, I can definitely see that. Even on the small, close-knit team I'm currently on I can see those tendencies from the development side.

The good news is I've overseen these things before, but it was more "hey, we need to migrate the site to their server so make it happen" and not "here's what we need to do to migrate the server over."

I'm sure I can figure it out, but I won't be able to hit the ground running quite like I sold them on in the interview.

[Isgrimnur]

Today marks my 10 year anniversary. My medium-term plan is to take ownership of getting an org-level project to implement a CRM system, hopefully with a workflow and commitment system attached. We've been running without an adequate system for years. And if, with what limited pull I may have, I can't get this to a signed contract by the end of next year, I might as well look for a job reset in another locale.

[Formix]

Well, tomorrow (Monday) I'm breaking the cardinal rule. I'm putting in my 2 weeks notice without having a firm job lined up. I currently have about 5 positions that have a good likelihood of coming through in the next 3-4 weeks, and frankly, I mentally just can't do my current job anymore. Add in my sneaking suspicion that they're managing me out anyway, and I'm frankly happy to survive off my savings for a bit if I need to. Hell, I'd pick up some shifts at Jesus Chicken if I had to to not have to do this job anymore. At 53, my health, mental and physical are more important.

[RunningMn9]

Godspeed.

[Default]

"Jesus Chicken - holy Christ, that's great chicken!"

[msteelers]

I got the official job offer today and it is… quite a bit lower than I was hoping for. They asked me for a potential pay range at the beginning of the process. I knew they would come in either below or in the low-mid part of the pay range, but this is even a bit lower than I was expecting.

I’m going to need them to come up about $10k from their offer in order for me to even get to the low end of what I would need to be paid.

I have my response largely typed out, thanking them, reiterating my experience, and the value I bring to the company. I’m just torn on what value to counter with. My instinct was a number that’s about 18% higher than their offer. That feels like a massive jump, but if I go much lower I’ll be close to my minimum.

[RunningMn9]

Tell them the number that you need. If they can’t or won’t meet it, what’s the point?

[Formix]

Agree with RunningMn9, that's what I've always done. You have a "walkaway" number, but that only works if you actually walk away. On one of my job possibilities next week, I'll have that exact same scenario. I think the recruiter gave them a very low range that I'd be willing to accept, so in my final F2F office visit interview, I need to present my "want" number, and if they're "we can only do" number is too low, then I'm prepared to walk away. It's the next to last on my list of job potentials anyway, so it wouldn't be a huge loss, but I'll feel different if the other jobs I want more never happen.

[LordMortis]

What's strange to me was in a much less labor friendly market, headhunters and employers hashed this out before the recruiter ever talked to me. If they employer's low end was too low, I wouldn't fit the box. Conversely, if my salary requirement was too high, I wouldn't fit the box. If my floor was $x dollars, and they looked at my resume and said OK, we want you but how about x-10%, why would I want to be part of that if I had a choice to avoid it. Its like saying, "I'm looking for a house, I need a three bedroom with an attached two car garage. I'd like a walk in basement and island kitchen with an open floor plan if possible." Your realtor comes back you and says "the best I can do is two bedroom bungalow. " So long as you aren't desperate to get in any house, you can't treat that as serious. If the realtor keeps coming to you with these sort of offers, then perhaps the realtor is part of the problem. Now, if you aren't using a realtor then you ought to be disciplined yet realistic in engaging your wants and needs before getting stuck in a house you may not want to live in for the foreseeable future.

(I also have not even a little context for the kind of work you do. IIRC you are in live and streaming audio and video media)

All that said, good luck. I hope you find your cheese.

[malchior]

Recruitment is a bit of a crap shoot right now. You'd think they'd want to put a candidate in front of their clients that was the right person at the right price. Unfortunately it's a bit of a volume game now so many just shotgun candidates in and in the end piss off the client and the candidate. I deal with it all the time now. I advise clients on hiring in one of the toughest fields (infosec) and it's just painful. Job seeking and recruitment are both such shit tasks most of the time.

Especially since many companies are refusing to acknowledge reality about competitive salary ranges. Yesterday I flat out told a client he would be unable to hire anyone at all at the salary they are offering. It was so unrealistic I couldn't quite get it. It was < $80K for a security engineer w/ 5 years of experience. Not even remotely competitive. I suggested they start an internship program instead.

[LordMortis]

My replacement hired in at 80% of my wage for 70% of the responsibility, didn't have the proper resume but it's the best the recruiters could do. My old boss and sister companies desperately want me back and I can't do it. I'm still burnt out and now I'm hurt. The funny thing, I was considered a top 5% wage earner for my position when I left (rightly so at nearly 25 years of experience/seniority), meaning new less experienced guy, proving to be a liability, was making well above top 5% for what he is supposed to be doing and that was the best they could get from 3 top rated recruiters combined. Of course, that was a year and a half ago, during the height of labor empowerment. The company so should have put their money where their mouth was when I begged for help and to be able to groom someone to replace in proper fashion but that's not human resources work. More with less until you pass the line of what can be done.

[TheMix]

My bitter pill? I just got promoted to manager. So now I see pay. The other two people on my team make more than I do. Significantly more. And have for the last two years since they were hired. And that's after getting two big bumps. Oh, did I mention that I was the Senior person on the team? And that I did, and still do, over half of the total amount of work. Bitter? Oh yeah I'm bitter.